Isabella walked down the street, her expression more serious than ever before.
She exuded an unapproachable aura, completely different from her usual deanor.
This matter concerning Nemus made her feel a trace of panic.
At this mont, she suddenly realized that she had seemingly never truly known Nels.
It had been this way from the very beginning.
Whether it was the stationed Holy Knight in Finback Village or the current Grand Knight of Tail Fin Town.
All she had ever seen was the disguise Nemus presented to the outside world.
In the beginning, back in Finback Village, Isabella had been full of vigilance toward soone she could not see through.
However, as ti passed and she witnessed too much filth, Isabella gradually felt that an inability to see through soone might actually give both herself and the other party a certain amount of space.
Only now, this delusion had been thoroughly shattered.
She could accept Nemus's smuggling because it rely sacrificed a fraction of the Floating Whale's future to guarantee the current order, causing little to no harm to mankind.
Isabella's goodwill was directed toward her fellow human beings. She protected the Floating Whale mostly because it served as a living ground for mankind.
She knew her priorities.
However, Nemus's act of imprisoning Westbin's family for the sake of the Historical Number, and his sheltering of Opper and the others connected to the Old Priest, were entirely unacceptable to her.
In her view, people were equal. When a person hard the rights and interests of others for their own personal gain, that was fundantally wrong.
It was true that Zoven's father, Westbin, was a criminal, but his cris should not have implicated his family.
Since that was the case, Westbin's family should never have been subjected to such soft imprisonnt.
Of course, this was intertwined with the deal between Nemus and Westbin. Nemus could easily twist this soft imprisonnt into a form of protection.
This could not strictly be considered a cri, but Nemus's attitude toward others, revealed through this process, left Isabella deeply alard.
Because it proved that Nemus did not care about anyone else at all.
This man was very likely an absolute egoist.
The reason he treated the commoners well was not out of kindness, but simply because it earned him a good reputation.
The only reason he maintained the Church's order was that doing so helped him secure more benefits.
Looking at it this way, there seed to be no problem.
But what if one day, mistreating the commoners could yield even greater benefits?
Would Nemus still choose to act kindly then?
On this point alone, her absolute ideals clashed entirely with his.
And judging by Nemus's subsequent protection of Opper and the others, this was even more evident.
Even though the act of smuggling Whalehide Ore had not been confird, Isabella always rembered it.
Furthermore, she was practically certain that when she and Jacques had gone to investigate back then, they had found neither the mine shaft nor any miners.
Those miners had likely been silenced. Opper and his cohorts were undoubtedly ruthless murderers who treated human lives as worthless weeds.
With these thoughts swirling in her mind, Isabella once again retrieved the relevant archives regarding Finback Village from back then.
Although the case was primarily handled by Sky Spring City, Tail Fin Town had also taken in quite a few people from Finback Village.
The more she read, the colder her heart grew.
Most of Nemus's testimony was extrely reasonable, except for one point that now seed impossible to explain: why was the Old Priest forced into a corner, suddenly realizing the error of his ways in despair, and choosing to consu the Pseudo-Saint potion?
According to the Old Priest, he had stayed in Finback Village for twenty years. During those two decades, he had established connections with the vast majority of the villagers.
He could use these connections to accomplish his Damage Transfer.
As long as this ability remained unresolved, there was a high probability that the Old Priest would not have fallen into despair.
Isabella had t many people. The reason they repented was that all their thods had been crushed, driving them to a dead end. So, how did Nemus, a re Holy Knight, deal with the Damage Transfer?
Previously, Isabella had not delved deeply into the darker sides of human nature, assuming Nemus simply possessed so special power.
But now that Opper and his subordinates were still closely connected to Nemus, she could not help but steer her thoughts in that direction.
Isabella pulled out the records of the Finback Village residents received by Tail Fin Town and found that there were far fewer than she had imagined.
Taking the list with her, Isabella then went to seek out the survivors from that year.
Seeing Isabella once again, many of them acted as if an old wound had been touched, unwilling to bring up the events of the past.
However, a few people did speak to Isabella about what had happened when they woke up.
For example, when they were collecting the bodies, they discovered that quite a few people had died by swords and blades.
They had stood there, bitterly cursing the Old Priest for transferring the damage onto their family mbers and loved ones.
Although Isabella felt embarrassed, she still asked them to describe the wounds on so of the deceased.
Upon leaving these people's hos, Isabella's expression was sowhat dazed.
Nemus's Sword Art was highly advanced. Because of this, his Sword Moves possessed imnse destructive power, requiring many people to bear the transferred damage together.
Even so, the sword marks left behind should have been clean and precise, not rough and jagged like those inflicted by a chipped blade...
While there were other possibilities, the situation was gradually pointing toward a direction Isabella was least willing to see.
'During the battle between and the Old Priest, Nemus cooperated with Opper and the others. As soon as they realized the Old Priest could transfer damage, soone imdiately attacked the villagers.'
'Because of that, the Old Priest's Damage Transfer failed.'
'The ones who struck were most likely Opper's subordinates...'
Isabella felt a sudden wave of a bloody stench wash over her face.
The image she originally held of Nemus completely collapsed at this mont.
At the sa ti, all the various doubts that had previously lingered in her mind surged to the forefront once again.
Just what exactly had happened in Finback Village back then?!
Aside from killing the Old Priest, what else had Nemus done?
Was what Nemus said—that Jacques had been controlled by the Old Priest and both ended up dying a violent and dismbered death—actually the truth?
These myriad questions weighed heavily on Isabella's heart.
Excuses could be found for all these actions, of course.
For instance, killing those villagers was done in order to defeat the far more dangerous Old Priest.
But Nemus was simply too unscrupulous.
If he had hidden so much regarding this matter, what about everything else?
Originally, Isabella had found it hard to believe that Nemus could be so cold-blooded as to slaughter Zoven's entire family just because he escaped.
But now, she leaned more and more toward that possibility.
'No, I have to get to the bottom of all this!' After a period of bleakness, Isabella's will grew resolute.
If Nemus had truly done so many things, his flaws and loopholes would only multiply.
As long as she searched carefully, she would surely find so clues.
And sure enough, there were so things that Nemus simply could not completely conceal.
'Cici Marie...' Isabella found yet another archive.
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