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Bermuda Chapter 13
🕑 Added 2024-04-07 13:21:55 +0000 UTCChapter 13
Hugo's brows furrowed slightly, and Ardel hurriedly spoke, fearing that another ice spear might come flying at him.
"There was indeed a mage who set fire to the land where the monster was buried, but this person is not him."
"Then who is it?"
"...He claims to be Leonardo Blaine, but he's a different person. I don't know his real name either."
At Ardel's words, Hugo asked back as if he didn't understand.
"He says he's Leonardo Blaine, but he's a different person?"
"He claims to be that person, but he was completely different from the Leonardo Blaine I know."
In an instant, Hugo's eyes flashed sharply.
"The Leonardo Blaine you know? Then, have you actually seen the real Leonardo Blaine?"
"Yes. I was briefly in the military... and I saw him then. Isn't the person in this photo Leonardo Blaine? But the person who set the mountain on fire is not him. It's a different person claiming to be Leonardo Blaine."
"..."
Hugo felt like he had been hit on the head. The methods were sloppy for Leonardo Blaine, who had always cunningly escaped, and his mana was ridiculously weak for his renowned reputation. It was strange, and it turned out to be a different guy.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought that the whereabouts of the guy he had been chasing could be false rumors. However, when the situation he had been worried about became a reality, it was utterly disappointing.
There were always false rumors mixed in with the pursuit of the guy. And when he thought that what he had been chasing was one of those, Hugo felt a sense of intense fatigue.
Sighing softly, he rubbed the area around his eyebrows and said to Ardel, "So, the fire mage you partnered with is someone impersonating Leonardo Blaine."
"From what I've seen... yes, that's right."
"Does the Count know about this?"
In the Count's mansion, there was a sense of mana that the fire mage was likely to possess. That's why he had assumed that the guy was hiding inside the mansion. He wondered if there was any need to go to such lengths for a fake, not the real Leonardo Blaine.
"...No. He doesn't know."
"He doesn't know? Aren't you the Count's subordinate? Why didn't you tell him?"
"That's... probably even if I had told him, there would have been nothing he could do right away. He's usually arrogant and does as he pleases, so it was already a difficult situation to control."
"..."
"And the Count is a very timid person. Even if he had known that he was a fake, once he signed the contract, the Count wouldn't have been able to take any significant action. I thought it wasn't good to needlessly create a scab and make him worry about all sorts of things."
"Such a timid person readily participated in this illegal act. Using his own territory as a storage for monster corpses."
When Hugo poked at the contradiction, Ardel had nothing to say. He had been involved in illegal activities under the Count's orders, but he seemed to have some affection for his employer and was somewhat worried about the Count.
"Then, who informed the Count that an outsider was looking for 'Leonardo Blaine'? According to you, the guy the Count knows and the person in the photo I showed are different. But the Count knew the exact name of the person I was looking for."
"Ah... that was me who told him."
"You? ...You must have seen this for the first time now. Explain in detail what happened."
"Yes."
Ardel took a small deep breath and continued, "As I was tailing you and your group under the Count's orders, I saw you interrogating the villagers. I approached the villager and asked what they had talked about. Although I didn't see the photo directly... when the villager said, 'They were looking for a young man with blond hair and golden eyes,' I had a hunch that you were looking for the 'real' Leonardo Blaine."
"You thought we had heard the rumors about the fake and came looking for the real one."
"That's right. So I didn't tell the Count that he was a fake, but I did inform him that outsiders were looking for Leonardo Blaine, so it would be best to be careful. Just in case that fake got caught, everything could be exposed."
"You told the Count...."
The Count had said he heard the story from the grand master of the merchant group, and Ardel was saying that he had told him.
It was impossible to judge whether the Count was lying or if he had really heard something from the grand master of the Delberg merchant group.
However, with this, the suspicion that the two low-ranking members of the Delberg merchant group, whom they had talked to at the tavern, might have known Leonardo Blaine's face but pretended not to and informed the grand master of the merchant group, was closer to being concluded as untrue.
In fact, at this point, it might not matter who delivered that information, but for some reason, Hugo felt that this process left him quite unsettled.
It could be someone like Ardel Linter who happened to see Leonardo Blaine's real appearance, but on the other hand, it could also be someone trying to hide him in the middle.
Hugo got up from his seat, opened the door of the interrogation room, and came out. As soon as he came out, the communication device he was carrying rang.
Inside the interrogation room, mana radio waves couldn't pass through, so it hadn't rung the whole time, but now it seemed to be ringing. The caller was Flynn.
"What is it?"
-Commander, where are you now?'
In contrast to Flynn's voice, which sounded urgent as if he was very excited, Hugo answered calmly.
"I'm in the interrogation room at the Council's Northern Branch headquarters."
-Co, Commander, there's something I need to tell you first!
"What is it?"
-The guy with the fire mana at the Count's mansion, it's not Leonardo Blaine!"
"Yes, I know."
-You knew?
"I interrogated the water mage who worked under the Count. You found out well too."
-Ah... I see. Oh, and one more thing! Also, the monsters all seem to be buried in the ground!
As Flynn's voice rang out loud enough to burst his eardrums, Hugo moved the communication device slightly away from his ear. Then, he spoke to Flynn, who had worked hard on the investigation, with a hint of praise.
"Yes, well done, Flynn. Now we have to do our job, right?"
***
Clang!
All the entrances, gates, and teleport zones leading into the Frost territory were blocked by iron bars. In front of them, numerous members of the Council stood guard, maintaining a strict vigilance to prevent anyone from coming or going. This was a method commonly used by the Council when carrying out large-scale suppression operations.
