A little boy was once reprimanded by his mentor for his lack of critical thinking.
"It's okay for most people to take things at face value, but not you. You can not afford to be complacent. Whenever you see something, hear a rumor, or come across any other information, keep it all in the back of your mind. What everyone else sees as a square, you must see it as a cube. Look beyond just the shape before you."
"Why? Why can't I be like everyone else?"
"Because you don't have the luxury to be like them. Think about the state of your home that you head back to every night. You must be observant. You must be smart. Be one step, no… two or even three steps ahead of everyone. Only then can you survive."
"...Okay. Then where do I begin?"
"Here."
A thick book that sounded like a boulder being dropped was placed in front of him.
"Before anything else, you must acquire more knowledge. And what better way than to start by reading. It'll not only improve your memory, your language, but it'll teach you how to focus and hone in on one thing."
The little boy raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. He flipped to the first page.
"Finish this book by the end of tomorrow."
"...What?"
"Once you're done. I have another book. Then another. Then another. And so on and so forth."
"Am I just going to be reading books the entire time? How is that going to help my analytical capabilities?"
"Of course you're not just going to read books the entire time. But until I feel satisfied with how much you've read, only then will we move on to the next step."
"Which is?"
"Don't worry about that yet. And read."
The mentor took a sip of his bitter cup of coffee as he watched the little boy scratch his head as he read words that he didn't understand yet. The coffee in his cup would end up being the same kind of coffee the little boy would grow up to like.
"What does this word mean?"
"It means—"
* * *
Maya watched as Bell reached the final page of the notebook where she had taken notes.
Then he closed the notebook.
'Is he ready to go to the Facold family now?' a tired Maya, who had watched Bell read for the past half hour, thought to herself.
Expecting him to stand up, instead, what he did made her even more baffled. He — he closed his eyes.
'What is he doing?! Is he sleeping?!'
Bell sat there, legs crossed, hands resting on his knee, and his eyes firmly shut.
To Maya, as well as Jerman, who was still off to the side guarding him, Bell just seemed to be resting, enjoying the breeze of the summer as they were out in the garden of the manor having this conversation.
The maids and butlers were informed not to approach them in the meantime, so they were in the garden alone. And Maya's existence was already made aware to the Agnus family as Tiara didn't mind letting her stay in their estate since she was the guardian of all those children.
Godfrey had a lot of questions as he had a feeling that there was more to the children moving into the old storage than just Bell feeling charitable, but he refrained from asking.
He doubted that he would've received an answer from his newly-secretive grandson anyway.
But contrary to what Maya was thinking, Bell wasn't sleeping. If anything, his mind was working faster than ever.
Gears were turning at a rate twice their usual speed.
His memory had improved since taking over the original Bell's body, and now everything that he had just read was firmly in his mind.
He was going over all of it, finding the dots, connecting them, throwing away the ones that he deemed weren't useful, etc.
Three minutes later, he finally opened his eyes.
He stood up, which led Maya to finally brighten up a little bit.
'Finally! He's going to hand the information over to the Facold family. I just hold that something in my notebook is useful. If all of it turns out to be irrelevant, then… that would suck.'
Bell, who was walking, stopped in front of Maya and handed the notebook back to her.
"What's this?"
Did he deem everything she wrote to be useless? Not even worth bothering the Facold family with?
Maya's mood dampened in an instant.
"I need you to go investigate all of the noble families up north. One of them is likely housing the culprit that we're looking for."
"...How? How do you know that?"
He didn't answer her question right away. Instead, he brushed off some dust that was on his sleeve; his hands were gloved as per usual.
He began walking along the garden, and Maya followed closely behind him. Stopping at the garden pond, he watched as the fishes swam around as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
Then he said quietly, "Because everything in your notes points north."
Maya blinked. "What do you mean?"
Tapping the notebook that she was holding, Bell said, "Start with the wheat shipments. The supplier said that their client reduced their commission recently, implying that the pattern of them ordering a lot has been constant for a while now. That could mean years. Enough wheat to feed five hundred people suddenly dropping to three hundred? Sounds like it isn't a matter of the wheat but rather the number of mouths needing to be fed has decreased."
Bell started pacing slowly, speaking almost to himself rather than Maya.
"Of course. This could all be incorrect, and the person buying the wheat is low on funds this year."
Maya nodded.
