After hearing about the case enough, Zion sneaked out of the restaurant and entered the haunted house. Lia was still in deep meditation, so he went toward her and wiped the message he had written earlier on the dusty floor before sitting beside her.

Then he mulled about the case with his brows furrowed.

From the looks of it, he had already figured out that the way this murderer had worked was a little different than the black-cloaked man he had seen earlier. That person would always be a step ahead of him and make it so that he would be caught off guard, just like how that imposter killed the real murderer and even became an imposter to act like Prince Bradley.

If that imposter were to be present here instead of that gentle-looking man, that person would have identified Lia at first glance and would have done everything in his power to get rid of the dhampir princess. Zion knew one thing for sure: The black-cloaked man perhaps didn't know who was the original owner of the system since he had changed his identities so many times already. So it wouldn't be strange if that imposter would end up with a conclusion that perhaps Lia Vanne, who managed to escape and entered the Viridis kingdom without any hesitation, was the instigator who was set on stopping that imposter.

It meant that for that person, Lia's existence would have been critical for the imposter. But now, when Zion and the dhampir princess managed to escape so effortlessly, he could tell the enemy behind these murderers didn't want to kill Lia and just wanted to blame killing on someone else's shoulders. It almost felt like the killer aimed to hide in the crowd and kill children.

This shouldn't be how the black-cloaked man would work. He would instead eradicate the kingdom by creating many political disturbances in the court and troubling the king to the point of fainting. But now, only children were killed, and no one seemed to have blamed the elf queen, Odina.

Then, if the murderer wasn't the black-cloaked man, where the heck did he go?

Zion's brows furrowed deeper. Before he could think more on this topic, Lia, who was in meditation a while ago, poked his shoulders and asked in an arrogant voice, "What made you think so hard?"

"I don't think it's that imposter this time."

Lia's brows raised as she narrowed her eyes and stared at him with a hint of coldness in her eyes as if she was reminded of some unpleasant memory. "Why do you think so?"

"If it were the black-cloaked man, he would have killed us already."

Lia understood without asking for an explanation, but her expressions became grave all of a sudden, almost as if she was thinking about something. Then she shook her head and said, "We can't leave this kingdom without clearing our name, and if not, they would continue to hunt us down wherever we go." Then she paused and sneered. "I know these elves too well. They would go to lengths for their so-called justice! I don't want to keep hiding because of them when we already have one imposter to think about!"

"Then the only way is to make sure that we find the killer and show that we were innocent."

"Yes."

After speaking, both Lia and Zion went silent. This was one of the rare moments when they managed to agree to one thing together. Otherwise, they had a record of fighting on every topic recently, so at this time, the environment around them was filled with a hint of awkwardness.

Zion scratched the back of his neck and suggested. "Should we go out and search for this silver-masked man?"

"Sure."

Although Zion knew that they would probably be caught all over again, he couldn't resist the temptation of catching the murderer off guard. Even a glimpse of the murderer would be fine if he needed evidence to bring the gentle-looking henpecked husband down. From the looks of it, it didn't seem like they had any other way than this.

A sigh escaped his lips, and he tilted his head back as it touched the wall, and he quickly fell asleep.

After a few hours, when the two of them finally woke up, Zion realized that his back pain receded. He glanced at the dhampir princess and squinted his eyes. Did his back pain go away because he slept while supporting his back on the wall, or did she silently give him a hand this time?

When he thought of this, he shook his head. There was no way this princess would be this generous.

After getting up, they both had something to eat. It was just a piece of dry bread that Lia arranged from somewhere while Zion was sleeping. He made no comments about the quality of food and ate it quietly.

By the time it was night, they were both ready to find the murderer. Lia brought a black hoodie from somewhere and threw it at Zion's face. The latter, however, pursed his lips and wore it silently while gritting his teeth. He didn't want to be treated like a fragile little thing with no authority to do anything. He was a man, and the things that this dhampir girl was doing should be done by him! Why was it that once he transmigrated into this world, the roles of responsibilities by both the genders were exchanged?!

He glared at the princess and wore the dark-colored hoodie to cover up his body and head. For some reason, this hoodie reminded him of the black-cloaked man, and he hesitated before asking, "Where did you find this?"

"Stole it from the market." Of course, they would have to resort to stealing because as soon as they would show their faces, everyone would end up sending people to capture them!

Zion nodded and sneakily got out of the house that looked more like an isolated place than haunted. He had also heard rumors about this place, but he didn't find it as horrific as mentioned in the rumors. His brows furrowed. Was there a reason behind these rumors, and was it connected to this case? He had a hunch that there should be a connection between the two.