The Patient Wizard Chapter 19

Chapter 19 – Calculation 9

Chris forcibly opened his tightened chest.

“I don’t have any.”

“Then why did your expression change?”

“Did I do that?”

“You definitely did. Do you have something hidden in the room?”

Chris didn’t dare attempt to lie.

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Silver coins…”

William asked Carl.

“Did you find them?”

“Yes. He had hidden silver coins in the ceiling.”

“How many pieces?”

“32 pieces.”

“Did you bring them?”

“I left them there.”

At his answer, Chris breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing this, Carl rolled his eyes. His eyes were saying, ‘Did you think I would covet such petty money? You fool.’

Chris, who had indeed been thinking that way, flinched and shrank his neck. Taking this as an answer, Carl pressed his lips together. If the high-ranking wizards hadn’t been present, Chris would have been beaten severely.

William looked at Chris.

“Is there anything else you’ve hidden?”

“No.”

Randall instructed the apprentice wizards.

“Check their alibis.”

Randall’s apprentice David and William’s apprentice Peter came forward to investigate the group members. Carl, after gauging the situation, joined them to help.

Carl pulled Chris’s ear and sat him down in a chair by the fireplace. Chris grimaced in pain as if his ear might detach.

Chris’s behavior was gradually showing defensive patterns from his time in the Baronial Estate of Xavier, used to minimize harassment. At a glance, it looked foolish. To a wizard’s sharp eyes, it appeared artificial.

Randall stepped in front of Chris.

“Why are you acting like a fool?”

“Pardon? Me?”

“You’re pretending to be a fool. Do you think I wouldn’t notice that!”

Randall struck Chris’s temple with his wand.

Thwack.

Chris fell off the chair and collapsed sideways. His ears rang. Thinking he might get burned at this rate, Chris gathered his dazed mind and prostrated himself before Randall. Then, focusing his gaze on the wizard’s shoe tip, he desperately muttered.

“As a former slave, this foolish appearance is my natural state. Since entering the Magic Tower, my servile behavior has diminished significantly, but when I receive a great shock like today, my old habits emerge unconsciously. I lived as a slave for 15 years. Less than a year has passed since I entered the Magic Tower. Comparing these two periods, the former is overwhelmingly longer. One year is too short a time to eliminate a slave mentality.”

Fortunately, the excuse worked. Randall accepted Chris’s explanation and went back to his fellow wizards.

Carl clicked his tongue.

“So you were fixated on just 32 silver coins?”

“It’s all I own.”

“Fine. Sit down.”

Chris cautiously observed before sitting in the chair.

“Now we’ll conduct an alibi investigation.”

“What is an alibi?”

“You can stop acting foolish now.”

Chris blushed with embarrassment.

“I truly don’t know what it means.”

“An alibi is proof of absence from the scene.”

“What does proof of absence from the scene mean?”

Chris’s face turned red up to his forehead as he asked the question.

“Insignificant apprentices like you can’t be in two places at once. If it can be proven that you were elsewhere when Mark died, then you’re not the culprit.”

“Ah, I understand. But for that to work, don’t we need to know when Mark died?”

“There are ways to determine that.”

Chris didn’t understand.

“How would you know that?”

Carl became irritated.

“I ask the questions.”

“Yes.”

Chris shrank his neck and then looked around. The other group members were also giving statements about what they had done today, broken down by the hour.

The high-ranking wizards pretended not to listen while hearing all the testimonies. When Alice mentioned that she had left for the village with Chris, Thomas clicked his tongue.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, this is why they can’t sense magic, wandering around like this. This batch isn’t diligent at all.”

Chris felt indignant.

You can say we failed due to lack of talent. But you can’t say we failed due to lack of effort. We really tried hard. We lived intensely.

All the group members had. That’s why Chris respected them.

‘Not everyone succeeds just because they try hard. The world doesn’t work that way.’

Chris wanted to protest like that.

His indignation turned to sorrow, and tears welled up.

Carl asked.

“What time did you leave for the village with Alice?”

“It would have been around 11 o’clock.”

“As a former slave, you wouldn’t have luxury items like a watch, so how did you know the time?”

Chris pointed to the grandfather clock standing in the reception room.

“I left the Lion Hall about 10 minutes before 11. I talked with Alice for about 10 minutes, so we must have left for the village around 11.”

“If we subtract the departure time from the arrival time, the time spent in between isn’t exact, right?”

“Yes, without a personal watch, there could be about a 10-minute discrepancy.”

“10 minutes? Not more?”

“There’s a clock tower in Stratton village square. I go there often, so I roughly know how long it takes.”

“Alright, what happened after that?”

“Between the Lion Hall and the village, I saw the prince…”

“What! You saw Mark?”

The other wizards’ gazes turned to Chris. Chris was startled and hiccupped.

“Hic, yes, hic.”

“What time?”

“Between 11:30 and 11:35.”

“Are you certain?”

“It’s roughly halfway between the Lion Hall and the village, so it must have been around that time.”

“What was Mark doing on the mountain?”

“The prince was desperate. He knew that after a year, his chances would be close to zero. So he was trying to sense magic by changing locations. He tried lying down, sitting, walking, running…”

He didn’t mention the magic helmet. He had overheard Alice’s testimony, and she had also kept quiet about the helmet. It seemed she hid it because it would make the prince look too pathetic. Or perhaps she hid it fearing the prince would be ridiculed.

