The Patient Wizard Chapter 24

Chapter 24 – Calculation (14)

Chris was lying on the sofa in the living room of the VIP guest house where visitors to the Magic Tower stayed.

“Your nose is broken.”

An elderly wizard known for his healing magic inserted two thick metal rods into Chris’s nostrils and twisted them to realign the broken bone.

“Aaah.”

“Even if it hurts, endure the pain.”

The wizard who introduced himself as Horner, realigned the nasal bone and then used a healing spell to mend it.

“Thanks to my great magic, the swelling will subside within a day.”

After examining Chris’s stomach, he left with a large eye-popping sum of money.

Chris sat up and looked around the VIP quarters, saying,

“It would have been nice if you had given me that money instead of treating me.”

There were four knights in the living room. Knight Commander Jan, Vice Commander Michael, Regular Knight Bianca, and Old Knight John from a Count’s family. For reference, Bianca is a woman.

They were seated around the sofa where Chris was sitting. Regular Knight Bianca said,

“If you hadn’t been treated, your nose would have been crooked. Are you saying you’d be fine with a crooked nose for the rest of your life?”

“If I could get that money, a crooked nose would be fine.”

Jan spoke,

“You’re Chris from the Baronial Estate of Xavier, a dormitory student of the Lion Hall, correct?”

It was as he had suspected.

So they really did come looking for me.

To Chris, the Royal Knight Commander was as high as the sun in the sky. Nothing good comes from being involved with someone of such high status. Chris steeled himself and answered:

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I want to hear about your involvement with the prince.”

“What kind of…?”

“Everything.”

“It would take a long time to tell everything.”

“We have plenty of time. Tell us from when you first met.”

John interjected,

“It would be appreciated if you could tell us everything, even the small details. Please.”

“It’s been over four months since the prince died, so I don’t understand why you’re investigating only now.”

Bianca burst out in indignation,

“We tried to investigate immediately after hearing the news, but the Magic Tower wouldn’t allow it.”

They blocked a royal investigation even though the prince had died?

“The Magic Tower went that far…”

“We were only allowed to investigate after promising massive funding.”

Bianca was still fuming, breathing heavily.

Chris scratched his head.

“Is there really a need to investigate with such generous funding when the culprit is already dead?”

“Do you think we’d be satisfied with receiving three unidentifiable blackened corpses?! Since you work at the Magic Tower, you must know how many bodies come from experiments. They could have burned experimental corpses and handed them over.”

“So you had such suspicions.”

“They’re cunning wizards. They’re capable of worse things.”

Jan cleared his throat, signaling to watch her words. Then he warned in a stern voice:

“This is the Magic Tower.”

Wizards might be eavesdropping.

Bianca bowed her head.

“I apologize. I got carried away.”

Chris fidgeted with his eyebrows. The royal family had paid a huge price and dispatched the Knight Commander to find out the truth. Based on that, Mark was clearly a son loved by the king.

Somehow, Chris was pleased by this fact.

“I was at the scene. The bodies were indeed Tony, Smith, and Faye.”

Jan said,

“Including that, we want to know what happened. Please explain.”

Chris took a breath through his nose and began. About an hour into the story, Bianca interrupted,

“You’ve been consistently portraying Alex as a bad person. Did you dislike him?”

“No.”

Chris looked around cautiously.

“What seems strange?”

“Alex is a child of a Marquis family. Moreover, he’s not a legitimate child but born from a concubine. He’s not even a formal wizard, just at the gyesin stage. It’s hard to understand how someone like that would disrespect, mock, and bully a prince.”

“He was inherently a person of bad character. There’s a saying that success reveals one’s true colors. His awakening just revealed his true nature.”

“We intend to interview others as well. If it turns out you’ve been lying, it won’t end well for you.”

Chris displayed a confident expression.

“Of course you should cross-verify.”

Chris resumed his story. As the narrative progressed, the knights’ expressions darkened. The story of Mark and Tony struggling to reach gyesin seemed to dampen their spirits.

After another hour, the story finally reached the main point.

“On the day Mark died, I officially gave up on gyesin stage.”

Jan asked,

“Wasn’t that early with a month still remaining?”

Chris explained his circumstances as someone of slave origin.

Bianca said,

“Because of your slave background, I would think you’d struggle until the very end?”

“Is that so?”

“If I were a slave, that’s what I would have done.”

“Actually…”

Chris explained the test he underwent in the Baronial Estate of Xavier and added,

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was my magic that caused the ripples in the water, or my arm movement, or perhaps the wind blowing at that time.”

“I see.”

Chris then spoke about finding the prince while going to town with Alice. He explained without mentioning the magic helmet.

When he mentioned the part about the prince falling and crying, tears welled up in Bianca’s eyes. The other knights didn’t cry, but their expressions were just as troubled.

After that, he explained the events chronologically as if giving an alibi statement, up to the point of returning to the Lion Hall and discovering the bodies, then exhaled deeply.

“I’m thirsty, may I have some water?”

Old Knight John personally poured him water.

“Thank you.”

As Chris was drinking, John asked,

“From what you’ve told us, it seems the prince and Tony were close.”

Chris finished his water and replied,

“Yes. I suppose they had a lot in common given their similar backgrounds. It’s hard for commoners and slaves to communicate comfortably.”

