019 SUSPECTED
After Damen's mining app upgraded last time, he hadn't noticed much change—just a minor feature he dismissed as useless.
Or so he thought.
Now, staring at his phone in the café, he realized even the smallest tweaks could be deadly advantages. He should not overlook them.
"The Favorite List… hah," he chuckled, scrolling through the names.
Santiago's name sat at the top, followed by the other fighters scheduled for the upcoming matches. There were ten names in total. It was the app's limit.
But ten was more than enough.
With the Favorite Targets list, Damen no longer needed to see his victims directly to mine them. As long as they were within his mining range and his range was wide enough to cover the stadium from where he sat—he could mine them and strike them at will.
He scrolled idly through the list, sipping his iced coffee, while the next match unfolded on the TV overhead.
----
The next match began.
"Who do you think is going to lose this one?" Damen asked casually.
The waiter grinned, puffing out his chest. "Oh, you've come to the right guy. I'm an expert in MMA fights. Big Mac's a beast—he's definitely taking the win."
"Right…" Damen said with a faint smile, already locking his phone's target on Big Mac.
The fight raged on, brutal and fast.
Big Mac dominated, pushing his opponent to the edge. Victory was seconds away—until suddenly he dropped to the mat, clutching his side with a groan.
The crowd gasped. His opponent pounced, hammering strikes until the referee intervened.
"Who the hell just hit me with a mental attack?!" Big Mac roared, staggering to his feet, only to collapse again as another invisible blow struck him.
The referee began the count.
"5… 4… 3…"
Suddenly, the opponent who thought he was winning fell to the ground too. "Who the hell attacked me?" he asked again.
The stadium erupted in confusion.
Damen laughed under his breath, with a dark edge to it.
On the café TV, fighters clashed in the ring. Damen barely paid attention to who won or lost. He siphoned attributes indiscriminately, stripping them from everyone on screen who was in his favorite list.
Winning didn't matter…only the harvest did.
He's waited for a full month inside Heroes' gym steadily mining DemCoins and resisting the temptation to steal attributes in case he would be caught.
Now he had the perfect alibi to steal. Those victims he acquired from were fighting in the MMA Stadium while he was already gone. If anybody were to be blamed for launching mental attacks on the fighters… it won't be him.
And he was greedy. He drained and drained until suddenly the app froze.
"Damn it… why's this stuck?" he muttered, jabbing at his phone.
The Acquire: Strength button wouldn't register.
He leaned back, thinking. Then it clicked. He's reached the Strength limit again.
The number of attributes he could pull depended on the available meta stats from his targets. If he had more stats than the victim, he would get nothing. That's the reason he doesn't take from ordinary people anymore… there's nothing to take.
"If I'm not wrong… I've reached the Strength cap for H-class metas, I can't take more than my meta rank," he speculated.
He smirked, tucking the thought away. There would be time to test that theory later.
For now, he kept mining until each attribute hit its ceiling. By the end of the match, his stats were full across the board.
Even Charm was maxed.
----
[In a secret room under the basement somewhere]
"Why did you summon me so urgently?" Director Ambrone demanded as he strode into the windowless meeting room. A massive screen glowed at the front, illuminating the tense faces around the table.
The man leading the meeting didn't even flinch at Ambrone's intrusion. "Sit down, Director. Don't disrupt the briefing."
Ambrone clenched his jaw, but he bit back his protest and found a seat.
On the screen, images and videos began to cycle—middle schoolers writhing in pain, their faces twisted in agony.
"These," the speaker said, "are the first victims—students. I call them Victim 0."
The display shifted. It was a random miner sleeping in the hospital. Then an idol boy band and their bodyguards, caught on camera clutching their heads, screaming.
"Lander, what is this?" Ambrone barked. "Why is the Superheroes Intelligence Agency being shown ordinary civilians getting hurt? This is the local police's work not ours."
"This," Special Investigator Lander said calmly, "is only the beginning."
"The beginning of what?"
The screen changed again. MMA fighters being carried from the stadium on stretchers.
"The beginning of psychic mental attacks. Whoever's behind this started with civilians, then escalated to H-class metas."
Ambrone slammed a hand on the table. "Impossible. All registered psychic metas are documented and monitored. None of them could have done this."
"Unless," Dorin spoke up, raising her hand, "a new psychic has recently awakened and he's testing out his powers- first with civilians and now with low level metas."
"Correct, Investigator Dorin," Lander nodded.
Ambrone narrowed his eyes. "Do we have a suspect or not?"
"Yes… and no," Lander said.
Ambrone leaned forward. "What the hell does that mean?"
The next image appeared: a boy sipping iced coffee at a café playing his phone.
Dorin's eyes widened. "That's… Damen Dark. One of my gym's trainees…. erm regular."
"I cross-checked every victim," Lander explained. "From the middle school students to the miner and the MMA fighters. Damen Dark is the only common link. He was present nearby in some way before every incident. It anyone would be using psychic attacks that could be him."
"That's absurd," Dorin shot back. "He's just a recently awakened meta. I've seen him training. He's not psychic. Psychics don't sweat it out in gyms."
"I'm not accusing him outright," Lander replied. "But whether he's the attacker or not, he has a connection."
The room fell silent.
Ambrone finally spoke. "You said he had ties to the MMA attacks. How?"
The screen flickered again. It was footage of Damen collecting his winnings from the betting Station after Santiago's winning match.
"He bet on Santiago. Santiago won because his opponent collapsed mid-fight. He's the victim of a psychic strike during the match."
"If he's the psychic we are looking for, there is enough motive for him to do so. He's won so much money", Dorin added.
