The Bad Woman Radar Has Gone Off

—Drost.

This surname belongs to Lily's biological father, the venerable old Minister of Trade.

The Old Knight Gordon first subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, then his brows furrowed again.

Since a powerful minister is involved... this matter is most likely unrelated to the royal family, which is the best news at the moment. It also avoids the worst-case scenario.

On the other hand, the chief private secretary to the Minister of Ministry of Trade is also a very important person.

Secretary Raff was a civil servant, and in the Ministry of Trade, aside from Minister Drost, he only reported to the Permanent Under-Secretary. Although he looked to be almost fifty, there was still a possibility of further promotion.

Moreover, this actually broadened the range of suspects.

The knightly families swore a knightly oath when they were commissioned into armor, therefore they could not harm the royal family.

If the assassin's original target was Princess Isabel, then all members of the knightly families in the club could be eliminated directly.

But nowadays...

Has the cause of death been determined?

After thinking for a moment, Director Gordon asked a question in return.

He had just glanced at it and knew that the deceased had probably fallen from the second-floor handrail to the first floor.

That's about five or six meters high. It's true that someone could fall and die from that height. But right next to him were high-ranking priests who could use Illumination Spell.

At this height, unless the fall lands precisely on the back of the head, the patient is almost certainly salvageable.

The young inspector shook his head. "It's uncertain whether the death was due to poisoning or a curse, but it certainly wasn't a fall. It's likely related to the small knife on the deceased's back, which will probably need to be sent for testing later. But what is certain is that the death was extremely rapid, taking less than ten seconds from injury to death, almost instantaneous. The priests who took over the treatment immediately can also corroborate this."

"So, the deceased fell after being attacked by the assailant, and died shortly after landing?"

Chief Gordon frowned, sensing that things were getting increasingly complicated.

After a moment's thought, he gave the order, "Immediately conduct a body search on everyone on the second floor of the club! Something this dangerous must have a container for storing it, or a tool specifically for using it. Go find it!"

"Secretary Raff may have been talking to someone before he died. Then find everyone on the second floor who was near the handrail at the time of the incident, who wasn't talking to anyone, who was hiding suspiciously in the corner, and who was seen moving quickly after the incident by others, and bring them down!"

"Also," Iver, who had been watching quietly, suddenly added, "In addition to that, please also check if the members on the second floor are carrying any documents or document bags."

Upon hearing Iver's voice, both the young inspector and Director Gordon turned around.

Upon seeing Iver sitting in a wheelchair, Chief Gordon easily recognized him.

"... Mr. Iver, is that right? I've heard about the case you handled in Lloyd District."

The Old Knight said in a deep voice.

He didn't look down on Iver because of his young age, but instead asked him seriously, "Do you think this matter is related to the documents that Secretary Raff was carrying?"

"It's just a gut feeling. There's no evidence."

Iver didn't laugh, but said seriously, "But generally speaking, would someone who comes to the White Shoes Club to listen to music bring so many documents? Even if they did, wouldn't they put the documents in this bag? Looking at so many documents by the second-floor handrail, some documents might accidentally fall down."

"So I think he might have just opened the file folder, or just received the file from someone else. So we need to check carefully to see if someone is trying to steal something—or maybe he was assassinated to cover it up after being caught stealing the file."

In fact, this is just a fabricated excuse by Iver. He was simply raising this possibility, and it would have been more reasonable for him to be a little unprofessional.

Anyway, he and Isabel are both here holding things back, and Edward will be here soon too. They'll definitely investigate eventually... but if he speaks too professionally, he might be targeted.

The real reason was that Iver looked at the dead man and the more he looked, the more familiar he became.

Upon hearing his name, the player finally remembered his identity and the cutscene that Iver had skipped! This middle-aged secretary with gold-rimmed glasses and a receding hairline was the "someone" in the Letter to the Noble Red Society from Someone! In the game, the player first learns that this "someone" is likely a trusted confidant of a powerful figure. Then, from the "Sweater Brotherhood," a main quest instance that appears several months after the "Gallows Square Body Lost Case," the player obtains a document written in coded language.

Through Sherlock's deciphering of the document, players learn that it is actually a series of locations and numbers. In essence, it instructs players to deliver varying quantities of explosives stored in an abandoned chemical plant to designated locations at specified times.

Later, for some unknown reason, the player and Iver were discovered inside the sealed crate, jumped out, and engaged in combat with the other party.

Looking back, it's possible that the player and Iver hid inside the box, intending to infiltrate and search it. At the agreed time, Sherlock or someone else delivered the box to the designated location, only to be discovered as suspicious upon arrival.

After defeating these people, they found another document on them and barely managed to escape while being chased by the corrupt inspectors.

