Chapter 228 Defense

When Luke opened the door to Professor Vinigo's office, the first thing he found was a dark environment, to which his eyes slowly became accustomed. After that, he could see that the cozy office he saw before was now partially dark, illuminated only by the glow coming through the door.

There were books and pages of parchments scattered on the floor, and the couches were overturned.

'What happened here?' He wondered as he took slow steps into the room. 'Meredith's smell is getting even stronger... damn.'

At that moment, Luke wasn't caring about anything other than his friend, so he ignored all the items in the room and continued to follow the smell of the half-fox.

In the middle of the room, Meredith and Vinigo's scents mingled, and a vivid scent of blood emerged. This only made Luke even more apprehensive.

The half-wolf followed the scent to the empty fireplace, whose ashes from the last burned wood still littered the surrounding stone floor. The strong smell of the ashes confused Luke's olfaction for a second; however, he soon managed to find the smell of blood again, which seemed to come from the wall on the right of the fireplace.

'Somehow, their scent stops here.' Luke deduced while touching the stone wall. 'How is that possible? Shouldn't there be a door here?'

The half-wolf had never seen anything like that before. People's smells almost always led to them or some property of theirs, but never led to an empty wall.

Even though he was confused, Luke put one of his wolf ears against the wall and tapped it twice with his right hand.

Tunc~ Tunc~

'Oh! This is hollow!' Surprised, he recognized the feature by the indigent sound. 'Right, I can't delay too long. I just have to break it, right?'

So, Luke tried to punch exactly the part of the wall he felt was hollow.

He raised his right fist, and punched the wall, in a move so clean that it would make any professional tavern fighter very jealous.

When this punch hit the wall, a thud could be heard from all the nearby hallways, and whoever heard it could swear that the floor was about to collapse, because dust began to fall from the ceiling. Meanwhile, in Vinigo's office, the wall that Luke had hit was still intact.

Flabbergasted, the half-wolf was astounded at how a hollow wall could endure such force.

'How is that possible?' he wondered, and his keen eyes found an answer in a faint glow that appeared on the wall after the impact.

Luke punched the wall once more, even harder this time to test whether what he was seeing was real.

This time again, his blow was useless and only spread the scrolls further on the floor because of the windstorm caused by his movement.

At that moment, the faint glow on the wall became a little more intense and took on a circular outline that wrapped around ? of the office.

The half-wolf had never seen anything like it, so he punched again.

This time the glowing circle took on runes, which made obvious what it really was even to someone with as little education as Luke.

'Is that a magic circle? But there is no one here... How is it active?' To Luke, this should be impossible. After all, how could someone be using something magical without being present?

Even though Luke didn't understand what was going on, he punched the magic circle at least another dozen times. After the phase where the runes appeared, the magic circle didn't evolve any further, which made everything even more confusing for the half-wolf, who was losing patience.

He had been in the office for a few minutes and hadn't found anything, plus his fists were starting to hurt.

'I think the solution to getting over that wall isn't about strength.'

Then, after lighting the lamp on the old man's desk, Luke began to rummage through every corner of the office, especially those with Vinigo's strongest scent.

The couches and the desk were the two places where Vinigo apparently stayed the most frequently, and they were also the messiest places. The half-wolf thought it unlikely that the professor would hide something on the sofa, so he focused on the table.

After sitting down in the armchair Vinigo usually sat in, he saw himself in an environment so messy that it was almost agonizing.

There was dried ink tumbled over student exam papers and books and more books that could probably be sold for a few hundred silver coins. But Luke was so focused on searching for important clues that he didn't even think about the money.

The thing with Vinigo's most intense smell was the bottle of green medicine on his desk, which Luke had passed on to him when the old man was very ill. Now, the bottle's liquid looked different from when Luke had first seen it.

From the first time, that almost transparent liquid was now between a solid and gelatinous state, something Luke had never seen before. Without much thought, Luke took this and put it in his inventory, because he was very curious about what it actually was, and maybe he would have a chance to ask someone.

After this, he continued his search, and after another minute of looking, the half-wolf noticed that there was something under the table. He pushed the armchair aside and crouched down to take a closer look.

He found a very small lever, which was secretly hidden in the deep part of the table. Luke felt that he wouldn't have even noticed this if he hadn't been looking for something strange.

When Luke pulled the lever, a dragging noise could be heard. He looked at the hollow wall and saw the magic circle fading away. Subsequently, the wall on the right of the fireplace began to rise.

The half-wolf walked to the front of the wall and saw that the passage led to a deep, uneven-looking staircase.

'I was thinking I'd have to sing a song, decipher a riddle, or recite a curse to get through, but good thing it was just a lever.' He thought, relieved that he was finally able to open the wall.

So, Luke activated his <Invisible Trail> ability and started down the staircase as fast as possible. Halfway down, he encountered three wooden doors, but as Meredith's scent continued to waft down, he didn't care about these doors and continued down too.

Suddenly, Luke saw a bright green light coming from what also appeared to be the end of the staircase.

Silently, Luke moved closer to the light, but then he heard Professor Vinigo's voice say:

"Whoever is there, come out now, or I will kill that girl!"

The half-wolf was surprised that the old man could detect him, but he didn't hesitate and obeyed his order.

When Luke appeared in the light, he looked forward, and his vision ignored everything around, focusing only on the sight of Professor Vinigo holding Meredith by the hair and pointing a sharp scalpel at her neck.

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