Chapter 116 Investigations From All Fronts

Since his spiritual intuition had sounded a warning, Odis stopped dwelling on the matter.

He glanced at the brief diary entry once more, realizing it had to be a piece of extremely important information. He stowed the two diary pages away, planning to ponder the question after entering the Knowledge Moor.

Next, he took out the metal box he had just acquired. He examined it for a while but failed to figure out how to open it.

Naturally, Odis could not consult Bernadette about such things. If the box opened and she claimed it was something her father had left for her, would he hand it over or not?

If he gave it to her, those 50 pounds would be thrown down the drain.

If he refused, he would most likely receive a beating.

At this thought, Odis smiled somewhat helplessly. He put the box away as well, planning to store it in the Knowledge Moor once he returned to the pharmacy…

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~Unit 199 Hailin Avenue~

Having also finished attending the gathering, Hound stepped out of the venue.

Just as he was about to board a carriage, he suddenly spotted someone waving at him from across the street.

He recognized that person; it was Cleymond Donnat from MI9’s Operations Department.

The man was in his thirties with short hair and a prominent Adam’s apple, as though an egg were stuck in his throat.

Hound hurried across the street and smiled, saying, “Cleymond, what brings you here?”

“I’ve come to give you a lead on Lelouch.” Cleymond’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he spoke, “I heard you’re currently in charge of gathering intelligence on him. Quite a thankless chore, isn’t it?”

In terms of rank, Cleymond was Hound’s equal, but the latter did not belong to the Operations Department. The two were merely acquaintances, far from close.

“Thank you for keeping an eye out for intelligence on Lelouch,” Hound said with a smile, “If it proves to be true, I’ll faithfully report the source of the lead.”

Translation -» “If there is credit to be had, you’ll get your share, but if it proves false, you get nothing.”

In a department like MI9, truly kind-hearted people were few and far between. Whatever Cleymond’s motive was in offering this lead, it was bound to come with strings attached.

“Credit or no credit hardly matters to me.” Cleymond smiled and continued, “Have you ever considered that ‘Leader’ might be Lelouch?”

“Ah?” Hound feigned a touch of surprise at that.

He had obviously considered it. After all, the two shared a few similarities. Later, however, he reasoned that Leader belonged to the Machinery Hivemind, and that organization would never permit the him to murder nobles of the Loen Kingdom.

The crux of the matter remained the lack of any solid evidence, making an arrest impossible.

“You couldn’t have missed such an obvious clue, could you?” Cleymond chuckled, “Both Lelouch and Leader wear masks, and both have wielded incredibly powerful Beyonder weapons.”

“That is indeed a clue.” Hound smiled, not outright dismissing the man’s supposed lead, “But there’s a problem. If Leader truly is Lelouch, where did he purchase those javelin-shaped Beyonder weapons? Surely the Machinery Hivemind didn’t supply them? If we could prove that the weapons used by Leader and Lelouch came from the same source, we could certainly notify the Machinery Hivemind and have him arrested.”

Both MI9 and the Mandated Punishers had once intended to track down Lelouch through his weaponry. Yet, despite inquiring everywhere through their respective intelligence networks, they failed to find where his Beyonder weapons had originated.

Lelouch’s weapons possessed distinct characteristics. Ordinary Beyonder weapons were rarely crafted as disposable items, nor were they ever produced in such large quantities.

Tracing those two leads should have made locating the source an easy task.

Instead, the trail went cold right there, because no one had ever crafted such weapons.

One thing was absolutely certain: the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery has always been fascinated by Extraordinary machine guns and Extraordinary cannons, and they’ve never manufactured that sort of javelin-like Beyonder weapon.

Crucially, in all operations conducted by the Machinery Hivemind, they had never once deployed javelin-like Beyonder weapons. If an investigation were launched based on this clue, they would undoubtedly brush it off entirely.

Some had also suggested that Lelouch might have crafted those Beyonder weapons himself, but that theory was swiftly dismissed. The creation of Beyonder weapons had always been the exclusive domain of Sequence 6 Artisans of the Savant Pathway.

Lelouch was only a Sequence 8, and not of the Savant Pathway either.

In the eyes of official Beyonders, a Low-Sequence simply lacked such capability.

Furthermore, had Leader been an ordinary person, they could have simply hauled him in for interrogation to see if any leads turned up.

But he was a member of the Machinery Hivemind, and apprehending him required a decent justification. They couldn’t very well tell the Machinery Hivemind that they were arresting him for questioning merely because both Lelouch and Leader liked wearing masks, could they?

“I’ll find the evidence.” Cleymond said with a grin, “I’ve already applied for a search warrant, and I’m here today specifically to search Unit 199 Hailin Avenue.”

He believed that this location was one of Leader’s major strongholds, bound to hold some traces.

Whenever the operations section of MI9 searched a premises, they never required any warrant. Leader’s situation, however, was indeed somewhat exceptional.

Cleymond had acted with great prudence by applying for a search warrant, proving that this was a search conducted by MI9 rather than an action driven by personal motives.

Hound nodded, saying, “I’ll wait here. If you find any evidence, I’ll go with you to apply for a warrant to arrest Leader.”

