Splash!

Cold water was thrown onto the man's face, instantly waking him up, his eyes wide open.

"Huff! Huff!"

The man gasped for air desperately. He tried to move his body but found himself in pain all over, his limbs fixed to a frame.

Unable to move - that was his condition.

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

She still wore the same outfit, a cloak covering her entire body, only revealing emerald green eyes that stared at him, quite frightening.

He clearly remembered that his gang of brothers had all been taken down by her agile and skillful techniques.

"Awake? Now that you're awake, let's have a chat."

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

This was a dark and damp basement. Soon, he saw the woman sitting in a chair, guided by the sound.

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

Vaguely, he saw a peculiarly shaped glove on the woman's hand, embedded with several gemstones - he couldn't count how many.

"There's a saying: 'The wise adapt to circumstances.'"

"With all these torture instruments before you, I think they'll surely be able to pry open your mouth."

Cold sweat instantly soaked the man's body. He frantically tried to move, attempting to escape his restraints through struggle, but in vain. He couldn't budge.

He hurriedly shouted: "I'll talk! I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!"

Slap!

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

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

Lia played with the pliers in her hand, looking at him and laughing.

This crisp slap woke the dazed man up completely, and at the same time, anger took over his rationality.

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

"Kidnapping! Illegal punishment! You! You'll be arrested!"

"So what? When you die like a stray dog on the roadside, who killed you, do you think anyone will care?"

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

The man struggled desperately again.

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

Lia looked at him as if he were an idiot: "Because I have money."

The man: "..."

One sentence silenced him completely.

"Just because you have money, you think you're great? Just because you have money, you can..."

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

The man: "..."

He stopped talking.

Lia tapped the table with the iron pliers and continued: "Since you know you've provoked our Kravina family, you should have been prepared for this."

"Now speak, who ordered you to do this?"

"The Duke, it was the Duke who made us do it!"

He still didn't change his previous statement. Seemingly to make Lia believe him, he voluntarily gave an address.

"That's our base, you can go there, you can go there to find out!"

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

Seeing the man's hysteria, the masked person approached Lia and lowered her voice.

"He said the same thing before. Could it really be the Duke's doing?"

Lia clicked her tongue, seemingly unconcerned.

"A clumsy attempt to frame someone."

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"If you hadn't said this, I might have had some suspicions about the Duke, but your insistence on pinning it on him actually reduces his suspicion."

The man was stunned for a moment, and in that brief instant, Lia immediately noticed.

Seeing this, she couldn't help but laugh again.

As her charming laughter subsided, she held her stomach, raised her alluring eyes, and said with a smile.

"You really believed that? I was bluffing you."

"But seeing your reaction, it seems it really wasn't the Duke's doing. I thought a duke wouldn't use such low-level tactics."

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

"Alright, deal with him, Leanne."

"Don't forget to remove his organs, we can still sell them for some money. Oh right, and his accomplices, dispose of them all, don't leave a single one."

Lia patted the man's face, smiling like a devil.

The man's body trembled continuously. He struggled in fear, wanting to say something.

But in the next second, Lia's palm gently turned over, and a vial of potion appeared in her hand.

The azure potion shimmered with a dazzling glow under the lamplight.

"What a pity, even if we sell all your organs, your value still can't compare to a single item from our shop."

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

"Of course, this thing worth a thousand geos, in my eyes, is just like you."

"Worthless."

Crash!

The next moment, the vial smashed against his face, shattering with a 'bang'.

He only felt numerous liquids flowing down his numb face.

Red and blue potions intertwined, making it impossible to distinguish whether it was blood or potion flowing.

"Madwoman... you're just a madwoman! Let me go, let me go!"

The man's voice trembled, his eyes wide open.

Under the dual torture of mind and body, he was already beyond recognition.

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

A beautiful smile, yet it penetrated the heart like a demon's.

Under the man's bloodshot gaze, she yawned, turned around, and said indifferently:

"Finish it quickly."

"Yes."

.......

A few hours later, Leanne had dealt with everything.

She secretly climbed through the window into Viktor's study. Now that Viktor wasn't here, Lia sat at the desk, handling recent accounts.

There was no one else in the room. Leanne took off her hood, revealing short pale golden hair and long, pointed ears.

Just these ears, different from ordinary humans, were enough to prove her identity.

An elf.

"Miss, everything has been cleaned up."

Lia didn't raise her head, but already knew who had come, and smiled.

"Thank you for your hard work."

"It's my honor, Miss Lia."

Leanne continued: "I collected quite a bit of money from those people, and also went to raid their base. These people had recently received a considerable sum of money, about five thousand geos."

Lia took the money bag Leanne handed over, weighed it, and put it aside.

"Quite a lot indeed. That man wasn't lying after all."

Leanne looked up and couldn't help but ask:

"Was it really not the Duke's doing?"

Lia's hand paused, and she couldn't help but laugh. After closing the account book, she looked at her with a smile:

"You believed it too?"

"What?"

She said with a chuckle: "Even if the Duke's suspicion is reduced to the minimum, it doesn't mean he's cleared of suspicion."

"We've just added another direction of suspicion, but the fact that the Duke still harbors enmity towards us hasn't changed."

"Perhaps someone is stirring up trouble, deliberately provoking conflict between us Kravinas and the Duke, while the person behind it all reaps the benefits."

"Or maybe the Duke simply dislikes us, after all, there's no need for two of the youngest third-tier mages in the capital."

Leanne didn't understand these noble calculations. After a pause, she asked the question she most wanted to ask.

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

"He wouldn't have talked, because he doesn't know who the instigator really is."

Lia flicked the money bag with her hand, making the geos inside jingle.

"Using money for the transaction is enough to show that the person isn't an important member, so he could only insist it was the Duke's doing."

Lia continued:

"Why do you think the Duke's daughter came to the eastern district? And happened to encounter those shop-smashers?"

"And finally, spent a large sum to compensate for our broken potions?"

Hearing her words, Leanne frowned. She had heard that Erica spent over ten thousand geos just for compensation, which still seemed incredible.

Can a person be that kind-hearted?

"I don't trust her explanation."

Lia shrugged and said helplessly.

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

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

"Erica actually said she was his student, what could Viktor possibly teach her?"

......

Meanwhile, far away in Sancher Town, Vega sneezed.

Viktor glanced at him. Can crows catch colds?

But he didn't have time to care about a crow that might catch a cold right now.

They had arrived at a town at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. The town wasn't big, and they could only find one in here.

The knights didn't need to worry too much about where to stay; they could even sleep at the post station leaning against their horses for a night.

But Gwen was a woman, and also their respected Knight Commander, so the knights insisted that Gwen must spend the night at the inn to rest well.

Similarly, Viktor was a mage.

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

So the two had to come to the inn together.

They had originally agreed on two separate rooms, but...

"Innkeeper, is there really only one room left?"

Gwen looked somewhat anxious, which Viktor found amusing.

It was the first time he had seen such an unstable side of her.

At this moment, she looked as if she wanted to build a new room on empty ground right away.

The innkeeper was also very helpless.

"Sir Knight, how dare I deceive you? There really is only one large bedroom left."

"Moreover, seeing you two together, a man and a woman, you should be a couple, right? Sharing a room shouldn't be a problem."

Gwen anxiously wanted to say something more, but Viktor interrupted her in advance.

"This room will do, it's fine."

Hearing Viktor's words, Gwen immediately widened her eyes, looking at him in disbelief.