The Villainess is a Millionaire Solver - Chapter 179

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 179

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“How could this happen….”

The Chief of Imperial Security held his head and sighed.

Two famous people he knew well had suddenly become traitors and needed to be arrested, which was already enough to give him a headache.

But those wanted criminals had vanished without a trace.

“There’s no choice. First, we’ll raise the alert level even higher…. The Imperial Knights will also be deployed in full force….”

Since the wanted criminals had used divine magic to subdue the Security Forces and escape, the capabilities of ordinary Security Forces had their limits.

Therefore, the Chief of Imperial Security was counting on help from the Imperial Knights and the mages and priests they would bring.

However….

Before they could even get started in earnest, trouble erupted.

“What? An Imperial Knights corruption scandal?”

“Yes! Evidence has emerged that they took massive bribes and manipulated test scores to admit children of various noble families! The middleman who had been handling this affair was apparently bought off by someone and handed over documents to our Security Bureau, but I have no idea what’s really going on….”

“Right, how ridiculous. So it’s bribery for the sake of revealing the truth, or what? Anyway, how is this all playing out?”

“I don’t know either! Except that today, instead of receiving cooperation from the Imperial Knights, we have to investigate them. Both former and current knight commanders are implicated in a chain!”

Both the Security Bureau and the Knights fell into chaos.

That wasn’t the end of the incidents.

Soon after, it was revealed that ‘suspicious money flows’ had been detected in connection with a certain venerable Ancient Texts Research Foundation.

Since the newspapers started attacking the Security Bureau first for being slow to respond to the illegal funding case, the Chief of Imperial Security had to urgently issue search and seizure orders for this matter as well.

With things turning out this way, the plan to launch a more intensive arrest operation against the wanted criminals was temporarily disrupted.

“What is this!”

The priests who were scheduled to be deployed in the operation protested in unison.

“Corruption? Corruption, you say? When the Imperial Knights themselves are hardly in a position to be proud, who are they to give orders to anyone? This is outrageous when the charges against His Lordship haven’t even been definitively proven!”

While chaos erupted from all directions.

“…Huh?”

At a bank counter somewhere in the capital, a man was staring blankly at his account in mid-air.

It was none other than Count Reno, who had called himself a detective and accused the Late Duke Lacroix.

He asked the employee with a flustered expression.

“Are you sure there’s really nothing wrong with this account?”

“Yes, sir. There are no problems with your account whatsoever.”

“But the money that was supposed to come in by yesterday still hasn’t arrived….”

“I’m sorry, sir. You’ll need to check with the depositing party about that.”

Count Reno kept pestering the employees with inquiries until closing time, when he was practically kicked out.

‘Why didn’t the deposit come through?’

Something felt wrong. He kept getting anxious and uneasy.

It was because he had a guilty conscience.

Count Reno drank late into the night to forget his anxiety.

When even the tavern closed and he was kicked out, the Count had no choice but to stagger home….

Something was strange.

He could sense someone following him at a certain distance.

The presence was so obvious that even someone drunk on alcohol couldn’t help but notice.

And it wasn’t just one or two people.

“…?”

Count Reno started running away in surprise.

But his pursuers quickly followed.

Running frantically, he found himself in a dead-end alley.

“Huff, huff….”

His mind went blank and he didn’t know what to do.

“…?”

Suddenly, a man in black clothes appeared silently on the wall in front of him.

Before the Count could say anything, the man pounced and covered his mouth. Then, with surprising strength, he lifted the Count and leaped over the wall.

“Mmph! Mmph!”

A chilling voice reached the struggling Count’s ear.

“Stay quiet. I’m trying to save you.”

The murderous aura in that voice drained all strength from the Count’s body.

The mysterious man moved through the darkness without hesitation, carrying the Count and roughly shoving him into a carriage.

A woman was sitting in the seat.

Black hair and red lips. Eyes coldly raised.

Despite being a stunning beauty, meeting her gaze made his legs tremble. It felt like escaping from a wolf’s mouth only to enter a lion’s den.

The Count opened his mouth, trembling.

“Wh-who exactly are you….”

“You don’t need to know that.”

The woman cut him off sharply.

And she began interrogating him right there in the moving carriage.

“We know. We know you lied before His Majesty the Emperor. Everything you said about the Late Duke Lacroix was false.”

“That’s not true!”

