Pokémon Detective Case Files.

"It seems you actually know the truth."

Seeing this, a sharp smile curved the corners of Lingju's lips—

"Only two people in the palace can command the Royal Guard: His Majesty King Hugo XVI, and you, who have received His Majesty's authorization. And we all know that the person sitting on the throne is merely a puppet controlled by you. Interestingly, the puppet in the garden denies it, claiming he never issued that order—what does this mean? Did you forge the order, or did His Majesty lie for you? I personally lean towards the third possibility…"

The magician was about to continue when Leclerc sharply interrupted him—

“Magician, you’d better think this through! Once certain things are brought to the forefront, as a court count of this country, I can no longer simply make up an excuse to let you leave like I did before.”

“Heh.” Yueju chuckled. “Since I dared to ask this question, I’m naturally prepared. Not only that, I also know why you’re so eager to see what’s in the barrel.”

"Even if you're willing to take the risk, what about your two companions? Are you going to gamble their lives?" Count Black Moon roared, disregarding all decorum.

"I see, that explains it... So this is the real face of that 'big bearded man'?"

The voice came from the side, and it was the thief Lian Wu who spoke—

“‘Leclerc is a man who only obeys the king’s orders.’ Was that the hint Hugo gave us? The detective has already given us that much hint; if we still can’t guess it, we’ll be unworthy of the title of the Alliance’s King.”

"The person who issued the lockdown order."

Another voice rang out, this time the cool, clear voice of the female monk, Gadriya—

"Shouldn't he be the real king?"

Chapter 450 The Head That Stopped in the Net

“Leclerc, you have never been the one pulling the strings behind the scenes. On the contrary, you are the puppet being pulled by the strings. You are absolutely loyal to the king who raised you to power—and it is this unwavering loyalty that has led to this end.”

With that, the magician pulled Count Black Moon aside, walked to the barrel, and lifted the lid that sealed the head. He tilted the barrel, turning it towards Leclerc.

As dusk deepened, in order to allow everyone to see the scene inside the bucket clearly, Lingju thoughtfully lit a cluster of [Illumination] spells on her fingertips.

The king's unseeing head was revealed in the cold light. Lingju's voice was so soft it was almost a soliloquy—

"The reason for the contradictory royal orders is that there were actually two monarchs in the palace at the time, right?"

In the silent attic, Count Black Moon's face instantly turned even paler than the dead man's head in the bucket.

“A carefully prepared double, or a twin, in short, someone who can perfectly impersonate the king.”

Lingju shook her finger, which served as the light source, and said in an almost inciteful tone—

“Only in this way can we explain why, when we met with Hugo XVI, there was another ‘king’ ordering guards to surround the tavern. This answer also explains His Majesty’s change in character and the reversal of the hierarchical relationship between you and the king.”

"That's true."

The thief Lian Wu stood to the side with his arms crossed, nodding as he added—

"Considering that if the king really did have a twin brother, it's impossible for the royal family to be unaware of it, and the person who truly possesses royal blood and the right to inherit the throne would never be willing to be a shadowy substitute. It seems this imposter was probably found by you from among the common people, right?"

The thief paused, his gaze sweeping over the head in the bucket, its expression frozen in astonishment, and added meaningfully—

"As for the person lying in the tub right now—whether it is that absurd king or a stand-in you found, it is probably too early to say."

"The legend of 'there are three people in the world who look exactly like you' seems to be true."

Blueberry chuckled coldly and shook the barrel beneath her hand, the gardening axe scraping against the barrel's walls, making an unsettling sound.

"I knew it! That king, so rumored to be incompetent, tyrannical, and extravagant, had suddenly changed his ways. It seems he was tired of the throne and made the most absurd decision—abandoning the responsibility of being king, which everyone envies, to pursue so-called freedom. And to clean up his mess, you, the count whom Hugo XVI promoted, found a lookalike to replace the king and put him on the throne. You have leverage over the lookalike; once the secret is exposed, he will surely die, and naturally, he will obey you. Now, the real king has returned and hates the imposter who has taken his place, hence this case."

"To be honest, having an identical double is a bit too much of a cheat in a mystery story," the monk Gadriya commented critically. "It feels like a forced coincidence in the plot, which is really unfair to us puzzle solvers."

"Having the power to control a country, it's not really a huge coincidence to find a lookalike among the common people. Besides, there was actually a hint before, namely the rumor of being possessed by an evil dragon."

