What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

Rena’s wooden cottage—Apprentice Knights moved in and out of the house, turning the place upside down from the inside to the courtyard, and then to the cellar.

Some even held shovels as they patrolled the courtyard and the outer perimeter, checking whether there were any suspicious spots that needed digging.

Aaron and Bishop Beckett stood side by side in the cellar, each holding a lantern.

“Are you sure you haven’t found anything suspicious?” Bishop Beckett asked the Apprentice Knight behind him.

“So far… no, except we found a bit of backfilling traces under the table.” The Apprentice Knight chose his words carefully.

“You dug it up and took a look?” Bishop Beckett glanced beneath the table and saw there really was a pit there.

“We did. There was nothing inside—only a very deep crack at the bottom.” the Apprentice Knight said.

“A crack?” Bishop Beckett fell into thought.

He looked at the wooden workbench placed in the cellar and ran a finger across the tabletop.

His finger stayed clean, not picking up any dust at all.

“You wiped this place down?” He turned his head to confirm with the Apprentice Knight.

“Other than searching for evidence, we didn’t do anything unnecessary.” the Apprentice Knight denied.

“It really looks like there’s nothing here.” Aaron also didn’t see any clues at a glance.

“Having nothing is suspicious in itself, sir. Look—both tables here are very clean. They were likely used often.So in a cellar with poor lighting, what could she have been doing on these tables? Carpentry? Sewing? Or… brewing potions?” Bishop Beckett raised the question.

“But there aren’t any tools here. Maybe it was simply cleaned.” Aaron thought for a moment and said.

“Yes. Nothing at all—like it was… deliberately cleared out.”

Bishop Beckett ran his fingertips doubtfully over the tabletop, then suddenly frowned.

“You found something?” Aaron asked.

Bishop Beckett lifted the lantern to shine on the surface and found a circular indentation—a mark left by a heavy object pressing on the table over many years.

Inside the circular indentation, there were faintly a few straight line marks, but it was hard to tell what pattern they formed.

“Sir, please look at this.”

He beckoned Aaron over to see, then used his finger to trace a pentagram within the circular indentation.

Those line-like dents seemed to match several strokes of the pentagram exactly.

Aaron looked twice and understood what he meant.

“You mean there used to be an altar here?”

The Moilai Altars confiscated by the Church were usually cylindrical, like an enormous chopping block—both sides planed flat.

One side would be carved with magic arrays and runes, while the reverse would be carved in the shape of a pentagram.

“If this workbench had still been in use recently, then I’m thinking—when that Witch was captured, the altar was sitting right here! And all the potion-brewing tools were here too!” Bishop Beckett speculated.

“But you already caught her. How could she move the evidence?” Aaron met Bishop Beckett’s gaze.

As they looked at each other, both their expressions grew heavy.

When the Knight Order sealed the mountain and searched, this cottage had been outside the blockade perimeter.

While the Witch had been surrounded in the mountains, she hadn’t had time to return home to move evidence—and then she had been taken under their control.

That meant someone had gotten ahead of them and helped the Witch move the evidence.

From the moment they captured Rena Lothark to the moment they found her address and began the search, only three to four hours had passed.

If the other party had been able to use those three to four hours to move evidence, it meant he could sense the direction of their investigation.

Of course, this was only one possibility.

In reality, the other party might have noticed the Knight Order’s sealing operation nearby, realized that Rena had likely been arrested, and moved the evidence for her.

But no matter what, the inference pointed to one possibility—this Witch had accomplices!

That also explained why, after Rena’s arrest, she had refused to reveal her personal information the entire time: she had been buying time for her partner to move the evidence.

“But it’s all just conjecture. It won’t be of any use in the tribunal.” Aaron shook his head.

A single indentation on a tabletop hardly counted as any key evidence.

They couldn’t even apply to the tribunal for the right to use judicial torture on the grounds of major suspicion.

Bishop Beckett took out his pocket watch to check the time.

Five hours had passed since Rena Lothark’s arrest.

They had found out her identity and address, and they had even found the Workshop where Magical Beasts were being raised—yet they still hadn’t found Decisive Evidence that could close the case.

He instinctively sensed that the hope of finding physical evidence was growing slimmer and slimmer.

“Sir, it seems we can only try starting from testimony. Let’s go meet that girl.” Bishop Beckett put away his pocket watch.

……

In Rena’s past imagination, the Interrogation Room had been a dark, damp, cold room, with only a single oil lamp illuminating the Inquisitor’s frigid Bird-Beak Mask.

But it wasn’t until Leon described it to her that she learned the Interrogation Room was actually very bright—ablaze with light.

Several fire pits lit the room wide and clear, and mirrors reflected the firelight onto her as she was shackled to a chair.

Every movement of a suspect could be seen clearly.

And the strong light made it hard for a suspect to sleep; the oppressive heat made time crawl.

Even if there were no questions at all and one was merely left there, the psychological pressure would keep rising.

Not every suspect would be treated like this.

This kind of pressure meant that, in the Inquisition’s judgment, her suspicion was very high—an ominous sign.

But at the same time, it also meant they still hadn’t found even a shred of corroborating evidence, couldn’t obtain approval to use judicial torture on her, and could only resort to non-violent means like this.

