Chapter 52Lantern Festival (5)

Translator: Kimmy

Editor: (I proofread this chapter too so any mistakes/unnatural flow message me via discord or leave a comment!)

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Unfortunately, Maximilien and Glenn experienced something as absurd as this before.

But none of them could bear talk about it out loud so they remained silent.

-Uh…

The person who broke the silence was Diego.

-What are you doing, bean sprout head Didi.

-Diego! It’s! Diego! How many times do I have to tell you! You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you!

-Again.

-Your Grace!

Only a part of Diego’s blonde hair could be seen on the vision orb.

It seemed like he earned the duke’s liking.

Glenn grinned.

Diego evolved from ‘Maximilien’s gift to his lily’ to ‘Bean sprout head’.

-Ahem, anyways, There’s one Siraqi here that claims that they can speak a little Leonharguese.

“Hmm.”

Thinking about it, Siraq and Leonhargue are pretty close.

Glenn was grateful for the unexpected helper. He was having some difficulties on where and how to hire a translator anyway.

He gave some additional points on Diego’s score record–this will be sent to Queen Sabina and currently, Diego’s scores were far below 0–and gestured to Diego to continue.

It was an extremely rude gesture for a commoner to do against royalty but after being bullied by the Chancellor, Diego didn’t even think of pointing that out.

-Uh, so he’s saying, ah, no. The Leonharguese person said to him that she saw something when she first arrived here.

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

The first one to move in the turmoil was Brigitta.

Using her swordmaster skills, she dashed towards the stage.

The second to move was Karlos.

“Karl, wait!”

Eva tapped his arm, which was wrapped around her.

As soon as the scream was heard, Karlos held Eva up and moved away from the square so she would be safe from the stampede of panicking people.

She was startled, but concern came first.

“We should bring Bri!”

“Bri went to look at the situation. She’ll be alright.”

“Whoa, that’s not alright! Not alright at all!”

Eva’s glasses sat at the edge of her nose, almost falling off at Karl’s every step.

She was still in Karlos’s arms who was trying to bring her out of the square.

She removed those huge glasses. She didn’t really need it anyway.

Her green doe eyes searched the surrounding.

“That’s the last thing she should be doing right now! Call her! Bri! Bri-gi-tta! Brigitaaaaaaa!”

When Eva unusually started yelling in his arms, Karlos stopped walking and looked at the stage and back at Eva.

Many people pushed past him but his strong Rumilesa body didn’t budge and held Eva stably.

Actually, people who tried to push past him were bounced away.

“Or we have to go to her!”

Eva grabbed the collar of Karlos’s shirt.

If she was in the right state of her mind, she would have realized that Karlos’s chest was rock hard from muscles but unfortunately she wasn’t.

The Morning of Glory Newspapers is after Brigitta so her being in the crime scene ‘alone’ was dangerous.

It’s an excellent response as a citizen-protecting knight but Brigitta was already once investigated as the murder suspect by the Metropolitan Police Department.

So as a person at the risk of being falsely accused, that was a terrible response.

“We can’t leave her there alone. We should go to her instead of going away from her, Karl!”

“But there’s a body–”

“It’s not my first time seeing a dead body anyway! It’s alright!”

What? Really!

Karlos raised his brows at her unexpected comment.

During the 8 years of his fanboying and writing fan letters to Eva, Karlos imagined author Evaneline to be a ‘cute and lovely young lady’.

When he actually met her, she wasn’t that different from his imagination of Eva either.

She was smaller than the majority of the people and had huge eyes. She rarely raised her voice and probably because of her small size, she looked younger than her actual age.

She smelled as sweet and fragrant as the romantic content she wrote and she was kind enough to hold his big and scary hands first.

Karlos realized that he had a prejudice about Eva based on her appearance.

His beloved author was so small, cute, and lovely that he never correlated corpses, crimes, or anything dark to her.

However, despite that, Karlos was aware of how the citizens lived during the reign of the previous emperor thanks to Glenn.

He didn’t even want to think about it but if Eva lived such a life or perhaps a life that’s even worse than that, she wouldn’t be new to dead bodies like she said.

He frowned a little and asked.

“Do you have to go?”

He would do it if she wanted.

“Yes!”

Eva was stern and Karlos didn’t hesitate.

With Eva still in his arms, he ran in the opposite direction.

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“Lieutenant Alex. There’s been a report at the square about a murder. But the first reporter is Lockhart…”

“What?”

Alex squeezed the cafeteria ticket in her hands when Billford said that.

Ah damn, why did that annoying and troublesome man find the crime scene first!

I can already see what bullsh*t he’s going to write after all that we’ve done to him.

Billford looked at Alex who was pulling her curly hair pitifully and continued.

“Uh, Lieutenant. There’s more.”

“Oh f***, what now?”

“The person that was at the crime scene is the person we know.”

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“Bri!”

“Eva?”

Brigitta hurriedly hid the crime scene when she saw Eva in Karlos’s arms.

It was a terrible scene.

The body of a woman whose scalp was savagely removed was lying on the floor.

Eva pushed Bri’s hands covering her eyes and stood down next to the bloody floor.

Huh, wait. Karlos brought Eva here in his arms? He touched a woman?

In this serious situation, Brigitta was still surprised about that fact.

Meanwhile, Eva studied the body with sharp eyes.

The blood was not dried yet. Has it not been long since she was killed? But I didn’t hear any screaming.

The firework. No, this must have happened before that. It’s not enough time for the killer to kill someone nevertheless rip off a scalp.

The dead woman was wearing a very fancy dress that looked inflexible. She was probably an actress or a singer.

The swordmaster and the emperor stood in a distance and shared glances.

-Is she doing something? -I have no idea.

The dead woman died holding her stomach and her face was distorted, probably from the pain.

A sword pierced through her abdomen.

There were many holes–it was the only way to describe it–around the stab wound.

It looked like she was stabbed multiple times and finally pierced with strong force.

A body pale from the huge loss of blood and a missing scalp.

Karlos, Brigitta, and Eva all knew whose trademark this was.

But.

“This is a little strange.”

Eva frowned.

Something was not right.

She studied the crime scene keenly.

It looked exactly like the crime scene described in the article that caused a lot of trouble for Brigitta and Eva.

So it this really another murder of murderer TT?

“Bri.”

Brigitta was even more surprised at Eva’s calm reaction but she replied instantly.

“Yes!”

Her voice was a little off but no one noticed or cared.

Especially Karlos, who was staring Eva with half his mind out of this world.

“Did you see the person who screamed earlier?”

“Uh, no one was here when… I came…. Maybe they ran away?”

Brigitta cocked her head.

Was someone here?

But there was really no one here.

The first person to move in the briefly frozen square was Brigitta.

And when she came to the back of the stage, where there should be at least a few staff, there was no one.

Eva looked at Brigitta who was confused and continued.

“Then–”

Thump.

Just before she could start, a pack of people rushed into the backstage.

“Nobody move! Initial investigation unit here!”

People holding out their badges surrounded them.

It was the badge she saw not so long ago.

Eva and Brigitta looked at each other as Karlos stood there vacant-mindedly.

What’s going on? I just wanted her signature. Do things like this always happen when people try to get signatures? Why am I here?

The person who looked like the one in charge came forward and studied the body. His face was stiff.

He ordered the other investigators with gloved hands and spoke with a voice as cold and stiff as his face.

“Excuse me but you will need to cooperate with our investigation.”

Unbelievably, Karlos heard Eva say “Fu**” softly.

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