Thursday, September 21st, Year 2028

~The Next Day at Ridgepoint High School~

Lucen walked through the hallway, finished with classes.

I’ll stop by the estate before I head home today. Still need to ask Lia about Auribel.

“Headed home?”

“Huh?” Lucen turned to his right to Shuyi who seemingly just spawned in.

“Where did you even come from?”

“I was calling out to you. You didn’t hear me?”

“Sorry. Was deep in thought. Anyways, yeah. Got a pretty busy evening. The new Riderman series just got posted on TouYube, so you know I’m binging it.”

“Don’t you have to buy them? It costs about V̶40 right?”

“Well yeah but it’s totally worth it. It’s Riderman we’re talking about. Wait… you watch Riderman?”

“Of course I do! Is it not like the best show ever? I actually watch them completely free.”

Lucen’s eyes widened. “You what?! How?!”

“Hmmm. I could show you.” Shuyi said with a smirk.

“Please!”

“Mmmm but you would have to make sure not to tell anyone else.”

“Lips sealed shut!”

She chuckled. “Alright, show me your phone.”

Lucen handed her his phone and she fiddled around with it for a bit.

“Alriiight, look right here.” Shuyi showed Lucen a gimmicky website. The website showed many different Riderman shows as well as other shows of the same genre.

“Holy… Where did you even find this? This is like a gold mine! And it’s free??”

“It is. Well, it isn’t necessarily legal though.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Once you start living the life of a pirate, there’s no going back. Use this knowledge wisely, boyo.” She said, deepening her voice dramatically.

“Oh believe me, I shall. Thanks for showing me this!”

Shuyi gave Lucen a thumbs up. “Well, I have to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow, Lucen!” She waved and walked off.

~Meanwhile Outside of the Small Takeout Restaurant~

Khara reached into her bag and opened her notebook. She pulled out a red color-pencil and began drawing. About 30 seconds later, what she drew in her notebook was the red circle she saw the day before as close as she could remember its appearance.

Red circle. Crow mask guy. Red circle. Crow mask guy. I have two things I have seen with my own eyes that proves that devils exist now. First things first, talking to that woman. She’s my ticket into that place.

Khara walked into the restaurant and was greeted by the same woman.

“Welcome back, are you eating in or taking out today?”

“I want to go inside the gambling den.”

The woman’s face turned cold. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

Khara took a deep breath. “I saw you two yesterday. You and the man. I know it’s there.”

The woman stared at Khara for a moment before speaking again. “Keyword.”

“Keyword?”

“Yes, if you want to get in, you must tell me the keyword.”

“Uhh…”

“Sorry, I cannot permit entry if you do not know the keyword.”

“Seriously? Ugh.” Khara sighed.

The woman reached into her pocket and handed Khara a small, ripped piece of paper. On the paper, the letters, “WVZWYVG”, were written. Khara looked it over, confused.

“What is this?”

“A new beginning starts after the fated ending.”

“What?”

The woman said not another word, leaving Khara with this strange puzzle.

A new beginning starts after the fated ending…? What does that even mean and what does it have to do with these random letters?

Khara paced around, looking at the letters on the paper over and over.

A new beginning starts after the fated ending… A new beginning starts after the fated ending… A new— Wait, this is an encryption, isn’t it? A new beginning starts after the fated ending…

“!”

Khara rolled up the paper and put it inside of her pocket.

“The keyword’s DEADBET.”

“Congratulations, you are now permitted inside of our underground casino. Please follow me.”

Khara breathed a sigh of relief.

Beginning and end. With something with just random letters, the sentence itself had to hint at something to do with the alphabet. A beginning starts after an ending. In the BashAt Cipher, each letter is replaced with its opposite in the alphabet. In the case of this encryption, most letters are letters that are towards the end of the alphabet with the exception of G. A new beginning would be the opposite of these letters which are at the front of the alphabet. That intro cyber class turned out to be super useful!

Khara followed behind the woman into the same room she saw the hooded man go into.

I’m surprised I’m just being let in so easily. Does she not suspect me of being an undercover cop or anything?

The woman once again pulled the paper, a Transfer Seal, and placed it on the floor.

“Oh my Go—“

The red magic circle spawned again and Khara’s vision faded to black. In half of a second, she found herself in another room. Khara looked around the large room full of tables, colorful machines, and loud sounds of those machines being used. The surrounding walls are made of white marble and the floor, a red carpet with a Greg circular pattern. Most of the machines and tables were occupied by groups of three to five people.

