Chapter 698 Manipulator
A crimson light flashed, and "Admiral of the Stars" Cattleya returned to her captain's cabin.
Looking at the setting sun and the endless deep blue sea outside the window, she sighed softly, picked up the pen and letter paper on the table, pressed the tip of the pen on the paper, but did not start writing immediately.
If Mr. Fool disagreed with me passing the information to the Queen, He would have spoken out to stop me. So far, it seems He has tacitly approved of this matter... But it could also be another situation. This deity believes that "no secrets should be revealed" is an unspoken rule, and His lack of verbal approval means He doesn't allow it...
The desire to help the "Mysterious Queen" and the memory of the punishment she had suffered last time entangled in her mind. After a moment, Cattleya bit her lower lip, waved her pen, dragged a mark on the paper, and quickly wrote:
"The two symbols you're asking about represent home, the ultimate destination of the heart and spirit."
This was the question that came with the three pages of the Emperor's diary. After submitting the diary to the Tarot Club, Cattleya asked the Fool and got the answer.
The short message ended there, but after a moment, she continued writing and added a sentence:
"What do you know about Trier's 'Man in the Mirror'?"
Cattleya believed that the other party could understand her meaning from this slightly different wording.
Folding the letter, she summoned the messenger of the "Mysterious Queen" and watched it take the letter away and return to the spirit world. Then she stood up from the desk, walked to the window on the sea side, and looked out.
All the ships of the "Star Pirates" were moving at full speed in a single column towards the venue of the pirate conference.
I'll be able to see her in a few days...
A smile appeared on Cattleya's lips.
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Returning to the third floor of his villa in Hillston District, Angel immediately jumped up from the comfortable recliner and quickly scanned the surroundings and even the entire villa with his naked eyes and the world in the mirror.
Fortunately, there is no "audience"...
After finding that there was no outsider except the servants and the butler, Angel breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in his chair.
No, if this goes on I'm going to develop a phobia of the "audience", and I'll also be afraid of "Justice" Audrey and her big golden retriever... Angel muttered, determined not to wait for the information that Audrey would gradually find out, but to "take a shortcut" directly.
She went to the dressing table in the bedroom and drew a mixed symbol of "peek" and "secret" on the mirror with an eyebrow pencil.
Soon, layers of expanding water waves appeared in the mirror. The interior scene originally reflected inside disappeared, and was replaced by a line of Loen characters composed of silver light:
"Beautiful and intelligent mistress, your obedient servant Arrodes has come to you upon your summons!"
Why does it feel like it has a new adjective every time... Angel's mouth twitched, and just as he was about to speak, the silver text changed its shape again:
"Before you ask, I should inform you that last night, the Mechanical Heart activated my true form and asked questions about you. Would you like to know the details?"
Last night, it was about me... Angel immediately thought of Baron Sindras.
This was different from her guess. The Mandated Punisher was actually willing to bring the Mechanical Heart along for the investigation, which meant that they took the incident very seriously. Otherwise, they would not have handed over the case of a noble of the Storm of Faith suspected of being affected by Beyonder powers to outsiders.
"think."
She answered.
A line of scribbled, casual words quickly appeared on the mirror. This was the way the Mirror of Arrodes usually asked questions. Of course, in front of Angel and Klein, it never seemed so "rude".
"Respected Arrodes, my question is, what happened to Baron Sindras at 8 Birningham Road on Sunday afternoon?"
As expected, the question was directed at Sindras... Angel's guess was confirmed, and then he found a vivid image emerging in the mirror.
The baron, dressed in formal attire and with a ruddy face from drinking, bowed and was about to leave through the reception room door, but his expression kept changing. Then he stopped as if he had made up his mind, turned around, and pounced on the two women with a ferocious look on his face.
The scene shifted, and Angel's purple eyes under his black hair widened in horror. Audrey beside him pressed her forehead as if stunned. Then, Sindras, who was about to pounce in front of the two of them, tripped over himself and fell straight down.
After a moment's pause, the image in the mirror showed the Baron's depressed and desperate face again. He stood on the balcony on the third floor, looking into the distance, then turned back and secretly glanced at the two victims sitting on the sofa in the room comforting each other. He gritted his teeth, took off his coat that made him inconvenient to move, resolutely turned over the stone railing, and jumped down.
However, his exposed belt accidentally got caught on the protrusion of the railing, causing him to hang sideways outside the railing. Too ashamed to call for help, he could only struggle with his limbs, and was eventually dragged up by two women who noticed something was wrong.