Currently, inside the Frost territory, there were battalion-level personnel dispatched from the Council's northern branch. Not only that, but temporary tents were set up throughout the territory to be used as temporary investigation headquarters, and the movements of the residents were also being controlled.
Normally, before carrying out such an operation to surround an entire territory, the approval of the lord was required. However, as the lord himself, Count Servia, was deemed to have been involved in illegal activities, the Council used its authority to unexpectedly block all the exits leading outside.
As a result, the civilians were greatly startled by the sudden arrival of the Council's troops.
"Currently, the corpses of illegally distributed monsters are buried near the Frost territory! For a swift resolution, we ask for your cooperation even if it causes some inconvenience! I repeat, currently in the Frost territory..."
As a member of the Council announced the current situation throughout the territory using a massive voice amplifier powered by mana, the sound echoed throughout the Frost territory. Upon hearing this, the residents of the territory gathered in small groups to express their anxiety.
"What, monster corpses? Is that really true?"
"Ah, see, I told you I was right!"
"Then we've been walking on land where monsters are buried!? Could there be any problems?"
The bearded man and the thin, timid-looking man who had been drinking with Hugo and Flynn the night before were also startled upon hearing the sound.
Suddenly, people from the Council had stormed into the entire village, saying that no one could leave until the investigation was over. It began to sink in that the rumors about the discovery of monster corpses were indeed true.
Even the people here were tense, as this was the first time such a thing had happened in the remote area. At that moment, someone approached them and spoke.
"Don't worry. Just because there are monster corpses nearby doesn't mean it will harm your body."
"...And you are?"
The person who approached with a smile was Flynn. The men looked him up and down with dazed eyes.
Unlike the appearance they had seen the night before, Flynn was wearing a white uniform with a badge embroidered in gold and deep blue. As he walked, the silver epaulets on his shoulders sparkled in the light, and his white cloak fluttered. It was the uniform of the Council.
"Hello, let me properly introduce myself now. I'm Flynn Levernil, affiliated with the Central Branch of the Council."
"C-Council??"
The two men's eyes widened as if they might pop out. Flynn had black hair and silvery green eyes, and his eye color was considered unusual in this region, so the men clearly remembered him.
The person standing before them was definitely the one who had introduced himself as a private investigator while drinking with them.
As they stared at him with disbelieving eyes, Flynn scratched the back of his head, looking a bit embarrassed by their gaze.
"I was in the middle of an undercover investigation, so I couldn't tell you my real identity due to the mission. But don't worry, we've pretty much figured out everything about the monster corpses now. We, the Council, will take responsibility for the safety of the residents."
"To think that young Flynn... was a member of the Council, no, a lord of the Council..."
"Oh my, please don't call me a lord."
"Wait, if young Flynn is from the Council, then—"
The bearded man suddenly felt a chilling presence and slowly raised his head. He saw a man with an overwhelming aura walking towards them, wearing a uniform as white as snow and adorned with far more splendid badges than Flynn's on his solid chest.
His glossy dark blue hair and well-groomed eyebrows above his piercingly blue eyes exuded a cold and handsome atmosphere.
Even with the Council's uniform, his strong and sturdy body and broad shoulders decorated with epaulets made it clear at a glance that he was a very high-ranking individual.
As they had felt at the tavern before, seeing him again in broad daylight, fully dressed in his uniform, his presence was even more striking, combining a dangerous and noble aura that made it difficult to approach him. His appearance, with the fluttering white cloak as a backdrop, was so perfect that even men would gasp in admiration.
As Hugo strode over with his long legs, the men unconsciously took a step back. Glancing at their reaction, Hugo shifted his gaze to Flynn and spoke.
"Flynn, there's no time to slack off."
"Commander, slacking off? I was performing the official duty of the Council to reassure the residents."
Hugo looked at the men who were highly tense in front of him and thought they didn't seem particularly reassured. However, he quickly recalled the purpose of his visit and continued.
"Reassuring the residents is good, but you have a task to do."
"What task, Commander?"
"I will delegate some of the command authority to you. Gather all the members of the Delberg Merchant Group scattered throughout the territory. We plan to interrogate them one by one at the scene."
"Yes, understood!"
Responding to Hugo's words with a strong voice, Flynn immediately saluted and ran off somewhere. As he left without looking back, the men who were suddenly left alone in front of Hugo glanced around nervously.
Last night, they were drunk and didn't think much of it, but now they realized that this person was not someone they could easily approach.
As if sensing their discomfort, Hugo, who had been looking in the direction Flynn had run off to, finally shifted his gaze to the men and gave a brief nod. Then, as if he had no more business with them, he turned and headed somewhere.
Feeling an inexplicable pressure from him, the two men, who had been sticking close together without realizing it, suddenly looked at each other's faces in surprise and separated as if disgusted. Then, pretending as if nothing had happened, they brushed off their clothes and spoke.
"That gentleman was also from the Council... No wonder the atmosphere felt unusual."
"Young Flynn kept calling him Commander, so he must be a very high-ranking person, right? Judging by the epaulets on his shoulders, he seems to be at least a battalion commander or higher."
"...Battalion commander or higher, you say?"
The thin man pondered his cold demeanor and opened his mouth as if he had realized something.
"Could it be, the rumored Kazad of the Council?"
"..."
A chilling silence fell.
The two men, finding it difficult to shake off the feeling that the thought was correct, stared at the place where he had walked away, at a loss for words. Then, as if 'he' had heard their conversation despite being quite far away, he was gazing at them with very fierce and cold eyes.
The thin man, meeting those eyes, was startled as if he had misspoken and covered his mouth with his hand. He vaguely remembered hearing that the person behind that nickname greatly disliked that term.
Then, the member of the Council who had been giving them a chilling gaze disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye, for better or worse.
However, the men were unable to move for a while due to the cold air he had left behind.
