Chapter 1232: Identities and Objectives

The battle ended in an instant.

Everyone was immobilized from Fran’s thunder magic or Eiworth’s ice magic. I think they got hit by some sort of paralyzing poison too.

I couldn’t tell when Eiworth used the poison, or whether it was from magic or some potion. We can’t let our guard down around this old man.

「I’ll tie them up.」

「And I shall proceed with the interrogation, first with this man.」

「Got it.」

Eiworth lifted up one of the lower-ranked men with a strength unbefitting his age.

「Kukuku. Might as well test the new potion during the interrogation. We have plenty of replacements in case of lethal accidents.」

Eiworth chuckled with a suggestive grin, looking over the fallen men on the ground. They probably realized what would happen to them from the old man’s eyes.

The men began trembling in fear, yet they couldn’t even scream because they were still paralyzed. Even if the paralysis wore off, their frozen legs would prevent any chance of escape.

Meanwhile, I sensed something from the back of the village. The hidden second squad suddenly moved into action.

They must have sensed our fight and decided to take aggressive action. There was an explosion accompanied by the sound of something falling apart.

Those bastards must have broken down the village wall!

Were they planning to enter the village and take hostages or something?

However, the multiple presences suddenly stopped shortly after approaching the village.

I heard a few repeated banging sounds, and the intruders went silent. There was some dark-aspected mana and evil energy, so Urushi and Bisdra must have taken the initiative to eliminate them.

We headed to the scene and found exactly what we expected.

「Kwooooo!」

「Woof woof!」

「Gyaaaa!」

「D-Damn baby dragon!」

Outside the collapsed wall, Bisdra and Urushi were poking the fallen men with their noses.

「You’re so cool, Bisdra!」

「Urushi, you’re the best!」

「Whoa!」

「Kwooooo!」

「Woof woof!」

Bisdra posed above the unconscious men and let out a cute roar. Meanwhile, Urushi put his foot on the men and let out a victorious howl.

「Let’s tie them up too.」

『Agreed.』

I wonder how the info about Bisdra leaked. These kinds of guys might show up again if we don’t find the source.

『Unfortunately, we’ll have to rely on Eiworth for that.』

（Nn. Can I watch his interrogation?）

『No way!』

Eiworth’s interrogations is just gonna be a brutal torture session! I can’t have that influencing my little Fran’s education!

As expected, Eiworth’s interrogation turned out to be very intense. The subjects were screaming maniacally and leaking oodles of bodily fluids that shouldn’t come out.

Eiworth did this inside the village warehouse at first, but Sibylla sent him a wave of complaints. Even though the sound of the interrogation was blocked, the villagers were plenty frightened by the condition of the men brought out afterwards. Thus, he was forced to move the interrogations outside the village.

Fran created an underground chamber with earth magic and set up a soundproof barrier there. With that, the perfect interrogation room was complete.

Eiworth conducted a thorough interrogation of several men, and managed to obtain several interesting tidbits.

「I’m afraid we lost a few of our sources, but you can leave the clean-up to me.」

The geezer probably killed them intentionally because he wanted some corpses from experiments, didn’t he? Well, whatever. As long as he got what we needed.

「First. These guys aren’t adventurers from Kranzel, as I suspected.」

「Then where are they from?」

「The smaller nations in the south. It seems they were a mercenary group specializing in hunting thieves. Though it was all a sham to begin with.」

「What do you mean?」

「The thieves were actually their comrades. They prepare some “thief corpses” from the slums, pretend to defeat the thieves, then report that the rest escaped.」

I see. So the thieves and the mercenaries hunting them were actually a team. After pretending to drive the thieves away, they simply join up and move on to the next target.

It would be too suspicious if the thieves suffered zero losses, so they required some fake corpses from a separate source.

Life is cheap in this world, so you can easily get those from slaves or slum dwellers if necessary.

Apparently, this unscrupulous mercenary brigade received a visit from a certain individual at their base at an inn.

「A certain individual?」

「Indeed. This individual covered their body completely in a room, and even used a magical device to change their voice. As a result, their gender and race are unknown.」

That’s incredibly suspicious. The mercenaries first tried to drive the sketchy robed figure away, but they threatened to expose the brigade’s misdeeds unless the request was completed.

The mercenaries couldn’t simply silence the robed figure, as any of his or her friends would simply spread the story later. In the end, they had no choice but to accept the job.

「The request was to visit a certain village in Kranzel. There, they would capture a dragon.」

「Mrgh. So they know about Bisdra.」

「Indeed. There are a select few who have entry to the village. If we really wanted to keep it a secret, we would have had to either completely isolate the dragon or silence anyone who came into contact.」

But if foreign mercenaries were involved, maybe the leak of information happened through merchants? It seems unlikely that stories the adventurers mentioned at the tavern would spread to other countries so quickly.

「They were told that they could do whatever they pleased with the dragon after they slew it.」

「So Bisdra’s materials weren’t the goal?」

「It appears so. They emphasized repeatedly that the killing part was important.」

So the objective was to kill Bisdra, rather than obtain his materials or capture him for some experiment? But why?

「Moreover, it seems their target wasn’t simply the little dragon.」

「What’s the other?」

The Red Knights, maybe? The mercenaries knew that people from Raydoss lived in the village, so Sibylla and her knights were likely targets.

However, the other target turned out to be someone unexpected.

「They were ordered to attack you.」

「…? Me?」

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