Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic
Chapter 1056: MI6’s Pursuit

Chapter 1056: Chapter 1056: MI6’s Pursuit

"A good ending..."

Princess Margaret nodded slightly, then looked at Shard in front of her:

"How should I thank you? Shard, you probably can’t understand what this means to me."

Shard wanted to bring up the meeting with Sir Plisha right away, but thinking it over, he decided to wrap up this small matter first:

"First, tell me what to do with Miss Brown. She’s probably anxiously waiting for news right now. Let me make it clear, I won’t kill anyone. To you, she’s a spy, but to me, she’s an excellent agent from our country... a defected agent."

Thinking about it this way, whether as the current ace agent of MI6 or as the "Grey-headed Eagle" of the Grey Glove ace spy, Shard had reasons to take action against Miss Brown.

"What are you talking about, who wants you to kill him?"

The princess shook her head slightly:

"If I knew about this a few years ago, I would’ve given her a lesson. But now... she’s already defected from MI6, so she’s no longer an enemy of Carsonrick. Although she probably knows a few things about MI6..."

"You don’t want to punish her."

Shard used an affirmative sentence. The princess with pale golden hair glanced at him:

"That’s what you said, not what I said."

"Then this next letter, do you want me to write it, or will you write it yourself?"

For a moment, Shard really thought he saw a smile on the princess’s face, but looking closer, it seemed like an illusion:

"I’ll write it myself, but I’d trouble you to deliver the letter to her."

She reached her hand toward Shard, who extended his hand for the princess to place hers upon, assisting her to stand up from the sofa.

Margaret Anjou looked out at the silver-white garden courtyard:

"In any case, the guilt I’ve felt for the past eight years is finally gone..."

She asked Shard softly:

"If I non-ladylike curse now, would you tell anyone?"

Shard looked at her doubtfully and dug at his ear:

"Sorry, what did you say? I didn’t hear anything."

The princess showed a smile, gritting her teeth as she said:

"Joya Nicholas (note), you bitch. Engaged, are you? He’ll betray you sooner or later, just like you were disloyal to my family."

After she finished speaking, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath; the princess’s "swearing" was much more civilized than the slang Shard imagined.

She opened her eyes and looked at Shard:

"Knight, would you like to have lunch together?"

"Here?"

Although Shard had visited Canary Estate more than once, having lunch here with the foreign princess was no small matter.

"Yes, you’ve helped me so much. If I send you away during lunch, wouldn’t that be too harsh?"

With that, she headed towards the door to notify the maid to prepare an extra lunch, her cheeks visibly blushing lightly.

As it happened, Shard was wondering if he might see Miss Sylvia at the lunch table of Canary Estate, but the witch did not return even after Princess Margaret had finished lunch with Shard.

During the meal, Shard also inquired about Miss Sylvia’s whereabouts and unexpectedly learned from the princess, who was enjoying a small cake adorned with strawberries as a dessert, that Miss Sylvia had her own matters to attend to.

"This math teacher of mine has her own life after all."

She used a fork to play with the strawberry on top:

"Lately, she’s been frequently receiving invitations from Duchess Galina."

The Princess of Carsonrick spoke Delarion, and both members of the royal families were proficient in these two languages. When Galina Cavendish was mentioned, and with the detective standing before her who had a relationship with the Duchess, the princess witch felt somewhat uneasy:

"I’ll tell you a secret, but you mustn’t tell anyone else."

She pretended to cautiously look around the dining room, but in reality, there were only her two most trusted maids here, one of whom was a First Ring Sorcerer:

"Miss Sylvia actually likes pretty girls quite a bit."

She was satisfied to see the conflicted expression on Shard’s face:

"Oh, detective, so you shouldn’t get too involved with Miss Sylvia; my teacher’s nature... is a bit unique."

She actually wanted to protect Shard from getting too close to the Grand Witch, but somehow the next words slipped out:

"So you better keep an eye on your duchess, don’t let my teacher lure her away."

After lunch, Princess Margaret had other plans, while Shard went to deliver a letter, and the two agreed to meet again in the evening at the Canary Estate.

So Shard set off by carriage, thinking that delivering the reply this time wouldn’t be troublesome. Unexpectedly, when he arrived at the old bookstore, he found the neighbors standing at the entrance peering inside:

"What’s happening here?"

He mingled into the crowd and learned the truth from the cacophony of discussions. Around one in the afternoon, gunshots suddenly sounded from inside the old bookstore, followed by a continuous series of gunshots.

