First Move, Checkmate: How Will You Respond?

Splash!

Ice cold water was splashed on the man’s face, jolting him awake instantly.

“Huff! Huff!”

The man gasped for breath desperately as he tried to move his body, only to find himself immobilized and restrained on a rack.

He was completely unable to move.

The masked figure in front of him put down the water basin to the ground and stood to the side with arms crossed over the chest.

She was still in the same outfit, a cloak wrapped around to cover the whole body except for the eerie green eyes that stared at him.

He clearly remembered that his gang of brothers were all taken down by her agile and skillful techniques.

“Awake? Let’s have a chat now that you’re awake.”

The man looked around trying to locate the source of the voice.

Here was a gloomy, damp basement. Soon, following the voice, he saw the woman sitting on a chair.

She was fiddling with her fingernails while the table was filled with unspeakable torture devices.

Blurrily, he noticed a peculiarly designed glove on the woman’s hand, embedded with several gems that he did not have time to count.

“There is a saying that goes, ‘He who knows the times is the greatest man.’

“I believe the various torture devices here can definitely pry open Your Excellency’s mouth.”

Cold sweats instantly drenched the man’s whole body as he struggled frantically trying to break free from the restraints, but to no avail.

He hurriedly yelled, “I’ll tell! I’ll tell everything!”

Slap!

The masked figure in front gave him a forceful slap across the face.

“I haven’t even asked anything yet. What do you want to say?”

Lia played with the tiger claw pliers, laughing as she looked at him.

The crisp slap sobered up the disoriented man instantly, while anger took over his rationality.

“Do you know what you are doing?!”

“Kidnapping! Abuse of personal punishment! You! You will be arrested!”

“So what if we are? When you die like a stray dog by the roadside, who will care who did this to you?”

Lia stood up with an icy cold gaze, seemingly having done this kind of thing countless times already.

The man struggled violently again.

“Damn it! How dare you do this! What gives you the right?!”

Lia looked at him as if looking at a fool, “Because I have money.”

The man: “……”

He was silenced by this one sentence.

“Just because you have money you can act so arrogantly? You can just…”

“My brother is Victor. He is a nobleman, a level three mage.”

The man: “……”

He kept his mouth shut now.

Lia tapped the iron claw pliers on the table, and continued, “Now that you know you have provoked our Clayvinna family, you should be prepared for the consequences.”

“Speak. Who instructed you to do this.”

“The Duke! It was the Duke who ordered us!”

He still stuck to his original confession, seemingly wanting Lia to believe him, he voluntarily offered up an address.

“That’s our base. You can go there, you can go to find evidence!”

“The Duke gave us a large sum of money and ordered us to smash your shop today! I’m not lying, you have to believe me!”

Seeing the man’s desperate plea, the masked figure moved closer to Lia and lowered his voice.

“He’s been saying the same thing. Could it really be the Duke who did this?”

Lia tsked disinterestedly.

“A lousy attempt at scapegoating.”

“If you hadn’t insisted it was the Duke, I might have suspected him a little, but your adamance in pinning it on him has actually lessened his suspicions.”

The man was baffled for a second. In that brief moment, he was seen through by Lia.

Seeing his reaction, she couldn’t help laughing out loud again.

As her charming laughter faded, she held her stomach and looked up with a pair of charming eyes, smiling as she said,

“Did you really believe me? I was just bluffing you.”

“But judging by your reaction, it does seem the Duke is clearly not behind this after all. I knew a duke wouldn’t use such lowly means.”

The man’s mouth gaped open as if he still wanted to say something, but Lia simply waved her hand dismissively.

“That’s enough. Finish him, Leon.”

“Don’t forget to remove his organs. They can fetch some money. Oh, and his accomplices too—dispose of them all. Not one should remain.”

Lia slapped the man’s face, her laughter resembling that of a devil.

The man’s body trembled uncontrollably, struggling in fear, wanting to say something.

But the next moment, with a gentle flip of Lia’s hand, a vial appeared in her grasp.

The azure liquid shimmered with a dazzling sheen under the light.

“What a pity. Even if we sold all your organs, their worth wouldn’t match even one item from my family’s collection.”

She smiled charmingly at him, swaying the potion bottle back and forth in front of his eyes.

“Of course, this thing worth a thousand ducats is also worthless in my eyes, just like you.”

Slap!

The next second, the potion bottle smashed into his face and shattered with a ‘pop’.

