Chapter 1075: 62. Not a Single Suspicious Point
“So you’re saying something major really has happened in Belrand right now?”
Within a sacrificial ground built from enormous crimson stones, Anna’s black gown swayed elegantly as she walked through a lake of blood littered with corpses.
Countless mangled limbs and distorted chunks of flesh had been casually discarded across the area, piling into horrifying mountains of bodies. Anna passed calmly through them, and not even the foul blood beneath her feet managed to stain the soles of her shoes.
At the far end of the sacrificial site, several Evil God cultists in black robes knelt trembling on the ground. They watched Anna approach step by step with despair in their eyes. They wanted to run.
But there was nowhere left to run.
Because darkness had already surrounded them.
“Yes. Judging by the scale of the commotion, it definitely qualifies as something major.”
A small round mirror floated in Anna’s hand, displaying Jinze’s figure on the other side. This was not a Voice Stone. At such distances, ordinary Voice Stones were useless. This was a special communication method that could only be activated within the Silent Bureau when transmitting important intelligence, and even required support from Anna’s Authority.
Clearly, as far as Anna was concerned, the situation in Belrand had already reached the level of “extremely important.”
“Explain.”
“First of all... cough.”
Jinze cleared his throat, expression strange.
“Muen Campbell was recently subjected to extremely severe impeachment and accusations. It has now been confirmed that he’s been arrested.”
“Impeachment? Accusations? Arrested?”
Anna raised a brow slightly.
“Wasn’t he still in Saint Blancfazesiya not long ago?”
“According to reports, certain people used special methods to lure him back so he could be interrogated and punished.”
Jinze rapidly flipped through the intelligence reports gathered during this period.
“According to eyewitnesses at the scene, Muen Campbell himself was completely bewildered. He even tried resisting, but the people sent to arrest him were fully prepared, and his resistance failed.”
“Interesting. Someone actually managed to accuse the Empress’s fiancé in a place like Belrand... and even arrest him by force?”
Anna’s eyes flickered faintly as though she were considering something.
Buzz!
One of the cultists finally broke under the pressure of approaching death. With a sudden roar, he sprang up and lashed out violently, his sleeves whipping through the air as several vividly colored venomous snakes surged toward Anna together with terrifying Pollution.
Then the entire space abruptly darkened.
Like someone switching the lights off and on inside a cramped room.
When the brief darkness passed, the cultist stared blankly around him.
His snakes were gone.
The Pollution he released was gone.
Even... his hands were gone.
“N-No... please...”
Terror instantly exploded across the cultist’s face. The courage he had just gathered shattered completely as he turned to flee—
But he could not flee.
Because his legs had vanished as well.
Now reduced to nothing but a limbless torso, he collapsed into the blood pool. Blood flooded over his mouth and nose, choking his throat. The stench of rot mixed with metallic sweetness assaulted his senses, yet he no longer had the spare attention to care.
Because he could clearly feel it.
The shadows were devouring him.
Crunch. Crunch.
His flesh, his bones, his organs...
Some twisted monster was slowly tearing into him, biting him apart, chewing carefully, savoring him like a delicacy.
“Who was it?”
Anna asked calmly.
“Someone capable of accusing the son of a Duke and directly arresting him by force shouldn’t be a nobody.”
“Y-Yes, exactly. Definitely not a nobody.”
Listening to that horrifying chewing sound through the mirror, Jinze continuously wiped cold sweat from his forehead. He could clearly feel that the young Swordbearer before him—someone who slaughtered cultists as casually as chickens—
Was angry.
If he didn’t already know the person who imprisoned Muen Campbell was no ordinary figure, he would already be mourning for them.
“Phyllis Rossetti.”
Jinze hurriedly began explaining.
“She’s the eldest daughter of the Rossetti family, one of the Empire’s famous rising noble houses over the past several decades. However, she herself isn’t the current Count Rossetti. The title was inherited by her younger brother instead. Not because of gender discrimination, but because she’s remained unmarried to this day and couldn’t continue the family bloodline. The previous Count stripped her of her inheritance rights personally. It’s even said he nearly expelled her from the Rossetti family in rage.”
“As for her other identity, I believe Lady Anna knows it better than I do. She’s the current Commander of the Royal Mage Corps, and a genuine Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer.”
“I know her.”
Anna thought briefly.
“During the Inner Council rebellion in Belrand, she secretly contributed quite a lot. You could say that icy woman becoming Empress owed a fair amount to her as well.”
“Exactly. Between her strength, status, and accomplishments, even though she isn’t technically the current head of House Rossetti, her influence over Imperial politics long surpassed that of a mere Count’s family.”
Jinze continued:
“If she personally made a move, then from both a power standpoint and every other angle, Young Master Muen truly had no chance of escaping.”
“But why would she do this?”
Anna’s voice grew colder.
“Has being Commander become too comfortable for her, so she decided to create trouble for herself?”
“Well... according to our intelligence, this probably has something to do with old romantic grudges from the previous generation.”
Jinze’s expression turned strange again.
Even though the information he obtained only concerned old events, the implications hidden inside those records were so dramatic that even an honest, straightforward man like him had found himself reading them with great interest.
“Speak.”
