The Bookworm Teacher Becomes A Swordsman - 30 The first clue

Seojoon stalked the ugly looking boy for the entire day without progressing on the quest at all. The worst part was, while they still had no idea why the kids kept going missing, children still continued to disappear. However, instead of giving up, Seojoon continued to stalk ugly children for the next week until he finally came to the conclusion. “It is option 3, damn this will be trickier than I thought.”

He now had to hope that he stumbled across a clue or hint that would give him an idea where to start looking. Currently, the only information he had to go off of was that children were disappearing. He did not know who went missing or how they looked like. It was honestly a pretty shitty situation.

Even Kaori, an adventure gamer, was slowly getting frustrated. “How are we supposed to complete this quest? We have to start off with nothing but the information that kids disappear, we get no clues, we can’t observe every child all day- this is stupid.”

Seojoon nodded wearily. “This is a stupid quest. I’ve even went to all of the noble houses in the capital and tried to ask them for help or any information.”

“If they were involved, then why would they tell you?”

“I checked them for any signs of nervousness or any signal that suggested they were lying. Nothing at all, everyone seemed to be either concerned or arrogant. All I know is that either they weren’t involved or are very good at lying.”

“How do you even know when people are lying,” said Kaori with suspicion. “Didn’t you say you were sixteen?”

Seojoon shrugged. “I am a teacher, I mean tutor, it’s a basic requirement to tell when a student is lying or not.”

Kaori frowned. “My teacher can’t tell that I’m lying though. I tell him that I have a stomach ache and skip out all the time.”

“You teacher is incompetent then.”

Kaori let out a giggle before getting depressed again. “So what is our next plan of action?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Said Seojoon with a sigh. “We’ve tried stalking, we’ve tried door knocking, we’ve tried searching. I’m starting to think that-”

Seojoon suddenly paused. He walked towards a random man wearing leather armor and grabbed his shoulder before letting out a refreshing smile.

“Hello sir, can you spare a moment of your time to spend with us?” Seojoon asked the smile on his face still bright and cheerful. “There have been recent disappearances of homeless children and I wanted to ask if you had any information that you could provide.”

The man appeared to be shocked and immediately expressed his desire to help. “Really? I never knew such a horrendous thing was happening. Well this may not help you but u saw a child walking around with a suspicious man in a black cloak earlier. I didn’t question it because the child seemed to be happy but now that I think about it, the scene seemed somewhat suspicious. It was near the giant tree near the entrance.”

Seojoon smiled. “Thank you very much, your information will be a great help.”

“No matter. I am glad that I could help.”

Seojoon watched the retreating back of the man with a very wide grin as Kaori got close. “Why did you suddenly end our conversation?”

Seojoon smirked. “That man just gave us a clue, a very important clue.”

“What!” Said Kaori immediately brightening up. “What was it?”

“He said that he saw a child with a suspicious man near the tree at the entrance.”

“Then we should immediately go there then!” Said Kaori with a new found sense of vigor. “We finally have a place to narrow down our searches!”

Seojoon shook his head. “We will go to the entrance but we won’t be searching, at least, we won’t be searching with all of our efforts.”

“And why is that?” Asked Kaori while tilting her head.

“Well you see,” said Seojoon smugly. “We can’t trust the man because he wasn’t telling me the truth.”

“What do you mean?” Said Kaori.

“You see, when I mentioned the children disappearing, his first reaction was that of shock, which is normal, but his second was that of compliance. But think about it, when you hear that children are disappearing, what is the reactions that you would usually expect?”

Kaori furrowed her brows deep in thought. “Well, usually it would be anger or disgust or indifference… maybe even curiosity or disbelief and suspicion.”

“Exactly,” said Seojoon more smugly. “And did the man express any of those emotions?”

“Actually, now that I think about it, his emotion was that of compliance and eagerness to help.”

“Which means, he never suspected that children were being taken in the first place. And when he acted shocked in the beginning, his pupils didn’t dilate. He was lying from the first question I asked him.”

Kaori, obviously very impressed asked, “how did you know that he was suspicious though? You just randomly picked a random man out of a group of people. Did you get lucky?”

Seojoon shook his head. “The only reason why I singled that man out was that he had a scratch on his neck. Three scratch marks on the side of his neck. About a centimeter apart.”

Kaori frowned. “Couldn’t that be from an animal? Or a cat?”

Seojoon shook his head. “The scratch wound seemed recent and wasn’t deep enough and was too big to be a cat. It couldn’t be a bigger animal as the scratch is too small and once again too shallow. However, it perfectly fits how a scratch from a little child would look.”

“Isn’t that just over thinking it? And don’t little children have five fingers? Why would there only be three scratch marks then?”

“The human hand has five fingers but it’s hard to scratch with your thumb due to how it’s placed, and as a child, their pinky finger is probably too weak to pierce through the skin.”

Seojoon smirked at the direction the man went in before heading over to the tree. “We will “search” around the entrance before we go to the opposite side of the capital at night.”

“Why?”

“Since the man wanted us to search near the tree, it means that children will be kidnapped in the opposite area. He would want us to search the area furthest from where he is working after all.”

“… wow, you are a genius. You are like a natural detective.”

“Please,” said Seojoon with a smirk. “Anyone can do this if they read a hundred mystery novels and memorize every detail.”

“… no one can do that if they are human.”