Westminster Bank

Inner London, Prussian Street. A clinic with a sign that read, "Cigarettes & Liquor."

Baron and Jack knocked on the door, the roars of the Beasts echoing around them.

The door remained shut. Instead, a cuckoo bird popped out of a small window in the door and chirped twice, "Open up! Open up!"

The sound carried far down the silent street.

A neighbor’s window banged open, revealing a Goblins maid they had never seen before. She yawned and said, "Master Bagins only opens his door at midnight. You’ve still got a while. I suggest you go hide somewhere safe until the fog passes, then come back."

Then the window slammed shut again.

’I’d almost forgotten. Master Bagins is a night owl.’

Jack watched the Beasts drifting toward them out of the thick fog. "What now? We can’t get into another brawl right here, can we? We’ll just attract those Lion Knights."

"I happen to know there’s an Old Blood Clan nearby. If you ask me, the best thing to do is take this chance to sneak into their family’s repository of Taboo Items—"

Baron said, "It doesn’t have to be that complicated."

A Little Flame Demon materialized on his hand, flapped its wings, and flew through the small window in the door. A cry of pain came from inside, and then the door was thrown open by Master Bagins, his face covered in soot and his beard completely singed.

’So he was hiding behind the door eavesdropping the whole time.’

"Come in," he grumbled.

Baron gave a slight bow before entering. "I trust you’ve been well, Master Bagins."

Jack followed him inside and immediately thudded to his knees. He managed to gasp out, "Not good! L, it’s an ambush, run—" before fainting.

Master Bagins shut the door. Seeing Baron’s confused expression, he said flatly, "Payback for the sleeping tea he gave me last time... Don Quixote, drag this oaf to the rug by the closet on the second floor."

Don Quixote trotted over, a dog on a leash in his hand. He bowed to Baron, and then the man and his dog dragged Jack’s burly frame away.

The sound of Jack’s head banging on the stairs was so distinct it brought to mind a 19th-century typist striking the keys of their machine.

’He’ll probably have a huge lump on his head tomorrow,’ Baron thought. ’But that’s not my problem.’

Once they reached the living room, Master Bagins said bluntly, "You’ve got some nerve, kid. You get yourself into deep trouble and then you dare stand outside my door in the middle of the night? You may not want to live, but I do. What is it you want this time?"

Baron didn’t hesitate. He got straight to the point. "I’m here for one reason. Master, what are your thoughts on the Twin experiment? Do you know what it’s specifically for? Why did Lankao choose that path? Do you know if he had any other ties to the Dragon Eater Association? And... if it’s possible, I need to meet with him and ask him a few questions."

The barrage of questions hit Bagins like cannonballs, and for a rare moment, the Dwarf Master stood stunned.

After a long moment, he pulled out the Pipe Baron had given him—the one with nostrils that could breathe Fire. He lit it, took a puff, and exhaled a plume of green smoke. He shook his head and said just one thing:

"Lankao is already dead."

"A Judgement?"

Baron’s mind flashed back to the bizarre scene of his own trial before the Prole Court right after he’d first arrived. ’I wonder if the infamous Blood Biter received the same sentence as me,’ he thought. ’A Time Death Judgment?’

’A death sentence... carried out by Time itself... Ugh... I’d forgotten. Best not to think about things like that.’

"No," the Dwarf Master said. "He committed suicide in prison." As he spoke, he seemed to age ten years, his already stout frame appearing to shrink in on itself.

Suicide!

Baron stated adamantly, "Someone must have silenced him... Master Bagins, besides that, there’s another reason I came. I need you to give me any newspaper articles you have on Lankao—"

THWACK.

A thick stack of newspapers and documents had been slapped into his hands.

Master Bagins turned away. "Everything I’ve managed to gather on the Dragon Eater Association, Lankao, the Lancelot’s Family, and the Hestia Family is in there."

Baron said, "I have one more question."

"Ask away."

"Do Wizard-class Law Enforcers only ever have one Magic Staff?"

"Generally, a Wizard can only have one Magic Staff that is compatible with their own Magic Attribute. However, it’s not impossible to have two... and that was the original purpose of the Twin experiment," Bagins said.

"The purpose? What purpose? Wasn’t it to bring the dead back to life?" Baron suddenly remembered that the Dwarf Master in front of him was the very originator of the Twin experiment.

"That was the goal of the first sponsor. The one who sponsored Lankao’s Twin experiment clearly had a different goal in mind."

"Lancelot’s Family or the Hestia Family?"

"The answer is in the papers you’re holding... I’m going to work on my Alchemy. Don’t open the door if someone knocks. It’s very likely the Law Enforcement Organization in disguise."

’Sponsoring Lankao to conduct the Twin experiment...’ After Master Bagins went upstairs, Baron began to flip rapidly through the newspapers.

Just as Master Bagins had said, most of the articles were about Lankao, including details about his false identity as the "Blood Biter." The earliest articles dated back to when the Blood Biter committed his first murder on the Inner Side.

’It seems Master Bagins had his suspicions and started investigating even back then.’

But after flipping through countless articles, Baron still couldn’t find what he was looking for. That is, until he got to the most recent one, headlined: "Blood Biter Dies by Suicide in Outer Side Prison; Guard Claims He Rammed Head into Wall... Preliminary Forensic Investigation Suggests Mental Instability..."

His gaze fixed on a leaked photograph from the scene.

It was Lankao’s body. Although the photo was blurry, judging from the pitch-black area surrounding the corpse, there were unmistakable signs of it having been burned by Fire!