Chapter 235

Turns out it was just a lost item… gave me quite a scare! Leon couldn’t help but let out a long sigh of relief upon seeing the Bureau Director’s office in disarray, not knowing who had ransacked it. He then shot a somewhat exasperated glance at Jerry Senior for “falsely reporting the situation.”

After receiving the note from Jerry Senior, Leon worried that something serious had happened and immediately halted the carriage halfway through its journey, not even bothering to ask for the remaining fare. He hurriedly darted into a narrow alley, mounted the Witch’s Broom, and flew back to the bureau under the cover of night.

Upon rushing back, however, he discovered it was all for nothing—aside from the apparent break-in at the Bureau Director’s office, there were no signs of any abnormal situations.

Come to think of it…

When he and Jerry Senior left, there was no one else at the bureau. The princess and Anna, who had temporarily been staying there, had already returned to Happiness Apartment ahead of schedule. Other than the missing items, it was unlikely that anything else could have gone wrong.

“Leon, this time it’s more than just lost items.”

Noticing Leon seemed to have relaxed, Jerry Senior couldn’t help but shake his head slightly. He then pointed toward the pile of empty wine bottles in the office with a serious expression:

“You look over there. The thief who sneaked in while no one was around at the bureau is absolutely no ordinary person!”

Upon hearing Jerry Senior’s words, Leon couldn’t help but pause momentarily. Following Jerry’s guidance and discovering the “target,” his expression instantly turned grave.

For no other reason, a few bright red strands of long hair lay among the heap of wine bottles, trying their hardest to float upward but unable to do so, resembling someone without bones, only managing slight wriggles and unable to stand up off the ground…

This is the Bureau Director’s hair! As the powerful Anomalous Item numbered 013, these few strands of [Slaying Blood Hair], though somewhat weak compared to the enhanced version on my own body which could single-handedly stop the Inspiration God from escaping…

Even if they weren’t the enhanced type, they were still part of a numbered-level anomalous item, whose strength wasn’t the main issue; they surpassed the threshold of True Gods in rank. At the very least, Level 2 and Level 3 Cleaners would be completely incapable of handling them.

The person capable of dealing with these strands of hair likely possessed skills comparable to Emma Senior, probably at the Level 1 Cleaner level. If they were to catch us off guard, they could easily handle both me and Jerry Senior! And this means that if Jerry and I hadn’t gone to find the Freckled Prince and subsequently been teleported to the General Bureau by the Star Palace, we might have encountered this highly skilled thief head-on! If the reinforced hair on my body couldn’t withstand their abilities…

We’d be dead for sure!…

“To be honest, this time I owe you one.”

Looking at the floating red hair on the ground, Jerry Senior couldn’t help but take a deep breath and said to Leon with a lingering sense of unease:

“If it wasn’t for your suggestion to go find that prince and your insistence that I go along, I would have definitely stayed behind at the bureau. If this thief were particularly ruthless, I’d probably be six feet under by now.”

It’s not just you who nearly met your end…

Entering the Bureau Director’s office and carefully inspecting it, Leon found half a blood handprint on the window sill and couldn’t help but breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Had I not been cautious enough to send the princess and Anna back to Happiness Apartment before leaving the Clearing Bureau, who knows what danger they might have faced.

Thanks to my “excessive caution,” there were no casualties, and there was even another piece of good news.

Following the direction of the blood handprint, Leon spotted large amounts of splattered blood on the building’s exterior walls and in the grass outside the window, causing his tense expression to ease slightly.

As for the thief’s origins and intentions…

Standing two meters away, Leon cautiously opened the Bureau Director’s drawer using the power of the Holy Spirit Pendant, revealing a knowing smile on his face.

Sure enough, the “fake photo” replicated by the Bureau Director had already been taken.

It seems that after finding ways to divert Emma Senior, Aquarius Director not only arranged for middle-aged Joshua as a backup plan but also dispatched another group to retrieve the photo.

Aquarius Director’s original plan was likely to have this thief deal with any possible countermeasures left by the Bureau Director and then let middle-aged Joshua take the photo, quickly escaping using the Door of Another World, thus completing the theft unscathed.

However, middle-aged Joshua was caught early by me, leaving this thief stranded. After waiting for Joshua for a long time and noticing no one was guarding the Clearing Bureau, the thief mustered the courage to break into the Bureau Director’s office, rummaging through the drawers to find the photo, paying the price of almost being killed by those strands of hair, and ultimately exceeding the task assigned by Aquarius Director.

Unfortunately, what the thief took was merely the fake photo prepared by the Bureau Director. This thief’s efforts were in vain.

Using the palm formed by the Holy Spirit Pendant, Leon picked up the blood-soaked strands of hair from the grass outside the window and placed them together with the ones in the pile of wine bottles. Turning his head, he glanced at Jerry beside him and tentatively asked, “Jerry Senior, can your friends…”

“Impossible to find.”

Knowing what Leon wanted to say, Jerry Senior shook his head helplessly and said, “This person likely has an Anomalous Item that can erase scents. Anything that leaves their body loses its smell, even the blood. The ants followed the trail for two streets before losing track of them entirely.”

Indeed… when I first came in, I didn’t detect any scent at all, which is why I failed to notice the hair on the ground.

Sniffing lightly near the window, Leon sighed in resignation after realizing that despite the terrifying amount of bleeding outside, there was no trace of a bloody smell left. He abandoned his plan to capture the thief while they were injured.

Since the thief was so well-prepared, there was nothing left to do but wait for the Bureau Director to return. Hopefully, everything will stay calm for the next couple of days, and no further incidents occur… Oh, right, tomorrow I still need to visit the post office across from the Sun Newspaper to renew her newspaper subscription.

Shaking his head helplessly, Leon opened the side compartment of the Bureau Director’s desk, searching through the document section and taking out all the newspapers and magazines inside.

“The Sun Newspaper,” “Daily Highlights,” “Royal Post”…

“Fashion Focus,” “Weapon Industry,” “Wine Traveler,” “Boy’s Little Secrets”…

The periodicals and newspapers the Bureau Director asked me to renew should be these ones… Hmm… Wait! Flipping through the thick stack of newspapers, Leon noticed with a puzzled expression that only a few pages of the Sun Newspaper had been cut.

If I’m not mistaken, the positions where these newspapers were cut correspond exactly to the photos I published twice?

(End of Chapter)