Wow!

The icy water splashed onto the man's face, instantly sobering him up as he stared with wide eyes.

"Huh! Huh!"

The man kept gasping for breath, trying to move his body, but found that he was in excruciating pain, with his limbs fixed to a frame.

Immobilized, that was his current state.

The masked person in front of him placed the water basin on the ground and leaned against the wall with arms crossed.

She was still in the same attire, her entire body wrapped in a cloak, only her emerald green eyes visible, which was rather terrifying.

He clearly remembered that his group of brothers were all taken down by her agile and dexterous skills.

"Awake? Awake, let's chat."

The man looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice.

This was a damp, dark basement, and soon, through the voice, he saw the woman sitting in a chair.

She was playing with her nails, and the table in front of her was filled with torture instruments that couldn't pass inspection.

Vaguely, he noticed that she was wearing a very uniquely styled glove on her hand, embedded with several gemstones, though he couldn't count how many.

"There's a saying that the wise are extraordinary."

"All these various torture instruments, I'm sure, can pry open your mouth, my lord."

The man's cold sweat instantly soaked his entire body, and he frantically moved his body, trying to escape the restraints through struggle, but to no avail.

He quickly shouted, "I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll say everything!"

Slap!

The masked person in front of him suddenly slapped him across the face.

"I haven't even asked you anything yet. What do you want to say?"

Leah played with the pliers in her hand, looking at him and laughing out loud.

This crisp slap made the hazy man much clearer, and at the same time, anger took over his rationality.

"Do you know what you're doing?!"

"Kidnapping! Using private justice! You! You'll be arrested!"

"So what? When you die like a stray dog on the side of the road, who will care who killed you?"

Leah stood up, her eyes cold, looking as if she had done this countless times before.

The man struggled frantically again.

"Damn it! Damn, it! How dare you do this, what right do you have?!"

Leah looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Because I'm rich."

The man, "..."

This one sentence directly silenced him.

"Just because you're rich? Being rich means you can..."

"My brother is Victor, he's a noble, a third-tier mage."

The man, "..."

He didn't speak again.

Leah picked up the iron tongs and tapped on the table, then continued, "Since you know you're messing with the Klevena family, you should already be prepared."

"Tell me, who ordered you to do this."

"The Duke, it was the Duke who ordered us to do this!"

He still did not change his previous statement, and to make Leah believe him, he actively provided an address.

"That's our base, you can go there, you can go there and find it!"

"The Duke gave us a huge sum of money to smash your shop today! I'm not lying, you have to believe me!"

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Seeing the man's desperate state, the masked person leaned in close to Leah and spoke in a low voice.

"He said the same thing before, could it be the Duke?"

Leah clicked her tongue, nonchalantly.

"A clumsy scapegoating tactic."

"If you hadn't insisted on it, I might still have had some suspicion towards the Duke, but you had to stubbornly insist on it, which reduces his suspicion."

The man was momentarily dumbfounded, and Leah immediately noticed this brief moment.

Seeing this, she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Her coquettish laughter gradually subsided, and she covered her belly, raising her sultry eyes and smiling sweetly.

"You believed me? I was tricking you."

"But judging from your reaction, it seems it wasn't the Duke. I said, how could a Duke use such a crude tactic."

The man opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something more, but Leah simply waved her hand.

"Alright, deal with him, Leon."

"Don't forget to remove his body organs, can still sell them for some money. Oh, and his accomplices, get rid of them all, not a single one left."

Leah patted the man's face and smiled like a devil.

The man's body trembled continuously, and he struggled desperately, wanting to say something.

But the next moment, Leah casually flipped her palm, and a bottle of potion appeared in her hand.

The azure liquid shimmered dazzlingly in the light.

"What a pity, even if I sell all your organs, your value still can't match a single item from my family's goods."

She smiled at him, the potion swaying back and forth in front of his eyes.

"Of course, this item worth a thousand Gios, in my eyes, is just as worthless as you."

"Worthless."

"Pah!"

The next moment, the bottle smashed against his face, 'bang' as it broke open.

He only felt a numb sensation as the liquid flowed down his face.

The red and blue concoctions intertwined, indistinguishable as to whether it was blood or medication.

