Leonard presented his badge and waited for the kid's reaction.
The kid's expression weakened and turned deathly pale. He erratically moved his body before telling him, "U-Uhm, please come in, sir."
Leonard nodded and let the child guide him to the room.
Realizing the space when he entered. He quickly found it severely liminal. There's no room for a wardrobe, it only had two windows and one was overlayed with a curtain meant to classify the area.
He didn't move a meter away from the door when he quickly noticed the mother laid in the bed beyond the light-blue curtains.
Because the space is very limited, and he risk tumbling on a furniture. Leonard simply stood still and insisted on waiting.
"W-We have some brewed Rye Weed. If you want I can heat it..." the kid cautiously offered.
Leonard blinked twice and quickly turned to him, shaking his head sideways as he asked, "Do not try to look away. Answer me honestly. What's your name?"
The boy felt intimidated and didn't answered right away. When his composure returned minutes later, he finally replied, "It's Thiyan, my brother is Reth and my mother is Morya."
"Morya..." said Leonard slowly as he lift his head to face the bed behind the scarred curtain. "How long has Mrs. Morya been in that state?"
Thiyan coward slightly before proceeding to say, "Mother has been sick, no earlier when I was seven and brother was five then."
Leonard instantly understood the kid's slightly off language. He simply shook it off and pressed on the important matter, "What's your mother's illness?"
Although this has been present years prior to the meteorite's appearance. He still felt inclined to ask.
And in another few minutes, Thiyan answered hesitantly, "Herbalists, around here, says she's having a collapse over her lungs. The airway of her breathing."
So a pulmonary disease... Leonard acutely identified the cause.
However, because he's not highly adept in this field. He planned on consulting Selina later.
The severe state of their livelihood critically affects how their mother can be treated. Not only that, it seemed Thiyan has been working around as a newsboy, wearing that distinctive gray cap known among child laborers.
As for his brother's case. The report from Ruesette clearly proves that he's a vulture, a pick-pocketer around the train station of North Borough.
Leonard disproves efforted missions, especially if it's just a client. Luckily he's correct not to trust blindly.
Right now, the family clearly hadn't moved out and Rousette has been missing that ring for over a three days now. The investigative report tells that the child Ruth was swindled by gangsters who reigns around the street, two districts away from the docks.
They have connections with multiple middle-class people, and one notable person, the director of an Importing Company, a branch of Tingen Wave Traders and apart of Sea Lagna, known as Carter Works.
Carter is the director and he named the company out of himself. He's also associated with the Working Class Union along with the company.
One of the company that collectively makes lessens the burden of the working class people's need to find a job.
However, lately, there have been major headlines about the company. Facing many claims from its workers that they're being exploited out of their wages and that those pinched chances were given to the fostered vagrants in the building.
This reason is why Leonard did not acted immediately and chose to confirm things first. Besides that, he still doubts whether the ring is still present because of the days passed.
With all this in mind. He can freely walk away without needing to interrogate them longer. If not for the seed who travel to Mrs. Morya's bed after jumping out of his coin case and from his pocket.
Knowing through Klein that Selina is also capable of using the seed remotely through her uniqueness with the Goddess. Leonard began to look differently at the item.
Selina, I need the seed back! he now realizes the full extent of this communication device.
Light its tip, pray to Mrs. White to have a one on one conversation with Her, a deity. Then subsequently, Selina, through this Goddess, is allowed to control it while engaging in the dreamworld.
It practically means Selina is aware of where they are through the seed!
Leonard sighed and looked on it slightly more favorably, It beats having only myself to rely on...
Heh, perhaps having an ally who can sense the surrounding and aid in small gestures can benefit a lot. Having a status checking, convenient item will prove helpful...
Finally, when the turquois seed secretly rolled to his feet and leaped back into his pocket. Leonard said as he release his posture, "Welp, I'll get going. I have gathered all that I need. Thank you for the cooperation."
"Huh?" Thiyan was taken aback and was deeply confused. "You're not talking to Ruth?"
"That won't be necessary." Leonard simply answered.
He twisted the door's handle, filled with grime as he turned to the kid, "Expect another visit of an official, few days later."
After that, he casually closed the door and left.
On his way back, he lifted his hand, now holding the seed that nested onto his palm
After watching it wriggled as if shaking a head for disapproval. Leonard tucked it back to his coin case and awkwardly grinned.
A mix of bitterness for the mother and intrigue from the seed washed his expression.
...
In a world of infinite highland, expanding far into the horizon. The gentle zephyr brush the tall grasses, producing currents and ripples.
Standing at the center of the spiraling patterns. The gowned Selina retracted from sensing the seed from Leonard's case.
"Thiyan..." she felt melancholic over knowing the boy's name.
This child, who had been honest and attempted to sell a newspaper to her at the actual price, has been living a difficult life tending their sick mother along with his younger brother.
"At such a young age..." Selina muttered slowly. "I wonder what can I do about their situation."
She casted her gaze over the landscape and softly whispered "Is there... really no way of treating a terminal illness?"
