Chapter 189: 185. Military Saber

185. Military Saber

Kande's room was almost exactly as it had been seen yesterday; it seemed there were no traces of it having been disturbed. However, the inside of the fake book that had sealed the Stone Statue was empty. The Stone Statue had indeed been taken away; the Stone Statue that had smashed Count Bluebeard's head had certainly been taken from here.

Immediately, not knowing if it was a hallucination, Kelake felt he smelled a faint fragrance—so weak that it made one suspicious.

To verify this, Kelake leaned close to the fake book, which was actually a box, and took several careful, forceful deep breaths. He was certain this fragrance came from the surface of the box. Next, he earnestly used the back of his hand and his palm to feel the sensation of touching the box's surface, and discovered that there was a greasy substance on the surface. That slippery feeling should have come from some kind of skincare product used by a woman.

So, is it Hela?

Kelake was very familiar with this scent because on the first night he arrived at the Castle, when Hela served him dinner, there had been close contact between the two of them, and the same fragrance had drifted from her.

Closing the fake book and putting things back in their original places, Kelake left Kande's room and walked toward Count Bluebeard's room.

The Castle was deathly quiet. The sound of the gale blowing against the glass became clearly audible, as if a group of demons were pounding on the doors and windows. The sound of the wind seeping through the cracks was like their aggressive, monstrous roars, which made one's hair stand on end.

Feeling depressed, Kelake turned into the hallway and walked up the spiral staircase. He felt that this stretch of the path upstairs was longer and further than when he had come last night. Looking up at the dome, which seemed like an endless darkness, it was as if he were voluntarily walking into an abyss where space was inverted.

Perhaps the murderer and the Demon-Subduing Sorcerer were waiting for him in the room he was about to enter, like a lamb to the slaughter. Perhaps they were lurking in the dark corners, ready to draw blood like a hidden arrow, killing with a single strike.

However, his wild thoughts vanished the moment he quietly pushed open the door to the Count's room and walked inside, because everything was as it had been—quiet and still.

Poor Count Bluebeard still lay coldly on the bed soaked in blood. That deadly military saber was still stuck straight into his heart. The blade shone with a cold glint, reflecting the Stone Statue, which was half-embedded in that mangled face, in a ghostly and eerie way.

Based on his suspicion of Butler Walunte, Kelake guessed that there was something unfavorable to Butler Walunte at this crime scene.

Since someone said during the day that Walunte would enter Count Bluebeard's room every night under the pretext of reporting the Castle's daily work summary, were Butler Walunte and Count Bluebeard really so diligent every night?

Thinking of Count Bluebeard's attitude toward him, a stranger—not even carefully verifying his identity, and even asking questions in a way that could almost be considered perfunctory—Kelake did not think Count Bluebeard was a ruler who was serious and responsible for his own Castle.

Kelake recalled the places everyone had searched during the day and carefully checked the corners and crevices that hadn't been searched again. After searching for a long time without any special discoveries, he began to focus on recalling Butler Walunte's search behavior from the day.

"He checked the bookshelf here, checked the small cubicle here, checked the fireplace..." Kelake tried hard to recall the details. Everyone had repeatedly checked these places. Finally, his gaze fell on Count Bluebeard's corpse. "The corpse... yes, he was the only one who checked the corpse, and he was the only one who touched the corpse the entire time."

Remembering that when they were preparing to check the corpse during the day, both women, Milaier and Hela, were afraid to touch the corpse, so the work fell to the two men. Butler Walunte, on the grounds that he was the only one wearing gloves and that he did not trust Kelake, an outsider, did not let him touch Count Bluebeard's corpse.

Could this corpse be hiding something else?

Kelake secretly shook his head. The corpse examination was considered thorough. Although the women were afraid to touch the corpse, they had also looked at it very carefully; the possibility of an oversight was very small.

Kelake's gaze then fell onto the bed, and his eyes lit up slightly. Could there be a problem with the bed?

He glanced at the corpse on the bed, whispered an apology, roughly dragged the corpse to the floor, then got onto the bed and felt around every part of it.

"Hmm?" Just as Kelake lifted the sheets and mattress, he unexpectedly discovered that the space between the bed board and the seamless floor-to-ceiling bed frame was solid.

"No wonder this bed hardly moved or wobbled when you sat on it." After discovering the abnormality, Kelake felt that the bed board must be hiding some kind of mechanism, so he went around knocking on it. He soon discovered a hollow space in the center of the bed board about two adult men's shoulder-widths wide, guessing that there must be a hidden tunnel under the bed board.

So he began to look for various places that might trigger the mechanism, and finally, he found a clue on a painting hanging in the room.

In the lower right corner of the painting's frame, there was a crack—very deep. Because the frame was black, it perfectly blended with the blackness presented by the crack, so it was hard to see with the naked eye. And even if it were discovered, if Kelake hadn't sensed that there was a mechanism here, he probably wouldn't have thought it was very suspicious.

"If this is the keyhole to trigger the mechanism, then what is the key?" Kelake used his imagination to think, started his brain to recall, and then slammed his palm. "I've got it."

Kelake's gaze suddenly turned to the corpse lying crookedly on the floor, his attention focused entirely on that military saber.

Muttering another apology, Kelake went up to pull out the saber, but unexpectedly discovered that the blade seemed to be stuck in the bone, firmly fixed to the corpse, and very difficult to pull out.

He straddled Count Bluebeard's armpits with his legs, took a deep breath, gathered his strength, and pulled hard.

Shhh!

Using too much force, Kelake landed on his butt on the floor, making quite a loud noise, and accidentally scratched his finger.

"Ah!" A desperately suppressed scream rang out in Count Bluebeard's room. Kelake was instantly startled. He turned his head and discovered it was a female figure who had fallen next to a bookshelf.

"You! When did you come in?" Kelake said in shock.

In the darkness, Kelake couldn't see the other person's face clearly, but judging from the silhouette, it should be Milaier. He only heard the other person say awkwardly: "Not long ago. Because I saw you doing that... I hid. As a result, you fell just now, and the sound gave me a fright, so... ouch, my hand seems to have been scratched by the corner of the bookcase..."

Hearing the other person's voice and explanation, Kelake felt slightly relieved. He thought for a moment, then walked toward Milaier with the saber in his hand, saying softly: "Since you came in, why didn't you call out to me?"

Facing Kelake, who was holding a bloody murder weapon and walking toward her, Milaier was not only unafraid, but she lit a candle, illuminating the room. Then, she tore a strip of cloth from her apron, bandaged the wound on her finger, and said with a dry laugh: "Isn't it because I was afraid of disturbing the Officer in his investigation and breaking your train of thought?"