3:50 p.m, April 17th, 1955, at a local restaurant in Palermo, 500m from Sicily's Office

"Tell me, teacher."

At a dining table on the balcony, the current Sicily's Chief, Federico Zanelli, clasped his hands and put them on the table. He looked straight at the person sitting opposite to him, Mrs. Mozzoni, with a rather serious expression on his face.

"Earlier, why did you call me like that?"

The old lady put down her fork and used a tissue to wipe the sauce off her lips. She also turned her sight to him and replied casually.

"What's the matter if I called my student by his surname?"

"It's just..." The man lowered his eyes and slightly tightened his hands, "...you rarely use my surname to call me."

"Is that so? Then I will begin using it from now on."

She responded with her usual smile.

Her neglected attitude as if it was nothing important irritated him terribly. Everyone knew that when a person started to call your first name and you approved it, that meant the distance in the relationship between you and them had been shortened.

Except for the first two years when he came here, Mrs. Mozzoni had always called him by the name Federico until now. To him, it had more meanings than just a mere name.

Francesca Mozzoni was not only a respected former Chief of Sicily's Office, but also an extremely strict teacher to her students. No matter how long you had known her, only those with excellent abilities would receive her recognition and be called by the first name.

Zanelli had competed with others to strive for the title of her favorite student. It took him two years of hard work to win that position. Not stopping there, he had had to maintain that poise, study and improve his abilities non-stop till the day she chose him to be her successor.

That was why the way she treated this problem so easily pissed him off.

"I remember that tomorrow is your son's death anniversary,..."

The man crossed his legs and smiled without showing any changes in his expression.

"Have you prepared anything yet?"

Just as he expected, the composed look on her face was no longer there whenever she heard about that pitiful dead man.

"... Maybe tomorrow will be the last time I visit him."

Mozzoni let out a sigh, then answered his question as if she finally let go of the enduring torment from that fateful day.

"I will talk to him from the morning till the sunset, about what has happened since his leaving."

That side of her, softer than anything she had shown to others, only belonged to one person.

"Then I shall bid him farewell and accept the fact that he's already gone."

She put her hands on the table and her unique eyes looked straight at Zanelli's eyes.

"Thank you for keeping me company all this time, Zanelli. You're always the most satisfied student that I've ever taught. I'm truly proud of you."

The man wanted to avoid those terrible eyes immediately but his mind didn't approve of that action. Right now, inside him were two totally different emotions that were clashing with each other, trying to take control of the body.

'It's not the time yet. Just a little more, just a little more...'

Zanelli consoled himself and strongly suppressed the desire to question her so many things with a strange, inconsolable sadness.

He closed his brown eyes for a brief moment, took a deep breath and when he opened them again, the vague red strokes had increased and seemed to have become clearer than before.

"It's my great pleasure to hear a direct praise from you, teacher."

'After tomorrow, I will never lose to that damn deceased again.'

As seeing her fingers rubbing the rim of her coffee cup, Zanelli pushed the sugar jar towards the old lady's hand out of habit.

"Don't consume too much sweets." He advised.

"Uh-huh, I remember."

Mozzoni took two cubes of sugar, put them in her cup of coffee and used the small silver spoon to stir it.

"I'm planning to travel somewhere else, somewhere that's far from this island." She said.

"Why do you want to leave all of a sudden?"

As soon as the question came out of his mouth, the man realized he had stood up from his seat and spoken out loud what he had in his mind.

'Who cares if she chose to stay or leave? That's not my business!' He angrily thought.

"You startled me." She slightly raised her brows.

"I- I'm just really surprised by your announcement."

With an awkward smile, Zanelli returned to his seat and explained about his unusual reaction.

"You seem so strange today." Mozzoni knitted her brows, watching him with a sharp gaze, "Is there anything you are hiding from me?"

"Hahahaha..."

Facing her strong gaze, the man suddenly laughed.

"Your joke is always as lame as usual, Mrs. Mozzoni."

He slowly wiped the non-existent tears in the corner of his right eye.

"How about you? Is there any information you haven't told me yet?"

His cold expression appeared in the blink of an eye.

"...and since when did you begin suspecting me?"

