Knock, knock, knock…
Click.
"Jayce? What are you doing here?"
"I came to congratulate you on passing the Enforcer assessment. Haha…"
"Stop mocking me. That assessment was completely pointless!"
Caitlyn snapped at him, then turned and walked back into her room. Jayce was not surprised by her reaction and followed her in with a smile.
She had struggled through an assessment several times harder than the standard one, only to be assigned to patrol the Academy District anyway. Anyone would feel wronged by that.
Especially a girl as competitive as Caitlyn.
"I practically crawled my way through that assessment, and in the end, they assigned me to patrol the Academy District. Uncle Harold could watch over that place by himself… No offense. I respect Harold. But he's already ancient!"
Caitlyn's bedroom was huge, almost as large as Jayce's workshop. The décor was gorgeous and refined. As the only daughter of the Kiramman family, Caitlyn had been spoiled since childhood.
Jayce had known her since she was a child, and he was one of the very few men allowed to enter Caitlyn's private room as a guest.
"Actually… I don't think Councilor Kiramman's concerns are entirely unreasonable. Letting an inexperienced young woman like you rush to the front line of investigations would be dangerous."
"You think that too? Hah… I passed an assessment several times harder than the standard one! She used all her power just to hold her own daughter back."
Caitlyn crouched in the middle of her room, with old case files spread across the carpet.
Councilor Kiramman had obtained them for her. Though she did not want her daughter handling real cases, she could at least let Caitlyn enjoy herself at home.
And so Caitlyn, who longed to become the Sheriff of Piltover, could only sit in her bedroom, read outdated case files, and play detective by herself.
Her excellent marksmanship, learned from the former sheriff and proven through several awards, was only useful for the occasional target practice outside the city. Even her beloved lever-action rifle had been a birthday gift from her doting father. Councilor Kiramman would never have indulged such a strange hobby.
Seeing Caitlyn crouched on the floor and return to her detective game, clearly unwilling to deal with him, Jayce shrugged helplessly and wandered around the room.
"I'm actually the same as you. I've been forced to do work I didn't want to do… My Hextech was supposed to help people at the bottom, but because of the councilors' demands, I ended up building the Hexgates instead."
"All those people think about is business…"
"Ahem. Councilor Kiramman has still helped me a great deal over the years."
"Don't play dumb. I'm not going to snitch on you."
Jayce laughed awkwardly. Caitlyn could complain about her own mother, but he had no right to criticize the councilor who had funded him for years.
"Fortunately, although it took a lot of my time, it's finally over. I built the Hexgates like they wanted, so now they have no reason to block my research."
"Oh? What are you planning next?"
"Mm… More stable Hex crystals. Crystals that can truly be used in everyday life. That's Viktor's dream and mine: to share the fruits of technology with everyone and bring the world into the Hextech age!"
"That sounds like quite the grand ambition, huh?"
"It is… But right now, we don't have a single lead. Viktor and I have been racking our brains over it lately."
"If even the two of you geniuses are stuck, I doubt anyone else can help."
"Well…"
Jayce idly flipped through Caitlyn's sketches, only to accidentally find someone who looked familiar.
"Who's this?"
"Oh, that's a suspect sketch I drew based on a case file description… Basic skill, really."
"No, I mean this person."
Jayce picked out one especially detailed portrait and showed it to Caitlyn.
The drawing showed a very young-looking boy, and his name had been written in the lower-left corner.
"Blast."
"How strange! How did he get mixed in with these?"
Caitlyn stood up, took the portrait from Jayce, and placed it somewhere else.
"Your little boyfriend?"
"Ha, not at all."
Caitlyn placed the portrait on the other side of the bookshelf, completely separate from the case files.
"Do you remember the explosion six years ago? I had plans to meet someone that day, but the explosion made me miss it… and after that, I never saw him again."
"That really is a shame. So you drew his portrait? Like a criminal suspect?"
"Mm-hm. Maybe I'll see him again one day. Like catching a fugitive after years on the run. Sounds fun, doesn't it?"
"Hahaha… Being targeted by you really isn't a good thing."
Jayce rubbed the stubble on his chin and frowned in thought.
"But… I feel like I've seen him somewhere."
"You've seen him?"
Caitlyn immediately perked up. Nothing excited her more than a cold case finally being solved.
"Six years ago… Six years ago… Oh! It's him! That genius kid!"
Jayce clapped his hands together as the memory came back.
Wasn't this the young man he had never formally met, yet who had somehow come up with ideas almost identical to his own?
"You really saw him! Where?"
"In the Undercity, at a general store… He happened to be selling things there. And I remember the shopkeeper seemed to call him… Van?"
"Wait… Are you sure you didn't mistake him for someone else?"
Caitlyn frowned as she checked. The person she had searched all over Piltover for had actually been living in the Undercity?
And he was not even using the same name?
"Don't underestimate a scientist's memory…"
Jayce thought for a moment, and a vague idea formed in his mind.
"Now that I think about it, he seemed to have a lot of unusual ideas in this field… Maybe I can try my luck with him."
"You're going to find him? In the Undercity? Take me with you!"
Caitlyn instantly brightened. A suspect who had hidden under a false name for years was finally about to be caught, and the thought filled her with excitement.
"Take you? No, no, no… Councilor Kiramman would kill me."
Jayce waved his hands with a smile. He did not dare take Caitlyn down to the Undercity.
"Please, Jayce. For the sake of all these years of friendship!"
"That's exactly why I can't, Caitlyn. The Undercity really is dangerous, and you still don't understand the world well enough. I can't take you somewhere like that…"
Before Jayce could finish, Caitlyn's expression went cold.
"Get out."
"Uh, Caitlyn…"
"Get out!"
Bang!
The door slammed shut. Jayce, pushed out of the room by Caitlyn, scratched his head and shrugged helplessly.
She really did turn on people fast.
"Van… I wonder how that boy is doing now. Could he help with our research?"
Jayce thought back to the devices he had obtained from Van back then. Each structure had been simple, but whenever they interacted with arcane energy, they had worked with surprising precision.
Only someone who had truly studied Hextech could understand how unbelievable it was to achieve that with such poor-quality materials.
With that thought, Jayce found himself faintly looking forward to whether the boy from back then could help him break through their current bottleneck.
[End of chapter]