In one corner of the Nobility District, the night wind howled fiercely, setting the evergreen trees to shuddering and swaying.
Hidden behind the trees stood a two-story villa with a domed roof, its style rough and bold — very much in keeping with the Shahran Empire's characteristic aesthetic. Yet for some reason, the building looked eerily sinister in the darkness, like some monstrous creature coiled and waiting.
Gazing at the villa from a distance, Katrina could not say whether the sensation was a genuine premonition from her "Fate Star" or simply a trick of her own nerves. It felt as though her figure, already blended into the surrounding cold wind, was growing fainter and fainter, gradually dissolving into nothing.
Although several months had passed since the incident, and the villa had been purified with Sacred Light, any lingering precautions should have been lifted long ago. Nevertheless, Katrina did not dare let her guard down. She continued to rely on spells such as "Greater Invisibility" rather than simply using her knightly abilities to sneak in — she trusted and preferred arcane magic far more than her inherited bloodline powers!
The clouds did not obscure the silver moon. Its pale light spilled across the ground, dragging long shadows from the trees that looked like twisted monsters. In this slightly luminous night, Katrina approached the villa without a sound. The "Greater Invisibility" spell left no trace; even a carriage hurrying through the night passed right by her without its driver noticing a lady walking mere inches away.
Katrina entered the villa with ease. She then dematerialized and slipped into the great hall, beginning a meticulous examination of the "crime scene."
The hall was paved with smooth-surfaced dark stone tiles, identical in style to what the Shahran Empire had always favored — enormous slabs, each one equivalent to five of Alinea's patterned floor tiles.
Staring at the reflections of the ceiling cast upon the dark stone, Katrina felt as though the floor were inlaid with rows of mirrors. She mused silently: "Even in Count Carcat's estate, the floor tiles would never be polished to such a sheerness, nor would they use dark stone. All this achieves is making guests in pointed shoes slip and fall — or letting someone peer up ladies' skirts. Did the villa's owner design it this way for precisely that purpose, or was there some other motive?"
The nobility of the Shahran Empire had always been more extravagant and decadent than their counterparts to the south, and Katrina was not about to rule out that possibility.
Under the "Greater Invisibility" spell, her physical form became visible each time she cast a spell, only to fade back into invisibility afterward. And so the surface of the dark tiles kept flickering with reflections of Katrina's altered appearance — golden hair, green eyes, all perfectly visible.
"Several months have passed since the Sacred Light purification. Even the most bizarre and powerful magic seems to have lost its effect…" Katrina had cast every divination and detection spell she could think of, but gained precious little from them. She could only stand there and laugh bitterly at herself.
Of course, she was not entirely without results. From the sword, dagger, and impact marks on the tiles, she could deduce one thing with certainty: no extraordinary powers had been used at the time. Otherwise, the marks would not be so shallow — they were no different from an ordinary person casually tossing a sword onto the floor.
"Not using extraordinary powers points to only two possibilities. Either the full mage was completely controlled by the demon, or his powers had been sealed in advance. If it was the former — with no rationality left, driven only by the desire to kill and destroy — he certainly would have used his most devastating and familiar magic. So regardless of whether he worshipped the demon, his powers must have been sealed at the time." Katrina worked through the simple deduction.
If that mage had participated in the massacre to fulfill some wish of his own and voluntarily refrained from using magic, then at the most dangerous moment, no wish could outweigh his own safety. Instinctively, he would have cast a spell.
"That means from this mage's corpse, one could figure out how his magic was sealed…" A lead occurred to Katrina, but she immediately waved her right hand in frustration. "But the Church designated that mage as the instigator of a 'demon-worship incident' and burned his body on the stake. Damn the Church."
Even the normally refined and polite her could not help but utter a curse. When something like this happened, the Northern Church naturally needed to find a scapegoat to placate the nobility and the commoners, and an evil mage happened to have died at the scene.
Since the furniture, altar, and other furnishings had already been purified by the Church, the entire hall stood bare and empty. Katrina paced back and forth a few steps, then suddenly recalled something: "Gulv mentioned that a knight had been present at the time and had also died. Following the earlier deduction, his bloodline powers must have been sealed as well… He was a noble. Although his body couldn't be buried in his family's cemetery due to the demon-worship charge, it should have been placed in an upscale public graveyard — the nobles would never allow a fellow noble to be treated with such disrespect…"
Having seized upon this lead, her expression brightened somewhat. She proceeded to search the upstairs rooms and the basement in one sweep, but unfortunately found nothing of note either. Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly sensed that her alarm spell had been triggered. She turned her head toward the window facing the garden.
Then Katrina detected a familiar knight's will seeping through the window crack like a cold wind — icy and cautious, probing the situation inside.
When that will brushed against her, Katrina's "Greater Invisibility" produced faint ripples, perfectly fabricating the appearance that no one was present.
Crack — even in the stillness of the night, the sound was barely perceptible as the window slowly swung open. A thin sliver of ice rapidly melted into droplets. Moments later, the "culprit" who had opened the window vanished without a trace.
A dark figure slipped in — tall and powerfully built, with patterns like snowflakes visible on the backs of both hands.
"Yakov. So he did come after all…" Katrina stood in the center of the hall, quietly watching the figure move about and inspect the room. From that familiar aura, she had no difficulty identifying him.
However, she was not particularly surprised to find Yakov here. When Anna had mentioned the dead mage, he had already been acting strangely.
Yakov looked around thoroughly, confirmed that nothing was amiss and there were no suspicious traces, and finally let out a long breath of relief. Yet he never once noticed Katrina standing behind him — even though she stood there in plain sight.
"I was going to think about how to question him. Since we've run into each other, there's no point wasting the opportunity…" Katrina's green eyes flashed for an instant, and she made her decision.
Yakov straightened up, preparing to check the rooms upstairs, when suddenly a prickle of unease swept through him. Years of mercenary instinct made him lunge forward without thinking. His body began to enlarge, frost coiling around him, while his mind raced with astonishment: "An ambush?"
The thought had barely formed when his head buzzed dully. His vision blurred, as though he had plunged into a dense fog.
"I have a question I'd like to ask you." Then he heard a disembodied voice — neither distinctly male nor female.