The villain daughter did all kinds of things

It can only be said that Miss Mengmeng truly deserves to be one of the most outstanding purple-star investigators in the Investigation Bureau. After listening to Emery and the two red-star investigators recount the case, she only pondered for a few seconds before making a crucial judgment:

"There's a traitor in your Melson family... or rather, someone leaked the information!"

"Mengmeng, what do you mean..."

Emerald wasn't angry at those words. Instead, she thought about them seriously for a moment and soon looked enlightened.

After receiving the notification from the old housekeeper, she decided to go home, but she did not specify when she would go home or inform her family in advance.

The decision to go home today was made by Amelie this morning after she had breakfast.

When Emerald isn't home, Bobo and Lulu usually live at school and only go home on weekends. Today isn't the weekend.

In this way, the kidnapper could not have known in advance that Lulu would leave school today. He must have changed his mind at the last minute after receiving news that Emery had returned home.

The way the kidnappers obtain information is crucial; if we can find that channel, we might be able to directly identify the kidnappers.

When did the news get out?

Emery thought back carefully and realized that she had contacted her family about an hour before the Emery airship arrived in Sphingard, instructing the servants and maids to make preparations. She had contacted Ms. Laura directly.

Ms. Laura has served the Melson family for generations, so her loyalty should be beyond question, and her abilities are trustworthy.

So Emerald immediately took Momo to Ms. Laura and asked Ms. Laura to recall who she had told about Emerald's desire to return.

Ms. Laura did indeed arrange for maids, waiters, and guards to welcome Miss Amelie home, and she recorded every arrangement and name in her little notebook, making it very easy to find.

Based on the list in her notebook, Emerald immediately gathered all the maids, waiters, and guards together for a serious interrogation, even using the aura of a fusion-stage mage.

With almost no effort, a waiter confessed, kneeling at Amelie's feet, weeping and admitting his mistake.

The information must have leaked from him, but he didn't intend to betray us.

The waiter's job at the Melson Estate was to purchase ingredients.

It's no secret that Emerald has her own little hobby of cooking, and it's also no secret that Bobo and Lulu love Emerald's cooking... Considering the last time Emerald came back, it's highly likely that she will cook something delicious for Bobo and Lulu herself this time.

When cooking, Emery often likes to use strong-flavored seasonings that the chefs in the manor don't like to use. These seasonings are not usually kept in the manor kitchen and need to be bought on the spot.

The waiter inadvertently let the news slip while he was out buying seasonings that Emerald might need.

Chapter 181 Locking the target

Normally, in places like Merson Manor, most daily necessities don't need to be purchased by the people on the manor itself; suppliers are scrambling to deliver the best products to the door.

However, the strong-flavored seasonings that Emerald liked to use were not to the taste of most people in the Federation. The chefs in the manor never used them, and those items were not on the product list of the suppliers responsible for supplying the manor. It was the fastest way to send the waiters or maids out to buy them.

The waiter who accepted the order was a long-time employee of the Melson family. His family had been working for Melson since his grandfather's father's generation, and now all twenty-odd members of his family, including himself, were Melson employees. He had absolutely no motive to betray them.

The waiter's leak of information was an accidental mistake.

After buying a whole set of all the strong-flavored seasonings that Emery might use at a large supermarket, he went to checkout.

Many large supermarkets have VIP lanes that don't require queuing, and as a waiter at the Melson Manor, he could naturally use the VIP lane, so the checkout process was completed very quickly.

While packing the condiments, a supermarket clerk who was handling the male waiter's payment asked in a very casual tone:

"Why would rich people use such strong-flavored seasonings? Didn't they say that only commoners like these seasonings, and that upper-class cooking focuses on the natural flavor of the ingredients?"

This was just a casual remark, so the waiter didn't think much of it and simply replied:

"That's generally how it is, but our young lady has a little hobby of cooking. She likes to use these seasonings to cook delicious food for her younger siblings... Now that she's back today, she might do it again, so we servants naturally have to prepare in advance... Last time, the young lady took the young lady and young master to the supermarket to buy ingredients herself, which resulted in us waiters and maids being severely reprimanded by the head housekeeper afterwards."

