novelraw Chapter 43 : Trap (4)
Chapter 43 : Trap (4)
Trap (4)
Kidnapping? They opened their eyes wide at the incomprehensible words.
They couldn't even process the situation itself.
It was already hard enough to believe that this soldier, who they thought was dead, was alive—but now he had tied them up like this; did that make any sense?
On top of that, the one who knocked them out was definitely Silia.
That meant the deputy-commander of the fortress was involved.
"You... are you really Louis Seifert?"
"How are you even alive?!"
They were certain he had been murdered by officer Kadim on Alber Bisted's orders.
To make matters worse, it was simply absurd for such a young boy to survive in this hellish demon realm.
Louis's answer to them was no less preposterous.
"Is it a problem that I survived?"
If he lived, he lived—what's the issue?
Seeing Louis state this so nonchalantly left the three utterly speechless.
"Is that even an answer? Of course it's a problem you're alive!"
"Because you... you clearly..."
It wasn't just monsters that aimed for his life, but also the officer himself—so how on earth had he survived?
That question hung in the air.
"Is this what you find so hard to understand?"
Louis pulled out two letters and showed them to the three.
When he displayed the letters he had snatched from Kadim, their faces turned white with shock.
"Huh...?"
The paper was undeniably from the Bisted family, and the handwriting and seal were clearly those of the family head, Alber Bisted.
They saw at a glance that this was correspondence Kadim had received from Alber.
"No way."
"Then Kadim really..."
They remembered what Silia had told them right before they lost consciousness—had she said that Kadim was dead?
"I killed him. Myself."
When Louis repeated this, they shook their heads in denial.
"Don't lie. How could Kadim lose to a mere soldier like you...?"
"Then why do you think I have this letter?"
"...."
Kadim wouldn't have let this be taken from him unless he'd been defeated.
But from what they'd heard, Kadim was the top officer in the fortress after the deputy-commander.
Just that fact alone made it clear that Louis's abilities were far beyond their own.
"And I'm not a Seifert anymore. Why do you think that is?"
It had been quite some time since he'd lost his noble title. Louis questioned them about that fact.
"You guys must know, right? Why I'm no longer a noble."
"...."
The three couldn't open their mouths.
The cause was none other than Bisted—and they themselves, who had manipulated information on Bisted's orders.
"Young master! A monster's appeared!"
"The officers are calling for you!"
At that moment, Victor and Pram appeared at the entrance to the training hall and called for Louis.
"Think hard while I'm gone—about why I'm doing this to you."
Leaving those words, Louis left the training hall.
As soon as he disappeared, the three put their heads together and began to discuss.
Why was that brat still alive? Why was Kadim dead? And why were they being treated like this?
"This is a flagrant breach of contract. Don't they know what will happen if it's discovered they did this to us, support forces?"
They were the elite intelligence unit Bisted treasured.
If it came out they were mistreated, Bisted would pressure Paruzan Fortress.
"But if they just say we died fighting monsters, everything could be covered up. That's the kind of place this is."
There would be no evidence, no witnesses.
Even if the soldiers saw, those low-lifes wouldn't be admissible as witnesses.
"Even so, it can't be claimed there'd be no loss at all. We came here because Paruzan requested support forces."
It wasn't as if Bisted volunteered to support—they'd been forcibly summoned at Paruzan's request.
If valuable personnel were killed and only their heads sent back, even if there was no legal issue, Bisted could only harbor a grudge.
"But the family head sent us without hesitation. It wasn't a righteous move."
"So we're just supposed to sit here and wait? Even though we don't know what'll happen to us?"
"...."
The conversation was going nowhere.
Even if they wanted to do something, they couldn't free themselves from the chains binding their hands and feet.
"But why did they even call us? If they needed support, shouldn't they have used us properly?"
It was a stampede zone—calling for support was reasonable.
If the situation was urgent, they should have been put on the front lines, not tied up.
A horde of monsters had appeared not long ago—if that was the case, this treatment didn't make any sense from the start.
"Do they want the fortress to fall?"
"Idiots!"
Whatever the reason, binding them would be a mistake to regret.
Damn that Kelian, Louis Seifert whose survival was inexplicable—they would all end up weeping tears of blood for this.
Of course, they might be caught up and die as well... but if they didn't want that, they'd better be released immediately!
Roughly 24 hours passed, and the three were fast asleep, snoring.
Exhausted from waiting, someone approached and tapped them awake.
"I'm back, so get up."
"... Huh?"
When they opened their eyes again, Louis was standing in front of them.
"There were so many monsters, it took more than 20 hours, but I dealt with all of them."
"What?"
As soon as they woke, they were hit with shocking news.
If he'd fought monsters for over 20 hours, it must have been on a massive scale.
But to have dealt with all of them? Was everything all right up above?
Moreover, Louis looked completely fine, with not a scratch—strange for someone who'd just returned from an intense battle.
"Are you lying?"
"Believe what you want. Anyway, do you know what this is?"
Behind Louis, enormous bones were piled up—he'd brought them in while they slept.
The huge, weighty bones were obviously from a monster. Judging by the giant wings, it seemed to be a beast-bird-type.
"It's the corpse of a Gigant Vulture."
Gigant Vulture. They recognized the name from the monster encyclopedia—and were startled.
According to the encyclopedia, it was a higher-rank monster.
"H-Higher-rank monster!"
"So that's the corpse we were supposed to recover."
It hadn't been a lie that Paruzan had acquired the corpse of a higher-rank monster.
They let out a sigh of relief, but Louis continued.
"By the way, I'm the one who killed it."
"What ridiculous nonsense!"
"Believe it or not, it's up to you. But—don't you guys want this?"
