— The importance of Lohar District and the Red-White Queen District is not the same.
Thus, Lohar District was completely sealed off. The port was temporarily closed, and even the navy vessels docked for rest were once alarmed. An entire six squads of inspectors mixed with a large number of inspectors went from street to street in Lohar District, sweeping until dawn, but in the end, the assassin was still not caught.
The Supervisory Bureau simply pretended it wasn't hunting for an assassin but was rectifying the law and order of the Royal Capital — so they took down no fewer than thirteen illegal organizations' gathering spots and arrested more than four hundred involved persons. It was quite a significant and impressive operation.
After all, having come all this way, they couldn't very well return empty-handed.
In the eyes of the public unaware of this matter, this was considered a decisive and special operation by the Supervisory Bureau. But for the few who knew the inside story, the Supervisory Bureau even became the butt of a joke.
An almost fully mobilized Supervisory Bureau that couldn't catch a single person — compared to the fact that they "didn't catch the assassin," the unnecessarily earnest attitude of the Supervisory Bureau was even more likely to provoke laughter.
However, contrary to this, Director Gordon, the first to give chase, was not punished but was instead rewarded.
Because his actions in the first instance were completely correct: not to launch a powerful attack against the assassin, but to first push them away from Princess Isabel.
Even though this push actually helped the other party to escape safely, Gordon's primary goal had already been achieved. That was to protect Princess Isabel.
— Still, the same sentence applies, if you let the assassin go, then what is ultimately lost is only a minister's private secretary. But if the assassin were trapped in the club, causing a great slaughter, no one knows how many students might die or be injured. Compared to their safety, letting a criminal escape is a more easily accepted outcome.
Of course, his reward wouldn't be immediately issued. But Aiwass had heard from Isabel that Gordon was going to be transferred to the Supervisory Court as a senior inspector responsible for managing and supervising the discipline of all supervisory bureaus in Glass Island.
From being a director to becoming a senior inspector might seem like a demotion, but in reality, it was actually a promotion of one and a half ranks — and it just so happened that he could continue to manage his previous department.
Compared to the Supervisory Bureau, which stirred up a huge commotion that the whole city knew about, Aiwass sitting motionless in a wheelchair seemed even more formidable. After all, anyone could see just how much damage Aiwass's shot inflicted on her. To put it exaggeratedly, it might be that the damage Aiwass caused was all there was.
The students who had witnessed the "major event" were exceptionally excited, even embellishing the story when boasting about it to other classmates who hadn't seen the scene.
Since there were too many students present at the time, in reality, no one actually saw the full picture of what happened — at least eighty percent of them didn't notice the small dagger the size of a pinky finger stuck in Secretary Raff's back; only those close to him heard Aiwass call for Director Gordon.
Although the newspapers praised Aiwass tremendously, Aiwass himself was quite enigmatic in interviews, perpetuating the mystique with the attitude of "I won't tell; you guess."
Because of this, they attempted to complete this seemingly joyous event with their own imaginations and interpretations.
Left to their own devices to speculate, nearly every student told the story with slight variations. And those who heard the story felt they needed to share it with others. So they looked for people to tell in the second round, elaborating based on their own recollections...
— With various permutations, by the time of the next day's lunch break, the story had over seventy different versions.
At lunchtime, nearly every table in the cafeteria was talking about this story. And each table had a different version, as if they all came from different timelines.
There were the relatively normal versions like "Aiwass was the female assassin's ex-boyfriend," and "the assassin was Aiwass's stepmother"; and slightly subtler speculations like "Aiwass is a secret bodyguard of Her Highness the princess," and "Aiwass is a Prophet."
In the end, there were even stories with dramatic twists and legendary plots like "the assassin's real target was Queen Sofia," "the assassin is a vengeful princess from a former dynasty," and "the assassin is a demon in human form."
Now it seems some students are even planning to create fan works with Aiwass as the protagonist...
This time, Aiwass has truly become famous.
He did get the kindness and recognition from his classmates, as he initially planned, but in a way different from what he had imagined.
Now, he had become a part of a thousand-faced urban legend. Aiwass believed that even if a professional spy came to the university to inquire about him, they probably would end up confused.
How could everyone provide a different answer?
Was Aiwass really that mysterious?
In the end, Aiwass gained notoriety, Director Gordon received a promotion, the students present got some good gossip, and those not present had some fun.
Although other departments were verbally criticized, no one actually faced punishment—Knight's judgment of the situation had been entirely correct, the assassin was never genuinely preparing to kill Princess Isabel, so Queen Sofia wouldn't be too fixated on that slippery and elusive killer.
Even though the incident had caused quite a stir, the biggest damage they had done in this event was probably just to some of the buildings' walls in Lohar District. And these losses could be entirely accounted for in the operation budget for "taking down thirteen illegal organizations," even leaving a substantial excess.
Probably the only two who felt sad were Aiden and Isabel.
Isabel was simply upset that she couldn't go to the White Ballet Shoes Club.
The White Ballet Shoes Club was temporarily closed down due to this event.
Even though Isabel believed Arlen's saying that it would definitely reopen later, she had finally had the chance to join her first student organization. Yet, before she could make friends or even speak a word to a stranger, the organization closed down.
Aiden was just ridiculously unlucky.
As a student who had once encountered the assassin, he was taken in by the Supervisory Bureau for a specialized interrogation twice. Even his "Dracula" book was confiscated.
Even though he didn't really listen during class, missing two classes in a row made him somewhat miss them.
Mainly because Aiden felt a bit anxious: the final exams are coming up, how am I supposed to catch up on the classes I missed!
"—Couldn't you have just come two weeks later?!" he complained.
That way, if I didn't do well this semester, I could put the blame squarely on you when I got home!
Now with nearly a month until the final exams, being neither here nor there was actually quite distressing.
And what saddened Aiden even more was that his budding first love had ended before it even began.
That "mysterious lady in white who might have had feelings for him" turned out to be a ruthless and heartless bad woman—this dealt him a heavy blow.
When Aiwass heard his complaints, he just smiled and said nothing.
Don't worry, brother. Stay calm...
—Sooner or later, you'll get used to it.