Chapter 397: Troublemaker Thinking

"The murder that occurred last night in Baker Street, White Queens, has been solved."

Aiwass sat in the Queen's study in the Palace of Silver and Tin, looking at the newspaper delivered this morning and casually reading the contents of the front-page headline: "The dangerous werewolf who assassinated the new Minister of Trade, Mr. Griffith, is actually a wanted criminal from the Iris Kingdom.

"Prime Minister Iris made an urgent call to the Temple of Silver and Tin last night, expressing deep condolences. The Arbitration Chamber has increased patrols to apprehend the murderer as quickly as possible."

He chuckled. "It was pretty fast. But he didn't say anything."

"really."

Lily, the wolf in question, nodded in agreement.

She relied on switching back and forth between human, wolf, and werewolf forms, and using her shadow-sneaking abilities, to finally shake off the griffins after a whole night. She had only just returned.

After the incident last night, Aiwass rushed to the next door with reporter Dimitri.

At that time, the area around Minister Griffith's residence was already covered by griffins—more than twenty white-feathered griffins were flying in the air. As they flew, dark clouds rolled into the night sky, and thunder rolled through the clouds, making roars like the roars of lions.

The Minister's murder was no small matter, and the entire White Queen District was placed under martial law. Those rarely seen Arbitrators, all of whom were Level 4, arrived at the scene immediately.

Aiwas showed his identity and, accompanied by members of the Arbitration Hall, took Dimitri and his assistant to take first-hand photos very smoothly.

Of course, this accompaniment is essentially surveillance.

To prevent Aiwass from eliminating certain evidence - but Aiwass really didn't need to eliminate evidence.

Therefore, he even invited several arbitrators to accompany him and took the initiative to help them find clues.

This is Aiwass's purpose in itself.

What surprised Aiwas was that Lily did not leave any traces of the Shadow Demon in the villa as they had agreed upon.

Then Aiwass immediately realized that there must be some special situation that prevented Lily from leaving any traces as originally planned.

The Shadow Demon didn't immediately return to him for help, indicating that Lily wasn't in danger. But Lily turned into a werewolf... This was enough to prove that this transformation wasn't due to safety concerns, but rather intelligence purposes.

Without communicating with Lily, Aiwas knew what information Lily wanted to convey to him.

So he led the arbitrators from the arbitration hall to search the entire scene according to the most stringent procedures and preserve evidence.

Of course they found the eagle feather dagger.

After the Hawkeyes assassinate someone, they will leave a message at the scene as proof of their responsibility. After all, Hawkeyes is essentially a comprehensive spy organization with political leanings, not a mercenary group that simply carries out assassinations for profit.

After testing, they also found traces of curse poison in the bitten and tattered corpse.

Obviously, this matter has nothing to do with Aiwass.

After the Arbitration Chamber reported the clues, the Privy Council held an emergency meeting that night to discuss the matter.

The "Werewolf Assassin" who appeared last night is undoubtedly a very dangerous criminal. He even assassinated a minister in White Queens. This matter must be immediately addressed. Therefore, the newspapers the next morning must also make an appearance on this matter.

So in the morning, Aiwass received the newspaper and the report from the Temple of Silver and Tin at the same time.

Aiwass flicked the report from the Privy Council and praised it: "This one is still clearly written."

According to the rules, the Privy Councillors must submit the minutes of the meeting to the Queen's study.

Then the only one who can see this report is Aiwass, the only one who can walk freely in the Temple of Silver and Tin.

This wasn't an overreach, as Isabel had already left the Glass Island that morning for the traditional tour of Avalon. Before leaving, she'd written down documents authorizing Aiwass to handle the matter. She'd also filled out several blank forms, signed her name, and left the specific "authorized matters" blank.

Aiwass can fill in the blanks at any time according to his needs.

What kind of trust is this?

...It's as if the trust has been completely undermined by Aiwass.

It is an obvious fact that werewolves appeared in the streets and were discovered by civilians.

The common people didn't know the political details of those irises, but the knights certainly did.

The Hawkeye Organization, an assassin organization that hates the Children of the Moon, stands firmly opposed to them and the "Healthy Party," also known as the Stability Faction, a faction within Iris Flower, led by the Path of Love. Their party symbol, a red heart, represents a desire to maintain the status quo.

Many people yearn for immortality. As a second best option, witches' versatile potions and the witches themselves, whose appearances greatly enhance as their power levels rise, are also a precious and rare resource.

In Iris, where witches are largely controlled by the Children of the Moon, potions are essentially rationed. Because of this, the "Health Party" controlled by the Children of the Moon is actually a party dominated by the old nobility and wealthy merchants.

In contrast, the other party, the "Giant Tree Party", which is dominated by the path of beauty, has a green tree as its logo.

The "Giant Tree" refers to the giant tree where the elves of the Theocracy reside. Due to constant pressure from the Star Antimony, Iris is constantly preparing for war. Military expenditures are high, and tax rates are increasing year by year. Furthermore, upon reaching adulthood, both men and women are subject to compulsory conscription unless they pay a hefty "conscription tax." Consequently, anti-war sentiment is prevalent among the people of Iris.