After a sound resembling a steam bomb explosion, it was only half a minute before a man clutching his shoulder, apparently wounded, fled from the bookstore.

Shortly after he left, a large number of police officers surrounded the place and took away Old Mr. Brown, the old bookstore owner, who had just returned from an errand and seemed unaware of what had happened. Neighbors familiar with the bookstore’s situation noticed that Miss Bella Brown did not appear, and the police had put up a blockade in front of the bookstore and were searching inside.

"Did the illegal gun trading here get exposed?"

Shard initially guessed this but quickly dismissed the idea because he saw his superior, Director Anlos.

The middle-aged man didn’t notice Shard in the crowd with his hat on. He entered the bookstore with a team of police officers and was whispering something to his colleagues. An ordinary defection case shouldn’t require the presence of a director like him, so it must be the suspected presence of the "grey-headed eagle" in the recent bomb attack on the princess that aroused his suspicion.

"Miss Bella Brown has been exposed. I had just left, and MI6 arrived. Could such a coincidence happen?"

It seemed that the lady hadn’t been caught yet; she had a gunfight in the bookstore, forcing away the man with a wounded shoulder, presumed to be an MI6 agent, and then escaped from another direction herself.

Thinking of this, Shard took a detour to the alley behind the bookstore, where he indeed found the police present. But apparently, there weren’t many clues here, so the police had only loosely sealed the area without the strictness of the front entrance.

Using the Red Butterfly Illusion, Shard sneaked into the alley, discovering a smear of blood on the old bookstore’s back wall. He later realized that it was more than just a smear; Miss Brown also got hurt during the gunfight.

While the police in the alley weren’t watching this way, he took out a wine bottle, absorbed the blood stains to make Blood Brew, and then tricked the police again with illusionary techniques to leave the area.

In a secluded alley, he tilted his head back, letting the blood stains drip into his eyes. The Arcane Technique [Echo of Blood] was activated. Since the bloodstains were fresh, when Shard returned to the incident’s alley, the resonant figure of Miss Bella Brown with a red hue appeared distinctly in his vision:

"She was indeed injured; a shot to the leg? Oh, it doesn’t seem to have hit the bone."

The injured former agent didn’t dare go on the main road, instead, she ducked into nearby alleys, heading north toward the northern part of Tobesk, away from Regent’s Park. Shard followed that figure on this sunny winter afternoon, winding through countless small alleys, watching Miss Brown limping as she took detours.

She first opened the door of an old apartment located in the city’s east with a key, treating her wounds and grabbing some supplies and money from what seemed like a safe house before changing clothes and struggling to leave through a window.

She even set up a simple trigger steam bomb trap using silk and gear mechanisms at the doorway. But Shard entered through the window, so he didn’t trigger it. To protect his colleagues and possibly any burglars who might enter, Shard considerately disarmed the trap.

After leaving the safe house, the injured Miss Brown circled the area, then continued north until reaching the city’s northern slums, a maze of alleys where even the most directionally inclined strangers could easily lose their way.

It wasn’t clear if Miss Bella Brown got lost or was simply trying to confuse potential pursuers, but after taking a wrong turn three times, she entered a narrow street marked with a rusty metal street sign reading "Long Ear Alley." She used a key to open the door to No. 7 Long Ear Alley; the uninterrupted figure entered the house without any emerging shadow from around:

"Hiding here?"

Long Ear Alley was an unremarkable alley in the northern part of Tobesk’s poorer areas. Officially speaking, it wasn’t exactly a slum but a neighborhood for the slightly wealthier impoverished folks. Its street scenery was relatively well-maintained, with tall houses lining the street. Although none of the snow had been shoveled from in front of the houses, at least paths had been cleared on the street for people to walk through.

To avoid startling Miss Brown, Shard didn’t knock on the door but directly used the Key of the Door to unlock and enter the house.

Having been uninhabited for a long time, the house was damp and cold, feeling even more gloomy in the winter. Probably to save money, Miss Brown had rented the place but hadn’t paid for the gas, leaving all the lights unusable. Entering it felt akin to stepping into a cold, damp coffin, with an overwhelmingly oppressive ambiance.

Following Miss Brown’s semi-transparent red silhouette, Shard crept up the creaky wooden stairs to the second floor, only to turn into a hallway and find a gun pressed against his forehead.

"Pointing a gun at me isn’t a good idea."

Shard told the lady, who looked quite unwell. Although she didn’t recognize Shard with his eyeshadow right away, she recognized his calm tone.