Even though the girl's voice had long since fallen silent, everyone present still felt her words echoing endlessly beside their ears.
Two thousand gold pounds?
And a superior recovery potion?
How much money was that altogether again?
The deeper they calculated, the more everyone felt their brains beginning to fail them.
They were supernatural agents of the Inspectorate, specialists tasked with suppressing cultists and handling supernatural incidents.
Their salaries and benefits were already considered exceptionally high.
And yet, the "humanitarian compensation" Miss Windsor casually offered had completely surpassed the limits of their understanding.
Even the captured black-robed man briefly stopped struggling as he began calculating gains and losses in his own head.
He belonged to one of the Empire's secret forces.
Nameless in life.
Without even a grave in death.
Although the Empire guaranteed that their families would receive secret compensation and special care afterward...
No matter how he calculated it, he simply could not convince himself that his life was worth two thousand gold pounds and a superior recovery potion.
No.
If he kept thinking about this any longer, he felt like his unwavering faith was about to collapse.
Thinking this, grief suddenly surged within the black-robed man.
He bit down on the poison capsule hidden inside one of his molars.
And died instantly.
Only after the black-robed man's death did the supernatural agents finally snap back to reality.
"Damn it, the prisoner's dead!"
One of the trench-coated agents immediately rushed over and pried open the corpse's mouth for inspection before cursing:
"Shit, he hid poison in his molars!"
Meanwhile, the black-robed man who had been shot by Mozo stared blankly at his dead companion for a moment before looking toward Miss Windsor and Mozo with a complicated expression.
After opening and closing his mouth several times without knowing what to say, he suddenly pointed toward his other arm and awkwardly said to Mozo:
"How about... you shoot this arm too?"
"Otherwise I won't feel comfortable taking the money!"
Mozo froze for a moment.
Then he immediately raised his revolver and fired, using the very last bullet.
The trench-coated man instantly jumped while clutching his arm and shouted:
"Holy shit! You actually shot me?!"
Mozo froze again.
He very much wanted to say:
Weren't you the one who told me to shoot?
But before he could speak, Miss Windsor had already stepped forward, hands on her hips and eyebrows raised angrily:
"Weren't you the one who told Mr. Knight to shoot you?!"
"If you're stupid, why are you yelling at Mr. Knight for it?!"
"People like you are absolutely terrible!"
"Your compensation has been reduced! I'm only giving you one thousand gold pounds now!"
Immediately, everyone else burst into barely restrained laughter.
The trench-coated man could only wear a bitter expression and stop talking.
But very quickly, he became happy again.
Even one thousand gold pounds was still an enormous profit!
After that, things became much simpler.
The Empire's supernatural agents briefly questioned Mozo and Miss Windsor regarding the incident before escorting them back to the surface.
Then they arranged a carriage to transport them to the Inspectorate headquarters in the New District.
Once inside the Inspectorate, Mozo and Miss Windsor were separated midway through.
Mozo had no idea where Miss Windsor had gone.
He only knew that he himself had been taken into a tightly sealed room.
Fortunately, there were no torture instruments inside.
Only a table, two chairs, and a hanging lamp powered by some unknown energy source.
Sitting quietly within the room, Mozo understood clearly that tonight's true performance was only beginning now.
Very soon, a well-dressed man wearing gold-rimmed glasses entered while carrying a stack of documents.
The man spread the documents across the table and sat opposite Mozo.
After comparing the photograph within the file to Mozo himself, he finally spoke:
"You are neither Miss Windsor's bodyguard nor attendant."
"You also appear to have no previous relationship with Miss Windsor whatsoever."
"Additionally, you are a resident of the New District."
"So tell me."
"Why were you in that kind of place?"
Mozo answered seriously:
"I do not wish to make any statement regarding that matter."
Hearing this, the man amusingly pushed up his glasses before tapping the file and saying:
"You're a commoner. And not only that, you're an honor student at Krenwell University."
"I assume you possess enough intelligence to understand your current situation."
"My advice is that you confess honestly."
"Considering you saved Miss Windsor, we're even willing to provide preferential treatment."
In response, Mozo nodded before saying something that clearly caught the man off guard:
"I understand."
"But I also believe Grand Duke Windsor won't allow you to do anything to me."
The man blinked.
"...What?"
"Why exactly would Grand Duke Windsor help you?"
"Because I saved Miss Windsor."
"....."
Looking at the man's stunned silence, Mozo knew that although the man had said nothing, he had already been deeply convinced by the flawless logic.
Miss Windsor had been willing to pay two thousand gold pounds to settle the accidental injury alone.
That proved she personally acknowledged and appreciated his actions tonight.
Combined with the personality of Grand Duke Windsor as recorded in the Nameless Book, Mozo had carefully weighed the situation before deciding to temporarily conceal part of the truth.
After all, he had gone to those ruins for advancement.
And the pathway he possessed was an entirely new one.
That was not something he could casually reveal to outsiders.
Besides, Grand Duke Windsor would almost certainly force the Inspectorate to compromise anyway.
And more importantly, why he had been there was not actually the important issue.
What truly mattered was how much he knew regarding the black-robed men and the elven master craftsman.
That part, Mozo had no intention of hiding.
At that moment, a snort of amusement suddenly sounded from behind him.
Then a middle-aged man abruptly emerged from seemingly empty space.
Clearly, the man had been there the entire time, silently observing everything.
The interrogator immediately stood and saluted respectfully:
"Chief Captain."
The middle-aged man waved dismissively before taking the interrogator's seat and looking at Mozo with great interest.
"You're right."
"Grand Duke Windsor definitely won't ignore you after this."
"And because of that, we truly can't do anything excessive to you."
"But kid, if you make things easier for us, then naturally we can make things easier for you too."
"If everyone cooperates a little, it'll benefit all of us in the future."
"Besides, I assume you understand already that after tonight, and with Grand Duke Windsor's involvement, you're destined to interact with people like us quite often from now on."
Then the man reached into his coat and pulled out a gemstone radiating faint blue light.
"And besides..."
"You're a supernatural being too, aren't you?"
Looking at the gemstone, which was most likely some kind of detector for supernatural individuals, Mozo calmly replied:
"I don't intend to explain why I was there."
"But I will tell you about the black-robed men, the statue, and that elven master craftsman."
"Now that's more like it."
"Wait."
"You said elven master craftsman?!"
The middle-aged man had originally been nodding in satisfaction.
But after hearing that, he abruptly stood up and leaned over the desk in shock.
An elven master craftsman.
That was practically equivalent to one of the Empire's count-level great nobles.
And not the decorative kind either.
A true power-holding aristocrat.
Mozo nodded seriously before saying:
"Yes."
"That was an elven master craftsman."
"And one belonging to the Daedalus family, one of the highest-ranked master craftsman bloodlines among the elves."