Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 4 The Victim Comes to the Door

Harvey used magical energy to respond to the visitor, indicating that the owner of the manor was at home and asked him to wait.

He then dealt with the experimental site briefly and let Reiner, who had exhausted his energy, rest in the laboratory.

Then he walked towards the manor gate calmly.

"Mr. Burko?" Harvey was a little surprised to see the visitor, but then he immediately understood the other party's purpose.

Burko Conrad, an intermediate wizard affiliated with the Spellcasters Union Review Agency, is responsible for magical affairs related to Jackdaw Town.

He did not come alone. He was followed by an ordinary clerk and two young men and women in tattered clothes and with pale faces.

Harvey smiled slightly and welcomed everyone into the manor and took them to the reception room.

"Mr. Burko, I'm sorry, I currently live alone here and have no plans to hire servants or apprentices..."

Before Harvey could finish his words, Inspector Burko interrupted his polite remarks with a stern face.

"Master Harvey, I didn't come here to have afternoon tea with you. Let's get straight to the point."

He took out a parchment scroll, unfolded it and handed it to Harvey, pointing to the young male civilian huddled beside him.

"Two days ago, this Mr. Jeffrey came to the branch affairs department and handed me this magic contract that came from you, begging me to verify its authenticity."

"This contract was indeed issued by me. You should have verified it as soon as possible." Harvey asked with a smile, not minding the other party's attitude at all.

"There is no problem with the contract itself, but I have objections to the content of the contract." Burko then asked the clerk to read the content of the contract again.

"I currently suspect that you used a high reward to lure an innocent civilian into becoming a test subject for your necromancy."

"This is a serious violation of the Spellcaster Union's regulations and endangers the safety and interests of civilians!"

Endangering the lives of civilians is a very serious accusation for any magician.

Harvey put away his polite smile and said calmly, "Mr. Burko, have you overlooked the most important keyword in the contract?"

"Voluntary," Harvey emphasized. "Voluntary participation, and this is a painless experiment."

Burko scoffed. "What necromancy spell doesn't cause pain to the subject? Corrosion? Poison Mist? Plague? Curse? Or Flesh Disintegration?"

After saying this, he turned his head and signaled to the people around him with his eyes.

At this time, Jeffrey, the young man who had been cowering beside Burko, finally plucked up the courage to jump out and stammered his accusation.

"Evil necromancer! You must have used some cruel and horrible magic to torture my father to death!"

Harvey sneered in his heart. Burko was trying to make this civilian irritate him and use it to prove his accusation.

If it were any other old-school wizard, he would probably have been furious on the spot and would have simply fired a magic bullet at this lowly commoner who disrespected the noble spellcaster and was done with it.

But it is obvious that Burko is taking advantage of this dispute to set up a trap, waiting for Xavi to fall into it.

As an orthodox arcane spellcaster, Burko has always been very discriminatory against necromancers. He believes that it is extremely unwise for the Federation to bring undead spellcasters under its control and treat them equally, which tarnishes the Federation's orthodox status.

Thinking of this, Harvey didn't get angry. He just looked at Jeffrey and said calmly, "Mr. Jeffrey, so you don't know that your father came to apply for my experimental recruitment when he was seriously ill and dying?"

Jeffrey was stunned for a moment, and looked at Burko in a panic before explaining, "No, that's not the case. My father was indeed ill before, but after taking the church's medicine, he is almost recovered..."

Harvey snorted coldly, "Is that really the case? When did the church ever manage to cure the cold plague with just free potions?"

Seeing that something was wrong, Burko immediately interrupted Harvey's questioning.

"Regardless of whether Jeffrey's father was seriously ill before, your act of subjecting a living person to magical experiments is in itself a violation. Don't try to change the subject!"

"The Federation's regulations do stipulate that magical experiments cannot be performed on living people," Harvey sighed helplessly. "But the problem is, I don't plan to conduct my experiments while he's still alive."

"Mr. Reiner came to me on his own initiative, begging me to buy his body after his death and to leave the money as an inheritance to his children."

"Mr. Reiner himself passed away due to his serious illness the night he came to me..."

Harvey looked at Jeffrey coldly and said, "But I didn't expect that out of sympathy for Mr. Reiner, I doubled the cost of purchasing the body, only to be accused and framed by his family!"

"Mr. Geoffrey, did you not tell Mr. Bourke about the fifty pounds you received?"

Burko stood up suddenly, pointed at Harvey and said angrily, "That's just your one-sided statement! Did Reiner die that night? I'm afraid he died from your experiment!"

