“This is... suicide?”

A sealed room with no entrance or exit, completely locked from the inside.

A mysteriously dead body.

Put the two together, and “suicide” seemed like the only possible explanation.

But...

“Shot in the back with arrows. That’s a pretty classic way to kill yourself.”

Unless this gang boss named Raskin had trained some miraculous technique specifically for shooting himself in the back, then there was definitely something strange about his death.

Muen crouched down and carefully examined the arrows lodged in Raskin’s back. In the dark sealed room, a faint blue gleam of magic flickered now and then along the shafts, showing that the weapon that killed him was not an ordinary arrow, but an expensive magic arrow.

That made sense. Anything capable of killing a gang boss was obviously not going to be a normal arrow.

But that only made the haze of doubt harder to see through. Muen looked around, puzzlement flickering in his eyes.

Other than those arrows, he could not sense the slightest trace of magic or aura anywhere in the room, as if the arrows had been fired out of nowhere and then appeared out of nowhere in Raskin’s back.

No, even “out of nowhere” was the wrong way to put it. Even spatial magic would have left behind at least a little magical residue and some distortion in space.

But in this room, there was nothing.

“He... he’s really dead?”

Only then did Tyron recover from the shocking scene in front of him. He carefully walked over to Muen’s side, disbelief all over his face.

“Raskin... that Raskin just died like this?”

“He’s dead.”

Muen answered calmly.

“Seven arrows in the back. Three of them struck vital points deeply enough to be the probable cause of death. At the same time, he has other wounds on him. He obviously fought someone violently.”

“F-Fought?”

Tyron could not understand it.

“This is his room. One of the little courtyards he specifically set aside for himself. How could he fight someone here? And around here...”

“And there isn’t even a trace of a struggle anywhere nearby.”

Muen finished the thought for him and reached out to touch the wineglass on the table beside Raskin. The red wine inside was bright and vivid. He lifted the glass and gave it a light sniff. Judging by the aroma, the bottle had likely been opened and exposed to the air less than ten minutes ago.

Everything in the room was perfectly intact. Even the wineglass sitting so close to Raskin was still resting there undisturbed. It was easy to picture him before bed, leisurely opening a bottle of red wine and preparing to take a sip or two.

And yet Raskin was dead.

Dead in the place he thought was safest.

More than that...

Muen stepped closer and got a clear look at the pale face, and at the anger and fear that still had not faded from it.

That was absolutely not the expression of someone who had been calmly sipping wine before bed.

“Interesting.”

Muen suddenly smiled.

“What is this? The perfect locked-room murder?”

“A... a locked-room murder?”

“Haven’t you read detective novels? Someone dies in a sealed room, and it’s disguised as suicide. The killer wants to slip free of responsibility that way.”

“Oh... now I remember.”

Tyron suddenly understood.

“I’ve seen that kind of thing before. Some street stalls sell them. But...”

He scratched his head, confused.

“I always thought those stories were boring. Because in the end, every so-called perfect locked-room murder turns out to involve magic, or mysterious powers, or something like that. A truly perfect locked-room murder doesn’t seem to exist at all.”

“That’s right. A perfect locked-room murder doesn’t exist.”

Muen nodded.

In his previous life, those locked-room murders in detective novels could use clever tricks to fool readers, but that was all they could do. They only existed in books.

Those methods that looked so brilliant would not even fool modern criminal investigation techniques, much less the magic of this world... and senses that surpassed ordinary people’s by who knew how many times.

Without using any tools at all, if Muen wanted to, he could even see every speck of dust in this room, let alone so-called “subtle clues.”

To his eyes, those things were as obvious as the mole on his upperclassman’s chest.

And yet the locked-room murder in front of him was so perfect that he could not find even the slightest flaw.

That was absurd. Under normal logic, unless some Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer had gotten bored out of his mind, suddenly felt inspired to kill a gang boss for fun, and then gone to the trouble of erasing every trace and setting up this sealed room...

Only then might Muen fail to ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) notice anything off.

Other than that, no method below that level should have been able to deceive him.

“S-So... what do we do now?”

Looking at Raskin’s corpse, Tyron swallowed and said:

“Raskin’s dead. This is enough to shake the entire underworld of the royal capital! We... we...”

“What are you panicking for? We didn’t kill him.”

“But...”

“Quiet. Let me think.”

Muen raised a hand, and the room fell silent once more.

Raskin’s sudden death had not only left behind the eerie mystery of a locked-room death. It had also interrupted Muen’s plans to a certain extent.

Without Raskin as a stepping stone, using the entire dark side of the Kingdom’s royal capital as leverage would undoubtedly become far more troublesome.