“Then Tony would have had no reason to kill the prince.”

Chris was about to answer but tilted his head in confusion. John was steering the conversation toward Tony not being the culprit.

Why?

At that moment, Chris remembered that John was from a Count’s family. Everyone else belonged to the Royal Knight Order, but only he was from a Count’s family.

Which Count family was it again?

Chris recalled Tony’s family name and asked,

“Are you perhaps from the Gerson Count family?”

“That’s right.”

The Magic Tower hadn’t specified a culprit. They had merely killed all suspects. So Tony could have been the culprit. The Gerson Count family, Tony’s family, needed to avoid such a conclusion.

“So Sir John came to the Magic Tower because of Sir Tony.”

“That’s right. As a member of the victim’s family, I have sufficient qualification.”

“Yes.”

“I want to uncover the culprit and relieve Sir Tony’s resentment.”

Bianca asked.

“Chris, what about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“How was your relationship with the prince?”

“I liked the prince. I wanted to be closer to him, but given the difference in status, there were limitations.”

“In the early days at the Lion Hall, I imagine the prince treated you similarly to how Alex did?”

Chris admitted.

“There was some of that in the beginning. But things changed later. He even bought me meals. But you know what? Even if the prince had continued to treat me harshly, I would have still liked him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was my only precious customer.”

“A sucker who gave you silver coins?”

“I never thought of him as a sucker, but a third party might see it that way.”

Jan said:

“Let’s get back to the main topic. What happened after you discovered the bodies?”

Chris explained in as much detail as possible. He omitted the part where he went to ask permission to watch while Carl searched Mark’s room, only to be treated like a fool.

They became angry at the part where Mark’s eyes were extracted (seemingly because the body was desecrated without permission) and swallowed hard at the part where the last scene he saw was extracted from his eyeballs. When the suggestion to use memory extraction magic came up after failing to find the culprit, they clicked their tongues.

The story reached its climax. The knights were all dumbfounded when one of the Magic Tower’s top wizards scolded David for causing trouble just because a prince had died, and advised killing all suspects.

John said.

“Killing everyone because it’s a bother, what kind of law is this?”

Michael said,

“It’s not the first time the Magic Tower has disrespected the royal family, but this time they’ve gone too far.”

Bianca was so upset that tears welled up in her eyes.

Looking at Bianca’s tears, Chris thought.

She cries easily. Female knights are quite emotional.

Bianca asked,

“What’s the name of the wizard who advised killing them?”

“I heard other wizards calling him Perez during their conversation.”

“Haa.”

When Jan sighed, Michael asked:

“Commander, is he a significant wizard?”

“He’s an elder of the Micclonia Magic Tower. One of the top three in skill at the tower.”

“Ah.”

Michael also sighed like his superior.

If he’s an elder of the Magic Tower, it would be difficult for the kingdom to protest.

John looked at Chris and asked,

“So what happened then?”

“Opinions were divided. Thomas opposed, and William agreed. So Randall held the deciding vote, but he seemed to find it difficult to decide and stepped outside briefly. When he returned, he cast his vote in favor and personally used a flame spell to burn them to death.”

“Wait.”

“Yes?”

“There were four suspects. Why didn’t Alex die?”

“He was lucky. He was somewhat separated from the other three, so he escaped the range of the flames. Harvey suddenly stepped forward to kill him instead. Just as black smoke was about to engulf Alex, a hand of air snatched him away.”

Jan frowned and made a disapproving sound.

“Khumm.”

Bianca asked,

“Who could have taken him away?”

Jan didn’t answer.

John asked Chris:

“Do you know who saved Alex?”

Chris shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

Jan said,

“Randall would know.”

Chris asked,

“Do you have evidence?”

“Randall went outside the building before making his decision. Why did he go out? Was that arrogant and cruel man having trouble making a decision? No. He explained the situation to someone and received instructions. He was ordered to spare Alex. That’s why he deliberately excluded Alex from the range of the flames.”

“Ah.”

Chris let out a gasp of realization. Thinking back to the situation, Jan’s observation seemed correct.

Bianca said,

“Let’s meet Randall and ask him who protected Alex.”

Jan shook his head.

“He probably won’t answer.”

“If we pay him, he’ll talk.”

“The person is a big shot that even Randall needs permission from. Randall won’t open his mouth without that person’s permission.”

Jan made a face as if bitter water was rising in his throat, then glared at Chris.

“Why did you bring the gyesin candidates in as suspects?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! When no one was paying attention to them, you mentioned that Alex was looking for the prince, bringing him into the suspect group.”

Chris couldn’t deny it.

“I disliked Alex. I wanted him to be the culprit.”

“I see. Do you have anything else to say?”

“I’ve told you pretty much everything I can.”

“Nothing hidden?”

Chris scratched his forehead with a blank expression.

“Nothing.”

“Good, thank you for speaking honestly. Go to that room over there and rest.”

“I’ll go to the blacksmith shop.”

“The sun has set, so the road is dark, and it’s slippery with snow. And you don’t know the way, do you? Stay here tonight.”

On the way here, he had been too distracted to remember the path between the blacksmith shop and the VIP quarters.

At his firm tone, Chris gave in.

“Yes, thank you for your consideration.”