Zion smiled and shook his head. "Not at all."
Lang put down the watering can in his hands. "Are you here to see me? Or are you here to order new flowers?"
Zion shook his head again. "I'm not."
Lang looked at him and asked, "Then...Did a pretty lady send you to me?"
Zion was surprised. "No..."
Lang showed a disappointed face. "Really? I was about to receive a lady's favor..."
"I'm here to ask you about something else."
Lang's eyes brightened. It seemed this guy liked talking to people. "Oh? What is it?"
Zion frowned and sighed. "I was going to ask you about the royal knife."
Lang was startled. He wasn't sure if he heard it right as he stared at Zion with a pale face.
Zion saw Lang's expression, and his brows furrowed. He couldn't help but ask, "Lang, you're not sick, are you?"
Lang shook his head. "No... I'm not sick."
Zion frowned and said, "Then why are you pale?"
Lang smiled bitterly. "I was just shocked and surprised. I didn't expect that you would ask such a question."
Zion was surprised. "Why?"
"The royal knife is a taboo of the Eria dynasty. No one is allowed to talk about it."
Eria—the name of the current dynasty. Zion had read about how this dynasty was named in the library back then. The story was pretty simple. After the war, when the races separated and made their own kingdoms, Dhampirs weren't left behind. The father of the previous Emperor brought along all his people at this place and settled. At first, they were living simple lives, but slowly, the status of several Dhampirs changed over time according to their work, and Eria became what it is today.
Zion nodded. "Look, I'm just here to ask a few questions."
Lang looked at Zion suspiciously. "Are you thinking of making a replica?"
Zion raised his brows. "Why would I need a replica?"
Lang sighed. "I know many people are thinking like that. So I suspected that you were one of them."
Did someone try to approach Lang to ask about the process of creating that knife? When Zion thought about this, he felt it possible since Rhesus destroyed all the royal knives for some mysterious reason. So some curious people would ask around about it for profit.
So he opened his mouth and asked the most critical question, "Who approached you recently?"
Lang tapped his chin and said, "An imperial guard had come to see me a few days ago. When was that again?" The Dhampir's brows furrowed before it eased, and he smiled. "Before Princess Lia was taken in jail."
"Can you tell me the name of that guard?"
Lang nodded. "Oswin."
Zion couldn't help but remember that guard who talked to the king today about his ghost and senior servant identity. Since Oswim was related to the cloaked man, this meant that the knife was probably created by them as well.
But even if that was the case, the cloaked man wouldn't have chosen to make a knife that couldn't even cut a leaf. He had tried to use that knife earlier and see how sharp it was, but unexpectedly, it couldn't even cut a small and delicate leaf. So he assumed it might be rusty and old that made its blade so dull.
Sharpness was the main reason why Zion suspected that this royal knife was old, but now he was having second thoughts when he heard this servant's words.
Before that, he needed to ask another question. "Why did they come to you for this query?"
Lang smiled and leaned back. "Because I'm the only person alive among the workers who made the knife. Even though I was a kid back then, I still remember the process."
Zion's eyes squinted. No wonder the murderer chose to contact this gardener. But before he could continue to think about this, he heard Lang saying the next words.
"There's no way for you to make a replica of the royal knife because it's not just a regular weapon. There was a spell enchanted on it, and only the royal blood could activate its magical powers."
The detective frowned. According to Lang, the previous king had a crazy idea when he was still in his twenties to secure his position as the crown prince. Since the royals were half-magicians, they could use powerful spells for fighting. Even so, they didn't have any weapons that could be activated with spells. So he gathered a few people and created the structure of this knife with them. Back then, they even had many aristocrats working on this along with humans and half-minotaurs and made something famous that was still in this kingdom. It didn't take long before his father chose the previous king as his successor.
But the strangest thing was that Rhesus's late father used his blood to carve that rose on the handle. This rose was the thing that could activate that knife. Otherwise, it wouldn't even be sharp enough to chop off a vegetable. That means only his descendant can create a replica.
Zion raised his brows. That solved the puzzle of the sharpness. When he heard about how only magic could activate and sharpen this knife, he realized that this royal knife was probably created recently for the murder to act as fake evidence.
But he was still doubtful about one thing. "How can you tell whether a knife is real or just a fake replica?"
Lang sighed. "You can't. That's the specialty of this knife. If it's in the hand of a commoner, it's useless, but for a royal person, it's the best weapon he can hold. Sadly, it doesn't exist today."
So he would have to find a royal to test this, and he had a perfect candidate for this. A smile formed on his lips at that, and he turned to Lang. "I apologize for asking so many questions. I heard someone talking about it just now. That servant said he had a royal knife that he picked up from the street, and he wanted to find its owner. So I became curious about what it was!"
Lang looked up with a hint of surprise in his eyes. "There's still a royal knife out there?"
Zion shrugged. "Who knows! But thanks to you, I'll help that poor guy. Perhaps someone from the royal family had kept it as a memento and lost it somehow."
After bidding the gardener goodbye, he walked into the corridor adjacent to it that headed toward the royal residences outside the main palace. He knew that palaces of the royals surrounded the main building. That was where the king's family members lived. So he swiftly hid in the shadows and went inside one of those palaces.