Lizzy Poliana Claudia (11)

"Uh... Ah..."

Thud-!!

Roll-!!

Cesar's head flew into the air and fell to the ground. As soon as it landed, it started to roll towards Lizzy's lap.

As she looked at it with her left eye, which she could barely open, she reached out towards it without realizing and lifted Cesar's head into her arms.

When she saw that his eyes were not closed and his body falling to the ground pitifully without its head...

Tears naturally flowed from Lizzy's eyes.

Even though she wanted to cry, her throat, which was clogged with immense sadness, made her only gurgle miserably and prevented her from properly expressing her emotions.

At that moment, the warlocks of the Imperial Family approached Lizzy's side and cruelly robbed Cesar's head from Lizzy's arms.

"Ah..."

She hadn't even been able to close his eyes properly yet.

If she didn't do it now, who would close his eyes once she leaves this world?

"Uh, uh... ah..."

Lizzy stumbled and rose to her feet, which were covered in numerous bruises.

However, when she was about to take a step forward, she was unable to do so and fell down awkwardly in place.

Since one of her legs could not fully support her weight in the first place, she could not even narrow the distance between her and the warlock.

Wiggle!

"Huh!"

Therefore, Lizzy took control of Cesar's body, which was lying next to the guillotine, with her magic.

The guard who was trying to carry Cesar's body fell backward in surprise at the sight.

The warlock that was taking Cesar's head also felt surprised. No matter how familiar he was with corpses, his body could not help but stiffen as a headless corpse walked toward him.

However, knowing that Lizzy was only a Keter-level warlock, the Imperial Warlock started to radiate his magic power in order to seize her control over the corpse.

Flinch-!!

However, Lizzy's magical power inside the corpse left no room for other's magical power to penetrate.

Since it was a headless body with a very high degree of damage, it would be difficult to achieve a high realization rate with it even if the warlock worked together with a doctor to know about the body better.

No, even if that was the case, how could an Euclid-level warlock like him fail to seize control from a Keter-level warlock like her?

As soon as he realized that fact, his face turned beet red as shame rose in his heart.

And in that split second, Lizzy moved Cesar's body and made it stretch one of its hands out.

Rustle-!!

When its hand finally touched Cesar's head which was being held by warlocks belonging to the Imperial Family, it moved softly to close the wide open eyes.

"That's not even funny!"

Only after the warlock figured out Lizzy's intentions did he frown and kick Cesar's body, which was blocking his path.

Even though the realization rate was high, the corpse was still the body of an ordinary person. So, a simple kick was the only thing that was needed to knock Cesar's body to the ground.

Meanwhile, Ferzen, who was watching the situation, also wanted to release his magic. However, he knew better than others about her talent, so he didn't bother to step forward.

Lizzy was someone who harbored a rare talent that would make her control unseizable once she reached a certain rate of realization with a corpse.

Even though he was an Apollyon-level warlock, it was not a territory that he could invade.

Moreover, what was more important now was getting feedback from Cesar's body.

Ferzen turned his gaze away from Lizzy towards the warlock who brought Cesar's head towards him.

"Then, we will start to check the feedback from Cesar Poliana Claudia."

Ferzen closed his eyes as he spread his magic towards Cesar's head.

A life vessel that was prepared to help Lizzy escape the sinking ship.

Even if Roer had deliberately not shared the details of the plan with Cesar, as someone who had also made plans for this incident, there was no way that Cesar did not know about it.

'As expected...'

The first thing that Ferzen tried to get feedback for was whether he knew about Lizzy's betrayal.

It was only a facade that was made by the two brothers; after all, Lizzy had not betrayed her family.

And as he had expected, he did not get any feedback from Cesar's body.

This meant that the conclusions the investigators had drawn were rendered meaningless.

They had assumed that the reason why the evidence that was collected to date had not been passed on was because Cesar, who was aware of Lizzy's betrayal, had prevented that evidence from surfacing.

