Chapter 17: KaDeWe’s Strange Encounter

“Really? We’ll find the murderer just by shopping?”

Zigris was clearly having trouble believing it, but he still followed Li Ruoyi’s instructions, removing his armor and changing into casual clothes to hide his aggressive aura.

His casual attire was not as rigid or monochromatic as a traditional suit; the cut of his shirt was looser, allowing his body to move without constraint.

He paired it with a T-shirt and long pants, looking both fashionable and trendy.

“You also haven’t rested in a long time; while you’re shopping and relaxing, keep an eye on the people around you,” Li Ruoyi turned and instructed Zigris.

“We will split up shortly.”

“Haha, I thought Lord Ruoyi wasn’t interested in shopping and wouldn’t come here personally.”

“As a descendant of a Romanian Grand Duke, I still have that much culture.”

Li Ruoyi pointed at Zigris, who was a head taller than him, and said, “If you run into her, try to stall her for as long as possible.”

After they separated, Zigris casually strolled through the first floor.

KaDeWe was massive, spanning six entire floors—a true testament to a nation’s economic strength.

In the old era, one could buy countless international luxury goods here, all of them the latest and trendiest.

You could even find beauticians and a food court; on the top floor of KaDeWe was a massive glass dome from which one could see a different kind of scenery.

The first floor was primarily an area for purchasing food and daily necessities.

It was almost curfew time, and there were very few customers in the store; aside from the staff, only students from the nearby magic academy who had just finished classes were around.

It had to be said that the environment was very suitable for a search.

However, Zigris didn’t get his hopes up too high.

Due to the limitations of his own Heart of the Human King, and without Li Ruoyi’s convenient eyes, his perception was naturally much weaker.

He was completely unaware of the imperceptible magic lingering in the surrounding air and was using a purely physical search method.

But chance always has a way of inexplicably descending upon a person.

Whether it was fate or a sudden whim, he walked into a beautifully decorated wine shop—naturally, the largest and most luxurious one in Berlin, run by a lecturer from the nearby magic academy: the “Scavenger,” Brand.

The shelves displaying various fine wines were completely empty; in this era, wine had become a luxury item, and for those who loved it like life itself, it was priceless.

Continuing inside, after greeting the staff who were taking inventory, he was led to the reserve section—a place inaccessible to mortals, open only to magicians and their Human Kings.

The wines here were vastly different from those outside.

Magically infused wine racks preserved high-end vintage wines; Munich dark beer, French red wine, and even vodka were all available.

The magic on the wine racks ensured that the stored wine could ferment better, raising its color and aroma to another level.

There were at least ten thousand bottles of wine on display.

It was no easy task to look through and select from them all.

The further inside he went, the more varieties of wine there were.

Suddenly, a bottle appeared before the swordsman that made his eyes light up.

The exterior decoration was not expensive, and the bottle was simply sealed with a neat and good-looking rubber stopper, but a line of French was written on the bottle’s body.

It was a century-old French red wine.

Let alone in this era, even ten years ago, such century-old vintage wine was a rarity.

It was unknown what the situation in France was now; to come across such a fine vintage was truly a fortunate thing.

He decided to take it back to drink with Li Ruoyi as a comfort for his hard week of investigation.

What he grasped was not a cylindrical wine bottle, but something else, soft and fluid.

Only upon closer inspection did he realize he had grabbed a pale hand.

Looking up along the arm, he saw its owner—a girl as captivating as a black jewel.

She was not tall, just barely reaching his shoulder.

Her long black hair formed a stark contrast with her snow-white skin, creating a strange beauty.

Beneath the square-framed glasses pressed against her nose were a pair of enchanting black eyes, gleaming slightly as they glared up at him fiercely.

With her school uniform and the books under her arm, and black tights pulled up to just the right height, she looked every bit the student from the magic academy.

“Hey, how much longer are you going to hold on?”

Realizing his impoliteness, the temperature of Zigris’s cheeks began to rise.

Even as a Human King, he still possessed human emotions.

He released the girl’s hand in a flustered and awkward manner.

But the moment he let go, he felt a sharp pain, though he only thought of it as a scratch from her nails and didn’t pay it much mind.

When he looked at the girl again, she had retreated several meters, stroking the back of the hand he had been holding.

“Ah… ah, I’m sorry, miss.”

“Huh?… Mmm, what’s your name?”

The girl knit her brows, but for some reason, they quickly relaxed again, though her gaze remained fierce—an expression that looked as if she wanted to eat the man before her alive.

But the fierceness soon turned to shyness, and a blush crept up her delicate little face.

Perhaps it was the first time she had been touched by a strange man; feeling shy was perfectly normal.

“I asked you your name!”

“Oh… oh! I’m sorry, madam. My name is Zigris, the Human King under Miss Amber.”

“Oh!”

The girl’s fingers twitched slightly as she tucked the strands of hair that had fallen across her forehead behind her ear.

Her mind seemed to work quickly; she understood what kind of being the man before her was.

She adjusted her glasses and walked up to him, sizing him up with a sharp gaze hidden beneath her lenses.

“As you can see, madam, I am a Human King. I am not lying.”

“Of course I know; I am well aware of what kind of being you are.”

With a slight tremor of her fingertips, a power like a curse passed through the back of her hand as she spoke with a smile.

But in the next second, her smile froze.

The man before her did not fall to his knees in agony as she had expected; instead, he looked at her quite calmly.

She suddenly felt as if the power she had just released had tried to move a mountain.

“So, what is your name? You must be a student at the magic academy.”

The man spoke.

“I am a magician specializing in alchemy,” the girl said with some fluster, clearly taken aback by the turn of events.

“As for my name, I do not have such a thing. I don’t remember it.”

“I see.”

The man only sighed faintly and did not press further.

“Aren’t you going to question me? A magician without a name!”

An expression of surprise once again filled her porcelain-like face.

“Why would I question you? Everyone has their own hardships.”

Zigris smiled brightly, carefully taking down the wine bottle from the high shelf with both hands.

“Even though you are a magician, minors should still drink less.”

Zigris tossed the bottle into the girl’s arms; the sudden weight surprised her, and she stumbled back several steps, nearly falling.

“It will be curfew soon. You should head home.”

Zigris turned and waved, preparing to leave the wine shop.

“Wait! Why are you so gentle with someone who doesn’t even have a name?”

“There’s no particular reason. It’s simply out of politeness. It’s my responsibility to help people live better in an apocalypse like this.”

“Responsibility?”

A faint smile appeared on the girl’s face—a smile that came from a genuine warmth in her heart.

At least, that was what she herself thought.

Accompanied by a self-questioning tone, the girl vanished down the end of the corridor without a sound, leaving no trace of her presence behind.

Perhaps only the word “serene” could properly describe her.

Without a clear farewell, Zigris replayed the image of the girl in his mind—she was like a work of art crafted by the gods, with a neck as translucent as white porcelain, eyes like amethysts suffused in silk cloth, and a beautiful, well-defined jawline.

“A rather nice girl; in terms of magic power alone, she might be on par with Rhein. Berlin has such a magician?”

Just as Zigris was lost in thought, Li Ruoyi emerged from the shadows unfolding behind him, looking at the swordsman with a playful expression.

Two corpses were impaled on the scythe behind Li Ruoyi—the bodies of two vampires.

They were a species that could only be called vampires, both in appearance and in essence.

“We don’t need to catch one alive?”

“It seems we don’t; the source of that power has vanished, so we’ve come up empty again.”

Li Ruoyi sighed.

“But these two corpses have told me something interesting.”