“Shut up! It’s not well known, but in your youth you courted the Duchess and were humiliated by the Duke, harboring resentment ever since. When someone told you to slander the Duke, you gladly participated. Am I right or wrong?”

“No! Absolutely not!”

“Listen.”

The murderous man who had captured the Count growled low.

“Don’t you realize they’re trying to kill you to shut you up? If you want to live, you’d better be honest. We live, you live.”

“….”

“Or should we take you back to them?”

“I-I was wrong!”

The Count prostrated himself in terror.

“I just did what I was told! I don’t even know who they were. I was just told that if I slandered the Late Duke Lacroix, I could receive 100 million in safe money….”

To the trembling Count making his confession, the woman threw paper and a pen.

“Draw the appearance of the person who brought you the request.”

“Yes….”

As the Count drew, these terrifying man and woman questioned him in detail and refined the sketch.

Then they made the Count stand up again.

“You’d better testify properly in court later.”

With those cold words, the man lifted Count Reno’s body.

Then he suddenly opened the door!

“…!”

Another carriage was approaching from the opposite direction. The moment the two carriages briefly overlapped, the door of the other carriage opened.

Count Reno’s body was instantly thrown into the opposite carriage.

A white-haired old man sitting in the seat looked down at the Count with cold eyes.

“This drunkard is very important to my benefactor. Guard him with your lives!”

“Yes!”

The burly men waiting in the carriage answered in unison.

‘Good heavens….’

Count Reno couldn’t hold on any longer and lost consciousness.

* * *

The carriage carrying Count Reno, the key witness, disappeared into the darkness in the distance.

That carriage had been driven personally by the head of a Dark Guild. Apparently he owed Ruellian a debt from the past and was showing his loyalty? In any case, he was assessed as trustworthy.

“But given who we’re dealing with, we can’t let our guard down.”

Ruellian muttered while watching the departing carriage.

“We managed to extract Count Reno for now, but we won’t be able to hide him for long. Before then, we need to meet Grace, the decisive witness, and put her on the stand.”

“Right.”

While watching the scenery rapidly passing by on both sides, I became lost in thought.

“No matter how I think about it, Tesseud should have killed Grace long ago. There must be a reason why he hasn’t killed her yet or can’t kill her. But if we come out like this, we don’t know when he might cross the line.”

We had to get Grace before it was too late.

So we caused problems for the Imperial Knights that Tesseud used like his limbs, and cut off the funding of the foundation he secretly controlled.

The moment we entered the capital, we temporarily cut off both his right and left hands.

We had to finish this quickly and decisively.

‘We need to infiltrate the Imperial Palace quickly!’

The carriage, as if representing our urgent feelings, spun around at high speed and arrived in front of the mansion.

It was the mansion that the young wealthy Count and Countess Calliente had rented for their life in the capital.

“Welcome home, Master and Mistress.”

The employees who greeted us were all people from the Dark Guild.

It was ironic that in this situation, the people with the most reliable identities were those from the underworld. We couldn’t trust ordinary people because we didn’t know what kind of background they might have.

Anyway, to others, they would undoubtedly appear to be respectful and competent employees.

Still receiving envious gazes in the capital, we immediately went to the Imperial Palace and submitted a request for an audience. The pretext was that we had returned home after a long time and wanted to pay our respects to the Empress.

But…

Contrary to our urgent feelings, an unexpected situation occurred there.

“You have your entry confirmation document, right? The law has changed, so you must submit your entry confirmation document.”

I was flustered by the attendant’s words.

We didn’t have such a thing. Because we hadn’t gone through entry procedures.

Could it be that Tesseud had anticipated everything and even made arrangements for this?

When I stood still for a moment, unable to respond, the attendant looked at us strangely.

“I’m talking about those documents distributed to passengers on the passenger ship. You should have filled them out.”

Our minds were filled with contingency plans for every situation that could occur inside the Imperial Palace.

But we hadn’t anticipated such an obstacle at the entrance.

No matter how perfectly we had forged our identities, how could we have known about the secretly changed laws regarding audiences within the Imperial Palace?

The attendants began looking in our direction one by one.

‘What should we do?’

Just as I was exchanging glances with Ruellian, trying to find a solution.

“Here they are.”

Someone suddenly appeared from behind us and handed two documents to the attendant.

When I turned around, I was startled.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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