Guild Boss's Ambition

"Hopefully we won't end up with something else?"

I prayed silently.

……

……

16. Gem Magic (Little Blue)

(Ulu-Lannon)

Although Green Willow, a detective, appears lazy and unreliable, he actually has amazing mobility. In just a short while, he returned to the Saint's room from the Bishop and brought new clues.

"Miss Heloise is right. There is indeed a gem missing from the necklace. It is a rose red ruby ​​produced in the snowy mountains of the northern country. The jeweler rated its magic power as A-level, which can activate fire magic and blood magic below level five."

Heloise said, "The fifth-level blood magic includes the blood portal."

Mr. Green Willow nodded and said calmly, "This is probably how the Saint enters and exits this room."

I asked, "Does the Saint herself know blood magic?"

Mr. Green Willow said in an uncertain tone: "She is a genius in magic, and she has some of Leia's power."

"What do you mean? What does it mean to have part of Leia's power?"

"As a vessel for sealing the devil, the Saint is a barely qualified defective product. She once said that she occasionally dreams of the devil Leia's memories. The bishop and his men all believe that Leia, who is sealed, wants to assimilate the Saint and then seize the sovereignty of the entire body. However, since the memory erosion process is very slow, the church is not in a hurry to deal with it."

Listening to what Mr. Lvliu said, I couldn't help but feel ashamed of the church's actions.

Nuclear radiation has already started to leak, and you still say there is no need to rush to deal with it...

What kind of church is this?!

"Can we now reasonably suspect that the demon in Miss Saint's body has escaped?"

"We can't rule out the possibility that someone else abducted Lady Agatha—that's what I originally thought."

Mr. Green Willow looked at the necklace without the ruby ​​and said, "If Lady Agatha was really kidnapped, then unless the other party knew in advance that there was a ruby ​​in her room, they should have used the magic medium they brought with them. This high elf necklace was secretly given by the Elf Queen to commend the Saint for sealing the devil. It has never been publicly displayed."

Heloise asked with a playful smile: "Could it be that someone in your church has betrayed us?"

Lvliu shrugged with a wry smile, "Perhaps someone really has bad intentions, but our protection of the Saint can be described as a dragnet. If the Saint herself had not insisted on having her own privacy at night, we would have arranged for some female knights to sleep with her all night. But we didn't expect that with the interference of magic, the Saint would still disappear in the end."

I don't know when it started, but the Winged Lady has been silently taking notes: "Magical interference?"

Green Willow scratched her head and explained, "We have set up multiple magical interference spells throughout the monastery. If it weren't for a highly skilled magician, it would be impossible for the outside world to invade the Saint's room. On the contrary, if we use teleportation magic from the Saint's room to the outside world, it would be a piece of cake."

I couldn't help but complain and shouted, "You guys are too unguarded against the Saint Lady, aren't you?"

Mr. Green Willow smiled bitterly and protested: "I didn't guard against it because the Saint Lady is really pious! A devout believer in light will never be possessed by the devil. We all believe in this!"

I questioned with an even more disdainful look: "The Saint Lady you trust must have had a hard time!"

The bitter smile on Mr. Lvliu's face became even more bitter: "I'm sorry... I'm really sorry..."

However, at this point, the most important thing is to find out the whereabouts of the Saint Lady as soon as possible. According to the few clues currently available, the storyline should start with Saint Agatha suddenly using blood magic to leave the monastery. So, what factors affect the Saint Lady's sudden abnormal behavior? And where does her blood magic portal lead to?

With this in mind, I asked the gem magic expert for confirmation: "Heloise, do you have a way to confirm the target location of the portal based on the magic array? Or are there any other useful traces left on it?"

Heloise, who was looking around, turned around and said solemnly, "Master Lannong, judging from the traces at the scene, the blood magic was activated in an unstable form. Let alone the target location of the portal, we can't even tell whether it is a portal magic."

"Under what circumstances will blood magic be activated in an unstable form?" Mr. Green Willow asked.

Unlike the respectful way she answered my question, Heloise's tone changed drastically, and she replied lazily, "There are various reasons for this, such as insufficient magic proficiency, or the caster's mental instability at the time, or insufficient magic power supply, etc., etc., etc...."

In the end, we still failed to get a clear direction from Heloise's answer.

But what is certain is that the caster was in an abnormal state at the time.

At this time, Wingman Sola stopped copying his notes and asked awkwardly, "Um... Mr. Green Willow, regarding the Saint or Leia, do you know which places they would particularly like to go? In addition, why does the Saint usually appear in the streets and alleys around Qingyun Road to play with children? Do you know about this?"

