Zion once again got busy trying to act like an ordinary servant all day long. But this time, he had been secretly spying on almost every corner of the palace with keen eyes. While cleaning, if no one were looking at him, he would tap on the walls and ground to see if he could find a trap door. Then he would try moving the furniture and searching for a hidden door or something in the name of doing his servant's work.
But no matter how many times he searched the entire palace, he felt like he couldn't do it in one go. First, the castle was as big as an apartment building in his world. How would it be easy to do detective work undercover while pretending to be cleaning personnel simultaneously? But from what he had searched, he could tell that this was a time-consuming way to find the trap door where the murder scene could have taken place.
After a long day passed by just like that, Zion laid on his bed in exhaustion with his face against his pillow. He grunted against his pillow in frustration. Where did the man take those kids after kidnapping them? This was a question he wanted to know so badly!
But it was useless to think like that now when he was tired after trying for so long. The trap door must be hidden in an area that wouldn't be available to the servants. No wonder that Zion couldn't find anything.
But if not this, then what? His lips pursed as his brows furrowed. Just then, he heard someone from the bed beside him, clearing his throat. "Rupert, why are you frowning? Is something wrong"
Zion came back to himself and looked at the servant sitting in front of him, and shook his head. "I'm fine. Just…." He paused as if thinking of something and said abruptly, "I just miss my family."
"Then go back and see them." The servant laughed and laid on his bed. "It's not like you're locked here. You're free to meet your family anytime you want. Just so you know, you won't be getting wages for the days you don't work."
Zion's ears perked up at that, and he glanced at the servant again. He got a hunch that he should use this chance to take a leave and find more clues. Anyway, if he gained success, he wouldn't be coming back. He wasn't even someone important who would create suspicion. He was merely a tiny servant who accidentally ended up meeting Odina on his way. It wasn't strange for a servant to see the elf queen while working in the palace.
So after deciding that he would take a leave tomorrow, he decided to sleep. He could think about the case tomorrow.
The next day, he got up early and approached the servant's head to ask for a leave, who accepted his leave after long contemplation. When Zion was finally free to roam around without any hesitation, the first thing he did was buy a new identity.
He called out to the system when he was already walking down the street outside the palace. "Oi, 007. Hope out."
"Here!" The system popped out in front of the detective and raised his hand as if he were an obedient student. "How can I help you?"
"Give me an elf child's identity. Quick."
007 rolled his eyes at the commanding tone that his host used and silently clicked on the option for the detective. They both filled the form, and after that, Zion marched toward a dark alley before glancing right and left as he heaved a relief. "Now, we shall wait."
While waiting to change into a child, the system couldn't help but ask. "Why a kid?"
Zion's brows raised as he relaxed his shoulders. Until late night yesterday, he didn't have a clue about what he should do. But he knew that he should sneak out of the palace if he wanted to find the evidence faster. After that, as soon as he woke up in the morning, an idea flashed in his mind: He should try becoming a child to find more evidence. Since children are the only victims, he could pose as one of them and enter the hidden chamber of the criminal. Then and only then could he find out what the heck was happening in the Viridis kingdom.
But just as he was about to reply to the system, his identity changed. His entire body shrunk to the size of a child in a split second. The next moment, A little elf child appeared in the dark alley wearing oversized servant's clothes.
Zion raised his long sleeves that made his hand look small and felt complicated. His lips pursed, and just as he was thinking about sneaking inside someone else's home and buying clothes, the system instantly popped out and stared at him with starry eyes.
When Zion saw this kind of expression, he shivered from head to toe and glared at the system. But after receiving the glare, 007 became even more enchanted as if he had seen the cutest thing in front of him. But the system knew that if he continued to behave like this, his host would enter the interface and kill him.
007 wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead and said, "Host, don't blame me for this. I love kids, and you kind of look adorable as a kid."
"....Get lost!"
The system shrugged, but he still felt that his host looked handsome even in the form of a child. So he picked up a camera out of nowhere and took a few snaps of his hoost secretly, and put it back before shutting off the interface.
After the system disappeared in his mind, Zion breathed a sigh of relief and dragged his long clothes. But after walking for a while, he even felt that his clothes were in trouble, and he didn't want to buy another set from the system since he was only left with 70 points.
When he thought of the points he ended up investing in this case, he felt heartache. His system was seriously a money sucker! Just how costly the items became after the upgrade? Other than different identities, nothing else was worth buying.
So he stripped off his pants and folded them before keeping them in the corner. His shirt was long enough to reach his toes. Then he folded his sleeves and walked forward. Even though he looked strange wearing an oversized dress, he didn't have a choice.
Since he had taken a leave today, he didn't have to go back to the palace today. So he just spent the entire day trying to find himself a pair of clothes and wandering in the street to make himself look more like a beggar.
At nightfall, when everyone shut the doors of their houses and soldiers wandered around the street, Zion finally emerged wearing a set of torn clothes. Initially, these clothes weren't torn, but he ended up tearing them apart to make them look more realistic. He even stole food deliberately and got caught by some people who beat him until he vomited blood. This was a deliberate action that he did to make himself look more natural as a beggar.
So right now, Zion's condition looked more like a kid who would often live on the streets and eat the food he would steal from the shops. He had bruises over his face, and even his bottom lip was swollen from being beaten for so long. But instead of feeling bad for himself, he rejoiced in his heart that his image finally looked more like that of a little beggar.
After wandering around the street for a while, when it was midnight, a silver-masked man finally appeared on the road wearing a black cloak over his head. He wandered off in the darkened alley in search of something. This man looked akin to a person who was searching for prey in the forest. His narrowed eyes stared off at a distance, trying to find a child, when he suddenly noticed a kid sleeping at the corner of the street with tattered clothes and bruises all over his body.
For a moment, he felt his heart freezing after seeing the kid's poor condition. A sigh escaped his lips as he made his way to the child.
Poor child. He must have suffered a lot, but when the man thought of what he would do with this child, his heart squeezed in pain. But the masked man comforted himself that it was a good thing that he was doing for a child. The kid looked like someone who was about to die any minute. His skin was so pale and filled with bruises that it almost seemed as if he wouldn't be able to handle any more injuries. So it should be a good thing that the masked man was doing a noble job of giving the kid freedom from such a life.
Then he thought about it and determined that he wouldn't let the child suffer in his last moments.
Zion, on the other hand, had already noticed that a certain masked man was walking toward him at a steady pace. So he deliberately chose a spot where he could be seen sooner and laid down. He wasn't asleep, just pretending.