In reality, the feedback Ferzen got was that Cesar did not know about Lizzy's betrayal, So doesn't that mean that all the relevant evidence was 'coincidentally' blocked?

For those ridiculous coincidences to be transformed into truth.

The warlock that examined his body should receive feedback from Cesar when they tried to make sure that he manipulated the evidence.

But the probability of that happening would be zero.

Sure enough, the part that got Ferzen some feedback was when he stated that Lizzy had tried to make a plan to avoid execution by manipulating evidence, such as trying to expose the rebellion in advance.

But this could not be considered as important.

Because it could be considered a part of Lizzy's plan which she had devised to avoid execution.

In fact, after repeated feedback, Ferzen came to realize that Cesar was considering many other means besides that.

In the end, the key would be which method was chosen by him among the numerous methods that he considered.

And the evidence collected showed very well what kind of method he had chosen.

If only he had gotten some feedback about Cesar manipulating the evidence collected so far himself, the knot would have been completely broken.

Flinch-!!

"..."

But why did...

Did he not receive any feedback on that front?

He wrote a letter while imitating Lizzy's handwriting, entrusted it to a third party pretending to be Lizzy in the form of a request, and then killed the mercenaries who left after receiving the request.

It was obvious that there should be none other than him who could fabricate the evidence.

Yet, there was no trace of that memory in Cesar's mind.

Of course, it was possible to distort human memories, but is it even possible to destroy only the memories that were related to him manipulating the evidence?

Forgetting simply means, not being able to remember. Ultimately, it remained under the surface of his unconscious mind.

Moreover, distortion of memory could only happen when there was some level of connection between the memories, such as changing 'I ate a candy' to 'I ate a cookie.'

To completely transform a specific memory, the perpetrator must either push the person's mind close to collapse or invest an extremely long time.

'I did not receive feedback when asking about him taking psychiatric drugs...'

If Cesar really used those things to distort his memories, he would definitely get caught in Alfred's information network as drugs and hallucinogens tended to be traded through the black market.

But no such report was made, which meant that he really didn't touch anything like that.

Obviously, he must have used method B to arrive at destination A.

However, the person himself did not remember that he had used method B.

What kind of absurd contradiction was that?

Since he could not believe it, Ferzen tightly clenched his fists and continued the meaningless act of receiving feedback.

"Sir Count."

But in the end, Ferzen snapped back to his senses when he heard the voices of warlocks belonging to the Imperial Family calling him.

"...Okay."

Since he could not hog Cesar's head for himself, Ferzen withdrew his magic power and handed Cesar's head to the warlock.

But even in the midst of that, Ferzen still could not possibly accept this conclusion.

Human behavior inevitably begins with brain signals.

It could only start after humans took the first step of recognition. So how did Cesar skip that process to fabricate all the evidence?

It was something that could be said as making no sense unless he fabricated the evidence while he was sleepwalking.

However, that possibility could be said as good as none, as the report had even stated that he was taking sleeping pills because of insomnia.

"..."

But why did that report, which seemed to have nothing suspicious, become so suspicious now?

Ferzen left the Imperial Warlock who was searching for feedback from Cesar's body and took out a thick report from dimensional storage.

'Medication to relieve paralyzing disorders and sleeping pills for insomnia...'

After reading through that section, Ferzen discovered that the period when Cesar began suffering from paralysis on his right arm and some parts of his face coincided with the period when Lizzy entered the academy.

That illness of his was a type of acquired brain damage.

In modern times where Lee Seojin lived, the main cause for that kind of illness would be traffic accidents. However, in this era, damage to the central nervous system and brain was often caused by falling from a horse.

However, since that kind of accident was not recorded in the report, it could be said that the cause of Cesar's illness was a different cause.

'A different cause...'

Different cause, huh?

Ferzen bit his lip, sensing that he was on the verge of grasping something significant but still couldn't fully connect the dots.