Mr. Green Willow scratched his head in distress after being asked three questions by Sola. "To be honest, I only received the news of the Saint's disappearance ten days ago. As for the Saint's lingering on the Qingyun Road, according to the bishop, it was because the Saint still had a childlike heart and wanted to make friends and contact the outside world──"

Hearing Mr. Green Willow's answer, Sora frowned.

Then, she suddenly asked sharply, "Please allow me to make a bold assumption. Could it be that the reason for the Saint Lady's disappearance is that she could not stand the boring and uninteresting life of cultivation, and thus developed a rebellious mentality, giving the demon hidden in her body an opportunity to take advantage of it and finally complete the little bear reversal effect you just demonstrated to us?"

Mr. Midoriya, one of the followers of the Light, immediately widened his eyes at Sora's question.

After a while, he forced a gentle smile and said, "Although I firmly believe that the Saint Lady will not betray the Sun, objectively speaking, I cannot deny your assumption. If the Saint Lady really wants to be liberated through practice, then the Qingyun Road and even this entire world may become her destination."

At the end, Mr. Green Willow showed a rather ashamed self-mockery.

He said distressedly: "I heard that the Saint Lady's dream when she was a child was to travel around the world and spread the gospel of God."

After defeating Mr. Green Willow, Miss Sora once again stood in a corner of the room with her notebook. The expression of the winged girl at this time was serious and calm, like a female college student in the Department of Mathematics who was taking a compulsory examination. She inadvertently revealed her intellectual beauty, and was as cute as a hamster gnawing on the bamboo stem of a white quill pen.

Maybe Miss Sora isn't as clumsy as we thought.

After she stepped aside, I took advantage of her words and explained, "According to our client's testimony, Saint Agatha did not return to Qingyun Road. Mr. Green Willow, assuming that the Saint can move freely, where do you think her destination will be? Is there any place that she particularly yearns for or that can bring her a sense of security?"

Mr. Green Willow answered blindly: "The Saint Lady loves this whole world."

"I see—" I asked coldly, "Can I beat you up?"

Mr. Green Willow shrugged innocently and sighed, "Everything I said is true. The Saint has lived in the monastery for more than 30 years since she was born. During this period of time, she has never set foot outside the city of Mopolis. It seems that a girl like her is so curious. Once she deliberately indulges herself, it will be like looking for a needle in a haystack for us to find her out of thin air."

I put my hands on my hips and asked angrily, "Do you have any clues that you haven't told me yet? Small things like diaries and letters? Or does she have any special hobbies?"

Mr. Green Willow shook his head pessimistically and said, "Lady Agatha doesn't have the habit of writing a diary, nor does she have any regular pen pals. She occasionally goes to Qingyun Road to play with other children, but that's just a way for Lady Saint to spread happiness. I don't think this behavior is related to her disappearance this time."

"Um, please tell me..."

At this time, Miss Sora's voice rang out.

She found a set of painting tools and paints in the room.

Seeing these things, I was also surprised. Because the existence of recording crystals has been around for a long time, the painting level of this alien world is really progressing very slowly. Thinking back to the paintings of Berlani, they were simply abstract among abstracts. And looking at the present, the owner of these painting tools might be an impressionist master.

Gulu.

I swallowed nervously for my eyes.

Miss Sora asked, "Excuse me, does the Saint paint? Are there any works preserved?"

Mr. Green Willow seemed to have known about these painting tools for a long time. He immediately answered affirmatively: "Yes! There are five paintings in total. They are all placed in the next room by the servants. If you think this is a useful clue, I can take you to see it."

I asked, "Mr. Green Willow, have you seen the Saint Lady's paintings?"

Mr. Green Willow shrugged and said, "I am ashamed to say that people always say that a person is like his paintings, but I really don't know how to do that. No matter how I look at it, those paintings are just ordinary oil paintings."

"Nothing out of the ordinary...?"

Silently recalling Picasso's classics, I followed Mr. Green Willow with Heloise and the others to a small room on the same floor with a wry smile. The room was strictly guarded by two paladins. Probably, there were not only the saint's oil paintings in it, but also various other evidences.

……

……

17. Evidence Room (Little Blue)

(Ulu-Lannon)

As expected, the room was indeed the evidence room temporarily requisitioned by Mr. Lvliu.

As soon as we opened the door, we saw that the items in the room had been placed in different places according to a special pattern.

Five of the paintings were placed in a dark corner along with their easels.

Although I also wanted to check the other evidence in the room, I decided to go to the painting with everyone first.

There is no doubt that──

Another great Picasso──

Even if the creator was a chaste saint, the paintings here are still masterpieces of abstract art.

As usual, I took an identification photo for each of them.

