18. The murderer is probably insane.
When Evelyn hurried back to school, unsurprisingly, the second class was about to start. To prevent herself from unexpectedly interrupting and causing embarrassment, Evelyn secretly cast a minor cognitive barrier spell on herself and slipped back to her seat unnoticed.
“You’re back? Why did it take so long? Did something happen?”
As soon as she sat down, Emilia, who was sitting next to Evelyn, noticed her arrival. For something as basic as a beginner’s spell, even ordinary humans would find it simple, but for them as angels, it was as obvious as a three-year-old performing magic tricks.
“Nothing, I just completely lost track of time…”
Evelyn cleared her throat awkwardly and inwardly cursed a certain lovestruck blood-package lady. If it weren’t for Lina’s constant antics, she would have wrapped things up with Nolan much earlier and wouldn’t have ended up being late for class.
“I had a relatively smooth time over there. At least I got some information that’s somewhat useful. How about you?”
To avoid disturbing other students by talking during class, Evelyn had specially cast a similarly simple isolation spell before she spoke. Ah, look how considerate and kind she was!
“Because the Church’s influence in the country isn’t as strong as abroad, I mainly informed the Night Watchmen, but I received some unexpected intel from them. Can you guess what it is?”
Emilia playfully teased, and Evelyn glanced at her, signaling with her eyes that she was being serious and to stop the theatrics.
“This is already the fifth case of a similar nature happening this month. That’s right, before this one we discovered at noon today, there were four other murders just as heinous.”
Emilia’s face took on a rare serious expression when she said this, and upon hearing it, Evelyn suddenly felt a jolt in her heart: The fifth case? How could this be?
Such heinous events would theoretically drive the Night Watchmen to madness over even one case, but based on her observations, their actions over the past month had been relatively normal—there was neither an increase in manpower nor any extreme actions. How could they be holding up under such circumstances?
The most crucial point was that this was already the fifth case, yet not even a shred of related information had leaked! This was far too abnormal!
“Yes, that’s the expression! To be honest, when I first heard this news, I had the same incredulous look on my face. So I understand your confusion. You can’t comprehend why such a significant event hasn’t had even a little bit of gossip slipping out, right?”
Seeing Evelyn’s stunned expression, Emilia shrugged in exasperation, signaling that she felt the same way.
“Indeed, considering the current speed of information dissemination among humans and the frenzy of human reporters regarding such matters… this is genuinely somewhat improbable.”
“There’s nothing impossible, especially since it involves foreign guests.”
“Foreign guests?”
“Exactly! Four out of the five murder victims were humans, and the other one was… an elf.”
“Huh!? An elf!? Those pointy-eared people?!”
This information caused Evelyn’s mind to stall; after a while, she cautiously asked Emilia, “Are you saying… an elf was killed in a human city, right?”
“Yes, and reportedly, it wasn’t just any ordinary elf, but one of diplomatic status. Originally, they came to the human world with a friendly intent for exchange and learning, but unexpectedly, someone attacked the delegation’s residence. Almost all the elven rangers guarding them were killed, and the diplomat along with the remaining elven attendants disappeared without a trace.”
Evelyn gasped; not from fear, but from the sheer audacity of the murderer that surpassed her imagination. Elves! Their birth rates were so low they could compete with dragonkin! Normally, elves would be upset over the death of even a couple of ordinary clan members, and now a whole bunch had perished, including a high-level elf as a diplomat? If this information reached the Elf Clan, wouldn’t they go completely mad?
Elves have always placed great importance on etiquette. While not to the extreme of the Blood Clan nobles, it’s evident from their sending of high-level elves as diplomats how serious they are about diplomatic protocol. And since high-level elves make up less than one-tenth of their already sparse population, there has always been a consensus across various clans that regardless of how intensified their conflicts may be, elven embassies must never be harmed.
Now, not only had half of the elven delegation died, but the high-level elf diplomat had also gone missing. The human high-ups must be tearing their hair out over this incident by now. They must have issued strict orders to keep everything under wraps, which is why there hasn’t been a peep about this string of murders and disappearances.
“Wait a minute, but if that’s the case…”
Suddenly, Evelyn seemed to remember something, and her mind went blank again.
“Hmm, you’re puzzled, right? According to our earlier assumptions, the murderer should be an ordinary blood clan civilian, but now the information from the Night Watchmen has overturned that conclusion—ask yourself: how could a mere civilian blood clan member, who likely can’t even master blood magic, single-handedly take down an entire elven delegation, especially with a high-level elf among them?”
Emilia shrugged, her own face reflecting her frustration. This issue had been troubling her for an entire afternoon, and even before Evelyn returned, she had thought of many hypotheses, but ultimately dismissed each of them one by one.
“However, the Night Watchmen also mentioned to me that the reason these five cases are classified as a series is because their circumstances and the crime scenes are extremely similar, especially since in each incident, in addition to the deceased at the scene, there were also relatives of the deceased who went missing… And besides these five murder cases, there have been several other foreign individuals who were supposed to be under the monitoring of the Night Watchmen who suddenly disappeared this month, including orcs, dwarves, etc. Before I left, they even specially warned me to be extra careful during this time.”
Humans, dwarves, orcs, elves… Evelyn rubbed her temples in frustration. With so many people of different races abducted and such heinous crimes committed, she could no longer fathom what the culprit was trying to achieve… Moreover, from this perspective, it was highly likely that Karl, the missing civilian blood clan member she heard about from Nolan, was also a victim of this incident.
But this raised another question: If the murderer wasn’t a blood clan member, then why did Uncle Wei end up as a blood slave?
This is so troublesome… I should just call Dad later and ask him to check the causal lines of the souls that died recently and see if we can trace the murderer through the souls of the deceased.
