Chapter 260 : Chapter 260
Chapter 260. “Truth”
“Ha! So it really was you! I knew there had to be something juicy hidden in all this!”
Moros was so excited that even his beard was trembling. He practically wanted to throw back his head and laugh at the sky.
He had originally been worrying about how he was supposed to report back to the Royal Capital. If he returned empty-handed, the Minister of Finance’s faction would definitely roast him alive with their words. He might even end up saddled with the blame for “failing to carry out his duties,” ruining his reputation in his old age.
But now?
After this round of “investigation,” a ready-made “real culprit” had practically delivered himself to the door.
And the evidence was ironclad.
Whether the beast tide had been directly brought about by Gerard or not, as long as he was connected to that mass of black shadow, then he had no choice but to bear this monstrous blame for causing the disaster and bringing about the prince’s death.
“Traitor! Spy! Ambitious schemer! Anti-royalist!”
Moros hurled one enormous accusation after another at him as if they cost nothing, spraying Gerard’s face with spittle. At that moment, the great diviner stood with his back ramrod straight, as though he were the very incarnation of justice.
“You actually colluded with foreign enemies and sold out His Highness’s whereabouts! You are the one who caused the deaths of so many soldiers! Gerard, your name will be nailed to Astrelia’s pillar of shame!”
“No! It wasn’t me! It really wasn’t me!” Gerard came back to himself from his daze and realized what he had just exposed. His face was smeared with tears and snot as he shook his head frantically. “I was just greedy for money! I only sold a few defense maps for cash! I didn’t do anything else!”
“Noisy.”
From where he stood in the shadows, Logaris flicked his fingertip lightly.
An invisible wave of mana instantly sealed Gerard’s throat.
His shrill cries were cut off at once, leaving only the rasping wheeze of air in his throat, like a broken bellows.
It was unexpected, yet perfectly reasonable, that there really had been a traitor inside the fortress. After all, the Purple Mist had come far too conveniently.
But Gerard was not what concerned Logaris.
His gaze was fixed on the silver mirror that had been taken from Gerard’s robes.
When that voice had sounded in the memory vision just now, Logaris had sharply caught an extremely subtle layer of background noise—some of the syllables he seemed to instinctively understand after entering Demonization.
So it really is a demon...
The thought passed silently through Logaris’s mind.
“Take him away,” Logaris said flatly, making the decision with one stroke. “Whether he knew the full truth or not, bringing the wolf into the house is a fact. Keep him under strict guard. Do not let him die. Master Moros still needs to take him back to the Royal Capital to report.”
“Yes, yes, exactly! He is an important witness!” Moros nodded repeatedly and directed two Northern Territory soldiers to drag the wailing Gerard away.
Once the prisoner had been dealt with, Logaris and Moros located the silver mirror based on the intelligence they had gathered.
The instant Logaris’s fingers touched the mirror’s surface, a cold, slick sensation crawled up his skin, as though he had touched an icy venomous snake.
“This thing...” Moros came over as well, holding up his crystal ball and waving it around the mirror for quite a while, his brows knitted tightly. “Strange. My divination is completely ineffective against it. On the surface, this is just an ordinary mirror. There is no magical reaction at all.”
Logaris considered it inwardly.
Even someone of Moros’s level—a Sixth-Tier Archmage of Prophecy—could not see through its secrets.
In that case, Logaris himself would fare even worse. Although his attainments in the other schools ran deep, in a mysterious field like prophecy he could only be considered ordinary.
But if he did not figure out who the master behind this mirror was, and how far Hell’s infiltration into the mortal world had progressed, then this would remain a lurking danger.
Since he was not skilled in this area himself...
Logaris thought of the old senior still on standby inside the Tower of Inverted Truth.
Maggie.
As a madwoman who had once swindled Hell itself, and also a legendary mage who had cultivated prophecy magic to the point of future sight, no one was better suited to investigating the secret behind this thing.
He had to take it back and let Maggie have a look.
“Master Moros.” Logaris picked up the mirror and weighed it in his hand. “This thing is a little strange. Since even you cannot figure it out, why not leave it to me?”
“To you?” Moros froze for a moment.
“I am very interested in unknown alchemical objects of this sort.” Logaris lied smoothly without so much as a blink. “As it happens, I have recently been reading several rare volumes related to prophecy magic. Perhaps I can find out something. Besides, if you bring this unidentified ghostly thing back to the Royal Capital with you, and it still has some kind of self-destruction spellwork or curse lingering inside it, what if it suddenly erupts halfway there...”
He deliberately paused, his tone carrying a hint of layered meaning.
Moros was a smart man.
More importantly, he was a man who treasured his own life.
He had already captured Gerard alive. The credit was already his. To him, this broken mirror was more or less optional. Since Logaris wanted it, why not do him a favor and let him have it?
“Ahem. Since the professor is interested, then take it and study it.” Moros waved a magnanimous hand, though his body was much more honest and quietly retreated another step, putting more distance between himself and the mirror. “It is only a tool used in the crime anyway. Since we cannot detect any magical reaction from it, it is probably just some ordinary alchemical item. Be careful, Professor. Do not hurt yourself.”
“Many thanks.”
Logaris tucked the mirror away without the slightest politeness, his fingertips lightly stroking the edge of the frame.
The transaction was complete.
Everyone was satisfied.
...
One day later, in Silverglow City, the Royal Capital of Astrelia.
The atmosphere of the Privy Council was even graver than it had been a few days earlier, but this time, the direction of the wind had changed completely.
Standing in the center of the hall, Moros held himself straight and waved a thirty-page investigation report in his hand. His voice rang out as loudly as though he were singing an aria in a grand theater.
“...After rigorous divination and verification, I can guarantee in the name of the Chief Court Diviner that during the period of Prince Carlisle’s disappearance, Professor Logaris West remained in a state of intense scientific work the entire time. He had no opportunity to commit the crime, nor did he display any abnormal behavior!”
“And that is not all!”
Moros slapped the report heavily in his hand, his eyes gleaming with confidence.
“With Professor Logaris’s assistance, we successfully captured the true traitor! Major Gerard, head of the fortress communications office! In order to prevent his accomplices from silencing him, he has already been confined under strict guard in the death cells beneath the Royal Capital, where he is personally watched by the Royal Guard and may be brought up for questioning at any time!”
A stir went through the great hall, but Moros gave them no chance to whisper among themselves. He raised his voice and threw out the deduction he had prepared so carefully.
“My lords, just as you all inferred in the council several days ago, Prince Carlisle’s bizarre disappearance truly was the work of demons!”
Moros wore a solemn expression as he slapped the thick report down onto the table with a resounding thud.
“And during this trip to the front lines, we not only confirmed demonic involvement, we also found the ‘gate-opener’ hidden inside the fortress itself!”
He swept his gaze around the room and laid out the chain of evidence he had painstakingly assembled.
“When Gerard was captured, we seized a bizarre silver mirror used for communication. That mirror emitted no magical fluctuations whatsoever, yet it was capable of cross-spatial communication. Most importantly, that mirror, just like the prince’s disappearance site, completely blocked all forms of divination and prying! At present, this piece of evidence has been entrusted to Professor Logaris, who remains on the front lines conducting an in-depth analysis of it.”
“My lords, the answer is already obvious!”
Moros spread his arms and made his declaration in a loud voice.
“Gerard is the traitor who colluded with demons! It was he who sold out the fortress’s defenses and His Highness’s whereabouts, assisting the demons in murdering His Highness! And immediately afterward, at the very moment His Highness was killed and the fortress was left leaderless, the long-planned beast tide launched its precisely timed assault!”
“This is the whole truth!”