Chapter 46: The Last Smile

Inside the study of Viscount Klein's residence in the Nobility District. Viscount Klein was strapped to his high-backed chair, his neatly combed black hair in disarray, his deep green eyes fixed firmly on the man wearing a comical clown mask before him. The Clown, who knew the mage called "Sage" very well, had used his fifth-level strength to overpower Viscount Klein with ease in a surprise attack. "So you're the Clown Her Highness spoke of? Truly mad—you dare assault me!" Viscount Klein, Altor's municipal magistrate, shouted in a mixture of fury and alarm. The Clown threw back his head and laughed. "My lord Viscount, don't tell me the magic you just used was triggered by an item. What fault is there in my arresting an evil mage according to the provisions of the Holy Codex? Or would you prefer I address you as Mister Sage?" The feigned anger on Viscount Klein's face crumbled. "How could you—" He caught himself midway, suddenly wary that the Clown might be bluffing him. "We've had your situation under our eyes for a long time, my lord Viscount, but we never moved to arrest you. The main reason was to see whether you would repent—after all, you are a noble of exalted standing. Unfortunately, you didn't. But you have one last chance: tell me the Professor's whereabouts, and you can keep your noble title and your position as magistrate. You would only need to join the Night Watch in secret." The Clown glanced out the window, worried that the "real" Night Watch agents might arrive at any moment. Viscount Klein understood at once, then let out a cold laugh. "So this is about capturing the Professor. Having dealings with someone on the Purification List is indeed dangerous. But I don't trust you—you've been expelled from the Night Watch. You're a dangerous fugitive. I'll wait for the real Night Watch agents to come." His response was exactly as the Clown had expected: no bottom line when it came to keeping secrets, no real resolve—just like most nobles, arrogant yet slippery, willing to collaborate with devils if the price was right! So once he knew his identity had been exposed and he was caught, he would read the situation far more carefully than other mages would. And this obvious mockery was simply his way of bargaining for better terms! The Clown pressed his exaggerated smiling face close to Viscount Klein and tutted: "Decent thinking, but you've run into me, and I'm in a hurry. I'm afraid of delays putting the Professor on his guard, so you'll have to forgive me, my lord Viscount Klein." Just as Klein's expression twisted in alarm, the Clown's ten fingers began to dance, making Klein's muscles twitch in response. His eyes, his mouth—opening and closing under the Clown's control. Gradually, "Sage" Klein's gaze grew dull and glazed, as though not merely his body but his mind and soul had been seized. Unlike other Night Watch agents of the knightly class, the Clown could extract genuine intelligence without even resorting to Divine Arts. "What is your codename? Are you an official mage? What school?" The Clown started with simple questions to calibrate the effect. Klein's eyes cleared from their haze, looking no different from before. But to everyone's surprise, he smiled and replied: "Reporting to the Clown, sir—I am an official mage. My codename is Sage. I specialize in the School of Divination. Unable to activate my bloodline power and lacking any potion formulae, and with my status at the time insufficient to receive the Duke's bestowal, I found some books my ancestors had secretly collected after killing a mage and began studying them, attempting to reconstruct the potion formula for activating bloodline power. That was when I discovered my aptitude for the Divination school, and I sank ever deeper." Having confirmed the effect, the Clown didn't bother asking further questions about Klein's personal matters. He cut straight to the point: "How did you encounter the Professor this time? And how do you contact him?" "Reporting to the Clown, sir—the Professor came to me after I returned from the night of the concert. He used the fourth-circle Arcane Magic 'Mirror Projection' to speak with me at a distance, requesting that I attend the next gathering of the magic circle so I could relay the news about the Magic Parliament headquarters to them." Klein answered without concealment. "After I agreed, we met once in person—at a vacant villa with a garden at 116 Gisu District. The contact signal was… but I don't know his actual hiding place. The meeting location was chosen by him in advance." "As expected of the cautious, cunning Professor—could I use the contact signal to set a trap? But a fellow like him who delights in schemes would see through that easily." The Clown muttered to himself, not believing his own intellect could rival the Professor's. Suddenly, a thought struck him: "116 Gisu District? Isn't that where Lucian Evans used to live? It's in an isolated location, still unrented, with only an old servant watching over it—perfect for hiding! Given the Professor's secret connection to Lucian Evans, he could very well be hiding there!" The Clown felt his blood boil, trembling with excitement—he had very likely discovered the Professor's hideout. If he hadn't thoroughly investigated every last detail about Lucian Evans, no one would have made the connection. But burned too many times by the Professor's schemes, he forced himself to stay calm and analyze whether it could be a trap or a ploy: "Lucian Evans is recuperating at his villa in the Nobility District. Natasha reportedly hasn't left Ratasha Palace today, handling affairs of the Duchy. If they suddenly appeared at 116 Gisu District, anyone with eyes would see it as a scheme aimed at me and the Night Watch. After all, I never infiltrated Lucian Evans's home, and they have no reason to be there in the middle of the night." "Luring me into a confrontation with some other powerful fighter? Impossible—this is inside Altor, not the Melzer Black Forest. If a battle at my level broke out, it would immediately alert the high-ranking powerhouses, and Juliana would arrive afterward with a Night Watch squad and the Tribunal's lead investigator." …… The Clown knew the ideal course of action was to wait for Juliana and the others. But the fire in his heart blazed fiercely—the bitterness of being framed, of being sentenced to execution; the rage at watching his comrades die. All of it drove him to want to capture the Professor with his own hands. And he had a measure of confidence in his own strength. He had actually dealt with the Professor before; he had firsthand intelligence, not just a judgment based on the Professor's position