Chapter 58: The Evidences

I trailed Count Cecilion through the quiet, carpeted hallways of the estate’s guest wing. The carpet was thick enough to muffle my small footsteps, but I still kept my weight carefully on my toes.

"Count Cecilion thinks he is being clever," I whispered to myself as I stayed low behind the hallway pillars. "Checking behind your shoulder twice won’t save you when you walk with heavy boots on wooden floorboards."

He moved quickly, glancing over his shoulder once more before slipping into a private study designated for high-ranking guests. He closed the thick wooden door behind him, and a quiet click echoed down the empty corridor.

I walked up to the door and pressed my ear against the polished wood.

"Let us see what you are doing in there, Count," I muttered under my breath.

Inside, I heard the faint sound of iron gears moving against each other. It was a heavy, metallic sound that only a well-crafted vault or a hidden wall safe could make.

"Tsk. Iron gears," I whispered to myself. "Heavy brass tumblers, probably a complex locking wheel. You are definitely hiding something expensive."

A minute later, the door unlocked from the inside. Count Cecilion stepped out into the hallway. He was holding a small leather satchel tucked securely under his arm, his eyes scanning the corridor nervously.

He walked back toward the main ballroom without noticing me hidden behind a decorative suit of armor.

"You should really check behind the armor next time, Count," I whispered, watching his dark coat disappear around the corner.

Once his footsteps faded completely, I stepped up to the study door.

Locksmith’s Eye.

My vision shifted, exposing the internal structure of the door’s lock in faint golden lines.

"The lock mechanism on the door is standard brass," I murmured, shaking my head slightly. "Are you even trying to be secure, Cecilion? Come on, a basic lock pick could open this in five seconds."

I slipped into the room and closed the door behind me, making sure the latch did not make a sound. I scanned the study quickly.

Located behind a large painting of a snowy mountain landscape was a heavy, triple-dial mana safe forged from anti-magic steel.

"Impressive," I whispered as I stepped closer to the wall safe. "A security Level 7 lock."

I talked to myself while inspecting the three dials. "Anti-magic steel is not cheap. If a normal mage tried to force this open with raw magic, the metal would absorb the mana and trigger an explosive alarm ward."

Normally, picking a triple-dial mana safe without the correct combination would trigger an alarm ward that would notify the entire mansion guards instantly.

"Lucky for me, I am not a normal mage," I whispered with a small smile. "And I do not force locks."

I pulled out my two thin lockpicks from my inner pocket.

Open.

"Now let us talk to these internal pins," I whispered, focusing my golden mana into the tips of the lockpicks.

I used my skill not to force the lock, but to temporarily open a tiny gap inside the dial tumbler. This allowed me to bypass the alarm wards entirely by picking the internal pins from the inside out.

"Move left," I whispered, feeling the first pin yield to my touch. "Now align the second wheel."

Click.

Click.

Click.

The heavy star-steel safe door swung open silently, revealing the dark interior.

"Works every time," I murmured, wiping a light sweat from my forehead.

Inside lay several rolled parchments, a neat stack of gold bars, and a dark leather ledger stamped with a strange symbol. It was a serpent eating its own tail around a broken lock.

"The Black Circle," I whispered softly, staring at the golden emblem on the cover. "What a dramatic name for an underground group."

I opened the ledger quickly, flipping through the thin parchment pages. The pages were filled with secret transaction records detailing illegal weapons, black-market spatial tools, and bulk monster materials. My eyes stopped on a specific set of entries near the bottom of the page.

"Corrupted mana cores," I read aloud in a quiet whisper. "Supplied directly to the West Subterranean Cave. Quantity, fifty units."

My blood ran cold as I stared at the numbers written in ink.

"Fifty corrupted cores," I whispered to myself, feeling my chest tighten. "That is why the monsters went wild. That is why they fought like insane berserkers."

The Normal District Dungeon Break wasn’t just caused by them. It was an intentional field test to measure how quickly the kingdom’s guards and high mages could respond to black-thread-driven monsters.

"They used the commoner district as a test ground," I muttered, my voice turning cold. "They did not care how many normal people got hurt or how many homes were destroyed."

I quickly pulled out a small piece of charcoal and a scrap sheet of paper from my pouch.

"Hold still," I whispered to the book as I pressed the paper against the leather cover.

I took a fast rubbing of the serpent crest, pressing the charcoal firmly across the parchment until the serpent eating its tail appeared clearly on the paper. Then I quickly copied the main ledger coordinates and the shipment dates written on the internal pages.

"Coordinates, dates, and account numbers," I whispered, blowing away the excess charcoal dust from the paper. "This is more than enough to track where these cores came from."

I folded the scrap paper tightly and slid it deep inside my coat pocket. I closed the ledger and placed it back into the safe, aligning it exactly as I had found it.

Suddenly, the air in the study dropped to a freezing temperature.

Frost began to form along the edges of the wooden desk, and my breath turned into white mist in the cold air.

"Fuck it’s cold," I whispered to myself, my eyes narrowing as I reached for my lockpicks.

Then I stopped when I realized something.

It is sharp and heavy. And it definitely isn’t from Duke Voulstridge’s magic.