Before long, his expression turned blank as a hypothesis briefly crossed his mind.

What if...

What if Cesar had taken a sleeping pill and then deliberately drowned himself in water?

Then, while the "golden time" window still existed, a warlock could have taken control of Cesar's body to execute the plan, effectively using Cesar as a puppet without leaving any recollection of the act in his memory.

Ferzen knew that the golden time was a short 5 minutes due to his knowledge from Lee Seojin's memories. There was no way Cesar would be unaware of this fact.

Brain damage occurred after this 5-minute window passed, no matter how brief.

'...It's a ridiculous hypothesis.'

It was an unreasonable gamble rather than a plan, something that no sane person would consider.

Drowning, followed by a cardiac arrest after six minutes, would result in a survival rate of less than 15%.

While the evidence could be manipulated in that short time frame, the high risk of death along the way made it an incredibly dangerous proposition.

At that moment, Ferzen's blank expression turned fierce as he released a surge of magic power.

He forcibly attempted to seize control over Cesar's lifeless body, which was under the command of the Imperial Warlock.

Then, he mentally implanted the notion that Cesar had taken sleeping pills in a bathtub or near water.

Wiggle-!!

Ferzen felt the synchronization rate increasing slightly.

"Ha ha ha ha ha…"

A laugh escaped his lips.

Indeed, he had employed this insane method to manipulate the evidence in order to save his sister from execution.

As the saying goes, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how absurd, must be the truth.

It wouldn't be difficult to hire a Keter-ranked warlock, given that there were freelance warlocks available.

The report also mentioned that a warlock associated with the Claudia family had died in the assault.

This person was likely the one who had handled the process on Cesar's behalf in exchange for a substantial fee.

Although the warlock hadn't left his body behind, extracting any information from it would likely be meaningless. However, the employer would have given him explicit instructions.

Ferzen deduced that Cesar himself must be aware of the exact details of the process since the warlock would have fabricated the evidence on Cesar's behalf.

"..."

In retrospect, it didn't make any sense.

No matter how cryptic the instructions were, there had to be a way to convey their true meaning.

To illustrate this with an example from Lee Seojin's world, Cesar could have called the police station to order food, which might raise suspicion.

There was also an anecdote where the police, sensing something amiss, came to the scene and caught the husband of the caller, who turned out to be a domestic abuser.

So, in order to fully wrap up this investigation, Ferzen had to discover what Cesar had written in the instructions. If he could uncover the contents, he would be able to completely expose the intentions that had been carefully concealed through several rounds of feedback.

However, this was no small feat.

Warlocks could only receive feedback from a corpse when they accurately conveyed a fact about the corpse.

Therefore, even if the subject matter wasn't too broad, it was akin to finding a needle in a desert.

In a situation devoid of clues, how on earth could Ferzen decipher the message Cesar had written and the hidden meaning within it?

"Count…?"

"I apologize for being inconsiderate without saying a word."

"Oh, it's fine."

Even though Ferzen understood the reason behind Cesar taking sleeping pills in the bathtub or near water – to avoid leaving any memory of his actions – the feedback he received from his corpse was insufficient to determine which method he had employed to help Lizzy evade execution.

If Ferzen had received feedback while conveying that Cesar had fabricated the evidence, Lizzy would have been found guilty in connection with it.

The absence of feedback meant she had to be declared innocent.

In a cruel twist, Roer and Cesar had managed to salvage Lizzy's reputation from the wreckage of their family's rebellion.

Lizzy's efforts to unveil her family's rebellion had gone unnoticed due to a series of coincidences.

The Imperial Family's warlocks and officials might have sensed something amiss, but the trail ended there.

This world was certainly a place where absolute secrets could not be created even in death.

However,

Cesar Poliana Claudia.

...He had created a complete secret that would not be known to anyone.

On the other hand,

Ferzen von Schweig Brutein.

...Unbefitting his role as a villain,

He experienced defeat for the first time.