Chapter 283 Been Caugh
The two soldiers guarding the portal entrance continued keeping their hands directed towards the student. Even though he had already stated his own identity as Pio Blank, they were soldiers and not the school’s employees.
Backup was called. A few moments later, Hayley, alongside three additional soldiers by her side, entered the room.
Pio’s hands were still remained up above his head, they were visibly shaking. This was not the welcome he had expected. After being missing for a month or so, he thought his return would be welcomed, perhaps he would be treated like a king for a few days, but reality hit him hard and showed him it wasn’t the case at all.
"Will you guys drop it already? Can’t you see that you’re scaring him?" Hayley spoke. She knew that on the other side of the portal, they would have strict protocols before sending someone over back to the base.
On the way here, she heard some information that the person who entered the portal was claiming to be a student. If he was to show his student military I.D, then they would have allowed him to pass over.
The only thing was... this turned out to be quite unexpected. When she entered the room, she was half-expecting for the person who just returned to be someone from the orange portal expedition. Maybe perhaps a student who had been left behind, but instead, it was actually someone from the original green portal planet from the first expedition.
The only person who was confirmed to be missing, rather than dead, was Pio. However, he already returned and even had his student I.D with him.
As she pondered over this matter, she moved in closer towards the student and was now at a distance where she could clearly see the young boy’s face. Although he was covered with what looked to be mud and sweat, she realized that something was strange.
When the thought finally clicked in her head, she almost dropped the tablet in her hand.
"Pio Blank?" Hayley asked with a puzzled tone.
"That’s right... But how do you know my name? I didn’t think that you kept that much attention on me," Pio responded with a slight blush on his face. Hayley was a beautiful teacher and she was the only doctor for the first year students. Even though she saw a lot of students, she didn’t really directly teach any of them. Out of the 500 names around the campus, he was rather surprised that she remembered his. This caused him to misunderstand and feel special about this encounter.
’Is this student the fake one? Or is the impersonator the one inside our base?’ Hayley gulped at this thought. She reasoned out that the one currently at the school was most likely the fake student.
If someone was to try and infiltrate the base, then the second one who turned up a month later would most likely be deemed the real one.
Still... as a precautionary measure, the student was cuffed with his hands behind his back, a soldier escorted him off for interrogation.
"Wait, I promise you! I’m really me! You can check my I.D card!" Pio started screaming, "You can see that it’s me on the files, right?! You guys already have my picture! Why are you doing this?!" He continued crying out.
"That’s the problem..." Hayley muttered to herself, "There’s someone who looks exactly like you."
In the meantime, Hayley immediately went to inform Nathan and called an emergency meeting.
Being cuffed up wasn’t a nice feeling at all. Pio started wondering what on earth had happened while he was away. Had the world suddenly turned into a dictatorship during his absence? Was the whole place taken over by the Dalki already? However, both of these couldn’t be the case at all. Otherwise, he would have heard all about it back on planet Caldi.
’I think I would have rather continued spending all that time in the desert than be treated like this...’ Pio regretfully complained in his mind.
What soon came after made him change his thoughts. As soon as the doors to the supposed interrogation room were opened up. He was greeted with a full meal, desserts, and even a luxury bed in one location. He didn’t know that the school had such a place!
Pio’s eyes were fixated on the food, he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days while he was traveling through the desert. Luckily for him, when he came to, he ventured off in a certain direction, and just when he thought he was about to pass out and starve from hunger, he came across a group of travellers.
They escorted him to a shelter nearby, however, the bad news was, the shelter wasn’t owned by the military, but a faction instead. After the travellers kindly took care and fed him for a single night, Pio was left to survive all on his own.
He worked hard during his time at the shelter and gathered up as many credits as he could. Eventually, he was able to buy a map. This was the moment more bad news came, the distance between the shelter he was currently at and the place he had to go was quite far. If he was on his own, he still wasn’t sure he could face the beasts he would meet on his way. This was why he continued working hard and earning even more credits.
