Chapter 656: Escape, Evidence

Poland.

"Fuck you! Fuck your big arse! Fuck your big booty mum’s big arse!"

Gus ran with a corpse slung over his shoulder, cursing the entire way.

Most of those curses involved women, along with several particularly vulgar remarks about Lippi’s private parts.

He slid beneath an incoming spell, drew his wand, and fired a streak of green light behind him without even looking back.

The pursuer narrowly avoided being hit.

Gus flicked his wand and Disapparated.

"Don’t let him escape!"

The pursuers immediately Disapparated after him.

Both sides kept appearing and disappearing across different locations.

On the fourth Apparition, Gus sucked in a sharp breath.

He looked at his arm. A bloody gash had nearly severed it.

"Too many Apparitions. My body won’t hold up."

He had almost Splinched himself.

Pulling out a bottle of dittany, he poured it haphazardly over the wound.

He did not even have time to cast a healing spell before the pursuers caught up again.

Gus was already injured, and now he was being hunted relentlessly. Worst of all, he was carrying a corpse.

He knocked aside an incoming red spell, then counterattacked and stunned one of the pursuers.

A barrage of attacks followed immediately.

Outnumbered and unable to hold them all off, Gus saw a green spell flying towards him and, without hesitation, swung the corpse in front of himself to block the Killing Curse.

The corpse was already dead, so naturally it could not die again.

But the impact still sent Gus flying backwards.

"Minister Schmidt, you’re more useful dead than you ever were alive."

Gus muttered the words at random, then took a huge step aside to avoid a pit that suddenly opened beneath his feet.

The forest was getting closer.

He ran into it and immediately disappeared from sight.

The pursuing Ministry Aurors stopped one after another at the edge of the trees.

Starr arrived and waved a hand.

The group continued forward.

They had barely entered when someone screamed.

Another Auror turned around just as a suit of restraining armour burst from the ground, binding its victim from foot to hand and knocking his wand away.

The Auror was forced to his knees and immobilised in that position.

His mouth was sealed shut, leaving him unable to speak.

The other Aurors soon began triggering traps of their own.

Starr sidestepped a wooden dog that suddenly sprang upward, then raised his wand and blasted it back with a burst of sparks.

"Silver Hand products?"

Starr snorted coldly.

He waved his wand, and a shockwave spread outward, blowing the traps away.

"Lumos Maxima!"

He threw a sphere of light into the air.

It rose overhead and illuminated the night.

Various traps hidden in the dark corners were exposed.

By the time they finished clearing them, Gus had long since disappeared.

Starr used magic to search for traces, only to find that every footprint had vanished.

There was no need to guess who was responsible.

With no clues left behind, Starr had no choice but to return empty-handed.

"Take every Silver Hand product with us. I’d like to see how they explain this."

Starr ordered his men to collect the traps that had not yet been triggered.

With these items as evidence, he intended to confront Silver Hand Johnny.

After everyone had left, a small boat slowly surfaced from the bottom of the river on the other side of the forest.

Gus lay inside alongside the corpse. He spat out a mouthful of water and patted the corpse’s hand.

"Minister Schmidt, you’re really valuable."

After so many days, the corpse had begun to stink even while stored inside the Ministry.

"I’ve searched everywhere and still can’t find Ing. Looks like you’re the only one I can use to complete the job."

Gus weakly waved his wand, and the small boat began moving towards his hideout.

Meanwhile, at the Silver Hand Johnny store, Starr stormed inside carrying the Silver Hand equipment they had recovered.

Tommy sat there and slowly looked up at him.

"Mr Rosier, what brings you here with so much free time?"

"You still want to play dumb?" Starr sneered. "You’ve been secretly helping the intruder and supplying him with Silver Hand equipment."

"Oh?" Tommy looked surprised. "I don’t remember doing anything like that. Has the Ministry been infiltrated again?"

"I seem to recall that the Ministry’s Anti-Apparition protections cover the entire building," he added innocently.

"Heh." Starr bared his teeth without the slightest trace of amusement. "This time it wasn’t Apparition. Someone stole Grindelwald’s corpse from inside."

"Now that is unusual."

"Enough pretending." Starr had no patience for further nonsense and ordered his men to put the equipment down. "These are all Silver Hand products."

"How unfortunate." Tommy shook his head sympathetically. "You must have suffered quite a bit."

"So you don’t intend to explain yourself?" Starr asked.

"Explain what?" Tommy spread his hands. "We didn’t give him any of this."

Starr almost laughed.