She didn’t know how many hours had passed since she had been sent to the Interrogation Room.

Finally, someone came in to question her.

Aaron and Bishop Beckett entered the room and looked Rena over from a short distance away as she was shackled to the chair.

Rena raised her face, but she couldn’t see their faces clearly because of the glare from the mirrors.

Aaron casually adjusted the mirror’s angle so the light no longer shone directly into her face.

If they couldn’t see the other party’s expression, it was also disadvantageous to the interrogation.

“Suspect Rena Lothark—are you still refusing to honestly confess your crimes?” Bishop Beckett spoke harshly.

“What crimes? I don’t know what you’re talking about…” Rena spoke in a voice choked with sobs.

“I was only gathering herbs in the mountains—why did you arrest me…”

The sob in her voice wasn’t acting.

She was truly terrified to the extreme.

But she still remembered the technique Leon had taught her: whatever her emotions were didn’t matter, but she absolutely must not admit anything.

“When you were caught, you didn’t even have a basket. What herbs were you gathering? And besides, the place you were heading down the mountain from was in the opposite direction from your village.” Bishop Beckett pressed.

“I accidentally fell down a slope. I lost the basket then. I couldn’t climb back up, so I could only follow the slope down…”

Rena gave the explanation she had rehearsed countless times in her mind.

“Then why, even now, are you refusing to give your name and where you live? That doesn’t look like the reaction of an innocent person.” Bishop Beckett said.

“I was just… too afraid…” Rena replied softly.

“We are the Church. Only heretics fear us. So you admit you’re a Witch?” Bishop Beckett said.

“I said I’m not a Witch! I heard that once the Inquisition finds someone’s address, they can stuff incriminating evidence into that person’s home, then arrest them and beat a confession out of them… Are you planning to do that to me now?” Rena asked back in a trembling voice.

“No one will do such a thing, Miss Lothark. I swear on my honor—the Church guarantees your lawful rights, on the condition that you are truly innocent and willing to cooperate.” Aaron said.

“We’ve already found your name, so naturally we’ve also found your residence and every location connected to you. You’d better hurry and recall what you did in your home’s cellar—otherwise we’ll have no choice but to use judicial torture on you.” Bishop Beckett sneered.

At that instant, Rena’s heart lurched upward.

Her altar had been hidden in the cellar.

But she immediately remembered what Leon had taught her: the stronger the Inquisitor’s pressure during an interrogation, the more it proved they had no decisive physical evidence and had to obtain her testimony.

She could only trust that Leon had already dealt with the physical evidence before they got there.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about… Even if you put something in my home to frame me, I won’t admit it!” She mustered her courage and glared at the two of them.

Aaron and Bishop Beckett quietly exchanged a glance, both vaguely realizing that this interrogation might not yield progress easily.

……

After quite some time, once they left the Interrogation Room, Bishop Beckett—who had kept a cold, rigid face the whole time—let out a weary sigh.

They had run back and forth all day: they had raided Potter’s estate, found the breeding ground within the labyrinth, and captured the key suspect—only to hit a wall at the final step of evidence collection.

They hadn’t been able to seize the critical physical evidence, and suspect Rena Lothark showed no sign of budging.

“Personally, I still think she has problems.” Bishop Beckett said.

“Her answers didn’t have any obvious flaws.” Aaron said.

“The suspect’s counter-interrogation awareness seemed very strong—like she had experience being interrogated—but the Church’s case files have no record of her.”

“We also can’t completely rule out that she isn’t the person we’re looking for.” Aaron pondered.

“Send her back to the Holding Cells. Let Carolyn watch her for now.”

“Your Highness, there are more than enough suspicious points about her.” Bishop Beckett said.

“But those are useless in the tribunal. We can’t use judicial torture on her. She’s only a suspect—we must guarantee her rights.” Aaron said solemnly.

“Your Highness, detention has a time limit. Once it expires, we must release her. If we can’t find the Witch, closing the case like that is unacceptable to us!” Bishop Beckett emphasized.

If, in the end, the report they submitted only proved Potter’s crimes, and also found that the Mana came from the local area, but failed to seize the Witch who extracted the Mana—and might not even be able to prove the suspect’s guilt—and couldn’t determine the true culprit who killed Caron Eso…

A conclusion like that couldn’t be called merit.

Instead, it might lead to doubts about His Highness the Prince’s capabilities.

“But we can’t violate procedure. We are the guardians of the law—we absolutely must not commit any act that tramples the law.” Aaron stared at Bishop Beckett.

“I won’t allow you to force a confession in private!”

“No, Your Highness. What I mean is precisely to follow procedure. By identifying the Magical Beasts’ magical power levels, we can basically infer that the petrified, fragmented corpse is Eso’s body. That barely meets the standard for a major case.” Bishop Beckett took a deep breath, as if making a decision.

“In your name, and with your relationship with the Earl Foyle, perhaps we can contact Cardinal Stuart of the Prophet Church.”

“You mean…” Aaron’s brows knit slightly.

“We can apply for the Prophet Church’s Supreme Investigation Warrant…” Bishop Beckett said seriously.

“The Church’s only means of fully identifying a Witch!”