Arrodes was quite good at editing... He gave a few close-ups of Syndras's awful appearance, but deliberately ignored the abnormalities between Audrey and me... Angel felt relieved and continued to look at the second question from the "Mechanical Heart":
"...Were there any supernatural factors involved in this incident? If so, what were they?"
Here comes the point.
She held her breath and leaned forward slightly, getting closer to the dressing mirror. Last night, the "Mechanical Hearts" that activated Arrodes must have felt the same way and moved in the same way. Of course, except for the victim who was asked a counter-question after the previous question...
The mirror flickered, the text disappeared, and the dynamic picture reappeared. Two figures sat down in a spacious room where the details were unclear. One of them was Baron Sindras, who was wearing a top hat and had graying temples. The other was hidden in the black mist, as if he could not be seen or revealed.
As the two of them talked, a few lines of text appeared in the corner of the mirror:
"Your Excellency, Baron, you've been too repressed at home and in social situations. While this is related to your several bouts of depression, you no longer need to be like this..."
"When you're alone with a beautiful lady, you can try to have a deeper conversation with her. Perhaps you'll leave behind beautiful memories. Even if she's not entirely happy about it, you can offer her some compensation in exchange for her forgiveness. This is very common among the nobility and will help you integrate into Backlund's upper-class society."
This, this is completely different from the Baron's "encounter". It seems that these words were just to persuade him to "play a little more colorfully", rather than a hint that he would suddenly lose self-control and pounce on Audrey and me... Angel frowned at the words, and then thought of another possibility.
This "audience", who could not see the details in the image, while speaking peaceful words, used "hints" to implant more distorted instructions into the Baron's mind.
"In-depth communication" was replaced by "forced relations", and "compensation and understanding" was replaced by "self-termination"!
The Baron will only remember that ordinary conversation from beginning to end. Only when the condition of "being alone" is met will the real instructions in his mind appear, making him do irrational things, and finally end his life out of guilt... No, jumping from the third floor into the muddy garden really won't kill you. The "audience" may just want to make a big deal out of it and make the Baron socially dead, or investigate some secrets he has hidden, causing a major blow to the Conservative Party without causing even greater waves... Is he an extraordinary person hired by the New Party, or a "balancer" of the royal family?
If the Baron hadn't come to my house and sent the servants away for a private conversation, agreeing to "be alone," I'm afraid that series of events wouldn't have happened at all. When he was alone with a real noblewoman, it would have been very likely that something regrettable would have occurred. Then, due to another order, the Baron would have attempted suicide, causing a riot because no one directed him to seek help at the church. The whole thing might have been regarded as a "scandal" that had been suppressed for a long time...
As Angel pondered, the image in the mirror faded, and a third question emerged, a question that concerned both her and the Mechanical Heart:
"...Who is that hidden Beyonder?"
This time, Arrodes didn't answer with a picture, but instead reorganized the silver dots of light into a new line of text:
"A high-sequence Beyonder from the 'Audience' pathway."
This is simply correct nonsense... Angel muttered inwardly, knowing that it was due to the opponent's anti-divination measures that Arrodes was unable to lock on to a specific target.
But unexpectedly, the text changed again the next moment:
"Dear and wise hostess, I can answer this question accurately. Do you want to know the answer?"
What was going on? Did it know the answer, but deliberately withhold it from the Mechanical Heart? Was it playing dumb, fearing its abilities would be reassessed and sent even deeper into the cathedral's underground?
Thinking of this, Angel chuckled and said:
"you say."
"His name is Hvin Rambis, a Sequence 4 Manipulator. He is a member of the Royal Family's advisory council and a member of the Psychological Alchemist Guild's jury."
Along with the text, a colorful picture appeared. It was a photo of Hvin Rambis, wearing a shirt, vest, a dark red bow tie, and gray hair. His blue eyes sparkled with wisdom, and his temperament was elegant and easy-going.
It was hard to imagine that this kind old man was the "audience" demigod who calmly inserted the suicide command into Baron Sindras's mind, a "manipulator"...
Angel breathed a sigh of relief. He remembered that after two rounds of conversation, Arrodes still owed him a question, so he asked:
"Are there any other secrets hidden in him?"
The words in the mirror reorganized into two lines of jumping words:
"He's closely connected to the Backlund Great Smog and the human trafficking case hidden behind it, but the power of anti-divination and 'secret-keeping' is too strong, so I can't get a glimpse of the full picture.
"However, he had crossed paths with you before. The 'suicide' of Jason O'Neill and his wife was related to him."
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