After a rough first aid treatment for the last thief who had been shot in the thigh, we surrounded the thief with both hands bound.
“Hey, you killer! Killing all of our comrades is unforgivable!!”
The thief, who still looked like he was in his twenties, was enraged with the spirit of meeting even his parents’ enemies.
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“You blow up someone else’s carriage and talk a lot. If you tried to kill someone else, you should have been prepared to be killed by someone else.”
I crouched down in front of the thief. The thief glared at me and lowered his head, as if he couldn’t come up with anything to refute my words.
“And they all died so quickly that they didn’t even have time to feel the pain. It’s a merchant.”
“What the hell are you guys doing, you guys… … .”
The thief looked around at me and my comrades with a fearful gaze. Dimitri glared at the rogue with a stern gaze, while Caspal sat quietly and rested as if tired. Ber was trembling behind me and Ethel was watching Katyusha preparing a simple meal.
“As you can see, it’s an ordinary quest party.”
“It’s normal, but a piece of sh*t.”
The thief frowned as if it wasn’t even funny.
“Anyway, tell me everything you know. why did you attack us? Was it someone’s request? I wish I could tell you everything.”
“Shouldn’t I say, all of you guys get lost!”
The rogue shouted in a cracking voice. It wasn’t particularly scary. It’s just sad.
“Ugh. It would have been nice if there was a prom. He is a pro in this field.”
“Then it seems that the whole body must have been rotting away by now.”
The rogue flinched at Dimitri’s words. I deliberately turned my gaze to the rogue and looked at Dimitri.
“how will we do it. Shall we keep tying it up and hand it over to Fromm for interrogation, charge him with treason, and hand him over to the camp?”
“That wouldn’t be too bad, but with the current circumstances, adding more luggage is a nuisance. If possible, it would be better to ‘solve’ here.”
“As expected. Thief, wait a little longer. I will ‘solve’ it soon.”
The thief’s complexion turned pale when he realized the meaning of the word solution.
“ha ha ha… … . It’s half a treason. What kind of crown prince will you be?”
And he told me not to brag, pretending to be strong.
“what. Didn’t you know that?”
It was an unexpected fact.
“… … what?”
“Did you really not know? For some reason, I thought I was too weak to try to assassinate the crown prince.”
“Now, wait a minute. for a moment. What do you mean?”
The rogue was visibly taken aback.
“I am the iron-blooded prince.”
“The crown prince, he said… … ?”
The thief looked up at me in dubious doubt. To prove that I am the crown prince, I pulled out a strand of the thief’s hair and burned it in front of my eyes with electric current.
“Even if you didn’t know, you guys deserve to be called heinous villains who plotted the assassination of the crown prince. Well, most of them died.”
I looked at the thief as I crumbled my hair, which had turned to ashes, on the thief’s head. Its face was completely terrified.
It was the fear of the emperor felt by any iron-blooded citizen.
“Did you really not know? At first, I thought it would be a simple solution, but I never thought it would be half a penny even the royal family couldn’t recognize. My pride doesn’t understand that I’m going to kill you like this.”
Even though he said that he would not kill him right away, the thief was rather scared.
“You know how Sangvis ‘uses’ traitors, right? You will live in a more terrible way than die.”
“Yes, it is used… … ?”
Sangvis has been using traitors as a useful ‘resource’. Sangvis medicine has developed unusually quickly thanks to their traitors. It is only natural if there are many human bodies that can be used at will.
“Come to think of it, Fromm just said he was preparing a thesis recently. Is it a step-by-step observation of the body’s transformation due to overtreatment?”
“It’s an eerie yet interesting subject. Sounds like a pretty long-term project, right?”
“The Frome said he didn’t want it to end until graduation. Honestly, the thesis is an excuse, and it might just be your hobby.”
Dimitri, who roughly grasped my intentions, helped me. I don’t know how much of it is real, but considering Fromm’s personality, everything might be real.
“What about the pain of rotting away alive, please let me know if it’s okay. You will be able to feel it for a few years.”
The thief’s complexion grew pale. I stood up hesitantly from my seat, looked down with a sorry expression, and patted the thief on the shoulder as if to encourage him.
“No, say… … .”
“word?”
“Well, I’ll tell you anything! I’ll tell you anything, just stop handing it over to that lunatic!”
Even when he wasn’t there, Fromm’s presence was useful for intimidation.
“Hmm, great. hmm… … !”
Behind him, Caspal was desperately holding back a laugh at the expression of the madman.
“So you’ve been commissioned to kill us by the one who covered his face with a mask?”
“okay. The mines buried in the carriage road were also provided by them… … .”
The thief answered the question obediently.
‘It wasn’t magic that exploded the wagon, but a mine. Being able to handle stuff like that… … .’
It does not exist except for Parabellum. I really didn’t know that name would come up here.
“What else do you know about the Masked Man?”
“I-I’m not the boss, so all I did was pass by the man I commissioned.”
“What about height, body type, and voice?”
“He was tall. It was smaller than the boss, but still on the large side. It was a slim physique.”
I remembered the man in white clothes I met in the two workshops.
