Liakade and Field arrived at the corner of the winding corridor. The Cang’an Room was quite an important place, so there were two guards posted at the door.
“What do we do now?”
Field pressed herself against the corner wall, peeking down the hallway. The guards stood firmly in the middle of the spacious corridor, tightly guarding the Cang’an Room.
This time was different from earlier. Before, they only needed to avoid the guards, but now Liakade and Field had to take the initiative.
A frontal assault was probably out of the question. Although there were some statues and decorations that could serve as cover, such cover could only hide them if they stayed still behind it.
They couldn’t gradually approach the guards by using the cover step by step. Without getting close, it would be hard to take down the guards before being discovered. Once spotted, the guards would call for reinforcements.
If Liakade and Field were even a little slow, the guards could sound the alarm. In that case, even if they managed to knock down the guards, exploring the other rooms would become much more difficult.
So, the only way was to lure the guards over and deal with them.
“Bang—”
One of the guards on duty was feeling a bit drowsy. Today was the day Her Highness Sistem was hosting a banquet, and Irina Zi had gone to attend as well.
The butler and part of the guards had gone along to protect Irina Zi, so there wasn’t much supervision or patrol. This made the guard a little relaxed.
Until the strange crashing sound rang out, startling the guard into sudden alertness.
“Who’s there!?”
The guard felt a sudden gust of wind sweep down the corridor. The source of the noise gave no reply, only the sound of “pat-pat” footsteps echoing incessantly.
If it had been a servant or another guard, they would have come out to respond, but there was only a gust of wind and that strange sound in the corridor.
Could it… be an intruder?
But this was the mansion of the Chancellor’s Daughter. Who would dare to intrude here?
The guard swallowed nervously and decided to go check it out.
“Phew… so it was just a window left open. Scared myself for nothing.”
The guard reached the corner of the corridor and looked toward the source of the strange noise. It turned out the window had been blown open by the wind. “Who’s so careless?”
Grumbling to himself, the guard shut the window tight and locked it.
“Speaking of which… the weather was nice during the day, why is it suddenly windy at night?”
As the guard was musing about the unpredictable weather, he suddenly felt something tighten around his neck.
“Help—”
By the time the guard realized something was wrong, it was too late. He struggled desperately, but the force locking him up was far stronger, like an iron chain strangling him until he couldn’t breathe.
His vision blurred more and more until he collapsed, limp and unconscious.
“Well done.” Field praised quietly.
“Let’s toss him into the Cang’an Room for now.”
“Mm.” Liakade quickly tied up the guard’s hands and feet in tight knots, stuffed a rag into his mouth, and dragged him to the Cang’an Room’s entrance.
Field gently gripped the lock, melting the core completely, then casually opened the door.
Liakade carelessly threw the unconscious guard into a corner inside. The room seemed unchanged, and the two of them searched through all the Contracts but found no mention of Liakade’s name.
“Still nothing.” Field shook her head, glancing at the time. “We only have two hours left.”
“For such a special Contract, it must be hidden somewhere close to herself, a place only she knows.” Liakade suggested their next target. “Shall we check Irina Zi’s bedroom?”
They closed the door behind them. The pitch-dark Cang’an Room was left with only the unfortunate guard inside.
Feeling their way along, they arrived outside Irina Zi’s bedroom, which was unguarded at the moment, and slipped inside without difficulty.
“Heh, quite flashy.” Field glanced around the lavish decorations in the bedroom, unable to suppress a scoff.
Then, Field began rummaging through the desk and cabinets. No Contracts were found in the cabinets, but she did find a notebook. Curiously, she opened it and began reading.
[July 11th, today is the first day of school. Finally, I can meet Field again, but unfortunately, we’re not in the same class…]
[July 13th, why did the school specially admit such a lowly commoner?]
[Disgusting. Just breathing the same air as this scum makes me sick. And she even shares a dorm with Field? How could this happen?]
[I don’t understand.]
[July 17th, Field looks so cute when she’s paying attention in class, so cute when she walks, and so cute when she eats. I can’t take it anymore—I want to marry Field right now!]
[…]
“What the hell!” Field snapped the notebook shut with a bang.
She hadn’t expected to casually open a notebook and find Irina Zi’s diary inside. Reading those twisted words made Field feel sick again.
“Hey, don’t scream so loud! What if you attract the guards?”
Liakade quickly stopped Field’s outburst. “What did you see that got you so worked up?”
“Look at this. It seems to be her diary.” Field hurriedly tossed the diary to Liakade, eager to get rid of the unpleasant thing as soon as possible.
“Who keeps a diary anyway?”
Liakade flipped through Irina Zi’s diary. Her expression grew increasingly fanatical as she read, until finally she gasped, “This is good stuff! Hold on to it!”
“Huh? What’s so good about it?”
Field was utterly shocked and reluctantly caught the diary back. She still couldn’t see what was so great about it.
“This records all her crimes. With witnesses and evidence, there’s no way she can get away with it.”
“That’s true!” Field finally caught on. “Since it’s her diary, we just need to detect the residual magic on it!”
Though this world didn’t have DNA testing or such investigations, for mages, anything they used would carry some magical residue—the longer it was used, the stronger the residue.
“Yes, and…” Liakade hesitated before finally saying, “There also seems to be her bodily fluids on the diary…”
“Ugh, don’t gross me out.” Field felt nauseous, barely restraining the urge to throw the diary away. She flipped through it quickly and found strange stains on some of the pages. These pages mainly contained entries about Field.
Irina Zi was a noble with perfect etiquette; Field couldn’t believe she’d place anything like food or drink on the book’s edges while writing.
It was hard to imagine how those marks got there. If it was saliva, she could somewhat accept it. But if it was other bodily fluids, then it was only natural to question Irina Zi’s mental state.