Chapter 414

We ran into Vertus de Gradias at the entrance to the Magic Department. I wondered if he had come personally as a member of the imperial family to investigate this incident which had occurred within the imperial palace.

Fortunately, Harriet and I were allowed to enter the sealed-off Magic Department building with Vertus without much need for explanation.

“You want to help in the investigation?” he asked.

“Yeah. I want to do whatever I can,” I replied.

Vertus tilted his head, seemingly unsure why I wanted to involve myself in this matter. However, when he turned his gaze to Harriet, who was standing beside me, he nodded as if he’d realized something.

“Oh, Saint-Ouen is doing some research or something in the Magic Department, right? Could it be...?”

“Yeah... The perpetrator was the supervisor of the archive room I used to visit,” Harriet said.

“Really?” Vertus nodded absentmindedly, as if he hadn’t known that fact. He furrowed his brow and sighed. “Wow, it must have been quite a shock. Were you close or anything?”

“Not really... We just had a bit of a conversation yesterday... and something felt off yesterday... I’ve already told the Imperial Magic Department people about it...”

“Well, that’s good. I can hear about it from them then.”

Vertus crossed his arms and glanced around the Magic Department.

“Having two more brains to examine this situation isn’t a bad thing. For now, let’s head inside together,” he said.

Vertus didn’t seem to think we would discover anything, but he eventually allowed us to proceed with the investigation together.

***

It seemed that Vertus had come to the Magic Department only after it was clear that the department and its surroundings had been properly secured following the incident.

I wondered if Charlotte, who had stayed in the dormitory the day before, knew about what had happened.

We headed to the research archive room where the incident had occurred together with Vertus and his attendants.

“Well... I don’t mind, and Reinhart seems fine. Saint-Ouen, will you be okay?”

“Me? With what...?”

“We’re going to come across the dead bodies from this point on.”

He wanted to know if we could handle the mental strain, since the site had been preserved, and we would have to witness some gruesome scenes.

“Oh, uh... Y-yeah. I’m okay.”

Harriet seemed a little overwhelmed but nodded. She seemed willing to endure it. Harriet might naturally have a weak tolerance for such things, but I remembered she had seen the chimeras during the incident at Aaron Mede’s mansion, and she had even come across the remains of countless chimeras left in Ellen’s wake as she cut through and dismembered them.

It wasn’t as if she had never experienced witnessing anything horrific, even if she wasn’t numb to such sights.

“Alright. Let’s go, then.”

We moved towards the research archive room of the Magic Department. An attendant accompanying Vertus briefed us on the incident.

“The estimated time of the incident was around 2 a.m. last night. The suspect, Rother Dwin, is believed to have killed three night-duty workers—Aryelka, Sadmon von Grintes, and Linia Wenson—who were in charge of sorting and deciphering newly arrived magical tomes. He subsequently took the tomes with him and fled.”

The research archive room was located underground, deep within the Magic Department.

Although the locks were disengaged for the moment, it was clear from a cursory glance that it wasn’t a place that just anyone could enter freely.

“The current assumption is that Rother Dwin hid in the research archive room without leaving at the designated closing time, waiting for the early morning hours when only the night-duty workers remained before committing the crime.”

In summary, he had waited for the time when the fewest number of personnel would be in the research archive room, killed all the mages on night duty, and then fled with the magical tomes.

“So the question is: how did he manage to get past all this security?” Vertus inquired.

“... Yes, that’s the current situation,” the attendant nodded in agreement with Vertus.

While security had been tightened following the incident, the Magic Department’s research archive room was undoubtedly usually well-prepared against theft and other issues.

It would have had something like a checkpoint, similar to the entrance to the Temple, and guards would have been stationed around as well.

Seeing that Harriet and I did not really understand what was going on, Vertus offered further explanation.

“Rother Dwin is the prime suspect because he’s the only one without a record of clocking out that day. And although we strongly believe he committed the crime, no one saw him leave the Magic Department building, nor is there any record of it. Naturally, there’s no record of him leaving the imperial palace either.”

