Chương 200: 28.Autopsy Report 2

I stared at the coroner's perfectly composed face and found myself deeply regretting my compulsion to ask clarifying questions. There are things in this world a person genuinely does not need to understand completely. The version of me that had walked into this room fifteen minutes ago had been blissfully ignorant, and I was now paying the full price for curiosity. Maro let out a short, appreciative whistle.

Lei Lian lowered her eyes—whether processing intelligence or calculating where to begin cutting, her expression offered no hints. Ignicia showed no sign of discomfort whatsoever. She didn't twitch an eyebrow, didn't shift her weight. She simply looked at Haerding on the slab the way you look at rotten meat that has finally, under sufficient pressure, confessed its secrets. Then she spoke.

"I don't care whether it went in through his mouth, his drink, or his bed." Her voice was level—the kind of level a blade achieves after being sharpened past the point of reflection.

"What I care about is who had the standing to get close enough to his mouth, his bed, and his life." My spine went rigid. There it was. I hadn't known Ignicia long, but I'd learned to distinguish between the version of her that was angry and the version that had decided to take something apart and examine every piece. This was the latter. This was the voice she used when she'd stopped asking questions and started drawing battle lines. She turned, cloak sweeping through the frigid air with a soft, precise sound.

"Cedric. Bring in the guard from the door."

"Right." I moved on pure reflex. The guard outside had been standing at attention, but the moment I opened the door, half the color drained from his face—the expression of someone who'd just calculated his odds of becoming the second occupant of an iron slab.

"Her—Her Highness commands your presence." He swallowed hard, his boot heels considerably more careful than usual as he stepped inside. Ignicia didn't give him the courtesy of eye contact.

"Summon the harbor district commander. Seal the Governor-General's residence, the command post's inner vaults, and Haerding's private residence—his chambers, study, wine cellar, kitchen, water well, and bathhouse. Full inventory tonight. Every ledger, every personal seal, every letter, every spice, every medicinal wine, every piece of tableware, every set of bedding—nothing gets burned, nothing gets discarded. If anyone moves anything before I give the word, I move them first." The guard went several shades paler.

"Y-yes, Your Highness!" He was backing toward the door when Ignicia added:"And compile a list of every person who had physical access to him in the past three months. Personal attendants, wine bearers, water carriers, physicians, bed-warmers, entertainers, clerks, perfumers—if they could walk through his door, I want their names. All of them."

"Understood!" This time he ran like his life depended on it. Watching him nearly trip over the threshold, I felt a brief pang of sympathy. Very brief. After all, I was still standing in the dead center of this particular storm. Ignicia raised one finger.

"First line." Her gaze shifted to Lei Lian.

"You'll take the Yinglong Guard and trace the sorcery." Lei Lian met her eyes and nodded once, sharp and definitive. Ignicia continued, her voice cold enough to crack.

"I don't care if it's Eastern Reaches sorcery, Yanxia Empire blood-craft, or some cheap parlor trick that crawled out of a third-rate mountain cult. I want every Eastern practitioner, apothecary, spice merchant, monk, traveling physician, and unfamiliar face who's entered this port recently—dig them all up. Especially anyone who's had contact with the Governor-General's residence, the Wyvern Tower, or the harbor defense administration. Cargo manifests, lodging records, visits, messages—check everything.

Any incomprehensible symbols, strange medicinal residue, charms of unknown provenance—bring it all back." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Lei Lian's gaze settled on the mark beneath Haerding's tongue. She gave a quiet acknowledgment.

"Understood." She paused, then added: "If this truly follows Eastern methodology, the perpetrator wouldn't have acted alone. The one who cast the spell, the one who delivered the vector, the one who monitored the timing—at minimum, three sets of hands."

"Then dig up all three hands," Ignicia said.

"If that's not enough, keep digging until you hit bottom." Maro let out a low chuckle from the side.

"Your Highness is more ruthless than the harbor cranes."

"You'll discover very soon that I'm much the same with you." Her second finger rose.

"Second line." This time she wasn't looking at anyone in the room. She was looking through me—as if her gaze had already pierced the walls to survey the entire harbor district drawn tight like a bowstring.

"The harbor commander takes the garrison and hunts people." Simple words. Not one syllable left room for interpretation.