This is a casino…! That circle really just took us here like magic! Where is this even?

Khara pulled out her phone and tried to check her location.

No service… Great. That’s fine. I have to find out more about this place.

~Meanwhile in the Azaroth Estate Lounge Room~

“Yo.” Lucen walked into the lounge room, waving. Everyone greeted him and he walked over to Lia, who was sitting at her desk, flipping through different papers.

“Hey, there’s something important I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?” She folded up the papers and set them to the side.

“Lately, I’ve been having these dreams where I’d wake up in this white room and there I’d find this girl named Auribel. Do you happen to know of an Auribel? Apparently she was a devil.”

“You’re having dreams of a devil?”

“Yeah, she kind of looks like you guys but if you were ghosts.”

“Weird… Can’t say I know the name. This is unheard of though. She looks like us too? You’re sure it’s just a dream?”

“I’m honestly not even sure. Everything in that room feels real but I always wake up right after it. I think she is definitely real though. She said was killed in the war. This is the same war that ended with the death of Dekir Azaroth, right?”

Lia’s eyebrow raised. “How do you know that name? Did Vonica tell you?”

“Actually that leads into another question I’ve been meaning to ask you. What do you know of the book, The Hollow Crown?”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

“A teacher at my school had it and showed it to me. It’s a story about the long war between humans and devils. Apparently no one really cares about the book but he seems to believe the book was true and that devils are real.”

“There’s a book out there that made it through the erasure?” Lia whispered to herself.

“Was Dekir a close relative of yours?”

“He was more of a distant cousin. He was as close to our side of the family as a commoner is a noble.”

"That so... Also I have another question. You knew who I was before we met, right? Like you knew Weld was my uncle, where I lived, my school..."

"Not necessarily. I did research on you after we formed the Binding Contract. The night in the alley, it was very fortunate I happened to be there."

"You did research on me? Um okay..."

Odd feeling like there's more she's not telling me but I'll go with that, I guess. She has no reason to lie to me, right?

Ring Ring Ring

The telephone on Lia’s desk began to ring. She picked it up and answered. “Hello? Yes, this is Lia Azaroth speaking. I see. Yes we can. The details? Got it. We will call back when it is done.” Lia hung up the call and set the telephone down.

“Was that…”

“Yes, we have a new request. We’ve been requested by the Velox Family to hunt a stray devil this time.”

“The Velox Family?”

“They are close with the Gallion Family. You could say they’re rival families.”

“So another important request, huh?”

“Yes but this one is a bit complicated.”

“What do you mean?”

“The stray was said to have found his way into District 3.”

“Again?”

“But we have no leads as to where he could be.”

“So how are you supposed to find him?”

“There was one thing they did mention. He has a heavy gambling addiction.”

“So what, he’d be at some casino or something?”

Lia shook her head. “Strays tend to avoid blatantly showing themselves in a public setting like that. It’d have to be something secret.”

A moment of silence passed as they thought to themselves.

“What if we check the internet? If we put in some keywords and search by recently around the Glory Sector, maybe we’ll pull up something.”

“Sorry, I’m not too familiar with using the internet as I do not have a mobile phone, so you’ll have to do it.”

“Ah, that’s right. I only ever saw you use this old school one. Hold on, I’ll show you how to use it.” Lucen said, pulling out his phone. He walked around the desk and set his phone on it.

“So if you go to the browser called Boogle, you can pretty much look up anything you want. Here, I’ll search up something about any hidden gambling thingies.” Lucen typed into the search engine and loaded up some results.

“The best place to look for anything on the down low but kind of recent would be a forum website like 3chan so lets try this one right here.” Lucen tapped on a 3chan page and scrolled down a bunch of discussions. “What’s this? Poor looking guy walking out of takeout with a suspicious bag full of money.”

He pressed the discussion and read the conversation. In the conversation, someone shared pictures of the hooded man walking in and out of the restaurant.

“Bingo. This could be a lead. You should investigate this restaurant here. Could be the entrance for something secret judging by the random guy who just went in and came out with all of that paper.” Lucen said, showing Lia the pictures.

“I see… Let’s leave out now. The sooner, the better.” She said, standing up.

Damn… No Riderman tonight, I guess.

Lucen and Lia left the estate and made their way to the takeout restaurant.