Volume 1: Raging Waves City Chapter 208: Silencing
While Yin and Qingkong were discussing the history of ancient civilization, Luke was wandering around the Oulu College. He randomly asked people about the recent situation of the college and revealed his identity without any scruples.
No matter whether the other party is a student or a faculty member of the college.
Soon the entire Oulu College knew that the star figure of Raging Waves City, Chief Inspector Meteorite, had arrived.
He seemed to be investigating some case.
In it, Luke "ran into" Francis and asked a few questions about his personal whereabouts the previous night.
Luke noticed the panic shown by Francis, so he felt that Francis would definitely do something at night.
Luke put on a nightgown specially made by the Imperial Secret Service. It looks like a dark windbreaker. In a dimly lit environment, it will automatically change the color tone to a certain extent, allowing people to blend into the environment. At the same time, the nightgown can also offset some of the detection of perception and magic, and is a very valuable alchemical item.
Knowing that Yin was going with him, Luke took out another nightgown and gave it to her, as well as a top hat made of the same material.
Putting on their hats and pulling down their brims, the two of them left the dormitory and entered the wild campus together.
Due to yesterday's incident, the academy once again strengthened its nighttime defenses. Abyss leopards patrolled cross-country, and battle mages hid in the dark to monitor every move within the campus.
But the Oulu Academy was really too big, and no matter how tight the defense was, there would always be loopholes. Luke knew the terrain of the academy very well, and with the help of the nightgown, they soon arrived outside Francis' residence.
This is a staff apartment building for the college. It has two floors and four units with independent courtyards. It is about 30 meters away from other staff apartments. Francis lives alone in the east unit on the second floor. Through the window, he can be seen walking back and forth in the room, looking very anxious.
Luke and Yin stood on the branch of a nearby tree, hiding their figures behind the dense branches and leaves.
Yin pulled out a handful of candy from somewhere: "These are the mints I made."
Luke put the candy in his pocket, took out one, peeled off the candy wrapper and put it in his mouth. It was sweet and refreshing: "It tastes great..."
"If you like, I'll make more for you. Eat one whenever you want to smoke in the future. It's good for your health."
Luke couldn't help but look at Yin.
She stood on the branch, slender and graceful, with her hair tied up and tucked into her hat, showing her long and fair neck. The moonlight shone through the gaps in the leaves on her body, revealing her breathtaking beauty.
When his eyes met Yin's eager gaze, Luke immediately withdrew his somewhat disturbed mind.
"Okay, I'll ask you for it after we finish eating..."
The two of them didn't speak again. The atmosphere was a little awkward and ambiguous.
Fortunately, Francis didn't let the two wait too long. He took out his pocket watch to check the time, then turned off the lights in the room, and then hid behind the window to carefully observe the situation outside.
After he thought that there was no one outside monitoring him, he opened the window and floated out. He used the levitation technique to land on the ground, and finally walked quickly in one direction.
Luke took out a wooden box as big as a medicine bottle, opened the lid and a beetle flew out. As Luke chanted a spell, the beetle flapped its wings and flew in the direction Francis left.
"This is a tracking scarab tamed by the Secret Service. I have given it a magic mark, and it will follow Francis. Let's not chase too closely, or we will be discovered by the other side."
The secret pursuit made Yin feel very excited and thrilled, and the fact that Francis left the apartment so secretly showed that there was definitely something wrong with him.
"Just now I told Miss Qingkong that you would find out the truth very quickly, but I didn't expect that I still underestimated you. It only took you half a day to find the criminal. Tomorrow we can show the truth to everyone."
Luke was not as optimistic as Yin: "Let's see what Francis is going to do first. Remember, you must not disturb him without my order."
"Yes, Chief Inspector." Yin saluted Luke like an Imperial spy.
Luke smiled helplessly: "Let's go, Francis won't find us at this distance."
Luke jumped down from the tree, chanted a spell to receive feedback from the tracking scarab, and followed the sound all the way.
