Chapter Forty-Seven: The Real Culprit

A dozen minutes earlier.

Walking down the street, Louis held a map in his hand, his eyes tracing the red, yellow, and green zones he had marked, heading toward the green area.

This map had been drawn by Louis himself, based on reports from his spies. Through them, he knew where the notorious figures of Knockturn Alley usually made their rounds, and he marked those places as red danger zones—places he would never venture into.

At that moment, a group of pedestrians turned the corner onto the street. Upon seeing a faceless person standing in the middle of the road, they fled shrieking as if they’d seen a ghost, leaving the street deserted in an instant.

[The wizards of Knockturn Alley have noticed that it’s growing ever more dangerous...]

“It seems the security around here really has gotten worse,” Louis shook his head, feeling he ought to put in more effort.

He’d heard rumors that several factions in Knockturn Alley had recently formed some kind of alliance to hunt down a serial killer, apparently in an attempt to restore some order.

Whether they had caught the perpetrator, Louis didn’t know, but he felt he’d done more than his share to help them—though, on this point, Stewart insisted that Louis himself was the culprit.

Nonsense. He was clearly a champion of justice, punishing evil and protecting the innocent.

Stewart had doubted this, going so far as to provide a list of names to persuade his boss—if Louis didn’t believe him, he could ask these people himself.

So, while Oxicris had been tutoring him recently, Louis had made a point of visiting each of the names on Stewart’s list, asking them in passing who among them had the gift of Apparition—the business of people waking up under their beds had come out in these conversations.

At first, these people had been tough, even boasting of their family names—each claiming to be a leader of some faction.

Eagle of the Grey Gloves, Jason the Immortal, Ross of the Voodoo Gang, the Deathless... all bold-sounding titles, their words fierce—what did they say? Since the Faceless One had come knocking today, they’d show no mercy.

Clearly, they were lying, for none of them behaved like real wizards.

Sure enough, as the conversations wore on, they all changed their tunes, claiming not to be wizards at all but carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, farmers, and so on.

Another lie, obviously.

For they were all serial killers.

And sure enough, after he’d rounded them up, that alliance in Knockturn Alley dissolved.

That very day, Louis had smiled at Stewart.

So the chaos in Knockturn Alley was my doing? So I’m the serial killer? Yet after these people were caught, the alliance disbanded—who the real culprit was couldn’t be clearer.

Since then, Stewart had never mentioned the matter of the murderer again.

Nevertheless, Louis did not stop searching for wrongdoers, convinced that the Alley’s security was still far from restored—there had to be more criminals lurking.

One thing supported his suspicion: recently, a remarkable group of “wizards” had arrived from the Muggle world, rumored to possess “forbidden spells incomprehensible to all and capable of destroying the world.” They swaggered through Knockturn Alley, unchallenged and uninterested in mingling.

Whenever they accosted someone on the street, they would grill them on whether they were a wizard, lecture them at length on some newly-devised grand theory, and disdain anyone who failed to follow their logic—in other words, they looked down on everyone.

They had even concluded that perhaps there were no real wizards in Knockturn Alley—after all, what kind of wizard would dress like a commoner?

This puzzled Louis, for every resident of the Alley was a wizard—unless these so-called extraordinary ones, like himself, felt that none of the others deserved the title.

They did seem impressive.

Louis considered reaching out to them; after all, they were also hunting the murderer. Surely there was room for cooperation.

He’d heard they frequented the danger zones, so today he ventured there himself. Yet he saw none of them.

Just then, a group of oddly-dressed wild wizards came running up, excitedly flinging exorcism powder at Louis and chanting incomprehensible spells.

Louis frowned, waved his sleeve at the group, and cast two spells: “Gentle Breeze,” and “Swift Restoration.”

A raging tornado burst forth from his sleeve. The sky darkened as thunder rumbled, and in an instant, everyone before him was swept skyward. A colossal waterspout crashed down, flooding the street in the blink of an eye. Of the sixteen wild wizards and one hundred thirty-eight bystanders, some were blown into the sky, others swept away to the sea.

[You have defeated 16 Muggles and 138 wizard bystanders.]
[Strength +1]
[Experience +50]

“Well, the security on this street has improved considerably. Odd, though—why are there no dark wizards in this danger zone?”

Puzzled, Louis shook his head and decided to leave. With a single step, he traversed several blocks in higher dimensions and arrived in the safe zone.

Curiously, dark wizards had been appearing more frequently in the safe zone of late.