“What next?”

“I pretended not to see him and went to the village.”

“Why didn’t you greet him?”

“How would the prince feel if a lowly slave saw him desperately struggling? I couldn’t dare to greet him.”

“Good. Continue.”

“I entered the village at 12:10. This time is accurate because I saw the village clock tower.”

“Are you sure? If we investigate, everything will come to light!”

“Ah!”

Chris slapped his knee.

“The guard at the village entrance saw us. Buzz even greeted us.”

“Good.”

Carl created a sound transmission bird, whispered something into it, and sent it flying out of the reception room.

Magic Tower events are never simple. Chris was impressed.

They verify immediately.

Then he tilted his head.

“Excuse me, Wizard Carl. Buzz isn’t a wizard, so can he receive a sound transmission bird?”

“I don’t know who Buzz is or where he lives, so how could I send him a sound transmission bird? Think before you speak.”

Just like that, Chris was branded as a thoughtless person.

“Then who are you sending it to?”

“Regarding the passage permit, to headquarters…”

He started to answer but became irritated.

“I told you I’m the one who asks questions.”

“Yes.”

“What did you do in the village?”

“I stopped by Stan’s General Store and asked about job opportunities.”

“Job opportunities?”

“A nobleman like Tony can simply return home if he fails to sense magic and gets expelled, but someone like me would revert to slave status if I returned without becoming a wizard, so I wanted to stay in Stratton.”

“Why did you ask Stan?”

Judging by how casually he used the name, it seemed Carl knew Stan.

“We’re on good terms because we do business together.”

“Business?”

Karl snorted.

“What business could a lowly apprentice like you have?”

“I would collect the prince’s laundry and take it to Stan’s General Store. Originally, I had decent income handling laundry for all the nobles including Catherine, but after Catherine and Alex sensed magic, they took their laundry elsewhere, and after Tony left too, now I only deal with the prince…”

Chris rubbed his temple where Randall had hit him, with a sad expression.

“And now my last client… is gone.”

“The 32 silver coins?”

“Yes, earned as brokerage fees.”

“What next?”

“After leaving Stan’s General Store, I went to Brian’s Magic Emporium at 12:30. They have a clock there, so this time is also accurate.”

“You did business with Brian’s Emporium too? This is suspicious.”

“No. The prices of their merchandise are astronomical—how could someone like me do business there? I just looked around, like admiring treasures.”

“Do you go there often?”

“Yes. It’s fun to admire treasures. I left the emporium at 1 o’clock and went to Hannah’s Restaurant for lunch.”

“You went to a restaurant when you were in a position where you couldn’t return home and were asking for job opportunities?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think that’s extravagant?”

“It is extravagant. But at that time…”

“At that time what?”

Chris bit his lip and then lowered his head.

“Asking for a job meant completely giving up on becoming a wizard. It felt painful, lonely, depressing, and a little angering. So as a mood changer, as a gift to myself, I went to a restaurant that didn’t suit me.”

“I see.”

“I left the restaurant around 2 o’clock and left the village 10 minutes later. The guard should remember greeting me when I left. I returned to the Lion Hall around 3:20, and that’s when I heard Tony’s scream, went up to the second floor, and saw Prince Mark’s body.”

After finishing his alibi statement, Chris sat quietly. The other group members also finished their statements one after another.

David, Peter, and Carl reported to the wizards. The wizard from the Divination Mirror who had heard the testimonies didn’t take notes, nor did the high-ranking wizards listening to the report.

Chris thought.

They remember all of that?

If so, then wizards have excellent memorization skills.

People with poor memory can’t become wizards, I guess.

Through the open door of the entrance, a sound transmission bird flew in. As the bird opened its beak in front of Carl, a voice flowed out.

—Among the passage permits issued to the Lion Hall, only two crossed the boundary today. The passage permits of Chris and Alice crossed the boundary at 11:40 AM and returned at 2:40 PM.

Chris was surprised to hear the sound transmission bird’s message.

So passage permits had such a function!

The Magic Tower is truly not to be underestimated.

Randall said.

“That boy and girl’s claims have been verified for now.”

Chris lowered his head and thought to himself.

You speak so beautifully, I’d be burned to death if I sarcastically remarked on that.

Suddenly, William became irritated.

“Why isn’t Seike here yet! Did you contact him properly?”

Peter took the heat. Peter bowed his head politely.

“Yes, I contacted him.”

Thomas said.

“That fellow has always been slow to move.”

Just then, a young man in a yellow robe sauntered into the reception room. Randall expressed irritation upon seeing the new wizard.

“This damned fellow sent his apprentice instead of coming himself.”

Chris rubbed his eyes as he looked at the newly arrived apprentice. Since coming to the Magic Tower, he had seen many handsome people and many ugly people. But this was the first time he had seen someone with such unusual features. He looked like a phlegm that had crawled out of a pig’s throat. Or perhaps something that had crawled out of a nightmare.

“I am Harvey, Grand Wizard Seike’s top apprentice.”

As Harvey greeted them, William became angry.

“Where is Seike?”

“He has entered an important stage of training and cannot come out.”

He took out his wand and pointed it at the apprentices.

“I can handle these youngsters at my level.”

“Can you really?”

“My master said to me: ‘You are the best among all the apprentices I have taught.’ As the master’s top apprentice, I will do my best.”

Randall said.

“Does he think we have time to spare?”