"Hey, you guys have it pretty tough too."

The shop assistant seemed quite empathetic, offering a word of comfort to the male waiter before asking:

"But don't schools only let students go home on weekends these days? Don't your young lady and young master live at school?"

"Normally they live at school, but since the young lady is back, they should all be staying at the manor tonight. Maids have already gone to the school to pick them up."

The waiter still didn't seem to care much. He chatted with the shop assistant for a few more minutes, then took the bag of seasoning he had bought and returned to Melson Manor.

It wasn't really a big deal. The news that Emerald was going home and that Poporuru wasn't staying at school tonight weren't secrets. The waiter was a little loose-lipped, but it wasn't a major offense under normal circumstances, and nothing serious happened.

The problem is that something really bad has happened now.

Considering that the waiter was merely foolish and not malicious, and that he had voluntarily admitted his mistake and confessed the facts, Amelie did not execute him personally. Instead, she handed him over to Lady Laura, allowing her to punish him according to the manor's regulations.

Emery herself, along with Mengmeng and several FBI agents, went directly to the large supermarket where the waiter had purchased the seasonings, to find the clerk—he was currently the only non-Melson member who knew about the situation beforehand, making him highly suspicious.

Originally, Emery intended to try a polite approach first, by asking the shop assistant a few questions.

As a result, the shop assistant, feeling guilty, turned and ran away without saying a word when he saw Emery and the investigators.

But how could an ordinary person like him, who wasn't even an awakened mage, possibly escape?

Without Amelite even having to lift a finger, a Red Star Investigator eager to show off quickly rushed up, pinned down the shop assistant, sealed his limbs with magic, and then lifted him up in front of Amelite with one hand.

"Please...please...I'll tell you anything...uh!"

The shop assistant was even more terrified and wanted to beg for mercy, but it was too late.

Despite appearing completely calm, Emery was actually quite worried about her sister's safety and had no patience to listen to the shop assistant's explanation or bother to verify the truth.

She has a more efficient way.

Snapped!

Emerald snapped her fingers lightly, and the clerk, who was trembling with fear, immediately died, lying on the ground with his eyes wide open in death.

Then, the heel of the high heel pierced his head, and his memories from his previous life were quickly read by Emerald, like a computer transferring files.

When asked about Emery's impulsive act of killing, Purple Star Investigator Mengmeng merely frowned, sighed, and said nothing.

Mengmeng is indeed righteous and upright, but she is not the kind of stubborn person who cannot tolerate any flaws. Otherwise, she would never have become a Purple Star Investigator and would have been severely suppressed long ago for offending people.

Mengmeng didn't say anything, and the Crimson Star Investigator next to her was even less likely to say anything. She casually wrote in her notebook, which was used to record the law enforcement process:

A suspect in the case died unexpectedly during an arrest attempt.

"So, what did you find?"

Mengmeng already knew from their very first collaboration that Emeryte liked to extract information directly from the minds of the dead, so she wasn't too surprised this time; she was more curious.

"...This guy is an informant for the tavern."

Amelie quickly found the information she needed from the clerk's memory.

"So you're from the [Tavern]..."

Mengmeng nodded, and the other investigators beside her also looked enlightened.

The pub was a frequent target for the FBI.

This is an intelligence organization, not large in scale, but its methods of collecting and selling intelligence are quite strange.

The tavern has recruited many informants, such as the waiters. These informants sign a special magical contract with the tavern, allowing them to record their observations and experiences in real time, like a live stream.

The tavern will collect the intelligence transmitted in real time by the informants, and then organize it in a non-discriminatory recording manner. It will compile the intelligence into an intelligence booklet based on the intelligence collected by all informants in a certain area within 10 minutes, and sell it at a fixed price.

The information in those intelligence books is disorganized and appears to be completely fragmented, requiring buyers to search for the information they need themselves. The Tavern is not responsible for the usefulness of the information in the intelligence books or what consequences it may cause.