Lian Wu pointed out—

"Didn't that guy in the tavern say it openly—'The king is no longer him, something else sits on the throne'? It sounds mystical, but in hindsight it was just the literal meaning."

"That bearded man is actually the returned true king. The reason he spread rumors in a tavern so close to the palace is not to undermine the rule of the royal family. On the contrary, he wants to send a signal to you—Count Darkham Leclerc, the Black Moon Earl—the subject he personally promoted—that he has returned."

Lingju watched with great interest as Leclerc's expression grew increasingly grim, becoming more and more certain of her deduction.

“Even we outsiders were able to track down the bearded man’s whereabouts in a short time. As the one who controls the capital, it should be even easier for you to trace the source of the rumors—especially since the other party had no intention of hiding anything. In this situation, if you really had the intention to usurp the throne, it would be easy to deal with. You could just kill the real king and continue to control your puppet. But you happen to be a reliable and loyal minister.”

This is the most illogical aspect of the whole incident.

If Hugo hadn't pointed this out beforehand, the three of them probably would have remained stuck on this blind spot for a long time.

A powerful minister who held absolute power and even the throne would immediately abandon all his pride and cooperate with the return of that absurd monarch without hesitation.

But human nature is inherently diverse. Loyalty is sometimes like being deeply involved in a game of chess; the more you invest, the harder it is to extricate yourself. Perhaps it was precisely because Leclerc possessed this temperament that he was chosen by Hugo XVI and promoted all the way to his current position.

The magician sighed with some regret—

"In other words, the real king had already met with you in private at the palace shortly after the rumors began to circulate. And now that the real king has returned, the imposter should naturally step down—after all, that puppet couldn't refuse your orders anyway, even if the intention behind those orders was to kill him."

Leclerc remained silent, staring intently at the head in the barrel.

"And so, the true king smoothly took over the affairs of the past month without attracting anyone's attention—this can be seen from the fact that Luna was transferred to the garden and the apple cider supply to the Black Crocodile Tavern was cut off. As for that counterfeit, you, Earl, have hidden it away and will not easily show it unless there are special circumstances."

“Luna is that special case,” Lian Wu said decisively, following behind Yueju.

“The bodyguard Lopa just said here that Luna ‘has served the king faithfully for four years.’ Perhaps in that spy’s eyes, the so-called ‘king’ has always been a stand-in. The real king is a stranger to Luna, which is why the king, upon returning to the throne, transferred her away out of fear.”

"Both times we saw him, it was that double who looked exactly like the king, wasn't it?"

Cattleya continued, "Because Luna was there at the time. If it were the real king who didn't know Luna, he probably wouldn't have been willing to meet us. But that 'Hugo XVI' acted very naturally, and even took the initiative to mention cider to Luna at the end—he didn't even know that the king had ordered the supply of cider to be cut off."

"It must have been your order, Count, to assign a double to receive us travelers who came to the palace with Luna, right?"

The magician pressed on—

“Even though Luna is your subordinate, you are unwilling to let the existence of the king’s double be exposed to more people who know about it. And when we meet with you in the office, you have plenty of time to replace the king’s identity again.”

“Hmph, letting you go to see the king was the biggest mistake of my life.” Leclerc neither confirmed nor denied the travelers’ reasoning, but gritted his teeth and said.

"Your mistake was irreversible the moment you decided to assist His Majesty in committing murder."

Cranberry pointed out incisively—

"It's clear that someone faked beheading marks on the fruit trees in the garden before and after the incident. Although the method was clumsy, the liquid used to simulate bloodstains couldn't have been prepared in a hurry—even if someone was beheaded on the spot, it would be impossible to smear such a large amount of 'blood' on the tree trunks without a container. Leclerc, what exactly were you and His Majesty planning in the garden?"

The count remained silent. Lian Wu simply answered for him—

"What else could we plan? Naturally, we'd have to execute that double."

The thief tapped on the wooden wall of the attic and said, "The bearded man and the king are the same person. He even prepared those toys to fool children after committing the crimes in advance. He probably started thinking about that doggerel, 'The axe falls, the crown is lost,' several days ago. This blood was obviously prepared to increase the drama of this 'final performance.'"

“Besides, it was also to make it easier to frame others,” Cattleya suddenly said. “Since the crime was committed in the garden, the original intention was probably to frame the gardener Sander, but considering the circumstances at the time, perhaps that guy suddenly decided to target us.”

"But I don't understand the necessity of doing so."