"But then you think about the number for a second. Five hundred? Even if it was the old number, that means there was once a point where five hundred people were being fed wheat somewhere in this thriving city."
"What's wrong with wheat?"
"Nothing. Even nobles eat wheat. But we don't typically order wheat by the ton. We have money. We can order wine, cheese, fruit, and meat. Constantly having a diet of wheat? That sounds like the diet of people in the slums, beggars, and lowlifes. But which one of those people could afford to buy enough wheat for five hundred?"
Maya was silent.
"Other than those merchants who would understand that wheat isn't exactly a cash crop in this city, only a noble can afford such a large purchase like that. Yet, they were buying wheat. Unless they planned on being wasteful, then that means they were using the wheat to feed people that they didn't want others to see."
"How could you come to that conclusion? Can't it just be a case of the noble being generous and donating the wheat? Or even selling it?"
Bell shook his head.
"I've read and analyzed the business and public movements of every noble. Unless there's a secret Samaritan donating wheat, then no. None of the nobles in this city deals in the wheat business. But you're right. This could all be a coincidence. How did I conclude that they were feeding people that they've been hiding?"
Maya nodded.
"It's just an educated guess."
"That means you could be wrong."
"True… but let me finish. It's an educated guess based on the fact that the wheat they bought this time around decreased by almost half. Why would there suddenly be fewer mouths to feed?" he turned to Maya and asked.
She tried to think of an answer, but didn't have one, and shrugged.
"What was the M.O. of the culprit we're chasing?"
Maya thought back on the underground lab — the tubes, the bodies, the organs floating around… the children at the brink of death.
"They would kidnap children off the streets. But obviously, with the city on higher alert than ever, to dare attempt a kidnapping would put oneself at risk of being caught," Maya muttered as she began to catch on to what Bell was saying.
"Exactly. But our culprit still likely needs bodies for whatever twisted experiments he's been conducting. So if you can't kidnap new people off the streets, what can you do? Perhaps, there's a noble out there somewhere who has already kidnapped people in the past. Or the noble could even be the culprit."
"Which would explain why the wheat purchase is decreasing," Maya muttered. "And one of those kidnapped people could even potentially be that one drunk man's cousin who disappeared at his night job."
Bell nodded, "Since they can't kidnap more to replenish their supply of people, their total of kidnapped people is starting to decrease as the experiment continues."
"...Less mouths to feed."
"Those heavy crates that had been transported up north, I reckon it might be some of the machinery that the culprit needs. Just like the ones we found at the laboratory."
Maya stared at Bell in awe.
He was a monster, she thought to herself.
But not because of his heinous act. This monster was a different monster than she had previously associated him with. He was a monster in the sense that she was complimenting his intellect.
'Two monsters in one?!'
"But… at the end of the day, everything I've said is nothing more than a theory. We need solid evidence to back it up. So, that's why I need you to head up north and do some more investigation. Let me get your notebook and pen real quick," Bell said.
Maya handed both of the items, anticipating what he wanted to do with them.
On a blank page, Bell began writing down a couple of names.
Then he handed the notebook back to her.
After reading the names that he'd written, Maya looked back up at him and asked, "What are these?"
"Those are the noble family whom I want you to focus on. The ones with a star next to them are those that are either located on Rockshire Street or are in the vicinity of it," he informed her.
She read over the list of names once more.
"Aren't there a couple of names missing? More noble families are living up north than just these. Why don't I also—"
"Don't bother. Just focus on them. The ones I didn't include, they're innocent. At least when it comes to what we're searching for."
"...How do you know?"
How do you know?
How do you know?
How do you know?
The ever-so curious Maya was intrigued by Bell, wanting to hear his explanation that could potentially blow her mind. She could already see from his expression that he believed every word he just uttered.
What was the reason behind his firm belief?
"I just do," he replied bluntly.
Bell couldn't exactly tell her that he didn't include names that he vividly remembered from the novel. Those families were the ones he considered to be clean. They were on the side of justice during the story, and most of them had a history of doing good.
They'd be the last ones to help out the culprit, let alone be the culprit.
"Just trust me," Bell said as he turned away from Maya and began heading off somewhere.
Maya watched as his back got smaller and smaller.
"If I hadn't sworn my loyalty to you, I might've spent the next year alone just stalking you," Maya clicked her tongue. "Man of many secrets."