When solving cases, the FBI often buys intelligence catalogs from the "Tavern." The existence of this organization serves as a form of street surveillance, providing crucial clues in solving many cases. For example, Mengmeng was able to capture the black-robed magic doll because she found clues in countless intelligence catalogs from the "Tavern."

Unfortunately, the tavern has never been very large, and it mainly operates in a few major cities. It may not even be present in the capitals of some remote states, let alone small cities like Locke City. Otherwise, the security situation in the Federation might be much better.

Amelie didn't have any ill will towards the [Tavern] organization, just as she had told Mengmeng before—no matter how many people a murderer kills, the craftsman who forged the knife in his hand is innocent.

The role of the tavern in Lulu's kidnapping case is likely that of the craftsman. The kidnappers must have obtained relevant information from the intelligence booklet purchased from the tavern, either on a whim or after long planning, finally seizing the opportunity to kidnap Lulu.

As an intelligence organization, the tavern certainly wouldn't completely fail to record customer information. As long as they know who bought the indiscriminate intelligence booklet for that time period in the supermarket's area, it would be easy to further pinpoint the kidnapper's identity.

There's no need for Emerald to personally handle the matter of finding the tavern.

The FBI and the Tavern had a long-standing partnership, and they quickly contacted the Tavern's manager in the Sphinx-Melson district.

After learning the general outline of the matter, the person in charge readily provided the customer information for that batch of intelligence books, without mentioning the accidental death of one of the informants. He also repeatedly asked the investigation bureau to put in a good word for them and not let Melson take his anger out on them because of Lulu's kidnapping.

Customers who go to the tavern to buy information do not need to leave their names or contact information, and they rarely transfer money; most of them pay in cash.

However, the Tavern is a professional intelligence organization after all, and they have considered that the information they sell may cause trouble and lead to accountability. Therefore, they will also secretly take pictures of customers who come to buy information, and secretly scan the magic strength and fluctuations in the customers' bodies.

The customer data for those who had purchased information related to Lulu was quickly sent over; the number was small, less than 150 people.

Mengmeng immediately led the investigators and agents from the investigation bureau to analyze the data, and successfully identified the suspect in less than 10 minutes.

This process is not difficult.

According to Marcy's account, she was killed instantly by the crossbow bolt, which means that the kidnapper was at least a master-level mage and skilled in using a magic crossbow.

Of the more than 100 customers who purchased information, only one person matched this description perfectly.

Ham Ingrid.

According to the FBI's database, Ham Ingrid was a mercenary. He also has a twin brother named Paul Ingrid. Both brothers are master-level mages and their abilities can be combined. They were once well-known in the mercenary world.

Ham himself is an excellent sniper, skilled at using a magic crossbow to fire various bolts to attack targets from a distance. His twin brother, Paul, excels in stealth and disguise.

The two brothers also possess a telepathic ability that resembles a magical talent, allowing them to share their vision and perception with each other without distinction.

Using this tactic, Ham and Paul's favorite strategy when working as mercenaries was the classic A lock B shoot – Paul would use his stealth and camouflage abilities to quietly approach the enemy, providing Ham with vision from a distance, and then Ham would launch a long-range sniper shot beyond visual range.

As infiltrators remain motionless and do not attack, they are very difficult to detect. Most of the targets that the brothers targeted died a very frustrating death. Therefore, most of the jobs that Ham and Paul took on as mercenaries were assassinations, and their duo even made it into the top 50 of the federal hitman list.

But even the best tactics can fail at some point.

During an assassination mission, Ham was fine while sniping from a distance beyond visual range, but his brother was not. While providing vision near the target, his brother was killed by the target who went berserk after being wounded and launched a wide-range indiscriminate attack.

Without his brother's cooperation, Ham's assassination ability was greatly reduced, so he simply retired from the profession. He used the money he earned as an assassin to marry a wife and have a daughter. It has been almost 10 years since then and there has been any news of him.

The last FBI record of Ham Ingrid was that his wife's daughter was unfortunately a magic rejecter, and although the couple was very sad, they had no choice but to send their daughter to live in a village of magic rejecters.