“How big was it?”
The rogue was silent at my question, then looked at Dimitri.
“He was like my older brother.”
“Then it’s bigger than the crown prince.”
From behind, Ber interrupted the conversation. Perhaps the thief would have compared him to Dimitri, not me, to avoid that expression. The timing of intervening in the story is also completely unnoticeable.
“Ber. Come to think of it, did you stop calling me Mikhail before you knew it? It doesn’t matter what you call it.”
“ah. And then I saw it. Would you like to call me by name?”
“do whatever you want.”
After giving a rough answer, I thought about how Parabellum got the information that I was going here.
‘The start of the quest took place on the same day as permission was granted. Even though I deliberately set off quickly in fear of something like this happening, the fact that the information was leaked and I was attacked… … .’
Inside the knight academy, there is Parabellum’s nephew. Maybe even among professors.
“I’m bored to death. I’ll have to do a big purge show when I go back.”
“The Great Purge Show, what is it?”
Katyusha asked while holding out a bowl of plain soup. I replied roughly that it was an exciting purge, took the bowl and sipped. It was a bit bland. The expressions of the other colleagues who received it were also subtle, and it seemed that everyone thought the same.
“Ethel, what do you think of the story so far?”
I looked back and asked Ethel, who was crouching down and sipping soup. Ethel stared at the thief.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re lying. I don’t seem to know too much. I think I’ve dug up all the information I can.”
“The grounds?”
“Is it the years I have lived? Isn’t that what you asked too?”
Ethel asked what he was talking about. Didn’t he see through it with magical power? I asked because I thought I could do something, but maybe I expected too much.
“… … If I had known this was going to happen, I would have preferred not to kill the boss. It moved me so emotionally. sorry.”
Caspal, who was resting, said in an apologetic voice.
“Then you’ll feel embarrassed for me for not doing anything the whole time. Caspal. You did your best.”
“You should have done something.”
Caspal quickly dissed the comforting Dimitri.
“Ugh! Ha, but the fog was too thick! In the first place, I’m good at long-distance fighting, but it’s only natural that I can’t do anything if the surroundings are covered in fog!”
“Mr. Katyusha fights well.”
“Wow, sure it was, but… … . Katyusha-no, how did you see Katyusha-san?”
Dimitri asked Katyusha nervously. Now that Katyusha had been following as an attendant rather than a student, he noticed that he was not sure how to treat him.
“… … .”
Katyusha opened her mouth as if to explain something, then closed it. And after organizing my thoughts for a while——.
“I did it roughly.”
answered appropriately.
“… … Persimmon, is it? All right.”
Dimitri replied with an expression that he did not know anything. It’s a bit depressing.
“Now let’s get back to the main topic. information provided, thank you Stop sending fromm.”
“Oh, thank you… … .”
He let out a sigh of relief with an expression that the thief was alive.
“So, what am I going to do now?”
“well? I will probably die.”
“what?”
And the face that was relieved at the announcement that he would die quickly hardened.
“We have neither the time to take you nor the power to heal you. Didn’t you guys blow up the wagon that could be loaded? It means we are in a desperate situation right now.”
After organizing the situation, the coachman had run away with the horse. Well, if I hadn’t run away, I might have killed him by mistake, so I’d rather be glad. Maybe he didn’t run away, but there’s a possibility that he was among the dead thieves, but he decided not to think deeply about it.
“First aid was given, but I don’t know how far I can move with that leg. Wouldn’t you like to become food for animals or become food for the land after exhaustion?”
After I finished drinking the soup, I got up from my seat and went behind the thief to unbind his hand.
“It’s up to you whether you live or die. We will start slowly.”
“Hey, wait a minute! Where are you going from here? You can’t go anywhere just by walking!”
The thief tried to stand up, but failed and shouted. The thief’s words seemed to be true, but with my back to the thief, I motioned him to ignore them and proceeded appropriately.
“No, I have a horse! That’s what we rode! I will guide you there!”
After taking a few steps, the thief, who had been forced to stand up and collapsed, spoke what he wanted.
“I pretended to be strong as much as I could, but now I am anxious to survive. So where is it?”
“Promise me you’ll take me there, and I’ll guide you…” … .”
“Then I can’t help it. Guide me. Dimitri, support me.”
Dimitri assisted the rogue. The thief looked at the ground with a humiliated expression.
“Why didn’t you tell me that until now? If you had talked about it from the beginning and negotiated, you would have been able to escape.”
“… … .”
I crossed my arms and questioned. The thief kept his mouth shut and glared at me, sighing as if exhausted.
“There is someone who is guarding the horse. I don’t have the face to look at that person and I didn’t want to talk about it as much as possible because you guys might kill me.”
“But did you become scared when you thought you were going to die?”
“… … okay. damn it A guy like me can’t even die gracefully.”
“There is no such thing as a nice death. You made the right choice.”
I wonder if my words were comforting or not, and the thief let out a small sigh.
“So, who is it?”
“The boss’s wife. If you can, please don’t touch him.”
Without answering, we walked along with the rogue, led by Dimitri.