CHAPTER 205: DETECTIVE ELLIE

"Crown Prince, these two bodies had their vocal cords sliced. The kill was swift and concise." Curtis reported his findings.

"I believe it’s the work of an assassin." He added, subtly hinting that these corpses were most likely done by Claudia.

Leonard simply nodded and gestured for him to move aside.

"Let Ellie inspect the corpses." He ordered.

Startled, Curtis’s body jolted. He shifted his attention to Ellie with a skeptical gaze.

’What can a little girl investigate?’ He wondered silently. Still, given that it was an order from the Crown Prince, he could only step aside while putting up a defensive stance.

Curtis wouldn’t rule out the possibility that there might be enemies lurking in the vicinity.

While Curtis was focused on protection, Leonard was staring at Ellie.

Ellie swiftly got to work as she crouched before one of the closer guards.

"This person is quite unlucky," Ellie commented. "He noticed something was wrong, but his reaction speed was too slow. If his reaction speed was a bit faster, then maybe he wouldn’t be sleeping for eternity."

"Hoh, how can you tell?" Amused, Leonard glanced at the corpse. He could see the corpse’s eyes were wide open, clearly in disbelief and shock.

Still, he wouldn’t be able to accurately tell what happened with just widened eyes.

It could have just been that the person was shocked by the killer’s move and was unwilling to close his eyes to accept their death.

"Their body posture, Master." Ellie pointed her finger at its twisted state.

"This person was trying to turn around to check on his companion, but got put to sleep at that instance."

As if to prove her point, Ellie skipped her legs toward the other person and explained. "This person went to sleep eternally first. If I’m correct, the culprit dealt with him and chased after the other person."

"Impressive." Leonard clapped his hands. Her choice of words might be out of the norm, but the logic and investigation were on point.

"Then do you know who the culprit is?"

"Of course!"

Ellie quickly returned to Leonard’s side and smiled blissfully.

"We’ve met them before." She said and started to visually describe Claudia’s appearance. "I can sense her fragrance on both these people. Although there’s also a faint smell of the other woman on this particular person, they didn’t have any around their neck."

"T-This..." Curtis’s expression was complicated. He couldn’t fathom how a little girl was able to investigate and decisively pinpoint the culprit. As long as Ellie was correct, Curtis would need to re-evaluate her.

While Curtis still hoped to verify the truth by speaking to Mirelle later on, Leonard didn’t hold any doubts.

There was no need for Ellie to lie to him.

"Ellie’s ability is indeed amazing." He praised and rubbed her head gently.

"Do I get a reward then, Master?" Ellie asked cheerfully.

"What reward do you want?"

"I want some tiny meat." She requested, her mouth drooling a bit. The taste of meat had been lingering for a long time.

It was just a shame that meat was considered a delicacy and nobody was willing to offer her any. All she got was some wheat pancake and the recent delicious porridge.

"Once we’re done here, I’ll give you a ton of meat to eat," Leonard promised.

Based on Ellie’s action this time, Leonard could basically confirm that this little girl concealed a mysterious origin.

No little girl would be able to survive in such an environment without some ability.

As long as he treated her right, then the gain he received in the future would be hard to imagine.

Naturally, part of him also held genuine care for Ellie. She reminded him deeply of his past, struggling and doing everything to survive. He was born rich, but even the rich had their own set of problems.

"Curtis, inspect ahead of the broken door and check what it leads to," Leonard commanded.

"Yes, Crown Prince."

In the blink of an eye, Curtis entered the broken door and discovered a mechanism trigger.

"Crown Prince, there’s a transportation formation here." He reported and closed his eyes to sense the mana residue.

Before he could answer where the transposition would lead them, Ellie chimed in.

"This place leads to the fighting place, Master."

"The fighting place?"

"Mhmm, it’s at the underground level and there are many people gathering to watch the fight."

"You’ve been here before?" Leonard asked.

"Not in this particular one." Ellie shook her head and explained that there were many sectors around the slum that led to the underground level.

The underground level was interconnected with many checkpoints. It would have been exceedingly inconvenient if everyone were forced to enter through this broken door.

Moreover, which noble-like person would be willing to come to the slum to enter the underground level?

"Seems like this underground slum conceals more secrets than what we know about." Leonard furrowed his brows and frowned. He reckoned that such a large underground network involved more parties than he could ever imagine.

If anything, it was even possible that other forces from the other Continents had a hand in this underground network.

And the depth behind it should be even more than what was on the surface level of Velastra.

Suddenly, Leonard recalled Ellie mentioning fighting multiple monsters.

"Ellie, do you still recall the features of those monsters you fought in the past?" He turned to her and asked.

"Of course." Ellie nodded. "Ellie’s memories are great. Each of the monsters I fought is distinctive and has its own unique features. The organizers are quite mean, though. They know I can memorize their attack pattern, so every time I participated, they would bring out a new monster for me."

"Then, Ellie, explain a few of those monsters’ features to Curtis." Leonard requested and told Curtis to see if he recognized any of the monsters.

As long as the monsters didn’t hail from Velastra or the Valdoria Continent itself, then it could basically be confirmed that the other Continents had a hand in this underground level.

After all, to transport monsters from different continents to a singular place meant the power behind them was something he was incapable of messing with at the time being.