"I bid you welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to Alba's fashion house. Like all of you, we are partners and business associates of ViTech. Since the headquarters of ViTech is under a lot of pressure for tonight's event, the banquet will be hosted here in our humble establishment. I, Valentine De Clare, will be your entertainer until my dear friend Miss Vivian Moore joins us. For now, please indulge yourself in these delicacies we've prepared, courtesy of House De Clare."

  In the gathering of scientists and bright minds, Valentine spoke to the ladies and gentlemen who gathered on the second floor of Alba's fashion house on the opposite side of the street from ViTech headquarters. There, Valentine desperately tried to capture the attention of those professors and their spouses with his lightheartedness and small talk while offering them drinks and pastries.

  All he needed to do was not let them look through that window in the back. He didn't know what was going on but some incident was going on and if his sharp sight wasn't fooling him, Vivian was somehow hanging from that strange contraption on top of her building doing some athletic feat that he never even imagined her to be doing.

  Just don't look that way! He screamed in his mind and still was holding himself from running across the street all the way to Vivian to figure out what the fuck was going on!

  ——— Earlier ———

  "You said what?" Vivian shouted at Jane as the latter almost jumped back from fear.

  "Some core pieces went missing from the circuit, I swear I fixed them up there this morning before we set up the board." Jane replied.

  "What time is it now?" Vivian asked.

  "5 and a half! We only have 30 minutes left." Jane replied.

  Vivian discarded her coat and walked in her trousers, shirt, and vest upstairs to the attic of her building before scaling up the ladder to the roof. Up there, she found a few individuals, including Professor Bellfield, standing and trying to assess the damage.

  "Director Vivian, there was a probable flaw in the design." Professor Bellfield said and tried to explain himself to Vivian right away, "A strong gust of wind seemed to have caused this. The wiring couldn't hold the resistor's weight and it was ripped right away."

  "We don't have time for this, let's start fixing. Did that flaw affect the other side at Isabella's building?" She asked.

  "No, director. I just checked it over there and added a strapping to all conduction points and the alternator." Jane replied.

  "Do we have spares?" Vivian asked.

  "Yes, but the problem is that we can't just get them up there. No one can scale up the scaffolding on the roof. We need someone light, agile, and with a very good balance." Professor Bellfield said.

  "You're flattering me, sir." Vivian said as she walked across the flat roof to a spot where a spare rope was lying and picked it up.

  "Director Vivian, what are you doing?" Jane asked as she ran after Vivian but the latter didn't respond.

  "Director Vivian! Director!" She called once again.

  "Oh! Vivian, that's me, right!" Vivian suddenly regained herself as she was intensively focusing on the scaffolding in front of her that held up the large board facing the street, "I am going to fix this."

  "Director, this is dangerous! Let alone scaling up the scaffolding, you may end up shocking yourself if you are not careful." Jane blocked Vivian's way.

  "Girlie, you're ten years too young to lecture me about wiring circuits. Watch mommy do her magic." Vivian said and walked past Jane.

  While her style of speaking was somewhat different than her usual self, Vivian's way of handling the rope she just carried really stood out as she started to spread it, made a few knots, and tossed half the rope up the scaffolding.

  "Just for confirmation, there is no power in the circuit, right?" She asked.

  "We have around 40 piles dipped in chemical tubs so we haven't connected any power yet. We will have less than an hour once all the 200 bulbs are up and working." Professor Bellfield said.

  "Clear!" Vivian made a double thumbs up, "I'm good to go. You, you, and you hold that other end of the rope. I want you to keep pulling until I tell you to stop, capeech?" Vivian asked.

  The three men, who work as manual laborers for the professor, looked at each other and seemed hesitant as the professor gave them strict instructions on how to behave around a noble lady, one that apparently ties herself to ropes and climbs scaffoldings.

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  As they held the rope and started pulling, Vivian had already tied her waist and hips with the rope with a professional mountain climber knot. She kept scaling the scaffolding from the side and as she reached the area where the resistor device was supposed to be, she whistled for them to stop and turned to Jane.

  "Toss the resistor up."

  Jane seemed nervous, witnessing the acrobatic feat Vivian suddenly performed but she had to at least help her in order to get her down as soon as possible. And so, Jane threw the device up to the best of her ability… which wasn't that great.

  Vivian tried to catch it but Jane wasn't the best thrower out there as neither her arms were strong nor her aim was accurate. The circuit part was almost at a foot distance from Vivian, who stood on the vertical scaffolding.

  Vivian's instincts kicked it, but these weren't her instincts for the most part. Nonetheless, her body rotated backward as she launched herself away from the scaffolding and while being tied to the rope, she performed a back flipped midair, caught the device, and returned as she was.

