14 I dare you to have a clarity

"Hey you six, listen to me." The seven neared the centre of the city when Leo opened his mouth.

"Listen closely and remember every detail I tell you."

The six leaned towards Leo while the cart entered the gates to the castle in the middle of the city. The castle surely covered at least 4 km square in area and had four towers on the corners of the castle boundary.

"Get out you seven. Follow me!" The doors opened and the commanding officer of the other 12 soldiers yelled at the seven inside the cart, while the other 12 soldiers pointed their spears towards the seven again. The seven got down one after another and let Leo be in the front of the gang.

"You guys got it, right?" Leo mumbled slowly to the group as they got down, and they replied with a small nod.

"You seven better behave or else grave circumstances might befall on you seven. I am warning you, no funny business." The officer led the seven through a number of corridors before they finally stopped in front of two huge doors which was guarded by four knights. The Knights had thin leather coats and no armour. They had glowing symbols on their hands just like the ones they had seen on those who had captured the big wolf.

The commanding officer opened the door with great difficulty and closed the doors as soon as he entered the hall. The seven were being glared intensely by the knights in front of them as well as the 12 guards around them.

'These guys got no cool.' That was exactly what was going through the heads of the seven.

The officer came out of the room after a while and led the seven towards the other side of the castle. If the overall atmosphere of the rooms in that side of the castle was to be explained in one word, then the correct word would be 'creepy.'

The seven were separated and sent into seven different rooms which had a table, and a light bulb glowing with the help of Qi batteries, hanging over it. The room was very similar to the investigation rooms of the police back on Earth.

The officer went into each one of the rooms one after another asking the same questions.

"When did you arrive in the city?"

"It's been a week, sir." Erina answered confidently.

"What is your profession?"

"We are travellers trying to explore different lifestyles, sir." Sai was actually excited to be in such a thrilling scene as it reminded him of a few scenes he saw in different animes and manga.

"How do you know each other?"

"Oh, we are all childhood friends." Clint answered sweetly, which didn't go well with his rough appearance.

"Where did you all come from?"

"We hail from a small village outside the kingdom." Reeva answered in a casual manner.

"Does that mean you are here from one of our neighbouring kingdoms? So, you are spies, huh?"

"Spies? No! First of all, we are not from any kingdom, we are from a small village inside the mountains to the north of the kingdom's outskirts." Ian yelled at the officer impatiently.

"A village in the mountains?"

"Yeah. It got destroyed a few weeks back by some large wolf and forced us to flee and become travellers." Aiko answered with a gentle smile on her face.

The last to be interrogated was Leo, as he assumed Leo was the one leading the other six. All the seven were asked the same questions. But the officer snapped at Leo after getting the same answer from all the seven.

"But? Wait, what!? Whatever, I can't take you guys on anymore. I can't hit you or anything without a reason or evidence. Ughh!" The officer was agitated seeing that nothing was out of the ordinary in their responses.

"Cool down, officer. Drink some water and I will cooperate with you in clearing all your doubts." Leo said with a pleasant smile, to which the officer unconsciously picked up the glass of water on the table and drank it all up in a single gulp.

"Now, tell me what you are suspecting us off, sir?" Leo clearly turned the scene from being investigated to him investigating the latter.

"You guys broke the quartz crystal and also the Nex gems with your seals unbroken, that's why!"

"Well, technically we didn't break them. And hey, what do you mean by unbroken seals?" Leo corrected the officer before shooting another question at him.

"What!? I mean 'The seal' kid, 'The Qi seal'." The officer was pretty amazed at how dumb Leo was.

"I don't know what you are talking about, officer." Leo tilted his head a bit to the right before showing off a 'What's that?' face to the latter which made his jaws fall to the ground.

"Well, I am from a small village. What do you expect?" Leo explained patiently after seeing the officer with a long face.

"It's the seal everyone in the world is born with, the Qi examination officer chants a spell to weaken the seal for a little time to test the candidate. And that isn't enough to crack or break a quartz crystal or a Nex gem!"

"Oh, I see! That means we have strong Qi, huh? I guess that means we passed the Qi test. Awesome! Thanks for the great new officer." Leo exclaimed with a cheerfully to which the officer nodded.

"Yeah, you did. Congrats, kid. Wait, what!? Don't try to trick me into believing some story you made up." The officer snapped back into senses after congratulating Leo.

"We are just from a small village, sir. We don't have that much intelligence to trick big people like you, officer." Leo said innocently as he stared into the officer's eyes.

"What is the problem, if we are so strong? What is the actual problem, officer?" Leo asked with hints of pity for playing with him.

"I suspect you seven of being dark injectors."

"'Cause except for the ancient families, none were able to break the Nex or Quartz exceptpeople with dark Qi."

"Oh! I see. If you don't mind me asking, what is a dark injector?"

"..." The officer stared at the latter with blank eyes.

"Well, I am from a villa-" Before Leo got to finish his words, the officer shot up.

"Don't say it! Don't say it's because of the village shit again!"

"Ah! I am done with you seven. I will just leave you to my Lord." The officer had a pitiful and confused face on him, which made Leo feel bad for doing this to him.