"Mmph! Mmmmmmph!"
In a dim, empty house, a delinquent-looking man in his twenties, covered in scars and tattoos, sat tied to a chair. His mouth was gagged, and his hands were bound. Though he couldn’t speak, his eyes were wide with fury, and he kicked his legs wildly against the floor.
Meirin stood before him with her arms crossed. She had been trying to be patient, her eyes closed, but she finally couldn’t stand it anymore and snapped, "Ugh, you’re so loud! Just stay still!"
Despite her yelling, the man’s struggles only grew more intense.
"Over here!"
Just as the atmosphere was about to turn nasty, Kamibarez arrived with Simon. Meirin turned around. "You’re here?"
"What’s going on? Who is this?" Simon asked.
Meirin began to explain. She had been diligently going around the village asking the residents about the Saintess Candidate, ‘Sasha,’ but most of them had completely ignored her, either insisting they didn’t know or just walking away. Except for one person.
"What? Why are you looking for that kid? Who are you?" a man had suddenly demanded, his expression hardening.
When Meirin gave no answer, the man pulled a dagger from his coat and lunged. Assuming he could easily overpower her, he found himself subdued in seconds, now bound securely to a chair.
’Is he connected to the people who took Sasha?’ Simon wondered. It seemed Meirin had pulled off something impressive. A satisfied smile touched his lips as he approached the captive.
"B-Be careful, Simon!" Meirin cautioned.
"It’s fine." He calmly untied the cloth gagging the man’s mouth.
"You son of a—!"
A torrent of curses erupted. "How dare you damned brats! Do you know who I am? I’ll suck your eyeballs right out of their sockets—"
"And who might you be?" Simon interjected.
The question was so brazen and delivered with such natural curiosity that the man, who had nearly blurted out an answer, clamped his mouth shut, his expression hardening.
"Like I’d tell you!"
Simon stared at him for a moment before turning to the small crowd of townspeople that had gathered, their curiosity piqued by the commotion.
"Excuse me!" Simon called, leaving the captive and striding toward them. The onlookers flinched and began to walk away as if fleeing, but Simon quickly matched their pace.
"Do you know who that man is?" he asked, falling into step beside them. They ignored him. He immediately changed his approach. "We’re looking for a child named Sasha. If you know anything at all..."
"Sasha?" one of the residents repeated, his expression souring. "That monster? Who cares if she disappeared."
’A monster.’ The word was brutally blunt. Simon filed away the townspeople’s perception of Sasha and pressed on.
"Do you know why she disappeared?"
"Look, why do you keep bothering us? Who are you, anyway?"
So they were turning the questions back on him. It would be a problem if word got out that Kizen was here. This was a neutral zone, beyond Kizen’s jurisdiction, which meant he couldn’t exercise any official investigative authority.
[Bwahahaha! It seems you’ve gotten yourself into a troublesome situation, boy,] Pier’s voice echoed in his mind.
’In times like this, I’ll just use the adult method Dick taught me.’
[The adult method?]
Simon rummaged through his pocket.
"Oh, look what I found." He opened his palm, revealing a single gold coin.
The adults reacted instantly to the universal language of currency. Seeing their eyes widen with greed, Simon smiled inwardly. As an aside, the Dark Alliance’s silver and gold were accepted even in the neutral zone.
"Just tell me about that man," Simon said, producing another gold coin.
At that, one of the men glanced around nervously before leaning in to whisper, "Don’t tell anyone you heard this from me. He’s a gangster. From a pretty big gang around here."
"Aha. What gang?"
"They’re called the Sentinel Gang. They’re large enough to have their own combat unit of necromancers who’ve opened their Cores. Our town is part of their territory."
Simon added a third coin to the two in his palm.
"So, the gang called the Sentinels took Sasha. Is it safe to assume that? I won’t ask for anything else. If you agree, just nod."
The man nodded, his face stiff. Simon gladly paid them the three gold coins and returned to where the gangster was being held.