The Great Tree Cult, on the other hand, aspires to become a permanently neutral nation like the elves, opening its ports and trade to all races and nations, focusing on economic development and remaining independent of international wars. They are primarily composed of urban petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals, and a large number of artists.

These artists became intellectual elites, essentially controlling the path of advancement within the Path of Beauty. Undoubtedly, compared to the easily out-of-control and frenzied Path of Love, the Path of Beauty is more stable and more likely to gain public support. It is also one of the few paths where a certain level of extraordinary ability can be achieved simply through diligent and systematic study.

Just like when a high-level alchemist teaches his students, as long as the students study hard and have a college student's level of brain, they can at least reach the second energy level by the age of thirty; the same is true when great artists teach their students to create their own "artistic style"... even with a little talent, they can reach the third energy level.

As the survival pressure of irises continues to increase, a large number of talented young artists have emerged.

It is precisely because of these overwhelming numbers of young artists from the grassroots that the seemingly passive and naive "Big Tree Party" has become a powerful party on par with the stability faction. This is also the ruling party of the current prime minister.

Not many people know that the "Eagle Eye" organization actually belongs to the "Giant Tree Party".

On the surface, the Hawkeye Organization is the successor of the exiled mercenaries of the Black Hawk Principality.

Because they not only kill the Children of the Moon, but also some great artists. In other words, they actually kill both sides. They just oppose the Children of the Moon more than others—since Black Eagle and Narcissus are enemies, this makes sense. Besides that, they also accept some hired assassins.

Many, including the Privy Council, believe that the Hawkeye Organization is actually part of the Iris Kingdom's third-largest faction, the Imperial Glory Party. They are a radical organization that claims the Iris Kingdom is the legitimate successor to the Hellasl Empire, inciting xenophobia and emphasizing extreme nationalism.

The Hawkeye Organization's violent actions are undoubtedly very close to the Imperial Party's stance.

Not long ago, the Prime Minister, who came from the Giant Tree Party, admitted to the assassination of the Avalon royal family and promised to pay a huge amount of compensation. And there is no doubt that these compensations will eventually be passed on to the entire people.

As a result, this caused a lot of dissatisfaction with the Giant Tree Party within Iris.

However, the Prime Minister did not admit that he was involved in the assassination of the Minister's Secretary by the Hawkeye Organization's assassins. Instead, he believed that it was an attempt to silence the Star Antimony spies inside Avalon and a long-arm operation of the Star Antimony Kingdom - in other words, he claimed that the Hawkeye Organization was related to the Star Antimony people.

As for the public opinion of Iris, it was generally assumed that "Eagle Eye" belonged to the Imperial Party. The Imperial Party was also happy to accept this view to increase the public's recognition of their powerful power.

As a result, they have now hurriedly declared that the Hawkeye Organization has nothing to do with them. But the shit has been spilled, and it will be difficult to escape.

In this incident, both the werewolf and the witch behind the werewolf are most likely members of the healthy party.

Therefore, there are two ways to interpret this incident.

The Lord Privy Councillor wrote it very clearly.

One is that the Werewolves of the Healthy Party are impersonating Hawkeye's assassins, framing Hawkeye, or the Imperial Party, to eliminate their political opponents in advance after confirming that the Giant Tree Party will not win the next election.

Second, some of the assassins in the Hawkeye organization have become "wild werewolves" who are not under the control of the healthy party.

There was no need for Avalon to seek the truth. They could just go with the flow.

In the former case, Avalon needs to condemn the "Hawkeye Organization" and emphasize that the incident was done by an assassin; in the latter case, Avalon needs to emphasize that it was done by a werewolf.

According to the investigation of the Supervisory Bureau, they confirmed the Hawkeye Organization's unique "curse poison" from the incomplete body of Minister Griffith, and its composition was consistent with the residue in the body of John Raff, the chief private secretary of former Minister Droste.

The key point of these two theories is whether the traces of the curse poison remaining in the body were intentional. As for the eagle feather dagger, that's irrelevant. Hawkeye assassins would leave it at any assassination scene, so it's not surprising that someone would collect it.

"The Privy Council recommends the second option. The report states, 'Remnants of a bloody demon-summoning ritual were found in the basement where the bodies were found.' The reason the two Ministers of Trade were assassinated in quick succession is that they were both connected to the Star Antimony people.

"If we choose the first option, it won't actually hurt the Imperial Party. To their supporters, both the Avalonians and the Starians are enemies, but the Starians are more hateful. So, if there's a Starian spy in Avalon, they can just kill him.

"But if we adopt the second option, as long as we add the sentence 'We have identified these two as Star Antimony spies,' it would be equivalent to silencing this act. It would be accusing the 'Iris Health Party and Star Antimony people of collusion,' implying that this assassination was actually a long-arm operation from the Star Antimony's 'Secret Room' department..."

Aiwass's lips curled up slightly, his fingers tapping the documents. "This will cause chaos within Iris, and throw a wrench into the previously settled party election. Such a brilliant troublemaker's thinking... is indeed quite calculating."

I'm afraid the Iris people are also a little confused now.

When the spies from Iris got this information, they would probably think that Miss Chloe was still alive, but had turned into a werewolf.

...I'm sorry to have wronged you, Miss Chloe.

I'm sorry to bother you with living again.

(End of this chapter)