What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

Inside the labyrinth’s workshop, Rena was burying her head in work.

She was preparing feed for the Magical Beasts, mixing grass picked from the labyrinth with scraps of minced meat bought from the butcher.

In most people’s eyes, Head-Hunting Rabbits were carnivorous, but in reality they could also eat grass.

Rena usually fed them a mixture of grains, pasture grass, and a small amount of meat.

As for Slimes, there was never any need to worry about feeding them—anything they could digest, they would eat.

Whether plants or animal flesh, even bones and hair, as long as they were given enough time, they could digest everything cleanly.

Now that she was raising them inside the labyrinth, she could gather wild grass and tender leaves directly from within.

According to the notes her grandmother had left behind, plants in the labyrinth would also absorb a small amount of Mana.

When Magical Beasts consumed these plants, the Mana would gradually accumulate within their bodies.

Using labyrinth plants to feed Magical Beasts should, to some extent, also increase Mana output.

Just as she was about to pour the mixed feed into a bucket and dump it into the breeding pool, she heard footsteps. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

“Hm?” Rena subconsciously turned her head.

As the footsteps drew closer, she vaguely sensed that something was off—this didn’t sound like only one person.

Then she saw Hannah and Leon walking in one after the other.

Hannah was nervously glancing around, while Leon’s face was dark and gloomy.

Rena felt as if she had been struck by a heavy blow on the spot.

The wooden bucket in her hands clanged to the ground, and the feed spilled everywhere.

Hannah finally noticed Rena, suddenly cried out “Ah,” pointed at her, and shouted loudly, “F-found her, sir!”

Rena stood frozen in place, unable to react for a moment.

“Is it her?” Leon asked coldly.

“You’d better identify her properly if you want the bounty.”

“Yes, she’s the Witch!” Hannah said without the slightest hesitation.

Rena suddenly understood something and stared at Hannah in disbelief.

“Granny Hannah, you—”

“Y-you shut up, don’t say anything!” Hannah hurriedly shouted in a trembling voice, cutting Rena off.

“Confess, Rena, this is for your own good!!”

Rena shifted her gaze to Leon.

As their eyes met, Leon gave her a look, then raised his right hand behind Hannah’s back.

In his hand, he was gripping tightly the hammer taken from Hannah’s bundle.

Using a gun would consume bullets, and there was also the risk of ricochets.

Using an axe blade would leave a large amount of blood that would need to be dealt with.

After considering everything along the way, he ultimately chose a blunt weapon.

For an instant, Rena was about to widen her eyes and scream, but at that moment, an inexplicable thought flashed through her mind, making her suppress the impulse.

“Sir, hurry and arrest her—” Hannah was still speaking.

At that moment, Leon hardened his heart and swung the hammer down heavily.

With a dull, heavy impact, Hannah’s consciousness was smashed into a bottomless abyss.

With a thud, her entire body collapsed to the ground, not even letting out a single cry.

Leon looked at Hannah lying motionless on the ground before him and suddenly felt a wave of slight dizziness.

He stepped forward and reached out to check her breathing—there was none left.

Dead…

Only after realizing this did Leon’s breathing begin to grow heavy.

In the end, he had still done it.

This was his first time killing someone.

When he was an Inquisitor, he had fought with underworld gangs before.

He had been shot by crossbow bolts and had injured people with a gun.

But those situations were basically just both sides firing wildly at each other.

Rather than slaughter, it was more like a chaotic brawl.

Flintlock pistols of this era could only fire one shot at a time, and their accuracy and penetration were laughable.

He had never truly shot someone dead with a gun.

Like today—carrying a clear intent to murder, picking up a weapon, aiming at a vital point, and striking—this was a first in his life.

The sensation transmitted back through the hammer when it struck the skull was still vividly lingering in his palm.

“Ah…” Rena, who had been frozen in place, finally woke as if from a dream, a frightened sound leaking from her mouth.

“Rena.” Leon looked at her and sighed helplessly.

“You… you…” Rena glanced at the corpse on the ground and began trembling uncontrollably.

She had personally witnessed a murder.

This kind of shock was also a first in her life.

“She wanted to report you! You saw it yourself—what choice did I have other than killing her?” Leon stared at Rena and asked in return.

Rena was stunned on the spot, not knowing what to say.

At that moment, the same thought had also flashed through her mind, which was why she subconsciously controlled her reaction and allowed Leon to kill Hannah.

But even if she had reacted, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.

Hannah was an old woman—facing a Leon who had already made up his mind to kill, she had no chance of survival at all.

“Listen carefully! I’ve already killed her. No one has seen me have contact with her—at least not that I know of. So what we need to do now is deal with the body. And for the next couple of days, you haven’t seen her, and neither have I! Do you understand?” Leon said as he dragged the corpse over to the breeding pool, which was pressed down by an iron barred gate.

He set the body down and began feeling around on himself for the key.

Rena finally snapped out of it and asked blankly, “What are you going to do?”

“I told you, deal with the body!” Leon said, taking out the key to the breeding pool’s iron barred gate.

“You control the Magical Beasts. I’ll throw the body in.”

These Magical Beasts had been fed Rena’s blood.

Under the effect of the Blood Pact, they obeyed her.

Normally, when Rena was present, under the influence of the intent she emitted, they would all appear exceptionally docile and show no aggression whatsoever—even if they were seized and slaughtered, they would not resist.

As long as Rena gave a signal, they would carry out corresponding actions according to her instructions—following, feeding, even mating.

Leon also knew that Rena could make these Magical Beasts instantly become frenzied, launching a desperate, all-out attack on a designated target.

As the saying went, killing was easy; disposing of the body was hard.

A corpse was the most important collection of clues in a murder case.

As long as the body was discovered, the fact of death itself would be made public.

The cause of death, time, location, and various details could all be uncovered one by one.

If handled improperly, even disguising it as drowning or falling off a cliff could reveal problems.

If there was no way to perfectly disguise the cause of death, the best solution was to make the body disappear—to make this person vanish from the world.

People would be unable to guess whether she drowned or fell, whether she was eaten by beasts or murdered, and would not even be able to determine whether she was alive or dead.

The simplest method was to bury the body in the mountains.

However, if it was buried too shallowly, it might be exposed by rain erosion or mudslides.

Sometimes wild animals would smell it and dig the body out, and there were also hunters and woodcutters moving about in the mountains.

Fortunately, they had a better method.

“You’re going to let the Magical Beasts eat the body!?” Rena’s eyes widened round.

“There’s no better way to handle it than making the body completely disappear without leaving even a trace!” Leon said as he opened the iron barred gate, dragged the corpse over, and pushed it straight into the breeding pool.

By now, a new generation of Head-Hunting Rabbits had already been bred in the pool, and the Slimes had split and multiplied twice.

Their numbers were already quite considerable.

The Head-Hunting Rabbits would eat the flesh and organs, while the Slimes could decompose all bodily tissues and even part of the clothing.

Throwing the corpse into the breeding pool, it would soon vanish without a trace!

The body rolled down along the pool wall and slammed into the bottom with a dull sound.

The Head-Hunting Rabbits scattered to avoid it, while two Slimes were hit directly, their slime splashing everywhere.

At that moment, a faint groan sounded from within the breeding pool.

Both Leon and Rena caught the sound, and their scalps instantly went numb.

Leon looked down in disbelief and saw that Hannah Weisland’s “corpse” had actually moved again!