"How did it go?" Meirin asked. The gangster must have said something else to provoke her, as she was now holding him up by the collar.
"No idea," Simon lied smoothly. "They wouldn’t tell me a thing."
The gangster chuckled darkly. "Of course! This territory belongs to us, so the residents are on our side! If you understand that..."
"Oh, you just said this is your territory, right?" Simon cut in nonchalantly. "Thanks for confirming it yourself. There may be many gangs, but everyone knows the Sentinel faction has this area on lockdown."
The gangster’s expression froze.
"Now, then," Simon continued, his voice calm. "Will you tell me why the Sentinel Gang took Sasha, and where?"
"I don’t know!"
"You bastard! I oughta... Are you going to talk or not?" Unable to watch any longer, Meirin jumped in, and the two began to bicker again.
Simon casually took a step back and glanced over his shoulder, spotting Dick heading their way. He held up his palm in a gesture for him to stay back, then sent a series of signals with his eyes and hands. Having been inseparable for their entire time at Kizen, Dick immediately caught his meaning. He gave a thumbs-up as if to say, ‘leave it to me,’ then vanished.
A moment later, he reappeared.
"Heh heh, my apologies for being late," Dick croaked, disguised as an old man wrapped in strange rags.
’He doesn’t look like he’s in disguise, he looks like a real old man,’ Simon thought, impressed. Dick was wearing a wrinkled Bio-Mask that, while still showing his features, made him look decades older. The tattered rags and the collection of skulls hanging from his body were a far cry from the smart, trendy image of a modern elite necromancer. He looked like something out of an ancient grimoire.
"What’s with this old geezer...!" the gangster spat.
Dick suddenly stepped forward, grabbed the gangster’s eyelids, and pried them open.
"Ughh." The man, momentarily overwhelmed, fell silent.
"What were you planning to do?" Dick rasped. At his cue, Simon played along.
"He won’t talk."
The man’s body twitched as if he were having a seizure.
"You brought a torturer! But it’s no use! No matter what kind of torture you put me through...!"
"Silence!" Dick shrieked, his voice cracking. "Do not insult me. Torture is a very low-class method." Realistically mimicking an old man’s voice, he picked up a pair of scissors.
Without a hint of hesitation, he snipped off the man’s bangs. At the chilling sound of steel, the gangster’s expression grew increasingly rigid. Next, Dick pulled a blood potion from his Subspace, dipped his fingertip in it, and began to smear it across the man’s forehead.
"Do you like it?" Dick asked, pointing to the window.
In his reflection, the gangster saw a dotted line drawn in blood across his forehead. It was a target. A shiver ran down his spine, and his body trembled.
"Information extracted through torture can’t be trusted," Dick continued, pulling a scalpel from a case. "The most reliable method is to split open the skull and examine the brain directly."
The gangster’s eyes widened in horror.
Dick’s performance was terrifyingly convincing, so much so that even Meirin and Kamibarez watched with wide, flustered eyes. He then produced a long needle and began to push it into the man’s forehead. As the needle sank more than halfway into his head, the gangster, now genuinely terrified, began to whimper and scream.
"Y-you crazy bastards! You think you’ll get away with this in a neutral zone?"
"Don’t you worry," Dick cooed. "After I take out your brain, your body will be fed to the wild dogs." He brought the scalpel to the man’s forehead. Blood trickled down, obscuring his vision in a wash of red.
Unable to withstand the primal fear, the man finally broke.
"I’ll talk! I’ll talk!!"
But Dick didn’t stop, instead drawing a long, shallow cut with the scalpel.
"Please! I’ll tell you anything I know! Just stop him!!"
At last, Simon grabbed Dick’s hand.
"Let’s hear him out first, then we can decide."
The gangster spilled everything. His gang, the Sentinels, had received a lucrative request to kidnap Sasha. As a low-level grunt, he didn’t know the client’s identity, but he knew the client was aware of Sasha’s address and that the town was under the Sentinels’ influence. Their destination was the Haldun Mountains.