It wasn't that they wanted it—they absolutely needed it.
Their entire reason for coming on this assignment was to retrieve that corpse.
"But... isn't the corpse a bit strange?"
At that moment, Alpher frowned as he looked at the Gigant Vulture's remains.
"Why is there nothing left but bones?"
Now that he mentioned it, that was indeed odd. Even for a beast-bird, there were no feathers or skin anywhere.
The skin of higher-rank monsters was supposedly impossible to pierce for most people.
Its durability made it an ideal material for barriers or fortresses—and indispensable for making equipment.
It was tough enough to construct structures that even monsters' attacks couldn't bring down.
Plus, higher-rank monsters possessed special abilities. Studying their organs and every part could greatly advance magitech.
That's why just one corpse of a higher-rank monster was worth an unthinkable sum.
"How could there not be a single organ left?"
"Don't tell me it's a fake?"
As Tyr and Haif threatened him, Louis held out a bone.
"Does this look fake to you?"
Up close, the sight of the bone sent shivers down their spines.
Even though only bones remained, the potent magic power inside rippled across their skin.
"It—it's real."
Realizing it wasn't fake, Louis smiled cheerfully.
"I know you're supposed to recover this. But with only bones left, can you even use it?"
Everything but the bones, Louis had picked clean—like eating chicken. The fortress had lacked good supplies, and the bird reminded him of chicken from his previous world, so he'd absentmindedly eaten it.
"Of course we can use it! Even if it's just bones, the magic power is still there!"
"Then, let me ask one thing before I give it to you."
Louis narrowed his eyes at them.
"Don't you have anything you want to say to me?"
The three looked puzzled by the question.
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you ever think about why my family was destroyed?"
"So that's what you're on about?"
Alpher sneered proudly.
"Your family became a stepping stone for the Imperial Court and the Bisted family's rise. Be proud to have sacrificed yourself for that cause!"
At his words, Louis gripped one of the bones.
"So you don't want it?"
Then, he bit into the bone. With a cracking noise, Louis swallowed the bone down his throat.
"A-Are you crazy?!"
If a human ingested a monster's bodily parts, it would kill them. Especially monsters from the demon realm—whose aftereffects were even deadlier.
"Go on, die, you fool!"
Anyone could see Louis's actions amounted to suicide.
If he were truly human, blood would have rushed out as his body failed.
"The bone's surprisingly tasty. Maybe should've made broth from it."
But what was going on? Louis kept chewing the bones, seeming completely unaffected.
He started picking out other bones and eating them one by one.
Just like a child with candy, Louis savored each bite.
"What the— Why is he fine?"
"He's not dead."
"How is that possible?"
Despite eating something far more dangerous than ordinary poison, Louis was unscathed.
To him, it was simply food—and before long, only half the bones were left.
"H-Hey! Are you going to eat them all?"
"Stop already! Leave something for us to take back!"
Tyr and Haif shouted for him to stop, but Louis ignored them.
Seeing this, all three of them turned red with fury.
"Do you think we just slept for over 20 hours?!"
At that moment, Alpher slipped out of the chains binding his limbs.
While Louis was away, they had been gradually compressing their own bones.
Ordinary people would scream in pain from simply altering their bone shape, but as an intelligence unit, they had been taught to restructure their bones.
Still, there was a limit to what human bodies could do—it had to be done slowly, over a long period, to contract the body without pain.
They were so practiced, they could even do it while sleeping.
"Our bodies are more flexible than you think."
"It may take time, but it's possible for us to compress ourselves enough to slip these chains!"
If they were ever captured during a mission, they'd be interrogated.
Naturally, they were trained with an escape plan in mind.
Now it was just a matter of killing the enemy and escaping.
"You'll regret tying us up!"
The three grabbed their chains and charged at Louis, wielding them like weapons instead of swords.
Even though they weren't swords, as long as they gripped them tightly, they could imbue them with aura.
Thus, the chains transformed into deadly weapons capable of crushing steel.
"Huh?"
Three chains struck Louis's neck, shoulder, and head perfectly—yet he remained unscathed, and they instantly fell silent.
"Should I take this as a declaration of war?"
With a single swing of Louis's arm, all the chains shattered.
Before they could even react, Louis's fist slammed into their guts and sent them rolling across the floor.
"Kuheok!"
"Keck!"
"Ka-hack!"
Despite reinforcing their bodies with aura, these knights spat blood and collapsed from just a single punch.
"That's it."
Louis grabbed another bone and bit into it.
"I'll just finish them off."
Writhing in agony, the three stared in horror as more and more bone disappeared.
If they didn't at least get something back to Bisted, their family's prestige could never recover.
If this went on, Bisted would lose all standing.
It was, essentially, an issue that threatened the very existence of their house—so they desperately shouted.
"Please, stop eating!"
"Leave some, for god's sake!"
"Isn't that precious to you at all?!"
They didn't care how Louis could even eat that—it didn't matter.
They had to stop him, but their bodies wouldn't move due to the aftereffects.
"So, don't you have something you want to tell me?"
Louis paused in his eating and spoke.
"What was it you said earlier? That my parents would... burn and writhe in hell like logs, wasn't it?"
At those words, cold sweat dripped down the three as they swallowed nervously.
Their spy training helped them quickly grasp what Louis wanted to hear.
"We're really sorry! About your parents... and your family. We apologize!"
"We were simply following orders."
"So please, just—"
SMASH! CRACK! CRUNCH!–
Louis stomped on something—three sinister cracks rang out.
At the same time, the three screamed as their hand bones were broken.
Taking their cries as music to his ears, Louis kept chewing the monster bones like candy and said,
"Now, answer my questions carefully from here on."