Chapter 119 Revealed Face
“That’s ridiculous! A demon! A bio-experiment! What is it all about? Don’t say such horrible things!”
Lars shouted at the top of his lungs, but it fell on deaf ears, as Killion merely fixed him with a dry stare.
“We’ll hear the explanation in the cellar. Let’s go!”
Killion stormed off, and Lars, angry and surprised, called out after him.
“Ah, very well, I’ll take the lead, come this way!”
The soldiers, including Kilion, all followed Lars, who walked with a shuffling gait. They were just about to enter the staircase that led down to the cellar when Veronia, who had been following quietly behind, shouted out.
“Not that way!”
Instantly, everyone turned and stared at Veronia. Lars looked at her with a frown.
“The informant told me about a secret passageway in the director’s office on the second floor, a cellar that leads to it.”
Veronia and Killion’s gazes met in the air. Veronia said with a glare.
‘It must be a trick. If we go there, we’ll end up somewhere else.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that, thank you.’
With a small nod to Veronia, Killion turned and headed for the second floor. Lars, meanwhile, felt as if all the blood was draining from his body. His limbs were shaking and it was hard to move.
‘How the hell did you know that? No one else knows that!’
No one knew about his basement research except the Emperor. Not even anyone in the nursery where he had lived for ten years. His mind whirled busily.
‘No way… did the kids at the clinic yesterday tell her? Damn… Have I ever seen such ungrateful things!’
Lars’s face instantly turned grim as he watched Killion storm up the stairs. But he could not stand idly by. Summoning the last of his strength, Lars spoke again.
“A secret passageway in the Abbot’s chambers that I, the Abbot, don’t know about? How could there be such a thing?”
Kilion turned slowly at the sound of Lars’ voice, one corner of his mouth squirming up in a leisurely smile.
“Why would a secret passage be secret?”
“What?”
Lars echoed, bewildered by the question.
“It’s a secret passageway because we can’t reveal it.”
“Ah…”
Lars’s mouth fell open, almost in despair.
These people were not paying any attention to him, as if they were already convinced of the secret passage and the underground laboratory. With a flick of his head, Killion started up the stairs again.
“We have a tip, we just need to confirm it.”
“You have the audacity to come out here on the word of an informant! Are you sure you won’t regret your actions?”
Lars shouted, straining at every syllable as if he were on the edge of a precipice. It was a last resort.
“If you mean to speak of our nursery, where His Majesty the Emperor cares for us with a heart as big as the Sea!”
Killion’s icy gaze fell immediately on Lars. But he didn’t bother to cut him off mid-sentence, so he kept his mouth shut and simply watched. As if to say, let’s see how far this goes.
“Is the Emperor aware of this action now, and is it correct that a report has gone up?”
“…”
“No, it can’t be, because if it was, you would have come in with at least a letter of cooperation with the investigation, not this bluntness. This… is going to get you in trouble later, are you sure you don’t mind?”
Killion, having heard Lars’s story to its end, spoke up with a grimace, the aura radiating from his entire body quite intimidating.
“Have you said everything you wanted to say?”
“…”
“You’ll find out who’s going to get in trouble when you investigate. We don’t have time to dilly-dally anymore. Serve the Chief properly.”
Barely had Killion’s order been uttered when two soldiers each grabbed the leader by the arm and dragged him away.
“Hey, what are you doing, let go of me, let go of me!”
Lars screamed and struggled, but he was no match for the strength of the sturdy soldiers. His frail body was too easily subdued by the soldier’s hands.
“You may be the Chancellor of this Empire, but you cannot treat me so casually, you will surely regret it!”
By the time Lars was gasping for breath from his shouting, they were already inside the director’s office.
Striding briskly, Killion stood before the bookcase that hid the secret passage. Lars couldn’t help but gasp as he reached for the all-too-familiar lever in the corner of the bookcase and pulled it.
‘This can’t be! This can’t be! How did he know about that!’
This was it. The moment the secret passage opened, it was all over. There was nowhere to turn.
‘I have to get out of here now!’
If he could just get out of here, he thought, the Emperor would somehow forgive him. Lars grabbed the locket from the necklace that hung down his chest.
‘As long as the teleportation scroll in here isn’t discovered…’
Khuk, uhuk, uhuk!
The very next moment, Lars shook violently and began coughing. The soldiers holding his arms loosened their grip as the old man’s whole body cried out in pain.
‘Enough!’
Lars smiled a smile of conversion as he managed to pull the teleportation scroll from his necklace with a grunt.
Uhuk!
He was just letting out a final cough before straightening his hunched back when Veronia, who had come to stand beside him, patted him on the back and asked in a friendly voice.
“Are you feeling unwell?”
“I’m fine now.”
“Good, then.”
Lars stopped coughing and stretched, and Veronia removed her hand from his back. A small piece of paper with a magic circle stuck to the spot where her hand had touched him, but neither Lars nor the soldiers noticed.
A muffled gasp escaped the mouths of the soldiers and nursery teachers as the bookcase opened to reveal a secret passage.
“My God!”
“There really is a secret passage in this place!”
“No way!”
Lars, whose arms were now free, quickly pulled himself back and exclaimed curiously.
“I have business to attend to, and I think I must leave you here. I’ll leave you to your investigations.”
It happened so quickly that the soldiers had no time to stop him.
Lars cackled, smirked, and ripped the teleportation scroll to shreds. But nothing happened; the magic circle that was supposed to glow at his feet didn’t appear at all.
“Huh? No… why?”
Grasping at straws, Lars tore the rest of the scroll again. But this time, it was the same. Nothing happened. A look of despair washed over Lars’s face.
“This can’t be… this can’t be! Why..!”
Veronia smiled a smile of conversion as Lars screamed at the top of his lungs. He had been hiding in the cellar for so many years, doing horrible research.
Her suspicions that he would have a means of escape or two ready in case of emergency had proved correct, and her timely use of her magic tools had thwarted his escape.
Killion grabbed Lars’s wrist, which was trembling as he clutched the torn scroll.
“Teleportation scrolls don’t work. The moment you pulled this out, you admitted to the crime.”
Killion gestured to the soldiers with his eyes, and Lars’s wrists were immediately cuffed. The coolness of the cuffs sent a shiver down Lars’s hunched back.
“That’s not what it is, what do you mean, charges, I’ve done nothing wrong and suddenly I’m being treated like a criminal, it’s unfair!”
“Whether it’s unjust or not, we’ll find out soon enough. Now, hurry up!”
Killion shouted to the soldiers, leading the way as they rushed down the secret passage. Lars, handcuffed, was dragged along by the soldiers’ strong hands.
***
After passing through the horrific demon prison, they rounded the corner into a large room that appeared to be Donnie’s laboratory, and the sight was equally horrifying.
Shelves were filled with all manner of herbs and drugs, and jars of preservatives contained what appeared to be demonic body parts. One wall was filled with knives of all shapes and sizes and experimental tools like hammers and saws.
Another wall was covered with anatomical diagrams of the human body, along with a plethora of facts and figures that appeared to be the results of the experiments.
A nursery school teacher eventually burst into tears, and a soldier ran out of the basement in a huff, unable to hold back a wave of nausea.
“That devil of a man must have been conducting bio-experiments here, and there’s plenty of evidence that he used human bodies as well as demonic ones.”
Veronia glared at Lars, raising her voice. The thought of Jonathan being behind all of this enraged Veronia even more.
Killion turned to his soldiers and barked orders.
“Secure every last piece of evidence. This man is to be taken to the Count’s castle at once and imprisoned in the dungeons.”
“Your orders, Your Excellency!”