He only felt numerous liquids flowing down his numb face.

The red and blue potions intertwined, making it hard to tell whether it was blood or potion dripping down.

“Madwoman…you’re insane! Let me go, let me go!”

The man’s voice trembled as he stared with wide eyes.

Under the dual torment of mind and body, he was already disfigured beyond recognition.

Seeing his expression, Lia couldn’t help laughing again.

Her beautiful smile felt like a demon infiltrating one’s heart.

In the bloodshot eyes of the man, she yawned and casually said while turning away:

“Finish it quickly.”

“Yes.”

…

After about a few hours, Leon had taken care of everything.

She stealthily climbed back into Victor’s study through the window. Victor was not here now, so Lia sat at his desk handling recent accounts.

There was no one else in the room. Leon took off her hood, revealing short platinum blonde hair and long pointy ears.

Just her ears that differed from humans were enough to prove her identity.

An elf.

“Miss, everything has been cleaned up.”

Lia didn’t even lift her head, but she already knew who it was and smiled, “Thanks for your hard work.”

“It’s my honor, Miss Lia.”

Leon went on, “I searched those men and found quite a bit of money. I also ransacked their base – it seems they had recently come into a considerable amount of money, probably around five thousand ducats.”

Lia took the money pouch from Leon and weighed it in her hand before putting it aside.

“That’s a lot indeed. At least he didn’t lie about that.”

Leon couldn’t help asking again,

“It really wasn’t the Duke’s doing?”

Lia’s hand paused. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud. After closing the account book, she looked up at Leon with a smile,

“You believed it too?”

“Huh?”

She said with a chuckle, “Even if the Duke’s suspicion is reduced to the minimum, it doesn’t prove his innocence.

“We simply introduced another suspect, but the fact that the Duke still harbors animosity towards us remains unchanged.”

“Perhaps someone is sabotaging us, deliberately provoking conflict between our Clayvinnas and the Duke for their own benefit.”

“Or maybe the Duke simply dislikes us. After all, it’s unusual for one city to have two youngest level three mages.”

Not understanding the scheming between nobles, Leon hesitated and asked the question she most wanted to know,

“Why didn’t you continue interrogating him?”

“He wouldn’t say even if I did, because he doesn’t know who the mastermind is either.”

Lia flicked the money pouch, causing the clinking sound of ducats colliding inside.

“The use of money as payment is indication enough that he is no important figure. So he could only adamantly blame it on the Duke.”

Lia added,

“What do you think drove the Duke’s daughter to come to the East District? And she just happened to run into the shop wreckers?”

“And in the end, she even paid a huge sum to compensate for our damaged potions?”

Hearing her words, Leon frowned. She had heard that Erica spent over ten thousand ducats just for compensation, which still felt incredulous to her.

Could someone really be so kind-hearted?

“I don’t believe her story,” Lia said with a shrug.

“I’ve lived with Victor for over a decade. I know him better than anyone.”

“Though gifted in magic, he’s nowhere ready to teach yet. I bet he just read off script written by teaching assistants even during his lectures at the academy.”

“What could he possibly teach Erica that she claimed to be his student?”

…

At the same time, far away in Sanchel Town, Veega sneezed.

Victor glanced at him. Crows could catch colds too?

But he didn’t have time to care about a sneezing crow right now.

They had arrived at a town at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. It was not a big town, with only one inn available.

The knights didn’t need to care much about lodging. They could even sleep a night by leaning on their horses at a station.

But Gwen was a female and also their respected Knight Commander, so the knights insisted she must spend the night at the inn to rest up properly.

Similarly, Victor was a mage.

He too needed a good resting environment to replenish his spiritual power.

So the two had no choice but to go to the inn together.

Though they had agreed to get two rooms, but…

“Boss, you really only have one room left?”

Gwen seemed rather anxious, which Victor found somewhat amusing.

This was the first time he saw her lose her composure like this.

She now wished she could immediately build another room on the vacant land.

The innkeeper also felt very helpless.

“Sir Knight, how could I dare lie to you? There really is only one queen room left.”

“Moreover, seeing that you two are a couple travelling together, it shouldn’t be a problem to share a room, right?”

Gwen was about to say something more but Victor spoke up first to interrupt her,

“We’ll take this room. That’s it.”

Hearing Victor’s words, Gwen instantly stared wide-eyed in disbelief.