  "Oh, boy!" Valentine, who saw that from around 40 meters away inside the reception hall in Alba's fashion house, almost lost all his nerves and the guests he was entertaining looked at him with a strange gaze.

  He started to sweat from worry but he needed to keep those people distracted.

  "I… I remembered today was Professor Bellfield's big day, he would showcase his new invention. For that, House De Clare, which is a partner to Alba's fashion house, has sent our best pastry chef to create a dish that looks exactly like Professor Bellfield's invention. How about this? We all sneak to the pastries table over there, take a look at the dish, and try to guess what the professor has in store for us."

  "That… actually a fun idea."

  "I think I will enjoy this one."

  "Bellfield, that old coot, still coming up with ideas at his age. I will figure it out in a minute."

  The old professor became excited and Valentine seemed to have managed to control the crowd with his people skills yet one more time. He kept sneaking glances towards Vivian, though, as she skillfully used tools, cut wires, and jumped from one scaffolding to another like a professional climber.

  "You! Servant boy!" Valentine immediately called out the first young servant he saw coming in.

  Almost at the same age as Valentine, the young servant lowered his head and came running. He was wearing a suit like the footmen who work at the fashion house but he seemed rather uncomfortable with it. Valentine recognized him from Vivian's building.

  "You, what's going on over there?" Valentine whispered as if he was shouting and pointed with his eyes in Vivian's direction.

  Oliver paused for a second and then looked through the window to see what Valentine was seeing, the only difference is, that it took him a while to realize that the one over there was Vivian herself as it seemed that Valentine's excellent sight was reinforced with Aura.

  "L-Lady Vivian! Wha… what's she doing?" Oliver went pale and almost freaked out.

  "Shush!" Valentine held him from his mouth, "Shut it! Don't alert those guests here. Slowly shut the curtains and run over there as fast as you can, figure out what's happening and how long do I have to keep a group of people who are all twice as smart as I am in a single room without them catching on to whatever that is!"

  Valentine himself was already freaking out speaking as fast and as quietly as he could. Oliver, who never faced an angry nobleman like that before, bowed his head, closed the curtains, from the direction Valentine pointed, and went running right away.

  Meanwhile, Vivian was having the people from below toss her a screwdriver, a wrench, and some wire which she extended the torn parts with and used the excess to hold the pieces together.

  "Done and done!" Vivian seemed to have finished what she was doing and as soon as she was about to descend with style, she halted for a second and looked around her before realizing what happened.

  "Goodness!" She sighed and then looked at the laborers, "Carefully get me down… slowly! Slowly!"

  As she descended, she rid herself of the ropes that were tied in awkward places around her body and cleared her throat before joining her hands together in a ladylike fashion and turning to Professor Bellfield.

  "It appears that everything is in order, Professor."

  "La… Lady Vivian, thank you. But that was… that was…" The Professor wanted to say something but before he could pick the right words in front of his sponsor, someone else did.

  "That was damn reckless, Vivian! Are you mad?!" Logan suddenly emerged from the roof's trap door and behind him was Oliver who looked handsome in a suit.

  "Logan, I am sorry I…"

  "You what? Climbing on a scaffolding to do laborer's work. That was purely reckless and devoid of…" Logan was starting to give Vivian an earful but seeing that people were gathered around them, he held his anger within and turned to the hired laborers, "Your pay will be cut for this. Letting the Lady do your work because you were afraid of some height?"

  "Logan!" Vivian spoke to him and called off his tantrum before turning to the people around her, "I apologize."

  The scene had to be called off and Vivian looked at her pocket watch then turned to the sky.

  "Professor, five minutes." She said.

  "I'll do the last checkup on the circuit. Splendid work up there, my Lady."

  Everyone on the roof started to descend one by one through the trap door, only Vivian and Logan remained up there.

  "Hey." She called.

  "Yes?" Logan turned to face.

  Alone on the rooftop, the two faced one another as the sun had only five minutes to set. A western breeze blew by carrying the scent of the faraway sea all the way to the rotten heart of Archester and Vivian's hair fluttered freely with the wind.

  "I am sorry about what happened. I wasn't really myself for some time there." Vivian spoke.

  Logan raised a single brow while trying to figure out what trick Vivian was pulling off this time around but seeing that she wasn't trying to walk her way out, Logan decided to…

  "That's not good enough for an excuse." He replied dismissively.

  "Is that though?" Vivian smiled and somehow lowered her gaze, "I was only telling the truth."

  Her gaze wasn't displaying any hint of emotion like sadness or regret, she was just speaking the simple truth of what happened.

  ? Cutting connection with the Dormant Traits! ?