020 STEPPED INTO A TRAP
"And the other fights where the fighters are struck by psychic attacks, he was there too?" Ambrone pressed.
Lander shook his head. Another clip appeared: Damen waving at a security camera before leaving the stadium.
"What is this?" Ambrone demanded.
"Proof of Alibi," Lander said. "He had already left the stadium when the later attacks occurred."
Ambrone scoffed. "Then he's not our psychic. Attacks of this level don't work without direct line of sight, not even from an S-class."
"Exactly," Dorin agreed. "It couldn't have been him."
Lander folded his arms. "Which is why I said 'yes and no' earlier when you asked if I have a suspect. He may not be the psychic, but Damen Dark is at the center of this puzzle."
Ambrone stood abruptly, his chair scraping back. "You dragged me here for theories and half-baked clues? Call me when you have something solid." He stormed out.
The room lingered in heavy silence.
"What should we do now?" Dorin asked quietly.
Lander' eyes narrowed. "He still trains at your gym, doesn't he?"
"Yes."
"Then have him checked. Thoroughly."
"No, we can't do that. Not in our gym", Dorin protested.
"Why?" Lander asked.
"If we did that, he would become suspicious. We must have him checked without his overt knowledge", she said.
"Good. I'll leave it to you."
------
[Melrose Middle School No.9]
The main examination hall of Melrose Middle School No. 9 buzzed with activity. Massive machines lined the space, each one designed to test students' Strength and Meta attributes with precision.
This was the most important exam of their lives, a gateway to their futures.
Students with exceptional Strength aptitudes could gain admission to military high schools, setting them on a path toward careers in the city's armed forces or related industries. The best among them could become Supersoldiers.
Those who excelled in Meta aptitude, however, had an entirely different future waiting.
They would enter prestigious Meta Schools, honing their abilities to become the city's next generation of heroes and perhaps even Superheroes.
For students who fell short in both Strength and Meta, the outcome rested on their Theory test scores.
They might still attend ordinary high schools, but their lives would be predictable, their careers confined to research or mundane work, far removed from the extraordinary paths of their more gifted peers.
Soon, students began filing into the examination hall after finishing their Theory exams. One by one, they registered and were ready to step up to the machines.
From a raised platform in the center of the room, a woman's sharp gaze scanned the crowd.
She was Miss Poney Black.
She was looking for someone…someone she had been nursing a grudge against for weeks.
"Where is that darn Damen Dark? that bastard skipped school for a whole month just so I have no reason to expel him… now he'll bring down the score of my entire class. He better not make it here today," she muttered, her patience running thin.
She scrutinized all the students in class and only one of them was missing- Damen.
"Good…that bastard is not here", she thought, relieved.
Suddenly and finally, Damen Dark appeared, striding into the hall, his looks completely changed and almost unrecognizable.
"It's you…" she almost screamed, only to freeze when she noticed the person beside him: It was Principal Dean. She couldn't dare punish Damen here, not with the principal watching.
"You better wait, Damen Dark," she seethed silently. "After this test, I'll make sure you're rejected from every high school in the city—even the mundane ones."
Damen moved past his classmates. Most didn't recognize him immediately.
"Who's that beau? Is he even in our class?" a girl whispered, her eyes wide with longing.
Gradually, recognition set in. "He's… Damen Dark… the trash," someone muttered.
Another added, "How did he get so tall and… cute? And he's lost his glasses?"
"Will he have lunch with me?"
Comments buzzed around him as usual, but the tone had shifted. There were fewer sneers from before, but more murmurs of admiration.
Sexy… tall… instead of Trash and Garbage.
Damen ignored them, waiting in line, but his attention drifted to the constellation of test machines.
"I remember during the mock test there weren't this many machines," he thought. "And these ones look more complex. If the machines for the mock test were already close to finals, why the upgrade? It's expensive."
He leaned toward his friend Mikey. "Something's different with these machines."
"Who cares about the machines?" Mikey fretted. "I've only got 3.0 in Meta and 5.0 in Strength. That's barely passing!"
Damen stayed silent, analyzing.
Even the machines at Heroes Gym that were more advanced and precise were simpler than these. A gut feeling stirred in him.
"Something isn't right."
And then, his eyes landed on someone familiar: Dorin from Heroes Gym, busy adjusting the machines.
"Why is Dorin here?" he muttered under his breath.
Damen wanted to call out to Dorin, to greet her—but she quickly looked away, as if avoiding him.
"Is she avoiding me?" he wondered, a knot forming in his stomach.
With that uneasy feeling, his mind began spinning with conspiracy theories.
A guilty mind is always suspicious; a villain's fate is to doubt everyone around him.
"Something's off…"
"Did Dorin figure out what my mining app can do and just isn't saying anything?" he asked himself. Deep down, he had always worried that she might suspect him when he suddenly acquired the Flash Dash skilll.
He forced himself to calm down. She's probably just doing her job. "Maybe the school contracted her gym to handle these machines."
But the nagging doubt wouldn't leave him.
"Better focus," he muttered under his breath.
At that moment, it was Mikey's turn to step up to the testing machine.
-----
Dorin made her way to the back of the testing hall, where a temporary control center had been set up. Inside, Special Investigator Lander was already monitoring the equipment.
"What did you find?" she asked, her tone low and urgent.
Lander smiled faintly. "He's here. The psychic energy readings are off the charts—this entire hall is saturated with it."
"So, the psychic serial attacker is actually in this hall?" Dorin's eyes widened.
"I'm certain of it. Now we just need to pinpoint exactly who," Lander replied.
Unaware of the setup, Damen stepped into the testing booth for his turn.
Every detail around him—the machines, the layout, even the guards—had been arranged for a single purpose: to trap and test him.
-----