After that, FBI agents secretly observed Ham for a period of time. Once they confirmed that he had fully adapted to a normal life and was basically harmless to society, they stopped paying attention to him and no longer updated any information about him.

Judging from the fact that no other cases related to Ham have been discovered so far, Ham should have been quite well-behaved for the past 10 years or so. So why would he suddenly kidnap Lulu?

Emery couldn't figure it out for a moment, and neither could the investigators from the Bureau of Investigation. They could only wait until they found Ham to ask him.

Once it was determined that Ham Ingrid was highly likely the kidnapper, finding his current hiding place would not be difficult for the Bureau of Investigation.

Emerald decided to go home this morning, and the information sold at the [Tavern] is all indiscriminate.

This suggests that Ham likely decided to kidnap Lulu on a whim after seeing the intelligence, which means he couldn't have made adequate preparations beforehand... This can also be verified by the fact that after shooting Marcy, he simply threw a fire spell and fled without even having time to confirm that the body had been burned.

Without sufficient prior preparation, the place where Ham hid after kidnapping Lulu couldn't possibly be a new location he had prepared in advance. It was more likely a secret hideout he had used when he and his twin brother were assassins and mercenaries, which he had now reactivated.

In this respect, the FBI is quite reliable. Although they did not directly arrest some assassins and mercenaries for various reasons, they have been secretly monitoring them and have a lot of information about them in their database.

The Ingrid brothers were no exception.

Using her Purple Star Investigator privileges, Mengmeng quickly skipped many application processes and directly accessed the Investigation Bureau's database, finding more information about Ham and Paul.

Intelligence indicates that Ham and Paul, during their time as mercenary assassins, appeared multiple times over several months in a mountainous area about 60 kilometers from the outskirts of Sphingart, suggesting that the brothers likely had a base in the mountains.

There are two other similar suspicious locations in Ham across the Federation, but only this one is the closest to Sphingart; the others are about 1200 kilometers and 1400 kilometers away, respectively.

Whatever Ham's purpose was in kidnapping Lulu, it's unlikely he would have gone that far. The forest about 60 kilometers from the outskirts of Sphingart is most likely where he's hiding.

Before setting off, Emery contacted her family again and learned that there was still no news from the kidnappers... No one had made any demands or asked for a ransom.

After politely declining Julia and Flora's offer to come and help, Amelie and an FBI task force quickly arrived at the target forest.

This forest is not large; the distance between the mountaintop and the foot of the mountain is less than 200 meters, and the diameter of the entire forest is only about 800 meters. Small forests like this can be seen everywhere in the plains of the Federation.

Emerald was initially worried that there were too many similar forests nearby and she might get the wrong one, but when she arrived, she realized that her worries were unfounded.

Because the magical barrier outside that mountain forest was practically a blatant attempt to conceal something, loudly announcing my problem and urging me to come and investigate.

Emery scoffed at this, raised her hand, and tried to tear apart the magical barrier in front of her, which was as fragile as a newspaper shell, so she could rush in and rescue Lulu.

"stop!"

Unexpectedly, at that moment, a roar from a man's voice suddenly echoed through the mountains and forests, followed by a somewhat hoarse voice saying quickly:

“I know you… the eldest daughter of the Melson family… the youngest Fusion Stage powerhouse in human history… my magic barrier can’t stop you, and I’m no match for you… but if you still want to see your sister, stop immediately and then retreat 1000 meters!”

"..."

Amelie frowned.

She thought about it carefully and calculated it.

Breaking through the magical barrier in front of her would be a piece of cake, but whether she could rush in to find the kidnappers' exact location and rescue Lulu before they could harm her... that was another story.

For Emerald, Lulu's survival depended on her ability to see her. But even a small forest is still a forest, with many trees and hillsides that could obstruct the view. Emerald wasn't confident she could gain full visibility of the area within the man's reaction time.

...It seems I'll need to strengthen this aspect when upgrading the [Saintess] in the future.