By Zephyria “Outside, there will be a border zone liaison officer stationed within a 3-mile radius. Meet with him quickly, convey the current situation, receive an answer regarding the estimated time of arrival of the support troops, and return here.”
“Understood.”
“And.”
The member, who was about to move immediately, stopped at Hugo’s voice, as if he had something left to say. Hugo looked at him and lowered his voice.
“Don’t tell them yet that traces of the two have been found. Let’s keep it between us for now.”
“Ah… yes.”
The member who heard the order seemed curious as to why he was adding those words, but there was no other word besides the answer. Afterwards, the member bowed to Hugo and headed straight for the exit.
Hugo, who was watching his back, turned to another member who was waiting next to him and asked.
“Is the cleanup almost done?”
“Not yet… Some were caught trying to escape, so we estimate that there are a few more who have already gotten away.”
The miners of the mining team, in handcuffs, were dragged out one by one by the members of the 1st Battalion and gradually filled the natural cave prison with Ice Bars.
Most of them walked in on their own two feet, but some were dragged in unconscious, as if they had fainted during the forceful suppression, and occasionally one or two were escorted in half-naked, saying that their clothes had disappeared.
Even at a glance, there were a lot of them, but Hugo frowned, showing signs of fatigue, at the member’s words that there were more who had escaped, and glared at those imprisoned.
As the cold gaze reached them, the workers who had been gathering and murmuring instantly became quiet and huddled together in the corner.
Next to Hugo’s legs, a captured outsider was quietly kneeling, bound with handcuffs and ropes, looking at the workers with a face like a dead corpse. He was excellently performing the role of a good example of how to listen well.
Watching the endless stream of people being captured, Hugo pressed his temples. He should be focusing only on finding the two who had disappeared, but the work kept increasing with the arrest of the organized illegal mining team, and his head throbbed.
Not long after the Central Branch subjugation force entered the peninsula, Dellua, who was leading the rear ranks, had reported that an unidentified person seemed to be following the line.
Even before that, he had occasionally heard news from the Southern Branch’s messengers that illegal intruders were being arrested.
However, at the time, Hugo had to worry about Leonardo, who he thought might run off anywhere since it was the beginning of the subjugation, and he had to keep Meterion in check, who kept bringing him up and trying to fall back to the rear, and he had to safely lead the line while fighting the demon beasts, so he didn’t have time to think deeply about Dellua’s unconfirmed speculative report.
But now he was slightly regretting having dismissed that report at the time.
“I should have cut off all the sprouts back then.”
The workers trembled as they heard his voice beyond the bars, muttering quietly as he looked at them.
As the space inside the prison became crowded with people, Hugo once again pulled out a pillar of ice and completely blocked the gap that the workers were lining up to enter.
Soon, new pillars soared up next to it, creating another prison to accommodate the continuously captured people.
It was already the fifth prison created in that way, so there was a severe shortage of time and manpower to arrest all of them with just the members of the 1st Battalion. Frustrated, Hugo swept back the hair that tickled his forehead and suddenly checked the watch on his wrist.
It was around midnight when they found the footprints of the two near the swamp. After searching the vicinity all night, they discovered a huge structure in the cave they arrived at, and they were able to find traces of the two having stayed there, but they couldn’t find the people themselves.
Eventually, after dawn, they changed the course of the search to arrest outsiders, and interrogated them on the premise that they might know about the movements of the two, but the outsider stated that he had not contacted them since the collapse, and then confessed the location of this huge and organized illegal group’s base.
The cleanup here, which he thought would be over quickly, had already exceeded two hours. He had called for support troops, but he didn’t know how long it would take for them to arrive here.
Moreover, even while he was tied up like this, he was anxious because he didn’t know what kind of judgment the two people he was looking for would make and how they would move, or what would happen to them.
“Battalion Commander.”
Hugo, who was lost in thought while looking at his watch, suddenly raised his head at the voice calling him. Then he saw Squad Leader 8 approaching him.
Squad Leader 8 glanced at the outsider kneeling next to him and then made eye contact with Hugo again and said.
“About the mineral with explosive properties that the guy mentioned. There are quite a few that are similar in appearance and size, so it took some time to examine them one by one. However, it was difficult to say that each one had the function of exploding.”
Hugo, who heard him, also glanced down at the outsider.
“So, the explosion that happened in the canyon was ultimately this guy’s solo attack, unrelated to the mineral?”
The outsider, who was listening to the two, flinched and hesitated to say something.
“No, that’s not…”
However, as Hugo and Squad Leader 8’s cold gazes fell on him, the outsider quickly closed his mouth again. Squad Leader 8 averted his gaze from the outsider and looked up at Hugo, answering.
“It is true that the mineral that the guy threw at that time caused an explosion. As a result of interrogating the managers among the other workers, this mining team was handling a mineral called ‘Etaid’, which is the medium for the explosion, and it is said that some people ran away with a small amount of the mineral due to internal strife a while ago.”
“Etaid?”
“Ah, yes. That mineral has only recently become known among the traders, so they call it that unofficially. The original owner of the mineral that the guy had also said that he was a worker who had escaped from here together, so it is certain that the mineral was somewhere in this hideout.”
“But there wasn’t any among the minerals you’ve examined so far.”
“That’s right.”
Hugo’s brow furrowed slightly. It would have been nice if Flynn, who knew minerals well, had been brought along, but he was currently elsewhere for a while to carry out the orders he had given.
“In my opinion, either the terrain around here is complicated and the members haven’t found it yet, or, judging from the traces of something being moved left on the dirt floor, some of the minerals, including Etaid, have already been taken away by some of the missing managers and they have escaped.”
“……”
“I had another manager create a list of items handled and compared it with the remaining minerals, and the valuable ones were mainly missing.”
“…What is the estimated time of escape for those missing managers?”
“Everyone was there until we checked the personnel last night, so it is estimated to be around dawn before you and we arrived, Battalion Commander.”
“Dawn…”
Hugo slowly repeated the word and slowly rubbed his chin and lips. It was a suspiciously close call.
This mining team seemed to have existed for quite some time. Judging from the internal structure divided into classes and the hideout that was not easily found, it was a group that had been created over at least several months. Moreover, the number of workers belonging to it was more than imagined, and the amount of minerals mined was also enormous.
Logically, in order for illegal intruders of this scale to live inside, they would need to periodically travel inside and outside the peninsula in order to procure food, replenish manpower, and export minerals.
But is it really possible that the Council has never caught a tail of them in the process?
Hugo’s cold eyes slowly scanned each of those imprisoned. The workers who met his eyes hurriedly turned away.
His gaze was meticulously examining the faces of the humans, and then suddenly stopped at a meaningless point.
‘Is there an informant?’