Francis obviously had not received any professional thief training. Although he frequently looked back to see if anyone was following him, he found nothing. Just like that... he led Luke and Yin out of Oulu College and into the forest outside the college.
After walking for about half an hour, we arrived at a wooden house in the woods.
This kind of wooden house in the forest is a temporary camp for the college's forest rangers and is uninhabited most of the time.
Francis did not enter the cabin. He walked to the back of the cabin, where there was a grill and a man in black stood next to the grill.
Francis immediately walked over angrily when he saw the man in black: "You promised me that no one would get hurt. But... more than a dozen students almost died last night."
"What happened?" The man in black was very confused: "We didn't do anything?"
"You didn't do anything?" Francis was furious when he saw that the other party dared to shirk responsibility. He wanted to yell but he held back and lowered his voice and said, "Why do Marcus and the others know about the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden? Why are there black spirits under the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden?
I don't even dare to go deep into that damn place. You actually lured students in, which is equivalent to letting them all die in there.
If you want to drive Qingkong away, there is no need to kill anyone!
You will kill me!"
The man in black waited until Francis calmed down a little before saying, “Mr. Francis, I swear we didn’t do anything you said.
Mr. Speaker does not have the courage to kill students from Oulu College.
Is there some misunderstanding? Those students just happened to find the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden..."
Francisco's eyes were already red with anger. He stared at the man in black, trying to judge from his expression whether he was lying or not.
But he saw nothing.
"I don't care. I want to quit! I will return all the money you gave me. Meteorite from the Secret Service is investigating the Magic Botanical Garden Ruins incident. He will definitely find me, and he will definitely..."
Francis became more and more frightened as he spoke, so he took out his magic wand and randomly cast spells into the woods to vent his tension.
In comparison, the man in black is much calmer.
"The meteorite is at Oulu College!" Seeing that Francis was in an unstable mood, the man in black took out his magic wand and cast a mental calming spell on him: "Mr. Francis, what you need most now is to calm down. I once told you that you can quit at any time, and we will never involve you.
but……
According to the situation you described, you can't quit just because we ask you to.
Tell me what happened and we will solve it together. The Speaker will not abandon any ally. "
Magic and the words of the man in black finally calmed Francis down.
He told the man in black what he knew about what happened yesterday at the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden.
"Fortunately, all the students were rescued by Lennon. The college committee suspected that it was Qingkong who did it. But the arrival of the meteorite has brought uncertain changes to the matter. Was the trap in the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden really not set by you?"
Facing Francis's question, the man in black answered firmly: "No...
During Lord Yomington's visit to Raging Waves City, he learned that Qingkong had the ambition to replace Wilred as the dean of Oulu College. Later, you confirmed that Wilred had the intention of passing the dean position to Qingkong.
Speaker Grover just doesn't want Oulu College to fall into the hands of the Innovation Society, and won't take the risk of pushing Oulu College into the arms of opponents ahead of time."
" Who could that be?"
"Whoever it is, he has taken advantage of us." The man in black's tone turned cold: "Francis... you've been exposed. He is very likely nearby..."
When Francisco heard the black-clad man's judgment, the hairs on his body stood up in shock. He grabbed the magic wand and looked around. The dense forest at night was extremely quiet.
"Who's there? Come out... I, I see you!"
Francis shouted into the darkness, trying to trick the person hiding inside out. But he felt a chill on his back, a blade protruded from his chest, and blood spurted forward along the blood trough.
Francis turned his head and saw the man in black standing behind him. It must have been him who stabbed him.
"Why?"
"To prevent you from being used any more. Francis, I'm sorry... If you die, we won't be implicated."
The man in black drew his knife, and Francis fell to the ground breathless.
The man in black then continuously cast detection spells at the surrounding dense forest, but there was no response at all.
It was not known whether Francis was being followed, but the man in black's professional intuition told him that there must be someone hiding nearby.
"Sir... I have to admit that you have caused us a big setback. If those students died in the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden, it would definitely cause the wrath of Oulu College, and the entire Raging Wave City would be caught in this earthquake.
