The fairy maid cheers for her deceased master today.

In this crime scene, even the seemingly naive fairy Angel was on high alert, her small eyes scanning her surroundings warily.

There's no other reason than that there was a foreign scent here.

This is the smell that fairies hate the most.

Since several days had passed since the incident, the smell had mostly dissipated. However, Ax still instinctively covered his nose, while Irene took out a handkerchief embroidered with silver thread from her pocket and gently covered her mouth and nose.

Angel, with her excellent sense of smell, naturally frowned deeply.

The room was simply furnished—a faded oak bed with a reproduction of a Rembrandt painting hanging above it, its frame covered in a thick layer of dust; an equally old desk with an empty porcelain teacup on it, the rim still bearing a trace of brown tea stains; and a wooden wardrobe standing in the corner, its doors half-open, revealing several black dresses hanging inside.

“Simplicity is relative.” Ex thought for a moment and whispered to Elena, “In this old hotel, a clean and tidy room with two reproductions is already considered ‘high-class’.”

"With Caroline's salary, she could easily afford a better place. Choosing this place is either to save money, or..." He paused, his gaze sweeping over Officer James in the room, "or there's some reason she can't let anyone know."

On the floor of the room, the police had drawn several irregular outlines with white chalk—the locations of Caroline's dismembered body parts.

Because the bodies were dismembered so haphazardly, the outlines were completely unrecognizable as human, with only the shapes of some limbs barely discernible. Next to each outline stood a small wooden plaque marked with numbers 1 to 7 in black ink, as if providing a cold footnote to this brutal massacre.

James, a young police officer who had been on the job for just over a year, was squatting on the floor, curiously examining the chalk outlines.

"Officer James, is this your first time here too?" Ex asked, his gaze never leaving the outlines of the chalk.

James nodded, a hint of excitement and nervousness on his face. "That's right, Sir Moore. This wasn't originally my case, so I wasn't here at all."

He then scratched his head and continued to explain, "Before, I only listened to other officers discuss it or secretly looked at the case files. I never expected to be able to come to the scene in person."

Axe raised an eyebrow; James's frankness surprised him somewhat.

It seems that discussions about this case within the police department have become public, so it's not surprising that James knows some of the general clues.

But then he suddenly remembered what James had said earlier and couldn't help but ask, "Officer James, you said you suspected this was a murder case, but you also mentioned that Caroline's death might be related to the aliens. Is there any connection between the two?"

Theoretically, murders cannot be caused by alien species, because alien species are often considered natural disasters or accidents.

James immediately perked up, his tone becoming confident: "It's simple, Sir. Caroline is dead, and her colleague Lucy is missing. Clearly, Lucy fled to escape punishment! Lucy must have somehow manipulated the alien to kill Caroline!"

Ex almost covered his face in embarrassment. This was typical rookie police thinking—as soon as someone went missing, he assumed they were the murderer.

Elena, however, gently touched X's arm before stepping forward.

"So how do you think Lucy controlled the mutants to kill Caroline?" Elena's voice was cold and calm. "It's common knowledge that mutants cannot be controlled."

James's face flushed red; he clearly hadn't considered this question. He scratched his head, pondered for a moment, and then said:

"If the aliens can't be controlled, then maybe Lucy set some kind of trap? For example, she put the aliens in the room beforehand, and when Caroline came back, she triggered the trap, causing the aliens to attack her."

X and Elena exchanged a glance, seeing agreement in each other's eyes.

After all, this was something X and Elena had experienced firsthand. Last time, when they tracked the steam pipes, they ended up directly in the alien trap.

This left a deep impression on Ax to this day.

Ex subconsciously looked up, his gaze sweeping across the ceiling and walls of the room.

"You're right. If the creature present isn't a territorial mutant, then it must be a roaming mutant. But if it were a roaming mutant, why would it stay obediently indoors?"

"Unless, the aliens are trapped by some means." Elena walked to the window and gently brushed the dust off the windowsill with her fingers. "For example, temporarily trapping the aliens with a barrier, and then automatically dispelling the barrier when Caroline returns, allowing the aliens to launch their attack."

Thinking about it that way, it's quite possible that Lucy did it, since Lucy is a fairy who is proficient in barriers.

Elena turned around, her eyes gleaming with intelligence in the dimly lit room. "But that doesn't solve the problem—how did the mutant manage to leave so quietly after killing Caroline? There were guests in the hotel corridors, residents nearby, and a reception desk downstairs; it's impossible that no one noticed."

James frowned, clearly stumped by the question: "Could it be that the Xenomorphs are simply very small? Like a rat-like Xenomorph, making them difficult to detect?"

"Possibly." Ex shook his head. "But Caroline was dismembered, and the attack must have made a huge noise. Whether it was the sound of the alien attack or Caroline's cries for help... even if Caroline didn't have time to speak, the alien's movements couldn't have disappeared."

To be able to target a target so precisely and then leave quietly afterwards.

The entire attack was almost completely silent...

"Could it really be that someone is controlling the aliens?" James muttered to himself, his eyes filled with shock. "But who has such power? Even the fairies of the Holy Order couldn't do that!"

Even X began to doubt whether the underlying logic was wrong.

As times change and society progresses, there may indeed be exceptional circumstances that allow alien species to be manipulated.

But Elena and Angel exchanged a glance.

Then the two fairies said in unison, "True mutants cannot be controlled."

Ex was taken aback: "This is... knowledge passed down through the fairies?"

Elena nodded: "Strictly speaking, the aliens are direct creations of the Mad God's divine power. Therefore, they cannot be controlled by magic or other means below the divine level. If the aliens truly possess high intelligence and are willing to cooperate with the killer, that is the only possibility... but..."

"But what?"

"But a highly intelligent mutant must be a powerful one. Just getting close can lead to contamination and corruption, making cooperation impossible for normal people. Even if one has appeared here, the entire building would likely bear traces of contamination..."

"You mean, Spring-Heeled Jack?" Ex cited an example he knew.

"Yes, Jack must be a superior mutant. If he really appeared in the real world, his contamination would probably be very obvious and powerful."

In short, it couldn't be about controlling alien species.

Since we can't directly control the alien species, then... we can just control them indirectly.

But to verify one's ideas, evidence is still needed.