By Zephyria Flynn felt like his vision was spinning. He was clearly having a conversation, but it felt like there was no communication at all. The things he had been chasing after all this time came crashing down at once in a strange way, and he was beside himself.
“Then you’re sure Blaine is at the Lord’s castle right now?”
“Well… as far as I know, he is, but it wasn’t the man in the photo the investigator showed me.”
“Not this man?”
“Yes. He looked like a completely different person? Of course, his hair was a bit yellow, but it was more of a mottled brown than blonde, and his eyes… definitely not gold, but a dark green, I think. That person’s personality is also really bad. He’s always talking down to the guild leader.”
Flynn, who was very confused, paused at Theo’s words that he looked like a different person. Not blonde with gold eyes, but a different appearance?
“So… the Leonardo Blaine in the mansion and the person in the photo I showed you look different? Like completely different people?”
“Yes. The Leonardo Blaine in the mansion has a bad personality, and his appearance is so arrogant… well, yes. He looks like he wasn’t finished being made. The person in the photo is handsome, though.”
Theo, who was harshly criticizing the Leonardo Blaine in the mansion, seemed to have a lot of pent-up feelings towards him. Flynn asked again, repeating Theo’s words that his face was different.
“Did that person directly introduce himself as Leonardo Blaine?”
“Yes, he always starts with ‘This Leonardo Blaine-’ whenever he says anything? The guild leader also calls him Blaine….”
“Heh….”
He just laughed in dismay. The Leonardo Blaine that Theo was talking about was different from the actions he had heard about.
First of all, Squad Leader 8, who most recently pursued him from the 1st Battalion, testified that Leonardo Blaine looked exactly like the photo in the Council’s acquired personal information document.
His appearance had matured a bit over time, but he was still recognizable, and above all, he was very annoyed by the Council and secretly hid, so finding him was quite difficult.
That kind of person is going around telling everyone that he is Leonardo Blaine, and even a low-ranking guild member like this knows him?
Flynn recalled that when a few tips about Leonardo Blaine came in in the past, the results of the verification process showed that most of them were impersonations or rumors. In other words, there was a high possibility that this was also an impersonation.
Flynn, feeling suddenly deflated, sighed deeply. Then Theo, who had been listing the faults of the so-called Leonardo Blaine, asked Flynn.
“Why are you sighing like that?”
At his question, Flynn made a tearful face and said weakly to Theo.
“I think that Leonardo Blaine person is a fake.”
* * *
“The guild brings in demon beast carcasses, buries them in the ground, and lights a fire on top to eliminate the demon beast’s energy, and you put out that fire, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes… that’s right.”
In the interrogation room of the Northern Branch, a mage who had been tailing Hugo and had been severely punished was sitting in handcuffs across from him. The inside of the interrogation room was very cold and chilly. Whether it was because of that or because he was afraid of Hugo, the mage was shivering pitifully.
In Hugo’s hand was a file containing the personal information of the mage sitting in front of him. His name was Ardel Linter. A young man of 27 years old, he had been employed by Count Serbia for about two years.
He was a water mage who used the water element, and he revealed that he had been hired to put out forest fires at the time of his employment, but he had been doing other work since some point. And it took many threats and coaxing to get him to reveal it.
“You’re really going to protect my safety, right? If it gets out that I said this, I’m….”
“What do you think of the Council? Your safety is guaranteed. Of course, you won’t be able to avoid punishment for participating in illegal activities, but it will be taken into consideration to some extent and you will receive a relatively light punishment.”
Ardel became acutely depressed at Hugo’s firm words.
At first, Ardel was tailing Hugo in the mountains when he was caught by him, almost half-killed, and had been out of his mind ever since. Then he was dragged away and handed over to the investigators and immediately taken to the Northern Branch of the Council, and when the Council people felt sorry for his frozen hands and carefully melted them in warm water and gave him delicious food, his body and mind gradually melted away.
Even though he had been caught by the Council’s investigative agency, he felt much more comfortable here than doing illegal things.
In the midst of all this, just when he thought he never wanted to face that cold and scary man again, that scary and ice-like man reappeared before him, much to his dismay.
The man with a very chilly impression told him not to even think about denying it because he had already gone to the frost territory Lord and heard everything, and that if he testified properly, he would reduce his sentence to some extent.
When Ardel first heard that story, he didn’t believe it and didn’t want to believe it, but somehow he thought that even the Count might have readily told everything to that brutal and cold-blooded man.
Soon, Ardel resigned himself and began to confess the stories he knew one by one. However, in the midst of confessing, if he showed even a little bit of cunning or hesitation….
Bang—!
“H-Heek—!!”