Could it be that someone had already predicted he would use this move, so they killed Raskin in advance to block his path?

No.

Impossible.

If they knew he was here, and they were willing to send a Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer to pull a little trick like this, then why not just capture him directly?

No matter how outstanding his current combat strength was, there was absolutely no way he could fight a Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer.

But the scene before him...

Muen looked again at the gang boss Raskin, dead in such a miserable state. Even with his blood nearly drained dry, his eyes were still fixed stubbornly on some point. In those pupils, long since unfocused, something seemed to still be burning.

“Right. Have you noticed anything unusual lately?” Muen suddenly asked.

“Unusual?”

Tyron froze, not understanding why the Dark Emperor’s train of thought had suddenly leaped in that direction.

“What kind of unusual?”

“In this city. Anything abnormal that’s happened. Strange incidents, things that don’t make sense, even urban legends people repeat because everyone else does. As a gang boss, you should have noticed something.”

“Why are you asking about that? What does that have to do with what’s in front of us—”

“It does.”

Muen’s face remained expressionless.

“My intuition says it does.”

In a place that looked normal, a single bizarre event suddenly appeared, something that could not be explained with common sense.

Under normal circumstances, you could treat it as an accident.

But Muen did not see it that way.

Because he had not forgotten that in his eyes, this seemingly “normal” royal capital of the Kingdom was actually “abnormal,” and the reason he had come here in the first place was to trace the source of that abnormality—or the reason behind it.

“Well... I don’t really know right now. During the war, the capital’s been managed more strictly than usual to keep things stable. And... and before you fished me out, I was basically lying low myself.”

Tyron glanced at Muen and answered carefully.

“Then what about your men? As a boss, you should have quite a few underlings.”

“I do have plenty of men... but gathering intelligence from all of them would take some time. Their backgrounds are too mixed...”

“Go.”

Muen cut him off directly.

“As fast as you can.”

The Dark Emperor’s tone was still as calm as ever, but Tyron already felt pressure as heavy as a mountain.

He instinctively straightened up.

“Yes!”

“And you can use Raskin’s people too,” Muen added.

“Raskin?” Tyron stared blankly. “How am I supposed to use his people—”

“Are you stupid?”

Muen looked at him the way one looked at an idiot.

“He’s already dead, and he died without a sound. Other than you, no gang in the city knows that yet. Do you understand what that means?”

What did it mean? It meant, of course...

“Gulp...”

Tyron swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry.

A few minutes ago, he had still been miserable because he was the fish that got hooked.

But now he realized that he had suddenly been given a chance to take a step upward.

If he swallowed up Raskin’s territory and manpower, then the Beast of Xipos would truly welcome a phase of wild growth. When that happened, the balance across the entire dark side of the royal capital would be completely shattered.

Not to mention that this real giant was standing behind him now. And since the giant had already spoken, he would not have to worry at all about choking on what he ate.

More power and strength were right in front of him. All at once, Tyron felt that being someone else’s fish was not so bad after all. At least... a fish raised by a giant got the best feed.

“Go. Finish my task as quickly as possible.”

“Understood!”

A huge feast was waiting for him, and Tyron instantly became full of drive. Without another word, he strode straight into the darkness outside the courtyard.

Very soon, firelight rose at the end of the streets and alleys. The sound of a crowd gradually drew near, and shouts and curses became clearer and clearer.

The triumphant laughter of the Beast of Xipos rang especially loudly through the night.

Muen paid no attention to the gang struggle in the darkness of the Kingdom’s royal capital.

He was only struck by a sense of déjà vu.

Back in Belrand, when he had needed information on his upperclassman and the so-called “banshee,” he had mobilized the gang forces of the Lower District in much the same way.

But if he thought about it carefully, there was a great difference between the two situations.

Because now he was not looking for a person. It was as if he were looking for something much larger—a city that ought to exist within the logic of reason and match reality as it should be.

It sounded absurd, but that was exactly what it was.

Reason kept telling Muen... the royal capital should not be like this. A city surrounded by war should not be this calm.

And yet... the city before his eyes was undeniably real.

Real buildings, real streets, real night...

Real people.

Even Raskin, who had died so strangely in that sealed room, was real.

“But I still think something’s wrong.”

Looking out at Saint Blancfazesiya under the night sky, Muen’s brows slowly drew together as he muttered:

“Something is definitely wrong. Definitely...”

“It feels like I’ve overlooked something...”

“And it has to be something important. But what is it...”

Still thinking, Muen walked out of the room.

The moment he stepped into the courtyard, a few cool drops touched his skin and interrupted his seemingly fruitless thoughts for the moment.

He looked up on instinct and sighed.

“It’s raining again?”