I don't know what your real purpose is, but it seems that we have a common enemy... clear sky.
Are you interested in cooperating? Speaker Grover can offer you a price you can't refuse."
The forest was still quiet, and the man in black did not receive any response. He held a dagger in one hand and a magic wand in the other, keeping a high level of alert, with Francis' body at his feet.
After a while, a portal opened behind the man in black and closed as he retreated into it.
After a while, Luke came out from the woods and came to Francis' body. He squatted down and looked at the wound with a helpless smile on his face.
"Francis, you died unjustly. That guy just said that Speaker Grover would not abandon any of his allies, and then he turned around and stabbed you from behind. Straight through the heart, professional!"
Yin came to Luke with the golden sword in her hand. After seeing the body, she bowed her head and recited the eulogy of the Golden Man, and then said: "Why did you stop me just now? We can catch that person."
"Didn't you hear what that person said? Someone used Francis to set a trap at the ruins of the Magic Botanical Garden and followed Francis here."
Yin asked doubtfully, "Aren't we the ones following Francis?"
"Are you sure it's just us? If we take action to capture the man in black, the guy in hiding might attack us."
After hearing what Luke said, Yin immediately pointed his sword at the dark forest.
"We, what should we do now?"
Luke opened his lightning and fire eyes and scanned the surroundings, but there was nothing unusual in his vision.
He also couldn't be sure if there was a third party tracking Francis. After all, there were many ways to track him, and it didn't necessarily require him to do it in person.
"We can't separate now, and we can't leave." Luke walked to the grill, picked up a few dry firewood and threw it into the stove, then shot a ball of fire from his eyes and hit the firewood, and soon the fire started: "We have to protect the crime scene here to prevent the guy from returning and destroying it.
By daybreak, Oulu Battle Mage should be able to find this place."
"The two of us...are we going to stay here together until dawn?" Yin felt a little shy at the thought of being alone with Yunxing for a few hours at night.
"In this situation, the enemy is unknown, and we might be attacked if we separate. I can only let you sleep here..."
Luke could summon Qingkong to protect himself at any time, but a girl like Yin who had no vigilance was a very good target for attack. Luke sat down in front of the fire, and his Thunder Fire Eyes were always activated. He had a feeling that he was being watched.
Yin sat down next to Luke and said, "Don't think of me as a spoiled girl. When Pan and I were training, we often had to sleep outdoors. At that time, we also lit a fire and sat in front of it like this. Feeling the warmth of the fire, no matter how tired we were, we would just sleep and it would all be gone."
Yin's body was very soft, and her fragrance kept drilling into Luke's nose, and her voice was lazy.
When Luke didn't know what to say, Yin's head rested on his shoulder.
"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep first. You keep watch first, and I'll keep watch in the second half of the night."
The second half of the night vigil is the most difficult.
Luke couldn't help but sigh in his heart. She was a good girl, but unfortunately she was a shining gold man.
Luke, who was on guard, added some dry firewood into the stove, and the fire became brighter, illuminating Francis' body not far away.
The night passed very peacefully.
After dawn, the battle mages in the academy discovered smoke rising from the forest. The tense atmosphere made the battle mages immediately send people to check, and then they saw the bodies of Luke, Yin, and Francis.
A member of the college faculty has died...
Finally, something that everyone expected but no one wanted to happen happened.
Professor Lennon arrived at the scene soon. He first stood beside Francis' body to mourn, then walked up to Luke and said with a grim look on his face: "What happened? Why did Assistant Francis die here?
And... you promised Vice President Elvi that I would be the main investigator of this incident. You had to tell me any of your findings first, but obviously you didn't do that.
Chief Inspector, you are embarrassing me."
Luke yawned and popped a mint into his mouth.
"When solving a case, we must follow up immediately after finding clues. I didn't have the opportunity to report to you at that time. At this time, my professional ethics tell me that I should search Francis' apartment immediately.
Whatever you find is yours, no need to thank me."
