"What's going on here?" Priscilla gasped as she wound down the side window of her car. Both she, Mrs. Joy, and Percival were shocked to see Skyline 88's shattered glass and the great number of policemen at the scene.

They had even made their car park outside the complex.

"What's going on?" Priscilla asked a policeman as she stepped down with her family.

"A rogue humanoid summoner," the policeman said with a deep frown. "A vile one that killed almost three hundred men, causing great loss to hundreds of families!"

Priscilla's expression turned horrified.

"A Fanatic came here?" she shivered.

"No… It was a high school student. I believe his name is Godfrey Daniels. I can't believe a school was nurturing a mass murderer."

The policeman's reply made not just Priscilla, but Mrs. Joy and Percival's expressions change.

"Godfrey! Did you say Godfrey?!" Mrs. Joy gasped. "What did you do to him, you freaks!" she cursed, rushing at the stunned policeman before Priscilla stopped her.

Percival looked at the missed calls from Godfrey and shut his eyes, clenching his teeth.

"Godfrey couldn't do a thing like that! Where's he?" Priscilla asked while her mother sobbed.

"Are you defending that murderer?! A twisted sixteen-year-old that is so self-conceited he refused all the privileges the higher-ups gave him and instead killed men and women with families!" the policeman bellowed.

Bram approached them.

"You know this Daniels family?" Bram said with a collected tone. "The authorities are offering two hundred and fifty million for him, fifty million for their bodyguard, and a billion for his mother. So what do you know?"

"They're our neighbors, and I attend the same school with Godfrey. We know they came from Amazon but nothing more," Percival replied.

Bram squinted, brought out a tablet, asked for their names, and typed it. He blinked at the results.

"Two beast summoners and a normal human. You may pass."

***

On a rooftop, Isaac was doing push-ups alongside a ten-feet-tall golden-black spider, his Mammoth Spider, which had evolved into a Goliath Spider, a 9.0 summon with a 12.9 potential.

Suddenly, a billboard on a skyscraper lit up with Godfrey's face, and plastered above it was the word WANTED in deep crimson.

Below it was a price: two hundred and fifty million.

He also saw his mother's face, the same woman who healed his mother of her incurable illness.

Isaac fell face-flat before wiping his eyes.

What was going on? They had just come back from school, and Godfrey's face was already on billboards. In a few hours, the Shadow King was a fugitive?!

Isaac reached out for his phone and was about to call Godfrey when he saw a message.

"I'm gone."

The sender was Godfrey.

Isaac's expression changed. His phone rang, it was Lucy.

He picked the call. "Lucy!"

"You've seen it, haven't you? It's been broadcasting all over the world. They're calling Godfrey a wanted criminal… that he killed three hundred fed officials." Lucy's panicked voice came from the other end.

Isaac looked at the billboard, remembering the sophomore who saw him being beaten at the roadside and dropped his bag for a fight.

"I can see it."

"That's not all!" Lucy said, prompting Isaac to frown. "What could be worse than this?!"

"The headmaster was just arrested from his house, and some of our classmates are confessing that Godfrey always had violent tendencies… that he nearly kills anyone he touches."

"No one wants to go against the hand that feeds them," Isaac sighed.

"There's been no report about his whereabouts. I don't know if we'll be able to see him again, and Isolde isn't picking her calls." Lucy said, almost half sobbing.

***

Godfrey opened his eyes abruptly. The brightness of the room he found himself in led to a raised eyebrow.

He sat up. The bed wasn't that big, and the size of the room was at most half of what he had at the Skyline 88 complex, but the aesthetics of this place made up for the size.

It was like an advanced version of Victorian-era structures; the gable and dormer window naturalized the vibe.

The stone wall was smooth and painted with a bright tone. Godfrey left the bed and opened the window.

His eyes feasted on the cityscape.

Lots of block buildings with different bright colors, built in rows right up to the towering structures in the heart of the city.

The city wasn't large, but it was majestic. Overhead electric poles ran across one side of the paved street made of gray cobblestone.

The advancement of this place was odd. Everything looked so ornate and archaic, yet it was also modern, probably because of the lack of glass everywhere.

He also wasn't used to seeing overhead poles.

However, the streets were a marvelous sight.

Unlike where he came from, where moving with your summon in the streets was prohibited, here, everyone moved freely with their summons.

It was a monster-human paradise.

He could see different types of humanoid summons, from centaurs and elves to giant wolves and flying wyverns, along with the even rarer plant summons.

The architecture and aesthetics did not align with the imagination one had when thinking of the world of Vagabonds.

It made everything comforting that this place looked nothing like the world controlled by the authorities.

This was a new world, a world of fugitives.

Just then, the door opened and Arian walked in.

"Finally awake. It's already noon."

"What's the name of this city?" Godfrey asked, tilting his head slightly toward Arian, who lifted his chin and smiled widely.

"It's Paradise."

Godfrey smiled softly. "An appropriate name. By the way… where's my mother?"

Arian's expression made Godfrey frown.

"What happened to her?"

In the next moment, he didn't know how to feel as Arian led him to another room, where he saw tiny, palm-sized blue-skinned beings, apparently called sprites.

They held tiny buckets and brushes, working on his mother while others sprinkled sparkling dust on her.

He had never seen his mother sleep so blissfully.

On the other side was White being brushed and taken care of by the sprite summoners, three women.

"Her son almost died, and the entire world is searching for both you and her. She has every right to be relieved."

Godfrey chuckled and slowly closed the door.

"Oh? What about Victoria? She isn't the type to accept this sort of treatment."

Arian's face became solemn.

"She's in prison."

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