on the Purification List. After careful analysis, and seeing that Juliana and the others still hadn't arrived—worried that his treatment of Viscount Klein might alert the Professor—the Clown quickly made up his mind: "I'll go there first and scout carefully, advancing step by step with caution." He would check whether any concealed Magic Circles had been laid as ambushes. If he spotted the Professor, he would pin him down, trigger Altor's Divine Arts grand formation, and draw the attention of the high-ranking powerhouses. If he found nothing, or if the villa seemed too suspicious, he would hide and hand the matter over to the main Night Watch force. After using his puppet ability to seal Viscount Klein's mental energy, the Clown took pen and paper from the desk and wrote down everything he had learned. This was to prevent the arriving Night Watch agents from wasting time questioning Klein—later, they could simply confirm what he had written by checking Klein's lips. With everything done, the Clown left the Nobility District and hurried to 116 Gisu District. The entire garden villa was shrouded in dark shadows, like a lurking monster that made one's heart tremble. The Clown carefully and cautiously inspected the perimeter of the villa, finding no traces of any Magic Circle. Gradually emboldened, he slipped inside, trailing afterimages—but he never stopped checking his surroundings along the way. He would rather move slowly than stumble into the Professor's trap. The villa was empty and deserted. After putting the old servant who watched over it into a deep sleep, the Clown hid in the darkness and methodically searched room by room, looking for any clue. The basement and the first floor were cleared quickly. Even more cautious now, the Clown ascended to the second floor. …… At Viscount Klein's residence. Waldo, the acting lead investigator of the Vaoritt Tribunal, led a small squad of Night Watch agents to the second floor without making a sound. They were trying to locate and secure Viscount Klein. They hadn't gone in through the front door with a formal arrest warrant, fearing that the nobles in the surrounding villas would notice and word would leak, letting the Professor escape. The moment he stepped onto the second floor, Waldo—whose massive brown beard nearly covered his entire face—suddenly twitched his nostrils. His voice turned grave: "I smell blood. I sense the aura of death." "What? Lord Waldo—is something wrong with Viscount Klein, or did he kill the witness and flee?" Juliana feared that the Clown had been unable to control the madness lurking in his dark bloodline. Waldo was a tall man. In two or three strides he reached the study door and said sternly: "There's only one dead body. And the blood belongs to the Millstone family." The Millstone family was the house to which Viscount Klein belonged. As he spoke, he pushed open the door, and the thick stench of blood struck them in the face. Juliana and the others peered cautiously into the room, and every one of them frowned. Even Night Watch agents long accustomed to killing and death felt an instinctive revulsion at the slaughterhouse-like scene of dismemberment. The room was a carnage of blood and flesh—tiny scraps of meat and droplets of blood scattered everywhere. Not a single intact bone or piece of skin could be found. The scene was bloody, brutal, and eerily nauseating. "This kind of killing… looks awfully familiar…" One of the Night Watch agents muttered. Most of them immediately recalled it. The people torn apart by the Clown's puppet strings had generally ended up looking exactly like this. "Impossible. The Captain wouldn't have killed Viscount Klein." Juliana whispered, her face pale. Waldo ignored the filth and blood filling the room. He crossed to the desk in a single step, picked up the sheet of paper held down by an ink bottle, read it carefully, then raised his voice and said solemnly: "The Clown left this. He confirmed that Viscount Klein is Sage and theorizes that the Professor is hiding at 116 Gisu District. This is his handwriting and the Night Watch's internal cipher—no one could forge it." Even Juliana, who trusted the Clown the most, couldn't help drawing a sharp breath. She was beginning to believe that after extracting the Professor's location, the Clown's blood had boiled with excitement and he had executed the evil mage on the spot. If Sage's identity turned out to be someone other than Viscount Klein, the Night Watch wouldn't have found it strange or troubling at all. "The fact that Viscount Klein is a mage—the Tribunal has solid evidence internally. If he resisted arrest and was killed, that's within protocol. We should hurry to 116 Gisu District. The Professor may be setting some kind of trap." Waldo, the most sympathetic of the Tribunal's three lead investigators toward the Clown, quietly swept the matter aside. "Yes, Lord Waldo!" the other Night Watch agents answered in unison. An evil mage was killed—so be it. …… The Clown kept watch for traps and the Professor's appearance while carefully examining the traces in the second-floor rooms. But it was clearly a place that no one had visited in a long time and that had been left uncleaned. Room after room—just as the Clown was about to lose hope, he suddenly sensed a presence inside the study ahead! His Great Knight awareness made it unmistakably clear: a man was standing by the French windows, seemingly savoring the cool night breeze. "The Professor?!" The Clown was startled. He hadn't expected to find the Professor so easily and so simply! And the Professor hadn't noticed him before? Despite his many doubts, when facing a powerful evil mid-tier mage, the Clown dared not be careless. He immediately shot out his puppet strings while dodging to the side, accelerating to avoid being locked on. With his full fifth-level Great Knight strength unleashed, the study door shattered in an instant. Trailing afterimages, the Clown froze—standing by the window was Lucian Evans! The young man's body was bound in contorted ropes, standing rigidly. A stiff, eerie smile floated across his handsome face. Then, under the workings of some unknown force, he toppled sideways and backward, falling toward the floor below like a swan struck by an arrow. The black formal coat crinkled with folds from the ropes, the stiff and ghastly smile, the scene of him arching backward as if frozen in time—together they formed a canvas of unsettling beauty, seared permanently into the Clown's mind. The Professor had killed Lucian Evans—just to frame him? It was a possibility the Clown could never have guessed. In midair, Lucian Evans bloomed like a flower—blood and flesh scattering in every direction.