“... What?”

“Therefore, Rother Dwin might still be somewhere in the imperial palace, or he might even be hiding somewhere in this Magic Department building.”

At those words, Harriet and I both grew tense.

“He couldn’t have used a crude disguise or an invisibility spell. We’ve got countermeasures against those things. The problem is, we don’t know if Rother Dwin is still in the imperial palace or, if he escaped, how he managed to do so.”

This incident could be far more dangerous than Harriet and I had initially thought.

Vertus saw our anxious expressions and laughed, trying to reassure us that there was nothing to worry about. “Why are you so scared? If the Magic Department wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t have come here myself, right?”

He paused, then continued, “Well, if there really is someone within the Magic Department’s research archive room who can kill three people and escape without being caught, I guess my life is always at risk no matter where I am.”

“Hey, if you’re going to reassure us, just reassure us. Why are you going back and forth?”

“I’m just saying that nothing is certain yet.”

“What are you trying to say, exactly?”

“Just that.”

We were having a normal conversation, like we would at the Temple.

It was only then that I noticed the attendants around us looking at me as if I were some kind of monster.

‘Oh, right. He’s a prince...’

The fact that I had spoken so casually and Vertus had responded so nonchalantly seemed at complete odds with their own personal reality.

Indeed... Even taking into account that I was Alse’s champion, what they were witnessing was basically a friendship between the top one percent and the bottom one percent of society.

In any case, we soon arrived at the scene of the incident.

There were numerous reading rooms lined up within the Magic Department’s research archive, and as we opened the door to reading room 8, we could see the scene.

“Ugh!”

Harriet immediately covered her mouth upon seeing the scene.

Vertus frowned and let out a short sigh. “Wow... I’d heard about it, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad...”

We had braced ourselves for the presence of corpses, but...

“What... is this?”

We could never have imagined that the bodies would be in such a state. Their eyes had been gouged out, their fingers and toes were mutilated, and their entrails were spilling gruesomely out of their torsos.

“As reported earlier, all three victims were tortured for an extended period before being killed,” said the attendant briefly, explaining to us what had transpired.

***

That was another piece of information, although I wasn’t sure if it could really be considered a clue yet. Rother Dwin hadn’t simply killed the night-duty workers; he had tortured all three of them before killing them.

Why had he tortured them?

Harriet couldn’t bear to look at the horrific and gruesome scene any longer, turning her gaze away and covering her mouth.

Even though I had developed some tolerance towards such sights, the gruesome state of the corpses still made me feel nauseous.

“The night-duty workers responsible for analyzing the magic books were all high-ranking mages from the mage corps, possessing top-tier battlemage-level combat capabilities. They were all veterans of the Great War, and accustomed to battle.”

“And these individuals were all killed by a mere office worker?”

“... Yes.”

Different mages specialized in different fields.

Even if battlemages were generally looked down upon, being part of the imperial mage corps and having experience in the Great War meant that they were among the top ranks in the world of mages.

Meanwhile, even though the suspect, Rother Dwin, might have been highly skilled, he ultimately held a position unrelated to combat.

“It must mean he was hiding his abilities. It seems impossible otherwise.”

The clear conclusion was that the victims weren’t incompetent, but that Rother Dwin was never an ordinary mage from the start.

I couldn’t help but lean more towards the suspicion that he was a spy planted by Cantus Magna within the orbit of the imperial family.

“We now suspect that Rother Dwin had considerable knowledge of dark magic. We confirmed a significant distribution of dark mana in the air, as well as on the bodies. Of course, it has been purified now.”

“Dark magic?”

“Yes, it is speculated that he used a dark Regenerate-type spell, which has effects similar to healing.”

At the mention of healing, Vertus tilted his head. “Healing... Oh, could it be that...”

Vertus looked at the bodies of the mages who had been brutally killed.

“It seems he tortured them to the brink of death, forced their bodies to regenerate, and then tortured them again,” he remarked.

Harriet’s lips turned pale, and she trembled. “That’s insane...”