“According to our information, when Commander Phyllis was younger, she and Young Master Muen’s father—His Excellency Lorne Campbell, the current Lion King—were classmates at Saint Maria Academy. Their families were both rising noble houses of the Empire, so the two families were extremely close. The two of them had known each other since childhood. Calling them childhood sweethearts wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all.”
“You mean...”
Anna’s surprised movement paused slightly, and even the coldness in her voice unknowingly lessened.
“That’s right. Although they were childhood sweethearts and grew up together, the one who ultimately ended up beside Lord Lion King wasn’t Miss Phyllis... but Young Master Muen’s current mother.”
“So in simpler terms, someone stole the man she loved?”
“You could say that. And according to some unofficial rumors... she lost rather badly.”
Jinze carefully chose his wording.
But in reality, “rather badly” barely described it.
Childhood sweethearts.
Perfect compatibility.
Matching status.
A handsome man and a beautiful woman.
Virtually everyone believed she would eventually become the woman standing beside Lorne Campbell.
Including Phyllis herself.
Yet that final step...
Became an insurmountable chasm she could never cross.
“That really is tragic.”
Anna suddenly felt a trace of sympathy for the Commander.
After all, as someone currently fighting over a certain person herself, she could deeply empathize with the fate of the loser.
Which was precisely why she intended to avoid becoming that loser.
Sharing occasionally?
Fine.
But if anyone tried monopolizing him—
Absolutely not.
That was also why she remained so wary of a certain Empress. The identity of “fiancée” was simply too troublesome.
“So this is just a pure farce born from personal resentment? Commander Phyllis remained obsessed with what happened in her youth, ended up resenting Muen as well, and finally seized an opportunity to attack him? Using impeachment and criminal accusations to settle old scores?”
“Based on our current intelligence analysis, yes, that appears to be the case,” Jinze answered.
“Could this all be an act put on for our benefit?”
“That... probably not? According to our information, Commander Phyllis has been viciously attacking House Campbell nonstop and publicly listing all kinds of accusations against Muen Campbell. And Young Master Muen apparently underwent extremely severe interrogation. He even confessed quite a lot of things.”
“Oh?”
Anna narrowed her beautiful eyes.
“What did he confess?”
“Well...”
“Speak.”
“It’s actually nothing important.”
Jinze laughed awkwardly and hesitated before continuing:
“He just confessed about burying over ten thousand pornographic magazines underground. Now the entirety of Belrand is in chaos over it. Nobody even cares what crimes he supposedly committed anymore. Everyone’s busy searching for the hidden stash personally buried by Muen Campbell.
“Some people have even started calling this whole thing... the Great Pornographic Age? They’re saying Muen Campbell single-handedly advanced human civilization and freedom by a massive step...”
“......”
Anna fell silent.
Her gaze merely turned strange and distant.
Only after staring long enough to make Jinze’s scalp go numb did she finally speak again.
“You’re certain this is real?”
Even knowing that man’s lustful nature, ten thousand pornographic magazines was still absurd beyond belief.
It was difficult not to suspect something.
“Well... it’s probably real.”
“Probably?”
“Cough...”
Jinze rubbed his nose.
“In order to verify the information... purely for verification purposes, of course... I also tried searching myself.”
“And?”
“And...”
“Mm?”
“I actually dug up a few.”
Jinze admitted helplessly.
“Show me.”
“W-What?”
“The magazines you dug up. Show them to me.”
“That... doesn’t seem appropriate.”
Jinze’s old face reddened. Showing such shameless material to his direct superior was honestly...
Especially for a pure and innocent virgin like himself...
“I heard you have feelings for the Third Division chief, Miss Nayaska...”
“I’ll show you! I’ll show you! Boss, please don’t spread that around!”
Jinze had no idea how news of his secret crush on Miss Nayaska had leaked out. He was so terrified he nearly knelt on the spot as he hurriedly presented the few pornographic magazines he had excavated.
Through the little mirror, Anna carefully examined the magazines, whose explicitness could hardly be described as mild. She even had Jinze open them so she could inspect the contents inside.
“Large breasts... long legs... black stockings... especially the black stockings. Those really do seem like the sort of things he’d enjoy.”
After examining several magazines, Anna sank into thought.
If someone had deliberately fabricated all of this as a smokescreen to conceal the truth...
Then it was absurd to an almost incomprehensible degree.
What kind of lunatic would specifically create a scheme involving ten thousand pornographic magazines?
So treating it as genuine reality actually seemed far more believable.
—Commander Phyllis, who remained obsessed with the past until it eventually transformed into hatred over the long years.
—Muen, innocently dragged into the grudges and romance of the previous generation.
—And the so-called pornographic magazine incident, likely something Muen himself deliberately threw out to divert attention.
Each matter appeared chaotic and disconnected, yet all of them linked together naturally.
And precisely because everything was so chaotic, absurd, unreasonable, and ridiculous—
It felt real.
The world itself was one enormous improvised circus troupe.
If everything aligned too perfectly with logic, she would immediately suspect someone was orchestrating a far deeper conspiracy behind the scenes.
But the sheer number of “accidents” here instead made her feel that all those theories about conspiracies...
Might truly be nothing more than her own imagination.