"What a joke. Who else could possibly have Silver Hand equipment besides Silver Hand’s people?"

"Someone could."

Tommy answered as though it were obvious.

"Last time Silver Hand was robbed, we lost a shipment of Z-Series products. I believe I already reported that to the Ministry."

"Let me find the inventory list. Ah, here it is."

Tommy pulled out the list of stolen equipment and said meaningfully, "Diwala stole Silver Hand products and then used them against the Ministry. Truly despicable."

Starr’s expression darkened.

He glanced over the inventory list.

Every item on it matched what they had encountered.

He understood. Tommy had planned for this.

"Oh, I almost forgot. He was your ’hero,’ wasn’t he?" Tommy said with a smile. "Always full of surprises, isn’t he?"

Starr had no way to respond. He turned around and left with his men.

After they were gone, Lippi walked out.

"You’ve certainly learned a lot from the Second King."

Back then, Tommy had been the sort who charged straight into everything. Now even he had learned to play dirty.

Tommy glanced back at Lippi and said speechlessly, "Take off that mask. It looks wrong every time I see it."

Lippi shrugged and removed the mask. Some parts inside had to be padded with various soft materials.

Otherwise, she would not have been able to replicate the other person’s appearance.

"So what now?" Seeing that his friend was still alive had greatly improved Tommy’s mood. He asked, "You’ve been hiding for so long. If I hadn’t gone looking for you myself, you still wouldn’t have shown yourself."

"I’m officially dead here," Lippi said with a smile. "But this time, I’ve earned myself quite a bit of credit."

She took out a small notebook containing a list of everyone whose identities had been infiltrated.

"I need you to help me transport the corpse out." Lippi carefully put the notebook away. "That’s the evidence we need to expose their identities."

"I know. The Ministry monitors every Floo Network, but we have our own."

Tommy nodded. "You can leave through that Floo Network."

Only Silver Hand possessed such a capability. An independent Floo Network beyond Ministry surveillance was the key to their escape.

Lippi had been unable to find Ing no matter how hard she searched, so she had no choice but to take the risk of entering the restricted area again and stealing Schmidt’s corpse.

Combined with the list she had gathered during this period, it was more than enough to ruin Ing completely.

At midnight, Gus arrived at Silver Hand carrying the corpse.

The Aurors who had been watching from outside had already been dealt with by Silver Hand security.

Silver Hand had avoided any direct armed conflict with the Ministry for so long that they had almost forgotten one thing.

This was the Second King’s army.

Beside the fireplace underground, two employees who had infiltrated Silver Hand were tied up tightly.

Gus carried the corpse on his back without showing the slightest sign of fatigue.

A hundred-pound corpse was heavy.

Five thousand Galleons, however? He could carry that up five flights of stairs without even getting out of breath.

That was exactly how Gus felt right now.

"The election is coming. This evidence will be revealed in front of everyone."

Lippi said to her old friend, "Just wait until I become some important official this time. I’m off. Next time we meet, I’ll treat you and your wife to drinks."

"My wife?" Tommy’s expression stiffened.

Lippi grinned mischievously. "Do you think I’m stupid? My office was right next to Oz’s. You think I wouldn’t know?"

Tommy was left speechless.

"All right. When you two have a child, I want to be the godmother. Then I’ll finally get to experience what it’s like to have someone take care of."

Lippi stepped into the fireplace, and blue flames swallowed her.

Gus hurried in after her.

That was five thousand Galleons, after all.

Tommy smiled helplessly and murmured to himself, "Godmother, huh."

When would he and Oz ever have a child?

Then again, it really was about time they got married. They were already living together, and a proper wedding was something they still needed.

His thoughts wandered for a moment before Tommy glanced at the two people tied up nearby.

"You two need to keep this secret."

"For now, let’s make Poland a little more lively. I think the story of a ’hero’ becoming a ’traitor’ can premiere here first."

Tommy immediately contacted the newspapers under Silver Hand.

Before long, everyone’s newspapers were reporting what had happened to the Polish Ministry that day.

What angered people most was not what had happened to the Ministry itself, but the Silver Hand products that had appeared outside.

Everyone immediately thought of the stolen Silver Hand shipment.

The same Polish citizens who had once shouted, "Give us back our hero!" now turned around and cursed Diwala for his shamelessness.

They regarded Diwala as a disgrace.

The statue that had once been erected in the gathering square was smashed to pieces.

See?

Destroying a hero did not even require you to do it yourself.

The public always liked to judge others from the moral high ground.

As though they had never been the ones shouting his name as a hero in the first place.

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