"I suppose there’s no need to open his skull, then," Simon said, straightening up. "It would be best for you to keep quiet about us. Of course, if your gang finds out you leaked their information, they’ll probably try to kill you themselves."
The gangster, tears and snot streaming down his face, nodded frantically.
The four of them left the building. Dick let out a loud ‘phew!’ as he peeled off the Bio-Mask.
"Ahaha! Wasn’t my acting amazing?"
Simon patted Dick’s head approvingly. Meirin and Kamibarez, however, kept a slight distance from him as they walked.
"Hey, commoner. Don’t talk to me for the rest of the day. You give me the creeps," Meirin muttered.
"...Dick, you’re scary," Kamibarez added quietly.
"Hey, it was just an act!" Dick protested, looking wronged as he stuffed the rags into his Subspace.
Just then, Seiwyr appeared before them as if he had dropped from the sky.
"H-how did it go?!" His voice was laced with an almost desperate anxiety.
"What about the priests?" Simon asked in return.
"When I threatened them, they all scattered and fled. It seems they didn’t have Sasha."
"It was just as you said, Agent Seiwyr!" Dick suddenly interjected. "At first, I was puzzled when you told us to investigate the residents instead of chasing the priests, but you were right! It wasn’t the priests who kidnapped her; it was a gang! You saw through it all, didn’t you?"
Seiwyr, momentarily stunned, quickly flashed a confident smile and swept his bangs back.
"Of course! I suspected as much from the very beginning."
"As expected!!"
While the two of them hit it off, Simon let out a dry, silent laugh. ‘Well, those priests were probably fakes, after all.’ It made sense; the signs of the divine explosion and the shattered ground in the alley had vanished without a trace.
"Well then!" Seiwyr announced. "Now we just need to chase the gang that took Sasha. What should we do?"
At his words, Meirin shot him a look of disbelief.
"Isn’t that something you, the agent, should be telling us?"
"Ha, haha! W-well, if I just give you the answer, it wouldn’t be proper training. Now, put your heads together and think! What would be the best way for us to proceed!" He was smiling, but the corners of his mouth twitched. It felt like he was silently screaming, ‘Hurry up and think of something, you guys!’
Simon let out a small sigh.
"I got a map from the gangster we captured." He unfolded it and pointed to a section with his finger. "The gang wouldn’t have the funds or the technical skill for a teleportation magic circle. They must have taken a carriage to get up the mountain. Their destination is the Haldun Mountains, which I’m told is a place with nothing but the mountain itself. The gang and the client will probably make the exchange for Sasha there. And those clients are likely—"
"People from Efnel, you mean?" Meirin finished.
Simon nodded. With their intelligence network, they probably already knew Kizen was on the move. So they hired mercenaries to secure Sasha first, intending to trade her for the payment in the Haldun Mountains.
"The best course of action would be to get teleportation support, go to the Haldun Mountains, crush the gang, and rescue Sasha," Simon concluded, staring intently at Seiwyr.
Seiwyr hurriedly waved his hands in denial.
"As I said before, teleportation is difficult. There’s a risk the coordinates could be exposed to Efnel, and also..."
He launched into a passionate excuse, but it was highly likely he simply didn’t have the authority. Even if he did, a teleportation magic circle would be a considerable burden for an organization like Vengeance. It was a luxury only Kizen or the ridiculously wealthy Vanilla and Ivory Tower could afford.
Simon waited, but Seiwyr fell silent.
Now seeming to grasp the situation, suspicion crept into Meirin’s and Kamibarez’s eyes as they watched him.
"Then there’s another way," Simon said, pretending not to notice as he pointed to the river on the map. "We can go up this river and cut them off. The gang probably hasn’t started climbing the mountain yet."
"Go by river?" Seiwyr stammered. "A b-boat... where would we get a boat..."
Simon’s gaze shifted to Dick, who grinned.
"I’d better go check the boat’s mana engine!"

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