Ch 31: The Great Detective Barr （part 1）

Seeing Mrs. Zeril emerge, Bal continued.

“Minor issue. Alright, I’ll continue. This morning, Mrs. Zeril welcomed us with great enthusiasm, even comforting Fei’er after her Spirit Removal failed. In just one day, her shift from disliking Phil to warmly welcoming us and even comforting the failed Phil seems a bit too fast. Coupled with Moony’s discovery last night, I’m certain the person who greeted us today was a fake Mrs. Zeril.”

“I didn’t expect a mistake in such a detail.”

“No, no, no. Even if you matched the details perfectly, you couldn’t have evaded Phil’s detection. I told you, she’s a walking Demon Race detection device.”

“What exactly is your identity?”

“We’re just kind-hearted adventurers passing through, that’s all. Alright, I’ll move on with my deduction. Yesterday, after leaving, I found a Know-It-All in town. From the intelligence he gave me, I deduced that someone in this mansion was conducting Soul Magic experiments. Because someone passing by late at night saw purple light emanating from a window—purple light is usually the light of Soul Magic. Therefore, I guessed only Mr. Zeril or Mrs. Zeril had the means. But Mr. Zeril is missing, or rather, killed by you, Soul-Devouring Demon.”

“What!? You killed my husband? Didn’t you say you would help me find my husband and son?”

“That’s what I’ll discuss next: why the Soul-Devouring Demon killed Mr. Zeril. Because you had a conflict of interest with him, not competition in the Tea Trade, but competition to leave this place. I asked the Gatekeeper about ways to leave; he told me that traveling south by land for ten days would take you to the Fral God Kingdom, or you could drive east to a dock where a merchant ship comes and goes every month. Merchant ships strictly check for people from the Exile Land trying to sneak onto the ships. However, there’s one exception: at the end of September, a merchant ship, ostensibly a trade ship, is actually a smuggling ship. The ship owner releases information on the black market, limiting the number of people allowed to leave each year with a new identity to start life anew. Mr. Zeril and you both knew about this, but you, with less wealth than Mr. Zeril, lost out. This is the motive. When you learned Mr. Zeril won a spot, you were furious; your years of hard work saving assets went down the drain. I don’t know why you wanted to leave, but I do know one thing: Young Zeril’s disappearance is related to you.”

“What?! Why would you do this?! My son never provoked you!”

Seeing the Soul-Devouring Demon remain silent, Bal continued.

“After learning Mr. Zeril won, you planned your revenge. In mid-September, you secretly infiltrated here and discovered a secret in this mansion: a secret compartment. This morning, you took us to Mr. Zeril’s study. The difference between Mr. Zeril’s room and Young Zeril’s room is the doorknob. Young Zeril’s doorknob was covered in dust, while Mr. Zeril’s study doorknob was dust-free. So I deduced that someone frequently entered and exited the room. Yesterday, the real Mrs. Zeril said that all the servants had left, and combined with Moony’s intelligence, I was certain that a Mrs. Zeril was hidden in a secret compartment in the study. When I entered the study, the books on the shelves were covered in dust, but one book caught my attention. That book showed many signs of being touched and had almost no dust. I figured that book was the mechanism to open the secret compartment.”

“Yes, that book was indeed the secret mechanism to open the secret chamber. How did you know there was a compartment in the study?”

Faced with Mrs. Zeril’s honesty and question, Bal smiled and began to explain.

“Simple: layout and air currents. If Mr. Zeril’s study were a normal room without a compartment, the layout would be strange. The walls are thick, and the spacing between floors is too large; this doesn’t conform to conventional architectural principles. Furthermore, when I circled the study, I noticed a noticeable air current in one area. A normal building wouldn’t have this unless there was a fissure or a compartment. Mr. Zeril was a merchant. This mansion has only been built for twenty years; how could there be a fissure? Ruling out a fissure, it had to be a compartment. Mrs. Zeril, what was hidden in the compartment?”

“……This……”

Seeing Mrs. Zeril’s refusal to answer, Bal’s smile faded.

“You won’t say because it contains illegal drugs and Mr. Zeril’s bribery account book for the Town Officials, right?”

“What!? How did you know?”

“Surprised, aren’t you? Mr. Zeril lived here for thirty years. For the first ten, he was unremarkable. How did he suddenly get a large sum of money twenty years ago to build this luxurious mansion? Simple: I asked the Self-Defense Force. They told me that twenty years ago, a new type of illegal drug suddenly appeared, causing many deaths. Strangely, the town officials turned a blind eye. A few years later, the drug disappeared, but it reappeared last year. Mr. Zeril probably sold it again to raise funds. As for the bribery, it’s simple. Maintaining this mansion and numerous servants would require substantial expenses, impossible to support with legitimate tea business. He had to bribe officials and gang members to suppress other tea merchants. Once he held a monopoly, money wouldn’t be a problem.”

