Constructing-Style Wizard - Chapter 507
Chapter 507: 165. Urgent Question_3
With 3000 points of energy consumed at once, Noland Lee extracted recent memory fragments from the other person.
Noland Lee casually sat and conversed, dividing a part of his attention to view these memory fragments.
A woman, one who makes Mabel somewhat uncomfortable, appears in a portion of the memories.
This woman is clad in metal armor, just like an iron bucket.
She is wearing a metal face shield that covers the lower half of her face. The upper half, not hidden by the metal, is lined with hard edges, scars from wind exposure, and remnants of injuries never healed over.
Her eyes are of a deep red color, extremely indifferent, sharp, and focused, as if nothing could divert her attention from hunting down wizard criminals.
She is bald – a rare sight among the witches – and this gives her the decisiveness and determination of a man.
There are no designs or inscriptions that signify status on her metal armor.
Only the magical treasure sword fluttering by her side reveals her identity.
Noland Lee immediately recognizes the origin of the sword.
The Sword of Silence.
A magical treasure sword imbued with the power of silent death.
This is a witch enforcer from the Silent Maiden.
This branch of necromancy extracts silent power from the sight of death after silence.
The exact principle of this magic power is known to none but its practitioners, but one thing is certain – the silent power inherently breaks laws, making it far more effective than the ‘Sunlight Technique’ of the Pure Light Court.
The ‘Silent Maiden’ recruits only witches, with not a single male member among them.
Honestly, Noland would rather face the wizard enforcers of the Pure Light Court.
Because those of the Pure Light Court are fond of due process.
They follow the lawful procedures meticulously, commencing the judgement proceedings from credible evidence collection. This unavoidably slows down the enforcers from the Pure Light Court. Noland has plenty of time to navigate their investigation.
But the Silent Witches from the ‘Silent Maiden’ are different. Efficiency is of utmost importance to these witches. As soon as they determine a person’s guilt, they immediate execute punishment without going through formal proceedings.
Take Samuelson, the Mental Wizard Criminal, for example. If he were to fall into the hands of the Pure Light Court, he would be able to live for at least half a year. In this half year, as long as he can gather the money for the fine, he can regain his freedom.
But in the hands of the Silent Witch, Samuelson would only have three seconds.
In the first second, the Silent Witch asks him using magical subtitles, “Do you have money to pay fines?”
In the second second, Samuelson remains silent due to his empty pockets.
In the third second, powerful magic bursts forth, Samuelson falls on the spot and the Silent Witch takes his body back to settle the case.
Yes, they’re just that decisive, and just that simple.
As he delved deeper into Mabel’s memories, Noland gradually grasped what he was about to face.
Under pressure, Mabel had given information about the Wandering Wizards to the Silent Witch. That happened two days ago.
In these two days, the Silent Witch had gone through all the intelligence in the hidden chamber of the Manor and deemed Noland as a suspect.
Noland could comprehend why they did that. He used to lack strength and experience, which inevitably left some shortcomings. It was normal that the Silent Witches had caught onto these clues.
Noland was confident that he could clear his name with his words and the materials he had prepared in advance.
But the real question was, why would the Silent Witch suddenly look into the cause of Hickman Arlington’s death? Shouldn’t she be returning with the tokens of Samuelson and the soul-stealing wizard?
Noland Lee was reading the memories of Mable backwards. When he flipped to the memory fragment from four days ago, the truth became crystal clear.
Four days ago, after Mable ended her online conversation with the professor, this typically elegant witch couldn’t help but complain to Philia in the study.
“Gilbert Winchester actually thinks that we killed Hickman Arlington. Hmph, I haven’t even settled the score with him for his student trying to gang up with the Blackbone Hermit against us.”
Gilbert Winchester had already discovered Hickman Arlington’s death… Noland Lee nodded to himself in understanding.
So it seemed like in all likelihood, it was Gilbert Winchester who requested those Wizard Enforcers to investigate the cause of Hickman Arlington’s death. Outside of this professor, who else would be so concerned about Hickman Arlington?
“Ray Lee, thank you for helping me answer my questions about Death Magic.”
Mable squeezed out a bit of a smile and said:
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to invite you to the Magic Practice Room in the castle to help me adjust the Death Wand.”
“Alright, I have some time to spare.”
Noland Lee faintly smiled before standing up and leaving the study with her.
The Magic Practice Room is a place specifically used for practicing spells. To prevent spells from affecting other rooms, a thick Magic Stone Wall of three meters is specially installed there.
Moving against me in such a place, the Silent Witch would be able to minimize the collateral damage from the fight.
Using Mable as a reason to lure me into the Magic Practice Room seems like a near perfect excuse.
Seems like the Silent Witch is aware of my strength from Mable.
Even though she doesn’t have concrete evidence to prove that I was the one who took out Hickman Arlington, she has already prepared herself for the worst-case scenario of a violent retaliation from me.
Noland Lee felt a sense of calmness wash over him.
He doesn’t blame Mable for divulging his situation to the Silent Witch because he anticipated beforehand the situation where Mable would be interrogated by Wizard Enforcers.
In the soul contract that he signed with Mable, Noland Lee had explicitly written:
Party B (Mable) must discern the reason for an inquiry when questioned by Wizard Enforcers. If the questioning is because Party B has bought knowledge from Party A (Noland Lee), Party B should explain the knowledge as the legal gains from exploring magic relics and the lost sub-dimensions. If the questioning is not because Party B has bought knowledge from Party A, Party B can honestly tell Wizard Enforcers about Party A’s real situation when asked about him, except for matters related to Mental Magic.
Why did Noland Lee design this clause?
Because he understood Mable’s character very well.
Though she was a witch with a thirst for knowledge, she was also a mature witch who had maneuvered within the world of wizards for many years.
If she was only being questioned by the enforcers for buying illegal knowledge, she could handle it smoothly.
But if she wasn’t being asked due to purchasing illegal knowledge, For example, the current situation where she was questioned on suspicion of killing Hickman Arlington, she would likely cooperate with the work of the enforcers, in order to clear her own suspicions, rather than playing scapegoat for others.
Noland Lee did not plan to forcibly make her cover for him, which would offend a costumer, so he clearly listed this clause in the soul contract.
This was one of the “rare situations” Mable mentioned.
If Noland Lee didn’t design the soul contract so meticulously, Mable wouldn’t have signed it. After all, this was a contract that would bind her for a lifetime; she couldn’t be careless.
In summary:
Noland Lee highly appreciates Mable’s cooperation with the enforcers’ investigation because she had fulfilled her obligations according to the contract book.
For such a witch who strictly followed the soul contract, Noland Lee bore no thoughts of disgust or aversion.
As for the inquiries and pressures from the Silent Witch, honestly, Noland Lee wasn’t too worried.
He, Noland Lee, never did anything he didn’t have full confidence in.