CH 92

It was one of the letters Antony had brought with him, which he had set aside to read later.

‘…So, this guy is one of the people who managed the six branches?’

Lucion stopped opening the letter and suddenly smiled.

“This guy thinks I’m a complete idiot.”

Lucion crumpled the letter.

What was the purpose of sending a letter to him?

It was an obvious ploy to get close and drive a knife through his throat.

Lucion wasn’t worried.

Except for the position of Roberio who was already dead, those who managed the rest of the branches were written in the data, so Lucion took out a mask and used the contact item after putting it on.

<Yes, Hamel-nim!>

Heroan, the leader of the Rats, immediately spoke up.

“Heroan, there are people you need to look for from now on.”

<Please tell me anything. I’ll dig into their secrets and hold them in my hands.>

Heroan sounded excited.

Lucion also opened his mouth, pleased.

“There are five in total.”

Lucion didn’t treat them as human beings.

* * *

―Lucion.

Just as she was about to fall asleep, Ratta quietly touched Lucion’s side.

“…What is it?”

Lucion’s voice was quiet.

He half-opened his eyes and let out a yawn.

―Ratta didn’t want to wake Lucion, but No. 2 called.

Lucion immediately raised his upper body at her words.

“He’s running away?”

―That’s right! He’s getting ready to run away!

Following Lucion who had raised his voice, Ratta spoke excitedly.

“Tell No. 2 to chase him as far as he can. Tell him to contact me regularly.”

Lucion called Russell after giving Ratta instructions

“Teacher.”

A moment later, Russell pushed his face against the wall.

[What? What happened?]

“The butler is moving.”

[Shall we call Bethel?]

He thought Bethel, who had no restrictions on her movements, would be the best to chase someone.

“No, let Bethel move on her own. I’ll go after him.”

If Bethel’s eyes were accurate, he thought she would come to the same place as those he would enlist.

In addition, it would be good to find better people.

He only needed to leave home until he sent Novio and Carson off at dawn tomorrow.

There was plenty of time.

[What about Hume?]

“I’ll go.”

―Ratta knows where Hume’s room is.

“Let’s go.”

―Yes!

Ratta slapped the floor.

After the darkness swallowed Lucion and Lata, it appeared in Hume’s room.

Hume stood up and greeted Lucion calmly, probably already feeling Lucion’s darkness in advance.

“I’m ready.”

“Great. I have to chase after the butler, can you run?”

Lucion intended to get carried by Hume, who was as fast as a horse and stronger than a horse, unlike his appearance.

“I’m confident that I won’t get tired.”

Hume grinned.

“That’s true. I’ve never seen you tired.”

“No, I can get tired, too.”

“You can…?”

Lucion’s eyes widened.

“Yes. Ratta has better stamina than me.”

―No. When Ratta plays with Hume, she collapses from exhaustion first. Hume’s stamina is really, really amazing!

Ratta sat down on her hips for a moment, then moved her front paws to make a circle.

Sometimes Hume took Ratta for a walk.

No matter what they did, Ratta passed out from exhaustion and returned in Hume’s arms.

―You know, Lucion. Hume and Ratta run around when we go outside. Ratta is so excited! The wind is blowing! It feels like Ratta is floating in the sky.

‘Now that I see it, Hume is like an uncle who plays with his nephew.’

Lucion briefly sat on Hume’s desk chair and listened to Ratta’s words until Ghost No. 2 called.

He was grateful that Hume did what he couldn’t do.

[…Huh. That means Hume’s physical strength is equal to that of divine beasts.]

Russell was taken aback.

“You’re right. By the way, do divine beasts have good stamina?”

Lucion stopped talking and reacted as if it was wrong.

Ratta seemed to prefer clinging to him or hugging him.

[I’ve never seen a divine beast who was recently born, so I am not sure. What’s been happening in the month and a half next to you, Lucion, is more surprising than anything I’ve experienced in my entire life.]

Lucion giggled as Russell looked at him with an uneasy look.

‘You shouldn’t be surprised already.’

* * *

“…Gasp! Gasp!”

The man gasped so loudly that he was out of breath at once, but he did not stop his steps.

‘If I get caught, it’s over! If I get caught!’

When the rest of the 12 people were taken away, he almost peed on the spot.

Even if they weren’t colleagues, the screams of 12 people who shared secrets were heard in his ears every moment.

Even the words of the servants saying that they could never see the light of day after entering Cronia’s basement seemed crazy.

He didn’t know how he was the only one who survived, but he’d already spent three days with his eyes open because his blood was drying up day by day.

His brain wasn’t working.

A hallucination whispered in his ear telling him to go to sleep.

But he couldn’t stop his legs.

‘I have to live. I have to go to my mother alive.’

Having been told in advance where to go to seek protection in case of trouble, the man headed for a house in the city.

Knock!

After checking the house, the man knocked hard on the door.

“Who is it?”

A stern-looking man asked, opening the door slightly.

“T-The head of the jungle is blue.”

“What about the blue flag?”

“It’s a treasure of gold and silver that will be handed down from generation to generation.”

“Come on in.”

The grim man put on a grumpy expression and led the man into the room.

“Are you alone?”

The man was frightened and rattled by the grim man’s question.

“C-Can I survive? Didn’t you say you’d take responsibility and protect me if I came all the way here?”

“The report has been cut off these days. You’ll have to tell me the situation from the beginning.”

The man’s eyes rolled at the words that sounded like threats.

The room was full of big men.

The atmosphere was somewhat strange, but the sleep-deprived man couldn’t think straight.