[Saint Agatha's Oil Painting (I): Strange Oil Painting, What Does It Look Like?]

[Saint Agatha's Oil Painting (II): Strange Oil Painting, What Does It Look Like?]

[Saint Agatha's Oil Painting (Part 3): Strange Oil Painting, What Does It Look Like?]

[Saint Agatha's Oil Painting (IV): Strange Oil Painting, What Does It Look Like?]

[Saint Agatha's Oil Painting (V): Strange Oil Painting, What Does It Look Like?]

It was as if some author was maliciously padding the word count, the answers the system lady gave me were so unchanging.

But honestly speaking, Miss System's evaluation was quite fair, and completely different from what Mr. Lvliu had just described as ordinary and unremarkable. It would not be an exaggeration to describe these five oil paintings by Miss Saint as incomprehensible. The level of abstraction was genuine abstract art. No matter how I looked at them, I couldn't see the meaning of the paintings.

"It feels like some simply painted beautiful blocks of color." I complained tactfully.

"I think so too." Mr. Lvliu, who was appraising the work of Saint Chang again, replied with a wry smile.

"Yawn—"

Heloise simply ignored the painting and slipped aside with dead eyes.

Soon, the high elf made a new discovery: "Ahhh, I didn't expect to see it in a place like this!"

There were not many things that could attract Heloise's attention, but that was a purple-blue diamond inlaid on the comb.

Mr. Green Willow quickly asked her, "Is there anything special?"

Heloise smiled and said, "It's nothing special, just a fine gem."

"Isn't this a clue related to the case?" the man asked.

"It's not a clue related to the case." the woman replied.

Looking at the man's disappointed expression, the woman smiled as if she had successfully played a prank.

"I feel like Heloise is teasing Midori on purpose..."

"Among the women around me, it seems that Lian'er and Gu Shan are the only ones who are not evil..."

"Loli is the best after all. Those that are past their expiration date are already moldy and rotten..."

I secretly sighed that beauty is a disaster, and I pulled back my steps that were about to step towards Heloise. Unexpectedly, I saw Sora, who was calm and composed, holding a pair of scissors and cutting one of the saint's paintings in half!

"Ms. Sora!" I quickly stopped her.

With two clangs, the scissors cut to the other end of the drawing paper, and the oil painting in her hand was clearly divided into two pieces.

The culprit who destroyed the documents looked confused at this time: "What's wrong, Miss Lan Nong?"

I glanced at Mr. Green Willow secretly and saw that he was concentrating on looking at the fragments of the painting that Sora had cut into pieces.

Could it be that──

Did Sora succeed in finding out a secret hidden in the painting on her own?

After a while, Mr. Green Willow spoke without a trace of emotion: "Ms. Sora, may I ask why you want to destroy the evidence?"

Sora didn't answer, but picked up the second piece of drawing paper and wanted to continue cutting with the scissors.

The detective immediately grabbed her hand that was holding the scissors!

"What are you doing?!" Mr. Green Willow shouted in a deep voice.

"I hate this feeling of not being trusted." Sora glared back without giving in.

"How can I trust you if you suddenly do something like this without saying anything?"

"You do not understand……"

Seeing that the quarrel was about to break out, I quickly interrupted and stopped them: "Alright, alright, stop quarreling. Sora, you are wrong in this matter. No matter how important your reasons are, you should have informed Mr. Green Willow before taking any action. Please understand that Mr. Green Willow brought us to this room because he trusted us."

Judging from Sora's past 100% mission completion rate, she should have a certain degree of confidence in destroying the evidence, but I didn't expect that Sora, who seemed smart and confident a second ago, would immediately turn back into her original clumsy self the next moment. I really don't know what her brain circuit is structured like...

Thanks to my intervention, the angry Mr. Green Willow temporarily suppressed his annoyance, and Sora's rebellious emotions were slightly calmed down by the contact with me, an acquaintance, and her speech regained its rationality: "I'm sorry, everyone! I was indeed reckless this time, but I really just want to help you──"

"Don't be in a hurry. Take your time and tell me what you want to do with these paintings."

I used the calmest tone possible to calm Sora down and try to guide her to tell the truth behind the incident.

But even though I told her not to worry, she still seemed quite anxious and just stammered, "I don't know how to explain it to you! It would be much easier if I could actually do it! It's not something that can be explained in just a few words!"

Although I believe in Sora in my heart, every team has its own way of cooperation. In this search team, the only one who can make important decisions is Mr. Green Willow. He carries the hope of the entire Church of Light. If we cannot find Saint Agatha, he will bear all the responsibility for the failure.

When it comes to handling evidence, Mr. Lvliu has the absolute right to know.