"I want names, not bureaucratic rhetoric. Who entered Haerding's quarters and when, who changed his wine, who accepted gifts on his behalf, who delivered medicine, who was summoned at night and slipped out before dawn. Everyone who buzzed around him like flies—drag them all out. Starting tonight, no one disappears. Anyone who vanishes automatically becomes our prime suspect." I observed a moment of silent mourning for the harbor commander. One moment only. Because I already knew I wasn't escaping this either.

Ignicia raised her third finger.

"Third line." This one was for Maro. The one-eyed smuggler captain leaned against a nearby cabinet, posture loose as someone waiting for a price quote. But that single eye had already lit up—not with loyalty or righteous fury, but with the particular alertness of a rat king catching the mingled scent of money and blood.

"Taverns, back alleys, private houses, gambling dens, unlicensed physicians, street chemists, local fixers, dock laborers, the scum who collect night taxes—" Ignicia ticked them off systematically.

"Go shake the holes you know. I want to know which outsiders have been keeping deliberately low profiles this past month, who suddenly came into money, who keeps asking when ships are sailing, and who tried to bolt the moment they heard about the port closure." Maro smiled.

"Princess, this kind of work doesn't come free."

"Of course not." Ignicia looked at him, the corner of her mouth actually lifting slightly. There was no warmth in it whatsoever.

"Bring me one real lead, I'll pay you in coin. Bring me a whole nest, I'll pay you in your continued existence. As for coming back empty-handed—" She paused.

"Pray that at least half your usual nonsense turns out to be genuinely useful." Maro was silent for exactly one heartbeat. Then his grin widened.

"Deal." I had absolutely no doubt this bastard was already compiling a mental roster. Which drunks in which taverns had seen strange faces, which alleys had acquired new foot traffic, which brothel girls had switched to Eastern perfume. Things the garrison would spend lifetimes failing to notice—while his pack of gray-market rats could track by scent alone. Ignicia raised her fourth finger. Every alarm bell in my head went off in unison. As expected.

"Fourth line. Cedric."

"…I knew it." She ignored my suffering entirely.

"You investigate the words." I blinked.

"Words?"

"Words." She looked at me with eyes sharp enough to use as a letter opener.

"They can hide ledgers, hide medicine, hide people. But words are harder to bury. You're an outsider, an envoy, the one person in this harbor who looks least like a Dragon Kingdom bureaucrat. People see me and forget how to do anything but shake. They see Lei Lian and forget how to breathe. They see Maro and immediately worry about their coin purse. But when they see you—" She paused.

"They might let something slip." That wasn't exactly a compliment. Unfortunately, it was entirely accurate. Ignicia continued issuing orders.

"Get me a complete timeline: every statement given today, every recorded hour, every entry and exit log, every meal delivery, every incident report. Who heard the cannon fire first, who waited half an hour to react, who claimed ignorance while running to burn their ledgers—I want it all laid out. And send another dispatch to the delegation. Tell them to lock their doors tonight and stay put. That's not a suggestion—it's a notification." I opened my mouth.

"…Your Highness, are you deploying me as a special envoy or a glorified clerk?"

"Does it matter?"

"Considerably."

"Then be a more useful envoy."

"That was unnecessarily cruel."

"Work fast enough and I'll only be cruel once." I had nothing intelligent to say to that. Lei Lian glanced at me briefly, the corner of her mouth possibly twitching. I couldn't confirm whether it qualified as a smile, but it definitely wasn't sympathy. Much appreciated, General. Your emotional support has all the warmth of the coroner's basin.

As for the coroner—he remained quietly beside the iron slab throughout, with the air of someone long accustomed to watching the living negotiate their misfortunes next to the dead. Ignicia finally turned back to him.

"You stay. Keep digging." The coroner nodded.

"How deep?"

"Deep enough to tell me how long this thing incubated inside him, and whether you can trace delivery methods from stomach, blood, tissue, or—" She hesitated, clearly reluctant to repeat the term.

"—or other routes." The coroner's expression didn't change.

"Understood."

"And this body leaves here with every hair intact. Anyone who touches it without authorization—call for someone to remove their hands."

"That," the coroner said, "I would find quite satisfying." I looked at him. …So you do have a sense of humor. It's just been preserved in formaldehyde.