Iver didn't know the specific contents of the document because Iver skipped over it. But he did remember a little about the dialogue after the cutscene—in short, after Sherlock's careful analysis, he discovered that the three documents, which seemed to have different handwriting, actually belonged to the same person.

A little over a week later, an official committed suicide by taking poison at home because the Inspectorate had discovered his bribery.

Although the incident only appeared in a corner of the Glass Staircase Newspaper, Sherlock keenly sensed something was amiss. He specifically investigated the true time of the official's death and discovered that the official had "committed suicide" after the player and Iver's infiltration investigation failed and they switched to Berserker-style stealth.

Upon learning of this, the player infiltrated the mansion and stole Secretary Raff's documents. By comparing the handwriting, Sherlock confirmed that "someone" was indeed the secretary. This confirmed that the "important figure" collaborating with the Noble Red Society was none other than Minister Drost!

—Although Iver skipped all the plot points in the middle, fortunately, a news clipping about "a certain civil servant committing suicide at home out of guilt" popped up during his conversation with Sherlock.

Iver didn't remember his name or face, but he did remember his hairstyle.

Seeing Secretary Raff's gold-rimmed glasses again now, I finally recalled this part of the story—

Lily's biological father, Minister Drost, was the mole who was bribed by spies sent by the Stibium Kingdom and regularly sent top-secret intelligence to the Stibium Kingdom through the Noble Red Society!

Finding the mole so quickly is undoubtedly something to celebrate.

Not to mention, Iver hasn't been exposed yet; he's still in the shadows. Unlike in the game, where being too reckless would have made him known to the enemy.

But this makes the problem even more complicated.

Moreover, among everyone present, including the assassin... perhaps only Iver truly understood the complexity of the current situation.

Because Iver also recognized what that sheathless poisoned blade was—

That was the signature assassination weapon used by "Hawkeye," an intelligence agency within the Iris organization.

Its nature is completely different from that of the Inspectorate of Avalon. Although both are considered intelligence agencies, the Inspectorate's White Gloves are, in every sense, official organizations and institutions of power.

The Iris organization has always operated as a clandestine assassin group. They primarily conduct assassinations domestically and rarely travel abroad.

Because "Hawkeye" is an assassin organization, and the mysterious techniques related to stealth, invisibility, and poison all involve the Path of Adaptation, and even the organization's name contains the character for "eagle," they are widely believed to be a secret society that escaped from the Black Eagle Principality, which worships the Lord of Scales and Feathers.

—It wasn't until midway through version 4.0 that players learned for the first time that the secret leader of this assassin organization was none other than the Prime Minister of the Iris Flower Kingdom himself! The former Prime Minister used this organization to assassinate political enemies from opposing factions, their trusted subordinates, or conversely, to smear them, or to eliminate rivals within his own party. He disguised all of this as casual assassinations, creating an illusion within the Iris Kingdom of a feud between two factions, one adhering to the path of love and the other to beauty.

A core demand of the radical party to which the former Prime Minister of Iris belonged was extreme racism. They advocated expelling the "Child of the Moon" from the country, emulating Avalon's methods of purifying the path, and abandoning the inheritance of the Path of Love within the country in order to alleviate the increasingly intense conflict between the paths within the Iris Flower Kingdom.

Immediately, Iver thought of the elegant and beautiful senior student Aiden had mentioned who gave him "Dracula".

That is, the person who would later entangle Aiden with the "Child of the Moon" race.

Thinking of this, Iver looked at Aiden with a complicated expression.

Noticing Iver's gaze, Aiden scratched his head in confusion and looked back at him. "What's wrong, Iver?"

"Fine."

Iver sighed, shook his head, and asked gently, "Of course, something as inconspicuous as a document could be hidden... for example, tucked inside a book you carry with you. With your experience, I'll have to trouble you to keep a close eye on this, Director Gordon."

He can't just name names and say, "The murderer is a pretty female student who loves to read." Even deductive reasoning wouldn't be that far-fetched.

After all, Iver himself had never seen what she actually looked like.

Then we can only provide precise intelligence one by one, one person at a time.

"... I'll go and see for myself."

The Old Knight pondered for a while and felt that what Iver said made sense.

Watching Chief Gordon's retreating figure as he went upstairs, Iver sighed.

—To be honest, Aiden, your radar for bad women is really accurate.

There are still three days left in this month, but this unprecedentedly diligent cat has already updated 199,000 words this month!

The cat's rotating sleep schedule has already shifted to finishing writing at 10:50 AM without having eaten dinner yet. I'm hungry, sleepy, dizzy, and my vision is blurry... I plan to take a day off at the end of the month to survive, tentatively on the 29th or 30th!