Blueberry shrugged.

"The life of the Stand is in the hands of the King and Leclerc. Even if His Majesty is dissatisfied with the imposter, why does he need to take action himself? The Earl is all-powerful in the capital, and the King is a habitual offender who does all sorts of things. The two of them do have the means and the ability to kill the Stand, but the key motivation seems unusually weak—is it really necessary to go to such lengths?"

"At this point in the deduction, there is only one possibility," the female monk said slowly. "What Hugo XVI wanted to kill was not the substitute, but the 'King'—the real King in the eyes of the world."

She continued, “He returned to the palace not to reclaim power—he’d had enough of that cage. This greedy fool wanted something far more luxurious this time—a complete break with the identity of ‘King.’ To that end, he had to make ‘Hugo XVI’ disappear from the world. Not by fleeing incognito, but by convincing everyone that the King was dead. Only then could he gain true freedom, a new life no longer bound by the crown.”

"This matter must not be known to a third person except Leclerc, who already knows about it," the monk concluded, his gaze fixed on Count Black Moon's eyes.

Leclerc's shoulders slumped abruptly; Cattleya's [intuition] had clearly hit the nail on the head.

"Looks like we guessed right," Cranberry chuckled.

"Unfortunately, His Majesty's actions didn't go as smoothly as our deductions suggested. He apparently encountered resistance from his double in the garden, resulting in one dying and the other surviving, the victor dismembering the loser... Ah, the beheading must have taken place in the Earl's office we visited, right? It's right next to the secret passage leading to the garden. No wonder you locked us in the dungeon the second time we met—at that time, the bloodstains in your office probably hadn't been cleaned up yet, had they?"

Leclerc sighed and finally admitted, "The bloodstains have been cleaned up, but since I was the only one cleaning up, there were bound to be some oversights, and the smell hasn't completely dissipated yet."

This is tantamount to a complete acceptance of the traveler's reasoning.

"His Majesty's decision to surround the Black-Eyed Crocodile Tavern was arbitrary. It seems that he has temporarily changed his original plan to identify the gardener Sander as the murderer, and wants to use this opportunity to involve you three outsiders in the matter—after all, your actions in investigating the rumors about the bearded man in the capital have already aroused his suspicion."

Earl Black Moon hung his head dejectedly, but his tone was unusually calm because he had given up trying to hide it.

"In the original plan, the secret passage in the garden should not have been discovered by anyone. The reason I was sitting in the office at that time was just to wait for the king to settle everything so that I could take people to the scene of the incident to clean up the mess. It was just a coincidence that I saw you there and that you became witnesses to the secret room."

"Looking back now, it really was a riddled-with-holes secret room," Yueju chuckled.

Leclerc ignored the traveler's sarcastic remarks and continued speaking—

"That's why, when that familiar figure appeared outside the window, carrying 'myself' in royal robes on his shoulder, I was completely thrown into a panic. He climbed in through the window with me on his back and ordered me in a tone I knew all too well to fake bloodstains under the tree and clean up the footprints along the way. When I returned after doing everything as instructed, he had already changed into the king's prepared clothes and was waiting in the garden with the decapitated body."

"He then ordered me to proceed according to the original plan, and it wasn't until I returned to my office and saw the bloodstains all over the floor that I suddenly realized what a huge mistake I had made—I had forgotten to confirm which 'His Majesty' was giving me the orders!"

Count Black Moon's fingertips unconsciously traced the indentation on the scepter—

"The man's tone when giving me orders was too natural, and he was openly wearing the same casual clothes that His Majesty had been wearing for the past month. Moreover, the 'stand-in' he brought was still breathing at the time—all of this made me subconsciously rule out the possibility that the stand-in had taken over."

"I originally planned to examine the body carefully after the scene was sealed off and everything had settled down, but..."

“However, the corpse’s head has vanished without a trace,” the magician said, raising his voice, which was particularly clear in the small attic.

"So, your real purpose in trying to examine the body was to determine who actually died. You were willing to plot the murder for a foolish king, but you were unwilling to be fooled by a mere imposter, isn't that it?"

Blueberry reached into the bucket, pulled out the dried blood from the victim's head, and forcefully pried open the mouth with two fingers—

"What you really want to check is this, isn't it?"

Seeing Leclerc's pupils suddenly contract, Yueju's lips curled into a knowing smile.