“In dark magic, regeneration spells provide powerful regenerative effects, but cause the recipient to experience immense pain. You can think of it as exchanging pain for healing.”

“So it’s more of a spell for torture than healing.”

“Yes. It is known to have been created for such purposes.”

I thought only those clergy bastards used torture like that, but these dark mages used the healing process itself to inflict even greater pain.

Just hearing about it sent chills down my spine.

Harriet was trembling at the thought that the deceased had been tortured, forcefully healed, and tortured again, and then were ultimately killed while suffering excruciating pain.

There was an emotion in Harriet’s eyes.

Anger... Harriet was beyond sadness and fear; she was furious at Rother Dwin for committing such acts.

“If the magic books were the goal, he would have just killed them. What was he trying to find out by torturing them...?”

“I... I know...”

Harriet answered Vertus’s question.

The last person Rother Dwin had spoken to before committing the crime was undoubtedly Harriet. He had disappeared, and Harriet had been bewildered as she explained what had happened to the investigators.

“He wanted to know where the stolen magical tomes had come from. That’s what he was trying to find out...”

After witnessing this scene of torture, though, Harriet seemed to have a clearer understanding of what Rother Dwin truly wanted.

***

Ellen and Charlotte walked through the Aligar shopping district and soon arrived at their intended destination.

“This is it. If my memory serves me right.”

It was the shabby scroll shop through which she had been able to reach the boy who had saved her.

Although she had contacted him through Reinhart, Charlotte was also the one who had cut off communication with him.

“It seems like no one’s here.”

“Yeah, probably not.”

The door to the scroll shop, which didn’t even have a proper sign, was closed, suggesting that it hadn’t been in business for quite some time.

As the Demon King began to make his presence known, the owner of the scroll shop had disappeared without a trace.

Clunk, clunk.

Ellen approached the door and pulled on the handle, but unsurprisingly, the door was firmly locked.

“Even if we make it inside, we probably won’t find anything different...” Charlotte muttered helplessly.

“True.”

Previously, Charlotte had forced her way in. However, even if they went inside now, it would be difficult to discover traces of someone who had deliberately vanished.

Charlotte knew that she wouldn’t be able to obtain any significant information from the only lead she had, but thinking about it and actually coming to terms with it were different matters.

It was too late.

If she had gone to the Demon King’s Castle a little earlier... If she had learned the truth a little sooner... If she had been more resolute and interrogated the scroll shop owner...

If any of those things had happened, the world wouldn’t have needed heroes, and Ellen and Reinhart wouldn’t have had to be in such danger.

Ironically enough, though, the existence of the Demon King was what was keeping Charlotte alive.

The Demon King’s existence made people feel the need for heroes, and as a result, Reinhart and Ellen could ensure Charlotte’s safety by supporting her.

If it weren’t such a bleak and uncertain time, the world would have been indifferent to the masters of the holy relics. These heroes would not hold any significant position, and Charlotte wouldn’t have been able to count on their protection for her survival.

In the end, the Demon King was still acting as a driving force that kept Charlotte’s life intact.

Ellen tilted her head and considered the firmly closed shop door.

“Should we break in, just in case?” Ellen said casually, without bothering to consider the building owner’s opinion.

Of course, she could always pay for the repairs later.

“Yeah, well, since we’re here, there’s no reason not to check...”

Just as Ellen and Charlotte were discussing breaking into the empty shop without a shred of guilt, someone spoke to them from behind.

“Hey, young ladies, that place closed down a long time ago.”

Charlotte turned her head and saw a middle-aged man with a bushy beard wearing an apron.

It was no surprise that there wouldn’t be anything inside an empty shop. However, it wasn’t over yet, and there was no reason to give up.

‘Yes... He’s right,’

Charlotte thought.

“Were you acquainted with the owner of this shop?” she asked.

“Hm? Well, it’s next door to mine, so I saw the owner occasionally,” the man replied.

There was one last resort. She could question people.

“Could we talk for a moment?”

Charlotte was grasping at straws, and she had just found the next straw to grasp.