“That’s right, they’re all dead. I’m the only one who survived!”

“…Ha. How far do you say it’s ruined?”

“I-I don’t know. I really don’t know, so protect me as promised…”

At the sight of the sword piercing his belly, the man made an expression of not understanding anything.

“If you don’t know, you have to die.”

“Sa-cough… S-Save me…”

He reached out to the grim man with his blood-stained hand, but a sword penetrated the man’s head.

“Damn it. All 13 people are dead.”

The grim man put on a face of arrogance and reached out to one of his men.

A subordinate handed over a paper, and the grim man immediately wrote that all 13 people had died.

“Run to No. 2 right now and report. If you report it late, we’re all dead, understand?”

“Who are you reporting it to?”

Then, a low voice was heard from the corner.

At the sight of a masked man and girl appearing from the darkness, everyone in the house was stunned and fell silent for a moment.

He was a warlock.

Sssh.

In an instant, darkness spread through the house like a wall, preventing anyone from going out.

“So who are you reporting it to? Let me know, hn?”

His mask turned yellow.

Crack.

When the neck of one of his subordinates was snapped in an instant by the girl’s hand, the grim man finally reacted.

“W-Who are you?”

“No, I asked first. It’s your turn to answer.”

The darkness sent by Lucion grabbed the grim man’s hand and bent it backward.

“Auaaargh!”

“Shh. Everyone is sleeping, so be quiet. You probably weren’t taught about it when you were young.”

Lucion shut his mouth with darkness.

“You don’t want to talk? Or you don’t know? …Ah, what did you say? If you don’t know, you have to die. Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

Why does that man’s light voice sound so scary?

Crack!

At the repeated sound of something breaking every second, the grim man grabbed his arm and looked around.

“…”

In an instant, the man’s pupils lost their strength.

A cold sweat broke out, and the strength in his legs gave out.

One by one, their necks were bent and his eyes met the eyes of his dead subordinates.

The man closed his eyes tightly and clenched his thighs with trembling hands.

He couldn’t think.

“I’ll ask you one last time. Who is it?”

Lucion asked.

At the quiet question, the man’s body trembled as if he had a seizure.

He thought he couldn’t live.

Tears welled up as he put everything down.

Lucion thought that it wasn’t a situation where he could talk about the man’s condition.

Just as he grabbed the man’s shoulder and tried to insert his darkness, he heard a tearful voice.

“Please, without pain. Please kill me.”

“Yes, I promise.”

“There should be a house with a crow print like this one near the gate from the west to the north. Find that house.”

Lucion stepped back, and Hume picked up a nearby sword and cut the man’s throat at once.

Thud!

At the same time, the sword broke and the man’s neck fell to the floor.

[Do you know where the gate from west to north is?]

Russell asked.

“I do.”

Lucion decided to move before anyone could come.

“Please, Teacher.”

[Got it.]

With that answer, Russell left the house, and Lucion searched for the butler who was dead.

‘There’s nothing special.’

No matter how quickly he packed his bags, money was everything.

“What about the other side?”

Lucion asked.

“Nothing much. I remembered the smell just in case.”

Hume replied, shaking his head.

“There’s no smell you know, right?”

“Yes, there isn’t.”

―Lucion.

Ratta came out of Lucion’s shadow.

Her blue eyes fluttered as usual.

―What do you see in Ratta’s eyes?

“What do I see?”

Lucion asked, checking where Ratta was looking.

―Wait a minute. Ratta will check and tell you.

Ratta went to the body and stuck out her front paw.

For a moment, Lucion felt his darkness wavering.

Ratta was using something.

―Wake up.

At Ratta’s words, something translucent escaped from the dead body.

“…!”

Anyone could see that it was a ghost.

Lucion couldn’t hide his surprise.

He had to get home by dawn, so he didn’t even try because he thought it was impossible to deal with the ghost.

“Is that a ghost?”

Even Hume pointed with his finger.

―Ooh! That’s right! Ratta was right!

Ratta wagged her tail.

―Ratta’s eyes suddenly saw something white. It looked like a ghost, so Ratta told it to wake up, but it really woke up!

Ratta waggled her tail, asking Lucion to come over and pet her.

‘Did Ratta grow as my darkness increased?’

Lucion thought as he patted Ratta.

Big or small, growth was always welcome.

“Well done, Ratta. Then can you do the rest? It’s better to clean it up and go.”

―Yes! Ratta will do everything for Lucion. Just trust Ratta.

Ratta grinned.

* * *

– Report no. 3 in the village near the Viscounty of Loch Rolls in the south. Disguised as a clothing store, stamped with a crow print.

Lucion looked at the note written by the captain of report no. 2.

Behind the paper, he could see a corpse buried in the wall.

‘This report didn’t end there, there’s also no. 3?’

Lucion commanded again, watching the darkness flicker in the man’s like flames.

“Tell me how many reports there are.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t use the spell like a truth serum.

It was limited to copying one or two sentences or moving as he said.

The guy moved his arm.

– Four.

‘Ha. We’re totally chasing a tail.’

Lucion felt his face distorted.

He almost wandered around for nothing.

[What’s this. It’s like catching a tail. Seriously, this is terrible. As the number of reports increases, the speed of reporting will be slow, but if you look at this, he must be quite a high–ranking person.]

Even Russell complained.

“Don’t worry. Shouldn’t we skip all the steps until the last one?”

Lucion gave the final order now that the spell of delusion was still maintained.

“Tell me where the last report is.”