With how limited their time was and how the nature of her next Sequence brings her. She can't help but feel anxious and helpless, solemnly reckoning why.
"Beast Tamer? Might as well make myself a Clown..." Selina mused in distraught.
Upon letting the wind carry away her words. She reluctantly sighed and finally adjusted her perception.
"There are some things I'm unable to control which are worth less of my attention. Instead, I should allocate it to what I can manage."
Selina then turned her gaze down to the the spiraling patterns, where vines used to be but buried in the soil for a better immersion in the surrounding.
She smiled, "Like returning back to check up on the Chanis Gate before controlling the seed from Leonard again and later, Klein.
"As for Thiyan and his brother, Ruth. I'll inform the authorities in advance. Helping to secure their future."
...
The sun peeks over the pinnacle of the fleeting buildings and reflected water bodies.
Leonard and Seeka alighted a few minutes of walk prior to arriving near the company building, Carter Works.
From the distance, they immediately saw a venue filled with a mob of workers. Mainly composed of burly men with sleeveless tops and colorful bandanas over their heads. With occasional blue collared uniform people.
Slowly, Leonard loosened his tracks before stopping. "I can see why that hired detective did not bat an eye into retrieving that ring."
"Why's a director of an importing company want a jewelry?" Seeka crossed her arms in thought. "Is there we should be aware about Mrs. Rousette?"
"Let's take note of that later." Leonard secretly withdrew his hand to his pocket as he watch the people clamor in protest.
"High functional risk? What a shitty excuse to cut our wages!
"We've seen you kept migrants and tramps into the warehouses!
"Extend our contracts! Stop cutting wages!
As the scene unfolds, he took out a coin case and let it be pried open in the inside by a seed.
The turquois seed, with a vine protruding from its shell jumped onto the road and subsequently dived into the dirt.
Its senses was momentarily oppressed. However, through the vibration, it succeeded getting pass the group of protesters and to the building's area.
After tucking away his coin case. Leonard smiled at Seeka and suggested, "We should wait until it dies down
...
In the alley behind the Carter Works building. The seed leaped out of the soil and began looking for a crevice to enter.
The area was putridly humid. There are faint claw marks on the walls and the iron door is tightly clamped shut. There was no way to get in.
When the seed saw the faint claw marks, it shuddered. Clearly, the culprits have tried to conceal it, but the sharp dents gave it out.
After a moment. The seed decided to propel itself using its vine upward.
Clang! It grab a hold the wall cracks and started to climb.
Few seconds later, it arrived by the second floor out the three-story building. Perching at the window sill, it finally managed to sneak in by opening the glass panes.
The room consists of multiple shelves and drawers. When the seed slid into one of them, it saw hundreds of files lining up.
As if triggered by a rush of familiarity. It closed the drawer immediately and rolled out of the room.
Arriving at the corridor. The seed rushed into multiple rooms, few it succeded in entering meanwhile others had locked doors that it needed it to jump off the window again to enter.
Then, near the end of the third-floor hallway. At the corner office, the door had a pasted bronze plate engraved with the title; "Administrator's Office."
Because each rooms so far were either a break room, washroom, ledger archives and hubs. Perhaps the Administrator's Office is where the important records and the jewelry is kept.
Upon tilting the window open. The seed rolled into the room.
It quickly sensed the environment around. The two giant bookshelves towering menacingly as it faces the office desk. The glinting medals and encased navy clothes were displayed next to the door.
It saw certificates and even as far as perceiving the ether bodies of the people outside as blobs of light.
This is because when piloting the seed. In order to become aware, Selina had realized that what she's seeing isn't thermal heats but rather auras of even materials present around it.
This meant that through the seed. Her Spirit Vision is always active and enhanced to a decree that it allows her to retroactively ascertain the environment.
The seed searched every nook and cranny of the office room. Until suddenly, it stopped right before the towering bookshelf.
There's lights there... Selina in the dreamworld slowly said.
Correct. There are colorful pigments all cluttered in one spot. Just behind the storage of books that is apparently empty.
Thankfully, the seed easily bypassed its crevices and through Selina's perspective, she saw what seems to be a side-profile of a rotary combination lock by the wall.
It was a massive world from her eyes, and that simple lock already feels like the same height as her.
A safe... upon assessing what it is. Selina quickly controlled the seed to leap by flicking its vines to the ground.
Like a gymnast, the seed flailed the vine and grabbed a hold of the lock. Unfortunately, there was no cracks that the seed can rest on.
So after using the lock as a platform. Selina began thinking. Clearly, I'm not as proficient in breaking in than Leonard and Seeka...
Even then, I doubt they can decipher the safe...
Through the lens of the seed. Selina is able to sense the surrounding. However, she learned that she can only discern objects at a surface level.
The exception for this are things that have spirituality such as organisms and materials which normal objects are devoid of.
Unable to see the lock's mechanism inside and is inexperienced. The seed decisively left the safe for Leonard and Seeka to pry open.
Pap!
It leaped off from the lock, landed with a faint sound and began rolling back to the window.