He paused, then instructed the clerk beside him, "Go get a church priest to come as soon as possible. I require a direct autopsy. Humph, traces of necromancy experiments won't escape the church's divine detection."

As long as Harvey had traces of casting a spell on Reiner, he could basically be convicted of his actions. As for whether it happened before or after his death, who cares?

More than half of the members of the Federation are not friendly to the undead spellcasters. Even if the matter is reported to the top management of the Affairs Department, he still has an absolute advantage.

About half an hour later, a pale-haired divine priest, guided by a clerk, quickly arrived at Harvey's manor.

No one wanted to continue the verbal argument and followed Harvey directly to the storage room.

Reiner's body was lying quietly on the metal table in the storage room, covered by the frozen magic stone hanging above, keeping the body in an incorruptible state.

"Reverend Doral, please begin the autopsy!"

The old pastor nodded, walked slowly to the metal table, and asked the clerk to strip off the deceased's clothes and observe the signs of external injuries closely.

Burko keenly observed that the deceased's limbs and torso were intact, and even the skin exposed outside the clothes was not damaged.

This shows that the magic used by Harvey in the experiment was most likely a poison or curse type.

Pastor Doral carefully examined the deceased's body, even the back of the head, fingers, soles of the feet, crotch and other private parts.

He stood up and shook his head slightly at Burko.

Harvey stood aside, watching in silence.

"Please use the magic of detection. I suspect it is a curse spell." Burko said clearly.

A ball of soft warm light emerged from Dolor's palms, quickly expanding and covering the body of the deceased, wrapping the corpse completely.

"There are no traces of curse spells being cast..."

"No traces of poison or plague-like spells were found..."

"Huh? Are there ingredients from the Epiphyllum potion in your body?" The priest frowned slightly, a little confused.

Burko's eyes lit up and he quickly asked, "Is it a new poison?"

Doror gathered the holy light energy and expressed his denial directly.

"The corpse shows no signs of being cast or poisoned. As for the Epiphyllum nobilis... I'll let Master Harvey explain it himself."

Harvey said slowly, "You may not be familiar with alchemy. Epiphyllum is the main ingredient in a sleeping potion and is completely non-toxic."

"Mr. Reiner's cold illness was already very serious at that time, with symptoms of frequent vomiting of blood and severe pain." He pointed at Reiner's body and turned to look at his son Jeffrey.

"I couldn't bear to see him die in agony, so I gave him a normal dose of Epiphyllum Juice at his plea."

"I believe Pastor Dolor has also detected the severity of the cold plague symptoms in his body. As for whether the Epiphyllum Juice is poisonous, the pharmacists in the Union will give the answer."

Reverend Dolor nodded, his expression much more relaxed than when he first arrived. "While I disapprove of the actions of undead spellcasters, Master Harvey's compassion is commendable. This poor cold plague victim's entire internal organs have been infected by the disease. Even the church's healing arts are unlikely to save him."

Burko's eyes widened, and he looked at the priest in disbelief. "Reverend Doral, are you saying that this deceased person was never subjected to any magical experimentation during his lifetime, and died of natural causes due to a serious illness?"

"By the grace of God, God's shepherds will never tell lies. I'm sorry, Master Burko."

At this time, Reiner's son Jeffrey suddenly threw himself on his father's body and burst into tears.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible! My father wasn't seriously ill, he must have been murdered. The Necromancer must compensate for my father's death!"

Before Burko could stop him, Harvey said with a cold and serious face, "Mr. Reiner said it himself before he died. He came to me after leaving a suicide note at home."

"Mr. Jeffrey, since you've already received the contract and payment, it's impossible that you haven't seen the suicide note, right?"

Harvey turned to look at Burko, "Mr. Burko, do we need to send an investigator who can cast a scene replay spell to investigate Reiner's home?"

Burko suppressed his anger. Those damn lowly civilians actually concealed such important information in order to get more compensation from Harvey.

But in front of the church pastor, he couldn't just kill this untouchable who was blinded by money. It was all because he was too confident before and took the initiative to involve the church in the dispute between the spellcaster and the civilians. Now he was trapped in his own web.

Thinking of this, Burko, who felt guilty, could only snort coldly and prepare to turn around and leave.

"Wait! Lord Burko, I want to take my father's body away. I can't let him stay in the necromancer's lair." Jeffrey tried to gain sympathy.

Burko's anger finally erupted. He raised his hand and slapped Jeffrey hard in the face, causing his cheek to swell up instantly and fall to the ground.

"Stupid pig, do you think the Federation's magic contract is bullshit?"

(End of this chapter)