Chapter 731: Is Someone Dead—or Not?

"Get lost, I'm not a sister complex and loli complex freak like you."

Shinji never held back when it came to the overly talkative Add.

Add didn't mind. They hadn't known each other long, but they were already used to this insulting way of talking, like friends who enjoyed trading barbs.

"Then why are you helping that pair of siblings? Are you really that kind-hearted?"

"You're wrong this time. I am that kind-hearted—I have a sister too. Seeing how Rosalind clings to her brother reminds me of my sister."

In the world of magecraft, siblings are often emotionally distant, and cases of fratricide aren't uncommon. In such an environment, the affection between Heine and Rosalind is especially precious. Shinji doesn't want to see such pure feelings nipped in the bud, so he's willing to lend a hand to the siblings.

Add could understand such feelings, but what came out of his mouth was another matter.

"Oh~ So you're a sister complex too. Look who's talking."

"I'm not a loli complex. My sister is a year older than Gray."

"It's all the same, all crows are black, and no one's better than the other," Add chuckled weirdly.

"I don't mind you helping those siblings, but why don't you go yourself?"

"Because I have more important things to do. Treasure hunting is just a secondary goal for me here. My main purpose is to investigate something and now is the best time. You don't need to know the specifics. It's the dark side of the Clock Tower. I promised Waver I wouldn't let you get involved in these things, otherwise he wouldn't have agreed to let you come with me for training."

Hearing the seriousness in Shinji's voice, Add didn't say more. Gray carefully put away the map and runes on the coffee table and asked.

"When do we start?"

"Tonight at 12 o'clock, no, 10 o'clock. Watch until dawn. If nothing happens, come back and rest. Remember, when you're monitoring, don't look directly. Use your peripheral vision. Don't show yourself unless you're in danger, and don't do anything unnecessary."

"Yes, instructor."

"In case of a fight, protect yourself first before thinking about saving others. If you can't win, run. There's no shame in that. If necessary, crush the runes I gave you, and I'll come to support you as fast as possible."

"Yes."

...

The designated time quickly arrived. Gray, who had rested for an afternoon and half an evening, silently left her room.

Watching the girl disappear into the darkness, Shinji nodded with satisfaction.

"Very good. The concept of secondary attachment after concept extraction is successful. The concept of Hades' Cloak is working, although not as effectively as the original version. But Gray's presence is already low, so even magus specializing in perception will find it hard to detect her existence."

Gray had always lived in the countryside and had no experience in covert operations. Shinji let her monitor a world-class magus because of the rune hanging around her neck.

That seemingly ordinary and inconspicuous sphere contained Shinji's latest research results in magecraft.

Five years ago, in the decisive battle with Shirou, he had grasped the method of extracting concepts from broken Noble Phantasms and applied it in battle. After five years of research, his understanding of Noble Phantasm concepts had deepened. He could now isolate concepts and attach them to other carriers. Although the duration wasn't long, the attached mystery wasn't as conspicuous as a Noble Phantasm. When necessary, these one-time weakened versions of Noble Phantasms could be remarkably effective.

Touching the dagger that temporarily replaced Divine GunBlade through his clothes, he walked down the grand staircase to the hall connecting various parts of the castle.

Michael's statue still stood in its original place. The blood on the statue had been wiped clean by the servants, and the severed sword had been repaired by Heine's alchemy. It looked no different from before as if the tragic incident from a dozen hours ago had never happened.

"Hishiri Adashino..."

Stopping in front of the statue, he uttered that name, strange even among the many peculiar Japanese names, the curve of his lips revealing a hint of the bizarre.

"A member of the Department of Policies, whom magus all turn pale at the mention of, died just like that? Hehehhe..."

The laughter, whether amusement or pitying, sounded particularly eerie in the silent night.

After laughing for a few seconds, Shinji turned and walked towards the deepest part of the hall. There was the castle's storage area, one room of which was used as a temporary morgue. Hishiri Adashino's body was placed there, waiting for the magus' examination and the eventual arrival of relevant personnel from the Department of Policies.

The body had been processed and wouldn't naturally decompose or emit the stench of death. The dead woman lay there like a life-sized doll.

Shinji walked to the bedside and pulled off the white sheet covering the body. He looked at the eyeless sockets on the woman's face. His eyes, disguised as black, showed no fear or disgust. Instead, he looked like a collector who had found a coveted treasure, carefully examining every detail of her face.

Suddenly, he covered the upper half of the woman's face with his hand and spoke as if talking to someone.

"You know, human eyes are strange things. Sometimes they can detect the slightest difference in a smile, but other times they completely miss obvious changes. They often do this in the news, right? They mosaic people's eyes, and suddenly you can't recognize the person's true appearance."

"It's really strange. A person's eyes only take up a fraction of their face, but when they lose their eyes, people's ability to identify unfamiliar faces decreases dramatically, as if they've lost their entire face. Don't you think it's strange, Miss Hishiri Adashino?"

There was no response. Only Shinji's voice echoed in the empty morgue, but he showed no signs of stopping.

"There's another interesting thing. The first lesson for magus is to recognize death. Every magus is accustomed to dealing with death. But except for a small number of necromancers, most magus still hate death and corpses. After examining the body in the hall, they never touched it again."

"And the dramatic way of death—gouging out the eyes and hanging the body on the angel statue—greatly affects people's judgment. Humans are visual creatures after all. When their vision is strongly impacted, they subconsciously ignore many things."

"So, they didn't notice that this corpse is different from the Hishiri Adashino they met yesterday. For example, here—Miss Hishiri Adashino's flying sleeves were really beautiful. Such beautiful flying sleeves couldn't be waved by such weak wrists."

As he spoke, Shinji bent down and lifted the hanging sleeve of the kimono embroidered with gorgeous flowers.

As the sleeve swayed, the shadow behind him also began to sway, as if blown by the wind.