The old woman narrowed her eyes and observed his behavior, which wasn't beyond her expectations.

"Whenever your plan is about to succeed, you'll be a bit hasty than usual. However, you always know how to restrain your emotions well."

"But now, something about you just wasn't right."

Mozzoni looked at the fingers which were tapping on the table at an increasing speed without creating any sound. It could be seen as his unique talent that you wouldn't find out, if you didn't pay attention to him. At the same time, it was also his flaw.

"Why didn't those children know anything about the mysterious arcanum circles I've found?"

After all the years as student and teacher, she didn't have the heart to see her student ruin his career as well as his future ahead, hence she decided to give him another chance to tell the truth.

Unknown to her good intention, Zanelli gave her a sarcastic smile.

"Your current standard was low to the point that you'd rather put your faith in those amateur newcomers than the student who was recognized by you?"

"Oh, I forgot." He slightly shook his head, "You're not the Chief Mozzoni that I once admired and respected anymore."

"Stop beating around the bush, Zanelli." She glared at him.

"Alright, I'm also so sick of playing this pretending game. Let's follow the old rules."

He put a white lupara on the table.

"Three games to decide the loser. Whoever loses two games shall spit all the things they know."

"You clearly know how my arcane works, yet you still want to play with me?"

The old lady smirked.

"Deal. Old place?"

"Old place." The man replied in a confident tone.

'Student and teacher's bonding game, huh....'

Secretly observing the two and taking their pictures from the opposite building, Click quietly thought. He checked the pictures that had been taken and found something odd.

'Was it his arcane skill or other cause that affected the photos?'

In every picture that had the same two figures, while the woman's face was clear and normal, the face of the man was fully covered by the abnormal bright light.

—---------

4:25 p.m, April 17th, 1955, Palermo, at a coffee bar on the south street, 300m from Sicily's Office

While Vertin and Sonetto were studying how to use X's invention on Vertin's phone, the girl with black and white pigtails had already finished her piece of cake. She watched the clock on the wall, then spoke in a bored voice.

"His position just got further and further away."

Hearing she said, the girl in black outfits asked.

"You meant Mr. Click continued moving forward and there was no sign of him returning right?"

"Yes." Balloon Party nodded, "He began going like that 15 minutes ago."

"Didn't Miss Sonetto here send the messages to Madam Mozzoni at 3:55 p.m? It's rather late now."

Tennant also looked at the clock and said.

Listening to them, Sonetto took out her phone and checked the message app again. The last message was sent by her with the status "Received". Its content was about the site of the coffee bar.

"If Mrs. Mozzoni and Mr. Click don't come here at 5:00 p.m or they are about to leave Palermo, we should go find them."

The colorful balloons coming from Balloon Party's throat had various functions and one of them was to locate.Thanks to them, they could track the ghost reporter as long as he still kept the balloon with him.

"It works."

The good announcement of Vertin halted their conversation.

On her hand, the phone screen displayed a mouse with a ribbon behind its neck running towards a light bulb which was hanging upside down on the X letter at the center. After about one minute, the screen blacked out and lit up again, followed by the appearance of a brand new app. It was called "X-signal".

"Are you sure that cunning scientist didn't plan something suspicious before throwing you his stuff?"

As he observed the process, Pavia showed a doubtful look on his face.

"Maybe he did,..." The gray-haired girl nodded, "...but at least he won't cross the line."

"Whatever." The man rolled his eyes.

Pavia still remembered the sweets making machine that cost him just 22 dollars. It made him a couple of gelato and cakes, then went rampage from his room to the wilderness and ended up exploding after being pushed to the river. When he came to find X to get his money back, the boy just smiled and showed him the contract that had his signature. In the final clause of the contract, it said "Refunds will only be made if the product is intact."

"Everyone knows that cheapest is the dearest."

That cunning scientist's voice as well as Pavia's anger still clearly lingered inside him till now.

All the members gathered around Vertin with curiosity. As she tapped her finger on the app, her phone directory popped up with the same number list, but a different display. Those phone numbers were all in gray and at the end of the screen, there was an orange frame which had a line that said "It's random time!". Under that frame, a small text noted that "The function will reset after 24h."

