Mystery: Mr. Witch and Ms. Hunter

Chapter 335 Chain
(This month I expect to have another placeholder chapter. If nothing goes wrong, it will be on the night of the 25th. I have an exam on the 26th, and I will try to make one last effort. I should have three more exams in June, but they should all be finished before June 6th. I have also said in the book club that in mid-June, probably starting from the 12th, I will update twice a week to compensate for the lack of updates during this period.)
"Dead... dead?"

Wendy whispered. Although it was a questioning tone, she didn't actually need anyone to give her an answer.

So Adele didn't answer. After confirming that there was nothing wrong in the room through reflection, she immediately entered the room carefully.

The porthole in the cabin was opened, and the crimson moonlight shone on the crime scene, making the atmosphere here extremely weird.

Adele walked carefully to Wagner's side, keeping a close eye on his surroundings while checking his wounds.

With the assassin's keen perception of life status, even if Adele did not make further confirmation, she knew that Wagner was completely dead at this time and there was no way to rescue him. She didn't even want to try divination and waste her own spirituality.

Therefore, she just tried to check the other party's wound, hoping to find out some information from it, at least to understand what exactly killed Wagner, who had become a Sequence 9 "Assassin".

Wagner's wound was not big, but the location was very accurate and the blow was fatal, piercing his heart directly from behind.

An assassin being easily stabbed in the heart from behind... This is as ridiculous as a sailor drowning or a hunter dying from a rabbit bite and infection.

What's more, the other party didn't use any magic weapon...

"The knife belongs to Wagner himself."

Adele glanced at the knife handle still stuck in Wagner's back and identified its original owner from the ornate accessories on it. "He likes to hang his weapon on the rack at the door... I told him that this is not a good habit, but former Storm Lord followers are not always so easy to listen to other people's advice."

Adele glanced around as she spoke. After all the people on Nebuchadnezzar's ship disappeared, this place became the residence of Wagner, the temporary first mate. The decoration was quite thoughtful, with bright yellow as the main color. There was nothing unusual about the coffee table, sofa and other things. Only the small carpet in the middle of the room was stained with bright red blood, which was slowly spreading towards Adele.

"There was no sign of a struggle. Wagner did not notice the approach of the other party, and was killed by the man behind him with his own sailor knife."

Based on the traces of footsteps left on the carpet, Adele quickly reconstructed part of the scene in her mind.

"Although he is not an outstanding assassin, he has been practicing with me for half a month and has barely gotten to the point where he can get started. He should not make such a low-level mistake."

Adele frowned slightly, which made her feel quite unhappy, as if the other party not only killed Wagner, but also slapped her in the face.

Most of the extraordinary people on the Witch Path are protective of their own shortcomings, which is due to the mental imprint left in the potion.

In Adele's opinion, although a man like Wagner was worthy of being hanged when he attempted to seize the ship and become a pirate, since she had already decided to use him to do something, his death would not be such a big deal.

"So, what should we do next?"

Wendy asked timidly. Although she was used to seeing death, she was still not completely indifferent to murder.

"Let me think..." Adele thought for a moment.

Originally, she wanted to stay here in person and let Wendy notify the others on the ship to stop the banquet and return to their respective cabins to be on guard immediately. However, considering that Wendy's prestige was not as high as hers, it would not be good to ask her to do something that would offend others, so she gave up this idea.

Besides, she was now alone at sea, and the murderer or murderers might not have left the ship yet. In this case, it would not be appropriate to let Wendy leave alone.

Similarly, I can't leave Wendy here alone.

After all, although Miss Peromoncia has reached Sequence 7 and barely made it into the middle-sequence threshold, she still does not have the active ability to be used in frontal combat, and her physical fitness is not as strong as that of the "Weapon Master" who is also at Sequence 7.

To put it more clearly, she is a blank slate, and a blank slate with not much combat experience. In this respect, even Qiao Qiao in her previous life might be better than her, because at least Qiao Qiao had fought against those indescribable creatures before.

——It's strange, when I asked Wendy about Qiao Qiao, she had no memory of becoming a member of the action team. She only remembered that an accident happened to her shortly after she arrived at the archipelago, but she had strangely ignored what the accident was.

After thinking it over, Adele moved Wagner's body away and began to search for ritual items in the drawer.

Anyway, I have seen everything I should have seen. Even if I forget something in the future, I can go above the gray fog and pray to the "Fool". I can even remember the details that I saw but didn't notice at the time. It is very convenient.

Soon, Adele took out a huge shell from the drawer. Unlike ordinary shells, its pattern was rotated to the left. It could be sold at a high price to collectors and was also a good magic prop.

Adele pulled out a strand of her black hair and wrapped it around the shell. Then the hair began to burn violently. The warm black flame licked Adele's right hand holding the shell, wrapping it in it, but there were no signs of burns.

Adele looked calm as usual. She picked up the conch shell and spoke clearly to the hole:
"The banquet is over. Everyone, immediately form groups of four and take up positions in the nearest cabin. If you can't gather four, more will do. Don't be alone. Stay ready for battle. If someone tries to open your door, I allow you to open fire first."

"When the alarm was lifted, we lit a small black fire inside each cabin to distinguish them."

"All Beyonders please go to the first mate's room, which is on the middle level of the sailboat. Don't be alone. Those who are not attending the banquet should stay in their respective cabins and don't walk around at will."

Amplified by black magic, her voice spread to every corner of the ship, suddenly waking up the sailors who were still immersed in the atmosphere of the banquet. Although they were reluctant, they still skillfully took their positions.

