Chapter 98: Scapegoat

It wasn’t difficult to improve the cognition of the spell puppets alone.

But if under the premise of ensuring this basic ability, he had to also improve the puppet’s resistance, speed, strength, and the ability to isolate an enemy, and so on… That would be very problematic.

After several experiments, Roland disappointedly discovered that he could only accomplish two and a half of those objectives at most, as subjected to the nodes and capacity of the spell model.

In other words, he could only increase the puppet’s cognitive ability, resistance, and… some speed that was barely noticeable.

A magic puppet like this didn’t have much battle prowess.

If its movement speed wasn’t quick enough, it would simply be a live target. In addition, its resistance wasn’t particularly strong either, so it couldn’t even qualify as a fixed fort.

“If only the spell model had more nodes or more space. I would be able to put more mental power into it.”

However, Roland couldn’t find a way to expand the spell’s model.

His basic knowledge of magic was still too deficient.

Roland sighed and wandered around the library for a while, but found no books on this subject.

It wasn’t surprising. The magic apprentices couldn’t even learn the basics of level-zero tricks properly, and besides, this place wasn’t even considered a major center of magic. It was only natural that there weren’t many valuable books that the Magic Tower could store in its collection.

The experiments consumed too much of his time and mental power; his mana bar was exhausted and the reserve in the necklace was also used up. Roland was sitting in his study resting, regaining the large amounts of mana he had lost through the magic experiments.

At this moment, Betta used the guild system to @ him.

“Brother Roland, come quickly to the forest outside the city, where we were looking for people last time. Hawk and his men have caught the murderer.”

Caught John? Roland was surprised.

Then he hurried to the grove outside the city.

There were already a lot of people present at this moment.

A young nobleman with fine features held a civilian girl hostage, leaning against a tree and panicking.

About twenty meters to his left and right, Hawk and Link obstructed his path of escape, while Betta stood at his front.

The three of them all had unfriendly expressions, indignant with murderous intent.

Slightly further away, a large crowd of onlookers stood nearby, gesticulating.

There were commoners, beggars, and of course, there were nobles.

The nobles had epicaricacy in their eyes, the commoners had delight in their eyes, and the beggars… were simply numb to all this.

The three groups were entirely separate—there was a physical gap between them.

When Roland saw the young nobleman, he was shocked that it wasn’t John.

He studied the young nobleman, who was sweating and holding a dagger to the young girl’s neck.

Terror-stricken, the young girl’s face was pale without any signs of blood, and the young nobleman, too, looked frightened.

Roland walked over to Betta and asked, “Did he admit it?”

Betta nodded. “He confessed. Now he’s taking hostages. He’s asking us to leave, or he’ll kill the hostages.”

Roland felt that something was wrong.

The murderer committed crimes for at least a few years, killing at least over thirty girls, and from the crime scene one could tell that the murderer had an extremely composed psychology—someone who was highly intelligent. It was impossible for him to look so scared out of his wits, and also impossible to be caught in this kind of place. It would just be too foolish.

It was as if… he deliberately acted like this.

Roland chuckled.

The young nobleman looked nervously at Hawk and Link, and after a while he noticed Roland.

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Then his pupils contracted and he cried in horror, “Mage! Tell the mage to leave, quickly, leave quickly, or I will kill this woman at once!”

He looked quite frightened, and his whole body was shaking. The dagger in his hand was shaking and accidentally cut the young female hostage’s neck. A sliver of blood ran down the side of her neck.

The girl felt the pain; she cried intensely but didn’t dare to move. She just bit down hard on her lips to the point where she didn’t even realize her lips were bleeding.

Roland retreated slowly.

“Back up a little further,” growled the young nobleman, and he quickly glanced from side to side to see if Hawk and the others were closing in on him. He was quite vigilant.

Roland retreated a dozen more steps.

Then the young nobleman’s frantic mood calmed down a little. Spellcasters had miraculous powers, and no one would dare say that they didn’t feel lacking in confidence when facing a spellcaster.

“Let me go, and I’ll let the girl go,” the young nobleman shouted with all his strength.

But Roland and others ignored him and just stood still.

In contrast, there was a burst of laughter from the group of nobles in the distance.

Seeing that Betta and others didn’t move, the young nobleman screamed in despair, “I am a noble, so what if I played with a few untouchable women! For the sake of those women, you want me to die. It doesn’t make sense, it’s unreasonable!”

Roland could sense a sort of dissatisfaction in his piercing scream.

“I’ll say it again, I’m a noble!” The young man roared with a hint of imploring in his voice, “Set me free, and I will give you money. Enough to buy a dozen of these women.”

Hawk, Link, and Betta all sneered.

They looked at this young nobleman as if looking at a fool.

At this moment, Roland said, “I can let you go, but you have to tell me who your partner is.”

The young man froze for a moment, and then cried out even more crazily, “I have no partners—no partners, I did it all myself!”

Then he looked toward the center of the city, but his line of sight was blocked by the city walls. Finally, he looked at Roland and smiled miserably. “I did it all. If you guys want me to die, then I’ll die.”

At this moment, in the young man’s despairing smile, there was a trace of some relief.

Roland shouted, “Stop him, he’s going to kill himself.”

Whoosh… Betta charged right at him, so quick that a lingering shadow was left behind.

But it was too late. Although Betta had succeeded in knocking the young man away, the young man had already pierced his own heart with the dagger.

Large amounts of pixels spewed from the front and back of his chest.

For such injuries, there was no way to recover from this even with an Advanced Treatment Spell.

The young man fell to the ground. His spiritless eyes looked towards the sky, and after his hands and legs twitched a few times, all signs of movement ceased.

The young girl screamed, covering her neck as she ran toward the city. She was almost scared to death.

Roland walked up to the young nobleman and sighed helplessly as he looked at the corpse gradually losing its warmth.

The group of nobles was still gesticulating toward them, while the commoners and beggars gradually dispersed.

A few moments later, two noblemen who were even younger came over, their faces aghast. They threw themselves on the young man’s corpse, cried out, “Brother!” and broke down in bitter tears.

One of the young noblemen was crying and peeking at Roland and Betta from time to time.

His eyes were full of vengeful fury.

Betta sensed the young nobleman’s gaze. He stood beside Roland and said, “Should we ask them for the details? This clearly doesn’t seem right—he seems more like a scapegoat.”

“I saw through it,” Roland said in a low voice. “We’ll pretend that this matter is over. Later, I’ll have Hawk withdraw the men who are monitoring John.”

“Play cat and mouse?”

Roland nodded lightly.