"Lunatic... you're just a lunatic! Let me go, let me go!"

The man's voice trembled as he glared wide-eyed.

Tormented in both mind and body, his face was now completely unrecognizable.

Leah saw the expression on his face and couldn't help but laugh.

A beautiful smile, yet it permeated the heart like a demon.

In the man's blood-shot gaze, she yawned and turned away, saying indifferently,

"Resolve this quickly."

"Yes."

...

About a few hours later, Leon had taken care of everything.

She sneakily climbed in through the window into Victor's study, as Victor was not present. Leah sat at the desk, handling the recent accounts.

There was no one else in the house, so Leon pulled back her hood, revealing short, pale blonde hair and pointed elongated ears.

Just these inhuman ears were enough to prove her identity.

An elf.

"Miss, everything has been taken care of cleanly."

Without looking up, Leah smiled and said, "Thank you for your hard work."

"My pleasure, Miss Leah," Leon continued, "I collected quite a bit of money from those people, and also raided their base. They had recently received a sizable sum, around 5,000 Gios."

Leah took the moneybag Leon handed her, weighed it, and set it aside.

"That's quite a lot, so that person didn't lie."

Leon couldn't help but ask again, "Is it not the Duke's doing?"

Leah paused momentarily, then couldn't help but laugh, closing the ledger and looking at her with a smile.

"You believed that too?"

"What?"

She chuckled, "Even if the Duke's suspicion is reduced to the minimum, it doesn't mean he has been cleared of suspicion."

"We have only added another direction of suspicion, but the Duke's resentment towards us remains unchanged."

"Perhaps someone is obstructing us, deliberately stirring up the conflict between us, Klevena, and the Duke, with the bystander benefiting."

"Or perhaps the Duke simply dislikes us, after all, a capital city doesn't need two of the youngest third-tier mages."

Leon didn't understand the intricate calculations of the nobility, paused for a moment, and asked the question she most wanted to ask.

"Why didn't you continue to interrogate him?"

"He won't say anything, because he doesn't know who the instigator is."

Leah tapped the moneybag, the Gios inside jingling.

"Using money as a transaction is enough to show the other party is not an important member, so he can only stubbornly insist it was the Duke."

Leah continued, "Don't you think it's strange that the Duke's daughter came back to the East City district? And just happened to run into that group of shop smashers?"

"And finally had to pay a large sum to compensate us for the destroyed potions?"

Hearing her words, Leon furrowed her brow. She had heard that Erica had spent over 10,000 Gios just for the compensation, and still found it quite unbelievable.

Could a person be so benevolent?

"I don't trust her story," Leah said with a helpless shrug.

"I've lived with Victor for over a decade, I know what kind of person he is better than anyone."

"Although he has a talent for learning magic, to expect him to teach others, that's still half a lifetime too early. Probably during his time at the academy, he also relied on the teaching assistants to write his lecture scripts, just casually lecturing in front."

"How could Erica claim to be his student? What could Victor possibly teach her?"

Meanwhile, far away in the town of Sanchel, Vega sneezed.

Victor glanced at him, can crows even catch colds?

But he didn't have much time to worry about a sneezing crow now.

They had arrived at a small town at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The town was not large, and they could only find one inn there.

The knights didn't have to worry too much about their lodging, they could even sleep overnight at the courier stations.

But Gwen was a woman, and also the respected Captain of the Knights, so the knights made sure Gwen would stay the night at the inn to rest and recuperate.

Similarly, Victor was a mage.

He also needed a good sleeping environment to replenish his spiritual energy.

So the two of them reluctantly came to the inn together.

They had originally said they would get two rooms, but...

"Innkeeper, is it only one room left?"

Gwen seemed anxious, which Victor found rather amusing. This was the first time he had seen her so unstable.

At this moment, she almost wished she could conjure a new building on an empty lot.

The innkeeper was also quite helpless.

"Sir Knight, how could I dare to deceive you? There is truly only one double room left."

"Besides, seeing the two of you traveling together, you seem to be a couple, so sharing one room shouldn't be a problem."

Gwen, still eager to say more, was interrupted by Victor speaking up first.

"This room is fine."

Hearing Victor's words, Gwen suddenly widened her eyes, looking at him in disbelief.