Before the black flames on the conch burned out, Adele uttered the last word, and then stopped moving Wagner who was lying on the floor. She and Wendy stood aside, facing each other, paying attention to each other's movements behind them.

Soon, Tracy and Constantine appeared at the door one after another, both holding their weapons. Adele also saw the small bottle with a little mist hanging on Tracy's waist.

The four members of the Witch Sect did not board the ship. They were not actually considered combatants and their position was similar to Wendy, so they were still on the ironclad ship.

"What happened... Mother Goddess."

Constantine exclaimed briefly, "Is this your first mate?"

"This is not a good sign." Tracy and Adele looked at each other, and Adele could see the seriousness and worry in her eyes.

At first, Adele and Tracy's intuition told them that there was danger here, but after all, Tracy had just joined the kingdom's military and was in urgent need of showing herself. Moreover, unlike Adele, she had been famous for a long time and had an inexplicable arrogance when facing these ships from the southern continent. This was also the reason why the kingdom's military wanted to use her name.

"Although he had not been dead for long when I arrived, he was dead very thoroughly, with no spirit left."

Adele didn't answer Tracy for the time being, but explained to Constantine who was squatting down and trying to communicate with the dead body, "The opponent is either very professional, or his attack originally had a similar effect."

"Really? That's a shame." Constantine shrugged and stood up. "Do you think it has something to do with the ship we seized today?"

"There's no definitive evidence, but it's very likely."

Adele nodded, then shook her head. "However, we'd better analyze it based on this consensus. Who will set up the spiritual wall?"

The witches' black magic has different focuses. Adele needs to use various materials to use black magic. Although she knows a lot of spells, she is definitely not as good as Constantine and Tracy in creating a spiritual wall. Now that there is someone, there is no need to do it myself.

Tracy and Constantine also understood what she meant. They each stretched out their hands into the air, and two spiritual walls formed to seal off the entire room, covering even the ceiling and floor.

——After all, they didn't know the extent of the possible murderers' control over the ship, and whether they could hear their conversation, so it was best to take precautions in advance.

"I'm not as professional as you when it comes to autopsies, Constantine. I'll leave it to you."

Adele nodded slightly to Constantine, who quickly agreed, so Adele turned to Tracy:
"Let's search this cabin again and see if there are any new discoveries..."

Adele was halfway through her words when a gust of sea breeze suddenly blew in from the open window. This purely natural phenomenon was not blocked by the spiritual wall. It blew up the straw paper on the table, making it fly up, and the first mate's room suddenly became messy.

But no one paid attention to that. Everyone stared with grim expressions at the few lines of Intis text that were covered by the straw paper that was originally pressed by Wagner's body.

Those words were carved on the wooden table with a knife. The strokes were abrupt, as if they were left by a child who was learning to write for the first time, but the force was strong enough to almost carve through the board. The exposed snow-white wood core had now been dyed dark red by the blood, which looked quite horrifying.

That was a record Adele had seen once in the captain's log, but the person's name was changed.

"you"

"Will become"

"Star."

For a moment, no one spoke in the room, only the old-fashioned clock hanging on the wall was ticking.

"What does this sentence mean?"

Tracy was the first to react and hurriedly asked Adele.

"When I first boarded the ship, I went to the captain's room and saw the captain's logbook, which contained similar words."

Adele answered subconsciously, and then suddenly seemed to remember something, slapped her forehead, and said to the others:

"We need to get the log back. Constantine, you and Wendy stay here. Tracy and I will go to the captain's room to get the notebook back."

The captain's room and the first mate's room were not far from each other. With the speed of Adele and Tracy, it would only take a few minutes including the process of searching for things. But even so, Adele still insisted on acting in groups of two and would never give the other party any chance to take advantage.

Tracy and the other two naturally had no objection. Vice Admiral Disease stepped forward and walked out of the room with Adele, heading towards the captain's room in the same location upstairs.

At this time, the sailors who had boarded the ship in the afternoon and originally belonged to the "Snow Wind" had arrived at their respective rooms, wiping their swords and loading bullets into their high-pressure steam rifles. The corridor was empty and so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. The only sound was the slight creaking of Adele and her partner's boots as they stepped on the wooden stairs.

These sounds are quite deadly when operating in secret, but fortunately Adele and the others don't need to operate in secret now, so they don't have these concerns and quickly arrive at the captain's room.

In the captain's room, the huge dining table was still in its original place, placed on one side of the room, and the quartermaster's workbench was scattered with the quartermaster's navigation tools, maps and nautical charts.

Several sharpened pencils and a magnifying glass were placed on the table, as if the owner of the room who was doing research had just left not long ago.

"Tsk, this place is really messy. What does that navigation notebook look like? I'll help you find it. We have to hurry."

Tracy smacked her lips irritably, and was about to urge Adele to hurry up, but Adele was stunned by the scene in the room.

"what happened?"

Tracy was a little confused.

"When I came here in the afternoon, it was a little messier than it is now, but now it looks much tidier..."

Adele tilted her head, wondering why this was happening, but she soon understood:

"Someone took something here!"

A space that was originally cluttered with many things will look much tidier after some things are removed, even if the remaining items are still cluttered - this is also the theoretical basis for Vinata's belief that "the best storage method is a large house."

Thinking of this, Adele subconsciously turned her gaze to the large table in the center. After seeing the last page of the log, Adele placed the notes there for the convenience of divination.

However, where was the sheepskin-covered sailing diary on the table?

(Today's coding was in a hurry, and I was delayed for a while by chatting in the group. I don't have time to check it again. If there are any typos, please reply directly. I will update first and correct them later. If it takes too long, I won't be able to correct them.)
(End of this chapter)