They often disguised themselves as ordinary people, but with his storybook, Louis could spot them no matter their guise.

He never missed.

Most amusingly, these fellows loved to set up magical arrays in their homes and on nearby streets, believing it would make their hideouts more secret. But in higher dimensions, such arrays stood out like beacons, so whenever Louis noticed one in a back alley, he would slip inside.

He never missed.

Sometimes the arrays were particularly interesting, and Louis would go out of his way to investigate.

On this very street, there was an especially conspicuous and intriguing “trap” that had transformed the surrounding area into an inner world, all tucked into a magician’s box.

At the center of the street, a conjurer stood before the magic box—he seemed to be the one responsible for this trap, for the portly man had hidden himself in higher dimensions.

Louis had never before encountered anyone who knew this trick!

His interest piqued, Louis projected a version of himself into the inner world, placing it inside the magician’s box.

Then, to approach the portly conjurer lurking in higher space, Louis’s true form entered the higher dimensions and walked over.

At that moment, the conjurer was peering intently into the magic box, his large, round face pressed close and utterly focused. Curious, Louis strolled over and stood beside him, hands clasped behind his back, observing.

He saw that the box and the outside world formed a “spatial nesting doll.”

Louis’s projection looked up and saw, high above, a large, smiling face gazing down.

Louis’s true form turned to look at the portly conjurer beside him, but the man seemed unable to perceive the higher-dimensional Louis—he could only see the projection through the box.

“Fascinating!” Louis exclaimed with delight. “You must be the legendary wizard from the Muggle world, aren’t you? Your creativity is remarkable. However, you don’t seem to fully understand the thing you’ve made—it’s like wandering blindly through higher dimensions; trouble is inevitable.”

The magician looked around frantically, as if he’d seen a ghost, but could not see Louis’s true form beside him.

This box contained a silent sanctuary formed by a lattice of crystals! No sound could possibly escape—it was two worlds, inside and out!

A moment later, realization dawned.

Indeed, there was one possibility: dreams could cross between worlds.

A new wariness crept into the magician’s face. He realized his mind had been invaded. He sneered at the projection inside the box, “So the rumors are true—you do invade dreams. But mental magic is of little use against me.”

“Very well,” Louis glanced at the portly man, knowing that, in this nested time-space, the conjurer was essentially blind. Louis sighed in admiration, “Truly surprising. Who would have thought someone could craft such a spell without understanding a thing about it? You really are a prodigy.”

“Magic? Oh, no, sir, it’s just a little conjuring trick.” Harold withdrew a gold-threaded handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiped his hands, then leisurely donned his gloves.

He removed his top hat and, facing the magic box, gave a courtly bow. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harold—a magician. I know you’ve been looking for me for quite some time…”

Louis was taken aback.

Why did every dark wizard he met recently claim he was after them?

He never ventured into the haunts of the famous, and yet every time he caught someone, Stewart declared them well-known—he even claimed that while Louis hadn’t visited the danger zones, these wizards had fled there to escape him.

Why would they flee here? To be caught on purpose? Louis was perplexed.

What baffled him even more was that, after being captured, these people accused him of targeting them.

Surely, it was they who had come to him? He just picked people at random! He targeted no one!

The man before him was even more amusing, for he said—

“So you’ve come at last—Miss Sakura Bell did not deceive me after all.” As he spoke, Harold glanced at a small cage beside him, no larger than a palm, within which sat a person the size of a thumb.

“It seems she was telling the truth—you really are her guardian, willing to risk everything to save her.”

Louis: “???”

Sakura Bell, tears streaming down her face, pleaded, “Lord Harold, I really don’t know him, please believe me, I made it all up… I have nothing to do with him… sob, sob…”

Louis’s gaze pierced dimensions to study Sakura Bell, suspicion rising in his heart—could all these recent odd happenings be traced back to this little fox spirit?

It looked as though he’d found the true culprit orchestrating things from the shadows, but that could wait—both the magic box and this wizard’s magic seemed well worth examining.

“Come now, Mr. Harold, let me see some real magic.”

Hearing this, Sakura Bell was struck by a wave of dizziness—did this Faceless One not grasp his predicament? Facing death, yet still provoking Lord Harold!

Sure enough, Harold tossed aside his handkerchief, a cold smile on his lips. “Don’t worry, you’ll see soon enough.”

With that, Harold brandished his wand. Louis raised his brows, standing at Harold’s side, eager to witness his conjuring performance.

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