CHAPTER 239: ONE ALEX, TWO ALEX, RED ALEX, RUDE ALEX

Alex had always been fascinated by mysteries, anything that sparked his curiosity and got his brain buzzing like a caffeinated gym rat on pre-workout powder and maybe a questionable amount of tren.

He couldn’t help himself. If there was a cryptic clue, a strange noise in the night, or even just a bread roll gone missing from the dinner table, Alex would investigate with the same intensity most men reserved for war... or, at the very least, an aggressively discounted Black Friday sale.

The results were... mixed. Sometimes, he uncovered something incredible, like the time he discovered an underground smugglers’ tunnel (though to be fair, he’d only been looking for the wine cellar). Other times, he ended up singed, slightly cursed, or chased halfway across the continent by someone who did not appreciate his "fieldwork".

This one was no different. It was the sort of situation that had "mystery" written all over it in big glowing letters, probably in neon, with a suspicious flicker, and Alex, naturally, wanted to investigate.

There was just one tiny problem.

He had absolutely no idea where Judge had gone.

Not a clue. Nothing. Not a footprint, not a broken twig, not even one of those suspiciously convenient glowing trails adventurers always seemed to stumble upon in stories. Judge had vanished with the kind of efficiency that suggested either talent... or an unknown power.

And Alex hated anything "unknown".

It was infuriating. Maddening. The kind of thing that made Alex want to flip a table, except tables at his home were hard to replace, and Eleyn would kill him for the waste. (He’d once cracked a chair in half "for dramatic effect" during a theory presentation at the academy, and she had not spoken to him for three days. The silence had been deafening, but worse, it had been organized.)

Still, if there was one thing he was confident in, it was this — he was good at finding things. Excellent, in fact... Legendary.

He once tracked down a missing coin that had rolled under three rugs, into a crack in the floorboards, and been swallowed by a maid’s cat. Granted, retrieving it had not been his proudest moment, but it had been successful. (The cat still looked at him funny.)

So yes, he would find Judge. The boy could try his little disappearing tricks, but Alex had patience. And persistence. And a disturbingly sharp memory for the sound of his son’s sulky footsteps, which he often compared to "an old noblewoman dragging a very tired peacock."

Besides, how far could Judge possibly get without eventually tripping over his own dramatics? Not much, that’s for sure.

"Now, where do I start?" Alex muttered, cracking his knuckles like a man about to wrestle dragons, or at least wrestle with the growing suspicion that his son had inherited his mother’s stealth and his father’s flair for unnecessary flair.

He shut his eyes, inhaled deeply, and let ether ripple out of him like a silent drumbeat. His body shimmered, stretched, and then, pop!

Another Alex appeared beside him. A perfect copy, down to the faint scar on the jaw and the annoyingly smug half-smile.

The first clone tilted its head.

"Looking for Judge, Sire?"

"Obviously," Alex said.

"Well, I’d like to officially complain about the working conditions... "

Before the clone could finish, Alex waved, and another pop echoed, summoning a second clone.

Then a third. Then a fourth. Soon there was a small gathering of Alexes, muttering, stretching, and giving each other suspicious glances, as though they couldn’t quite agree which of them was the real one.

"Alright, gentlemen," the original Alex announced with exaggerated authority, "spread out, cover ground, don’t get distracted, and for the love of everything, if you see Judge, do not let him bribe you with snacks. He can and he will. He’s my child, so be extra careful."

The clones saluted (a few sarcastically), and then darted off in different directions with varying levels of enthusiasm. One clone immediately tripped over a root. Another stopped to inspect a butterfly. A third was already arguing with himself about whether searching the pantry counted as part of the mission.

Still, it was better than nothing.

Except... no matter how skilled Alex was, finding something without any leads was like trying to catch smoke in a net, or worse, like trying to get Eleyn to admit he was right about anything. The clones fanned out, returned empty-handed, and fanned out again. Judge was nowhere to be seen.

And that was when the second problem arrived. Early, impatient, and deeply irritating.

Boredom.

It hit him like a falling boulder, flattening his motivation. His mind, usually buzzing with theories about dramatic revelations, began to sag like an old rope.

The clones could sense it too. One sat down with a stick, another started humming off-key, and the rest shuffled around aimlessly as if the entire operation was now just a very sad parade. A clone even lay flat on its back, staring at the sky as though waiting for inspiration like a true author, or divine intervention.

Alex rubbed his temples. He needed something, anything, to keep his brain alive before it turned to porridge.

And then it struck him. A brilliant, absurd, absolutely unnecessary idea.

What better way to escape the creeping fall of dopamine than indulging in his guilty little pastime?

Yes. Stalking the deer mask.

His lips curled into a grin. Judge might have been a mystery, but the deer mask... oh, that was entertainment. Creeping through shadows, dramatic poses behind trees, the occasional whispered commentary that nobody asked for, it was an art form. A shameful, addictive art form.

"Alright, men," Alex told his clones, "new mission: subtle, elegant, borderline creepy surveillance of the deer mask who’s tailing my wife and best friend like a creep. The rest, continue your search for Judge."

The clones nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm, though one muttered, "This is why people call us weird."

Another clone sighed... yeah, he just sighed.

But Alex didn’t care. His boredom had found its cure, and somewhere out there, the deer mask had just become the most accidentally important person in his evening.

And if Judge happened to stumble into the middle of it? Perfect. Two mysteries solved for the price of one.

He didn’t believe in Judge appearing in the middle, but he did hope for it.