"It looks like a kind of gambling." Tennant rubbed her chin and said.

Vertin tapped on the frame. The sparkling light appeared and moved among the phone numbers respectively at a fairly fast speed, then gradually slowed down and finally stopped at a certain phone number, of which the frame turned to green.

She chose the calling symbol under that phone number and waited. To her relief, the "No signal" line now had changed to the "Connecting..." line.

"Hey, Vertin!"

A familiar and energetic voice could be heard from the other side of the line.

"How was your trip in Sicily?"

It was the voice of a young man.

"Our case reaches an impasse. We need your help."

Vertin went straight to the point.

"Sounds serious. What do you need me to do?"

Some noise in the background sounded like someone was turning the screw.

"I need you to contact Madam Z and ask her to send us the reinforcement to the Sicily's Office as soon as possible."

"You could ask the same thing from others. Why me?"

The noise stopped and the footsteps appeared.

"We haven't been able to contact Madam Z since yesterday. Our communication devices were jammed. That was why we had no choice but to use X's abandoned invention."

"This device can be used to communicate with anyone anywhere, but it can only connect to one random phone number in my phone directory. And yours was the only number we could connect with right now."

"Besides, our case had some relations with rituals and a ghost." Vertin said.

"Ritual and ghost?!" The man exclaimed in surprise, "Hold on!"

"Excuse me! This is an emergency! Move on! Please let me pass!"

The sound of running, gasping, shouting, and startled cries immediately filled Vertin's ears. After a while, most of those noisy sounds were further and further, except for the gasping that became louder.

"Okay... Madam Z will appear in my sight soon. Tell me... the rituals and ghost's part first."

Based on the sound, Vertin could imagine an image of a man sweating profusely but still stubbornly moving forward at a slow speed.

"It's a reincarnation ritual that uses human's soul as energy. We have some suspicion that there is a ghost taking over a living person's body."

Earlier, Necrologist had told them that in most of the reincarnation rituals in the past, people tended to hire a necromancer, so that they could put the soul in a vessel to move them to the ritual. That vessel was always the suitable body for the deceased to take over after the ritual succeeded. Therefore, they drew a conclusion that the soul had already been inside their vessel.

"Is there any convenient way to detect the ghost in that body?" She asked.

"Do you have any camera there?" The man said.

"Yes, we have Click."

"You hit the jackpot! His special films can produce a more precise result than others."

His happy voice gave them good news.

"Ask him to take a close picture of that person. Remember, it needs to be a frontal photo with their eyes looking straight at the camera lens."

The man carefully gave her the instructions.

"The true face of the soul will appear clearly in the picture. That's what Miss Ghostbuster has taught me, so you can trust the process!"

Seeing Sonetto finish writing down the instructions in her notebook, Vertin expressed her gratitude to the man.

"We're lucky that the person we can contact at this time is you."

"Who are you calling?" Someone on the man's side curiously asked.

"It's Vertin and Sonetto from Sicily." The man answered.

"So- Sonetto is there too?!"

A familiar high-pitched voice attended the call.

"Hey, you! Listen to my words carefully!" The girl requested.

"The stars told me that your journey contained great dangers because of the one who dares to go against the sacred laws of nature."

"Fire shall incinerate the sinners for their sins. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes."

"Even if the destruction is inevitable, your efforts throughout the journey won't be in vain."

Once she talked about astrology, her voice was different from usual. It became more calm and trustworthy, like a lighthouse that guided the wandering boats on the pitch-black sea.

"Let the animal's instinct guide you to the sinner's resting place and you'll know what to do."

As soon as the girl finished the prophecy, Vertin earnestly said.

"We truly appreciate your words, Matilda."

"Hm! Of course you must be grateful for my valuable advice! I'm Matil– Hey, let me finish my words!"

The girl's voice was instantly replaced by the man's voice.

"That's enough for your turn. Their most important task right now is contacting Madam Z."

"I- I know..."

Matilda's voice became smaller and smaller.

"Remember to tell me the details when you come back! Bring me some good horror folktales in Sicily too!"

"I will." Vertin replied.

The man - Horrorpedia passed his cell phone to Madam Z.

"Finally, I can connect with your team again, Timekeeper."