Luckily for him, his ability for being able to duplicate any type of beast weapon came in quite handy. It allowed him to earn the required credits and eventually hire an escort team quicker than normal people.
Now, he finally made it back. But still... during that whole time, he never splurged his credits on a good meal. Drool kept falling from his mouth as he stared at the food before him.
"You can uncuff him now," A deep voice reverberated in the room.
After hearing the sound of another person in this place, his eyes gradually averted from the food as his head turned to another direction. He was now staring at the second year general, Duke.
’What? Why isn’t it Nathan?’ Pio thought. Usually, as a first year, all matters related would be assigned to him.
"Now, before we let you tuck yourself into this nice meal, I need you to tell me everything that happened," Duke asked.
Duke had eyes and ears all around the school. It also included having some soldiers grab information from here and there. The incident of what happened in the portal room had reached him although Hayley had already instructed that no one was to leak any of this information to the students.
The information may have not leaked outside, but it still managed to reach Duke. For some reason, his hunch was telling him that something wasn’t right about this situation, this was why he had an unusual amount of interest in this.
Perhaps the infiltrator was related to Pure... Ever since they angered Truedream, Duke had gotten the heat for that situation. He had a huge grudge with Pure now.
The female who wore white robes from before entered the room and did her usual job. While questioning, she should be able to tell if Pio was lying or not. After about thirty minutes of nonstop barrage of queries, Pio’s mouth turned dry from recounting everything that happened to him the last month.
Every single word he said so far had been the truth, they even managed to confirm that he was the real student. However, there was still one thing that bothered Duke.
"So you’re saying that you never saw the Dalki? Are you really positive about that?" Duke asked.
"My memory is kind of a blur, honestly speaking, but I would have definitely remembered a Dalki attack. So no, I didn’t see the Dalki," Pio responded.
The reports that were mentioned back then didn’t match up. Originally, they assumed that the Dalki had completely killed Ben’s group of five. Two of the bodies were found nearby each other, and later on, two more bodies were discovered. Although they were far apart from the rest of the group, Pio was presumed dead at this point.
The original speculation was that the three out of the five escaped the Dalki, and that’s why their bodies had quite some distance between them. Despite their efforts, they were still killed.
However, now that Duke thought about it more, the distance between where the bodies were found didn’t make sense. The Dalki should’ve been able to kill both of those students in an instant. If that happened, then Pio would have remembered such an event for sure.
Maybe... perhaps the deaths of the other two people weren’t related to the Dalki at all?
"Thank you, you may now enjoy your meal. Feel free to get comfortable in this room, you’ll be here a while," Duke said as he stood up from his seat, left the room, and closed the door.
"Wait, did he say I’d be here a while?" Once Pio mouthed these words, two soldiers stood in front of the door and blocked the exit.
The selection process for deciding which students would take part in the inter-military event had been decided.
In Logan’s class, they had just finished selecting the roles, Logan himself had been selected for the crafting event. Since there were no known crafters in his class, he openly volunteered for the role. There were a few people who thought that he should have taken part in the fighting tournament instead, but he refused them, saying that fighting didn’t interest him.
Just as the class was about to be dismissed, four soldiers suddenly entered the room.
"We are here to collect the student known as Pio Blank," one of them announced as they scanned the area.
After spotting the target, the soldiers were already moving to where Pio was.
There wasn’t any time to react and Peter didn’t know what to do.
"Just follow along for now," Logan whispered to him.
The soldiers immediately placed both of Peter’s hands behind his back before cuffing him, two of the soldiers held Peter by the arm as they guided him out of the room. Just as they were about to leave, Logan reached out and grabbed Peter.
"Where are you taking him? And for what reason? He’s done nothing wrong," Logan exclaimed.
"Let go of him. Or should I make you let go? Brat." The soldier answered him, "This is a direct order from general Duke. If you decide to obstruct our duties, then we have permission to punish you."
Logan hesitantly released his grip, but not before allowing one of his spiders to climb into Peter’s sleeve.
As Logan watched Peter walk away with the soldiers, he had one thought in his mind. ’He’s been caught."
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