“Continue speaking.”
He could hear the sound of a sharp ice spear flying past his head and piercing the wall, so he really did his best to answer without stopping.
Once upon a time, Ardel had asked the Count what would happen if he were caught by the Council while doing this kind of work. At that time, the Count had clearly said that he would only be subjected to a normal level of questioning. But now, Ardel Linter was feeling a threat to his life and was testifying in order to survive.
Hugo, who had been listening to the story of the arrested mage, closed the file he had been looking at for a while and closed his eyes to organize his thoughts.
Delberg’s reason for coming to the frost territory was simple. There was a profitable element. And that profitable element was ‘land’ that people didn’t find easily and was barren and rugged. The widely spread mountainous area was not a place for people to live, but Delberg took this as an opportunity.
It was strictly illegal for private guilds or individuals to distribute demon beast carcasses in Laina Rogia. The reason for this was that magic stones containing magic power could be obtained from demon beast carcasses, and if these were distributed through illegal channels without going through formal distribution, there was a high possibility of misuse.
Therefore, the Delberg Guild, which had acquired a large number of demon beasts, needed a natural freezer and workshop where they could store them without being caught in inspections for the distribution of magic stones, and the cold and dry climate and sparsely populated mountains were very suitable for this purpose.
“A water-attribute demon beast?”
“Yes…. The one I saw directly was a demon beast with a blue-green, scaly skin. The size was about the size of a normal livestock cow. I remember it being slightly scorched….”
“Blue-green with scaly skin. A ‘Kuamer’ type.”
“I think that was the name.”
The Kuamer was a demon beast that could never be seen in the northern region of Laina Rogia. It was mainly found in the warm coastal areas and wetlands of the central-eastern and southeastern parts of Laina Rogia, and traveled in groups. As such, the scale was quite large when it was discovered, and they were captured in large quantities.
Recalling that characteristic, Hugo remembered a report from about three months ago that a group of Kuamers had been found dead in an area called Perion in the central-eastern region.
The Kuamer was a water-attribute demon beast, so fire-attribute magic was the most suitable for hunting it, and at the time, all the carcasses that were discovered on a large scale were charred black, so they were thought to have been subjugated by someone using fire magic.
The reason why it wasn’t a big problem at the time was that it was illegal for private guilds or individuals to ‘distribute’ demon beasts or magic stones, but it was not illegal to subjugate them or obtain magic stones for self-sufficiency and use them only personally.
However, if the guild distributes it for the purpose of selling it, the story changes.
“How many months ago did Delberg start bringing in demon beasts?”
“Um… 2 months. No, it’s been about 3 months.”
“3 months ago…. The timing overlaps.”
It might be a bit of a stretch, but he thought that there might be some connection between the mass discovery of Kuamer carcasses at that time and the Kuamers that this Delberg Guild brought in. And the fact that all those carcasses were charred black as well.
“What did the Count receive in exchange for giving the guild the land?”
“He received a portion of the magic stones from the demon beasts. The frost territory is a place where water is scarce, so water-attribute magic stones are very precious.”
“I see.”
He felt like the pieces were finally falling into place one by one.
The Delberg Guild chose the frost territory, where the temperature was low and there was little traffic, in order to find a place to store a large number of demon beasts, and the Count received magic stones from the demon beasts in return.
The demon beast carcasses were buried in various places in the mountains around the frost territory, and because the demon beasts still had the magic power of their unique attributes even after death, they buried them in the ground to hide the Kuamer’s water-attribute magic power, and then lit a fire on top as if a forest fire had occurred to neutralize the water energy.
And when they covered the ground they had dug up again, they hid the traces of wet soil that had been exposed with burnt leaves and dry branches. Because of that work process, the residents thought that the frequency of forest fires had increased recently.
Once he was done organizing his thoughts, Hugo put down the file. Then he took out a photo that he had been carrying in his inner pocket and showed it to him, saying.
“Since you were tailing me, you must have known that I was looking for someone, this person is the one I’ve been looking for for the past few days.”
Ardel looked at the photo Hugo showed him and reacted as if he knew him, saying.
“Ah, so the person you were looking for was….”
As he let out a word as if he had expected it, Hugo raised one eyebrow and asked him.
“…Expected? You seem to know this guy. So, is this guy an accomplice who set fire to the land where the demon beasts were buried?”
Hugo thought that the mage who set fire to the land covered with demon beasts that Ardel had mentioned was the protagonist in the photo, who was presumed to be in the Count’s family.
However, Ardel, who was looking at the photo, was flustered by his question, which was somehow out of focus, and replied.
“Yes? No, it’s not.”
“…Not?”