“And my son?”

“Dead.”

“What?……”

Mrs. Zeril fainted. Phia then used magic to revive her. Hearing this terrible news, she was heartbroken; she sat on the bed like a puppet. Phia stayed nearby to prevent Mrs. Zeril from doing anything rash.

“Let’s talk about Young Zeril. Originally, you only intended to intimidate Mr. Zeril, not to actually harm Young Zeril. After all, a child has no quarrel with you; you didn’t need to harm him. You only needed to intimidate Mr. Zeril to obtain the smuggling permit. But there was an unexpected event: Young Zeril discovered your true identity. He wrote about his mother in his diary. He discovered something was wrong with his mother; maybe his mother missed his father. That’s fine, but the timing is the problem. September 18th—that’s when someone outside saw purple light emanating from this mansion. At the same time, Young Zeril noticed some activity in his mother’s room. Yesterday I asked a maid who once served in this house, and she said Mrs. Zeril stayed up late in the kitchen making dessert, almost all night. Since Mrs. Zeril was in the kitchen, who did Young Zeril see? That’s right, you, the Soul-Devouring Demon. Young Zeril didn’t notice anything wrong at the time, but I think he woke up at night and encountered you in Mist Form on his way back to his room. You knocked him unconscious and put him back in his room without killing him. The next day, he drew a picture of you, which made you murderous. You didn’t want your plan to fail because of a child; you desperately wanted to leave. So you reached out to Young Zeril with a murderous hand.”

The Soul-Devouring Demon still didn’t speak, and Bal continued his monologue.

“After killing Young Zeril, you hid his body, making it seem like he’d disappeared. Then you planned to continue intimidating Mr. Zeril. When he thought you kidnapped Young Zeril, he rushed home, seeing Mrs. Zeril weeping. He then found you alone and tried to compromise, but you didn’t expect him to prioritize confirming Young Zeril’s safety. Unable to continue the stalemate, you killed Mr. Zeril. Then you pretended to be a Demon who would help Mrs. Zeril find her family. To avoid exposure, under the guise of helping Mrs. Zeril, you transformed into her likeness. You pretended to be Mrs. Zeril to easily search the house. The servants were obstructing you, so you pretended to be an Evil Spirit to scare them away, making your plan succeed. After finding the smuggling permit, you would leave and flee, leaving Mrs. Zeril to search for her deceased child and husband. However, Mrs. Zeril was dissatisfied because she felt you weren’t truly helping her, so she secretly posted a commission at the Adventurer’s Guild, and then we arrived. But when Mrs. Zeril discovered Fei’er was a Demon, she thought Fei’er, like you, was only there to drain blood, so she didn’t give her a good reception. As for your actions tonight, you probably found the smuggling permit that Mr. Zeril hid, so you developed malicious intent. You wanted to kill Mrs. Zeril, then eliminate us. But unexpectedly, Mrs. Zeril didn’t die, and you couldn’t eliminate us.”

“How did you save her?”

The Soul-Devouring Demon finally asked a question.

“Heh heh, of course I did it~! I used magic to detect human presence. Besides Buck, there’s only one human here: Mrs. Zeril, hidden by you. So I used Transfer Magic to move the real Mrs. Zeril into the wardrobe in our room. Then I used magic to create a fake Mrs. Zeril puppet. Because you were eager to act, you didn’t confirm who you were killing. My failed Spirit Removal this morning was an act to make you think we couldn’t exorcise the Evil Spirit you were pretending to be. That magic was a simple combination of Flash Magic, Soul-Soothing Magic, and Spirit Communication Magic, designed to reassure the hidden Mrs. Zeril. It was also a test. If there really was an Evil Spirit, I would prolong the flash to communicate, but unfortunately, there was no Evil Spirit. However, when I left at noon, I heard the voices of a man and a child telling me to protect Mrs. Zeril. They must have been Mr. Zeril and Young Zeril. I didn’t leave at noon to prepare Spirit Removal items, but to ask the Know-It-All for information and notify the Self-Defense Force. As soon as we signal, the Self-Defense Force would come and arrest you.”

“I’m defeated. Do with me as you will.”

“Then one last question: Where are the bodies of Mr. Zeril and Young Zeril?”

“On a small hill south of the city outskirts. There’s a strangely shaped tree where they’re buried.”

Then, Phia signaled. The Self-Defense Force entered the mansion; they took away the Soul-Devouring Demon, bound by Phia’s magic, and found the illegal drugs and bribery account book hidden by Mr. Zeril in the secret chamber. They didn’t take Mrs. Zeril, but the lonely Mrs. Zeril disappeared the next day, leaving only a letter bequeathing the mansion as a reward to Bal and Phia.

A few days later, a wooden house appeared on the hill south of the city outskirts with the strangely shaped tree. Phia and Bal often visited there. But that’s a story for another time.