What Witch? This Alchemist is Breaking Bad!

Ten days later, at the Inquisition.

Leon arrived at the duty room assigned to his team as usual and exchanged greetings with his colleagues.

The Mana business he had been secretly running was steadily improving.

In less than half a year, he had already accumulated a fortune of over a hundred thousand, far more than the total salary he had earned in two years of working at the Inquisition.

Even so, he still could not resign from this grueling job that ran year-round and occasionally required overtime.

Now that he was engaged in illegal business, the identity of an Inquisitor had become even more important to him.

It was a protective umbrella over his head, and also the basis on which he had claimed he could provide protection for Rena.

As an Inquisitor, he could promptly learn about the Inquisition’s movements and internal intelligence.

For example, he and Rena were currently raising Magical Beasts in the Labyrinth.

If the Inquisition were to notice something amiss, they could enter the Labyrinth to conduct a search at any time.

Only by knowing in advance could he let Rena escape before the search and eliminate the evidence inside the Labyrinth.

Besides that, if things later became entangled with underworld conflicts, even though he was merely a low-ranking Inquisitor, he could still use the clues he reported to steer the Inquisition’s power toward dealing with hostile underworld forces.

After exchanging pleasantries, they immediately started chatting idly.

The topics were basically unrelated to work—just casual banter.

The captain had not yet arrived to assign tasks, and this was precisely the best time to slack off.

The meager wages and benefits issued by the Church were nowhere near enough to make them risk their lives, or even to give them much motivation to work conscientiously.

However, good times of slacking off were always short-lived.

Just as they were laughing and talking, the captain walked in with a stern expression.

Everyone immediately stopped joking and greeted the captain one after another:

“Yo, Captain.”

“Morning, Captain.”

“Where’s the salute? Since when did you all have no discipline at all!?” the captain suddenly glared at them.

“I could hear your laughter from far away. Do you think this is an amusement park?”

Everyone looked at one another.

The captain was usually quite easygoing and not this rigid.

At this moment, Leon and another team member noticed that the captain was standing at attention where he spoke, while frantically signaling at them with his eyes.

They quickly nudged the colleagues beside them with their elbows as a reminder.

One by one, the team members reacted, swiftly forming up in front of the captain in the usual formation for训话, and saluted him together.

“If I hear you chatting about things unrelated to work inside the Inquisition again, I’ll have him go clean the toilets here. Understood?” the captain warned sternly.

“Understood, Captain!” everyone replied in unison.

Just then, a burly middle-aged man with his hands clasped behind his back appeared at the entrance of the duty room.

His square face was expressionless, with a meticulously trimmed mustache.

He wore a dark blue Inquisitor uniform, and a silver Church emblem was pinned directly to his chest.

The moment they saw this man, everyone present—including Leon—felt a chill in their hearts and immediately understood the captain’s earlier reactions upon entering the duty room.

Director of the Inquisition, Caron Eso!

“All personnel, attention, salute!” the captain turned toward the doorway and shouted, leading the entire team in saluting the director.

Then they shouted in unison, “We salute you, sir!”

“Mm.” In response to his subordinates’ salute, Caron merely gave a brief sound through his nose.

His gaze did not linger on the ordinary team members, but instead pointed at the captain as he left behind a single remark: “Hurry up!”

After saying that, he walked past the entrance of the duty room, his footsteps gradually fading into the distance.

Someone immediately let out a sigh of relief, only to be glared at by the captain.

“Everyone, put on your uniforms properly and assemble in the conference room. The director is holding a major case meeting,” the captain said seriously.

Leon finally understood why the director, who usually stayed in his office, had passed by the duty room on the first floor—it was because there was going to be a meeting.

However, according to Leon’s experience, when holding case discussions in the past, it was usually the deputy director who assigned a case to a specific team, and then that team’s captain would lead and host the meeting to formulate an investigation plan.

The deputy director might sit in, but most of the time he did not.

As for Director Caron, Leon had never seen him personally participate in case investigations, let alone preside over a meeting.

Most of the time, the director only appeared before the assembled personnel to give drowsy speeches during collective admonitions or annual summaries.

Sensing this abnormality, Leon quietly asked the captain, “Captain, is the director presiding over the meeting today?”

“Don’t worry about that. Move quickly,” the captain urged.

Soon, everyone had changed into their uniforms and followed the captain to the conference room.

By then, the room was already somewhat filled with smoke.

Director Caron, who had arrived earlier, had lit his pipe and was steadily puffing away.

“Damn it, smoking indoors without even opening the windows?” Leon glanced at the tightly shut windows behind Director Caron and cursed inwardly.

But no one present raised this issue with the director.

Of course, most people did not actually have any objections.

In this era, not many people knew how harmful smoking was to one’s health, and some even regarded tobacco as medicine.

Some in the team had a smoking addiction but could only afford low-quality tobacco due to their meager wages.

Seeing Director Caron smoke good tobacco, they instead began taking deep breaths—secondhand smoke was still smoke to them.

“Is this how you usually slack off downstairs?” Director Caron’s first sentence made everyone present break out in a cold sweat.

It seemed the director had no intention of letting go of what had just happened.

“Once you come in here and work for the Church, you should do it properly. As Inquisitors who urge the populace to revere the Church, lacking reverence for the Church yourselves won’t do,” Director Caron said unhurriedly while smoking his pipe.

“Team Three will each have one Thaler deducted this month.”

As soon as those words came out, everyone began cursing the bastard in their hearts.

“Sir, I guarantee this won’t happen again. Please…” the captain tried to plead with the director.

One Thaler was also quite painful for the team members.

“You want to interrupt a decision I’ve made? What, thinking of sitting in my position?” Director Caron swept a glance at the captain.

“N-no…” The captain was at a loss.

“Heh, just joking. You’re just too serious,” the director said with a chuckle, pointing at the captain.

He then quickly withdrew his smile.

“But the fine isn’t a joke. You need to be taught a lesson. Rules are rules!”

He spoke in a high-sounding manner, but everyone present knew clearly that there was no such fine stipulated in the Inquisition’s regulations.

This was merely Director Caron’s unilateral decision within the Inquisition.

As for whose pocket the deducted one Thaler per person would end up in—well, that was really hard to guess.

“All right, long story short. Yesterday I was called to the prefecture for a meeting. Colleagues from the Mister District told me that their informants discovered a new batch of Magical Potions appearing on the market.”

As Director Caron spoke, he took out a small bottle of potion that glimmered with an orange-red glow and placed it on the table for everyone to see.

“This is the sample. The performance of these Magical Potions far exceeds what was previously on the market. After their people analyzed and reverse-engineered them, they found that the activator used in these Magical Potions has a purity close to eighty percent.”

Hearing this, Leon’s heart instinctively tightened.

“And there are reports that…” The director tapped the table with his finger and continued, “the Mana used as the activator was circulated from here to over there.”