“I previously said that the criminal investigation technology of this era is so backward that we don’t even know how to use fingerprints, but that’s not entirely accurate. Even in this era five hundred years ago, there were still more intuitive and simpler ways to distinguish between two people who look alike.”

"Ah." Lian Wu looked at the magician's hand gesture and suddenly realized, "It's a tooth!"

"That's right!"

Blueberry's fingertips, casting a [lighting] spell, lightly touched the chin of the skull—

"A king who grew up in luxury and had a fondness for sweet wine and delicacies, and a stand-in who grew up among commoners and ate coarse food—their teeth tell tales of completely different lives."

Leclerc leaned down and stared at the open mouth.

As a minister who had dined with His Majesty at countless banquets, he was very familiar with those teeth—over the years, he had personally witnessed how His Majesty carefully scraped away the candied fruit residue between his teeth with a small silver spoon, and how he screamed in pain when the court physician treated his toothache.

At this moment, illuminated by the white light of the spell, the truth between their teeth was laid bare—

There was a noticeable cavity in the upper left molar, with dark brown, decayed edges—a mark left by years of drinking sweet wine. Yellowish-white plaque had accumulated on the inside of the incisors, difficult to remove even with regular cleaning. Even more alarming was the receding gums of the lower canines, with a small section of the exposed root still clinging to some dried fruit fibers…

Although the teeth had clearly been well-maintained—each tooth was firmly embedded in the gums, there was no missing tooth as is common among ordinary people, and the cavities had been carefully filled with some kind of resin material, although the material had turned black, the traces of previous maintenance were still visible—all these maintenance measures could not cover up the fundamental damage caused by the owner's long-term indulgence in food and drink.

Faced with the truth before him, Leclerc couldn't help but think of the body double he had found...

The last time I examined his mouth, I saw teeth that were yellowed but exceptionally strong—to keep this a secret, he even dismissed the palace's original royal physician. Those teeth had no cavities, only wear marks from years of chewing coarse grains, carrying a raw and tenacious vitality.

"Do you understand now?"

The voice of the blueberry tree pulled the powerful minister back to reality—

"It's so obvious that even someone like me, who lacks dental knowledge, can [identify] that these meticulously maintained yet still riddled with cavities could only belong to the true king, who has been pampered since childhood. No matter how well the stand-in imitates His Majesty's eating habits, it's impossible for him to create such cavities in just a few years."

He released his grip, letting Hugo's head fall back into the bucket with a thud.

"It seems that your king has ultimately been consumed by the shadow he created."

The count slowly straightened up.

No further evidence is needed; these teeth are more convincing proof of the deceased's identity than any emblem or ring—after all, no imposter would go to such lengths to fake cavities in order to impersonate someone else.

Leclerc was surprised to find that he wasn't actually that surprised.

Perhaps, even when he disobeyed the king's initial orders and allowed the three travelers to investigate the case, he had already subconsciously accepted this fact.

Chapter 451 Spring Crown on the Eve of Metamorphosis

To explain the whole incident, we need to go back a month—

When Victor Hugo XVI was still on the throne, he was the most honored man in the country. Now, he is a down-on-his-luck "Peter," a vagrant who doesn't even deserve a surname, squatting by a murky river, looking at the reflection in the water that has caused him so much suffering.

All of this stemmed from his romantic fantasy of pursuing "real life," and that damned face that everyone in the kingdom knew.

On coins, in portraits, in celebratory parades—his round, ruddy face with its slightly wavy blond hair and meticulously trimmed goatee had been a living advertisement for the kingdom's extravagant lifestyle. He used to be proud of it, but now he only wanted to curse it.

It has been four years since I left the palace.

The man, who called himself "Pete," gazed at his reflection in the water.

He was unshaven, his skin rough, and there was a shallow scar on his left brow bone from working. But no matter how badly his face was ruined, the essence of his face remained unchanged—his slightly curly blond hair was now greasy and matted, and his tired gray eyes were gradually becoming cloudy, but the natural upward curve of his lips still seemed as if he was ready to issue some absurd decree at any moment—it was this face that completely ruined his escape.

He left the palace not to achieve anything great, but simply because he was tired of it.

He was tired of being woken up at the same time every day, tired of having every bite of food tasted for poison by servants, tired of the endless petitions and memorials. Although people always said he was acting recklessly, deep down, he felt like the one who had suffered the most—worse than even the lowest commoner. What he wanted was freedom, to do as he pleased! He wanted to sleep until the sun was high in the sky, to eat with his hands, and to spit at anyone who displeased him!