In his view, Cleymond’s search was entirely motivated by personal vengeance; after all, his brother had been killed by ‘Leader’ in the Capim case.

Cleymond let out a cold sneer and led his men as they barged into Unit 199.

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Cleymond had originally expected the attendants here to obstruct his search, but they did not resist in the slightest.

They only confirmed which department his group belonged to and stated that compensation would be demanded for any damaged property.

Neither Cleymond nor his subordinates took the warning to heart, conducting their search just as roughly as they always did…

Their search was concluded very quickly, as no one actually lived here. There were not even any wardrobes or similar furniture that offered hidden compartments, and several rooms were entirely empty.

Only the living room used for gatherings contained a large number of chairs. They flipped the chairs over one by one, thoroughly inspecting the backs and the undersides of the seats, but failed to find a single clue.

As for the basement, the place Cleymond had pinned great hopes on, there were no mystical features, no spiritual fluctuations… nothing at all.

At this point, he was rather lost: ‘But how does he manage to leave from the basement?’ He wondered.

They had even knocked a hole through one of the walls and had not spared the floor either, smashing several holes into it, yet found no secret rooms, no hidden passages, and not a single extraordinary mechanism.

The search dragged on until afternoon, leaving Cleymond with no choice but to accept reality… there was absolutely nothing to be found in this place.

Just as he was about to lead his men out, an attendant handed him a bill, demanding a staggering 50 pounds in compensation.

Having conducted searches for so many years, this was the first time Cleymond had ever encountered someone claiming damages, and he naturally ignored it.

The attendant promptly said, “In that case, we will have Mr. Leader deliver the bill directly to your department.”

These were all instructions Leader had left with them: “If official personnel come to search, don’t resist, and simply demand a generous sum in compensation. If the other party tries to renege on the bill, tell them that Mr. Leader will personally deliver it to their department…”

Cleymond frowned. If Leader really went and delivered the bill, it would indeed become quite troublesome. After all, practically everyone in MI9 knew that the man had just assisted them in escorting an informant.

Turning around to search the other’s gathering place right afterward, causing him considerable property damage, and having him come knocking on their door to demand payment would look terrible.

Above all, the crux of the matter was that they found nothing at all, making it difficult for Cleymond to even report back to Danesi.

After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled out his wallet and handed five 10-pound notes to the attendant…

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The moment they stepped out the door, Hound came up to them and asked, “After searching for so long, you must have reaped quite a harvest, haven’t you?”

“Hmph!” Cleymond gave a cold snort and led his men away in brisk strides.

Behind them, Hound called out, “You couldn’t have skipped reading the report I provided earlier, could you?”

He had spent two full days searching the venue before, yet had failed to find a single clue regarding Leader.

Even now, how Leader left Unit 199 remained a mystery.

Cleymond had, of course, reviewed those materials. He had simply thought that Hound, as an intelligence officer, lacked professionalism when it came to search operations, which was why he had specifically brought along an expert in mystical mechanisms, but they still found nothing.

Watching Hound ride away in his carriage, he suddenly realized that investigating the Leader through ordinary methods simply wouldn’t work…

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The carriage Odis took soon arrived at the Backlund Institute for Mechanical Research.

Since Max had the day off today, the institute’s receptionist showed Odis directly into the office of Ikanser Bernard, a high deacon and captain of Backlund’s Machinery Hivemind.

“What clues do you have to share with us this time?” Ikanser asked, his hair voluminous and thoroughly disheveled.

Odis first glanced toward the corner of the office. His spirituality told him something was slightly off there, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

Only then did he speak: “At today’s gathering, I learned that someone seems to be investigating the Nighthawks…”

He recounted the intelligence he had gathered, along with his own deductions, giving Ikanser the full story.

The captain gave a slow nod, “This is a very critical piece of intelligence. I’ll notify the Nighthawks at once. As for your reward, we’ll discuss it first and have someone deliver it to you.”

“Alright,” Odis said, “Also, on Saturday, there seems to have been a Beyonder battle on Rice Street…”

He briefly mentioned the intelligence about the galaxy of stars without sharing his own guesses, only stating that it appeared to be a marvelous Beyonder power.

Ikanser took this fairly seriously as well, promising to send someone to re-examine the matter immediately.

After seeing Odis off, he suddenly stood up and addressed the corner: “Odis doesn’t seem to show any abnormalities.”

In the corner Odis had glanced at earlier, an elderly man in a white priest’s robe suddenly appeared. It was none other than Archbishop Horamick Haydn.

“He does indeed seem fine,” Horamick said with a sigh, “If only he truly had no problems whatsoever.”

It was exceedingly rare to come across an intelligence officer who was as perceptive as Odis.

“Then regarding the intelligence he provided…?” Ikanser asked.

“Handle it as it should be handled,” Horamick said, “His analysis just now was very logical. There shouldn’t be any issue.”

Ikanser then had a subordinate send a telegram to the Nighthawks to alert them.

What he had not expected, however, was that Crestet Cesimir, one of the three bigwigs among the Church of the Evernight Goddess’s Red Gloves, would pay a personal visit…

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~Gale’s Herbal Shop~

After returning to the herbal shop, Odis rested briefly, then prepared to take the initiative and act as a Warlock…