novelraw Chapter 163 : Chapter 163
Chapter 163 : Chapter 163
Chapter 163 : What Was He Hiding?
“Geron confessed.”
The next morning, Evan arrived and delivered the unexpected news.
“Already? I thought you were waiting for the Duke’s permission?”
“His Excellency made the decision last night, and the interrogation began immediately in the presence of the grand prince. And after an all-night questioning, we obtained a confession.”
Obtained a confession.
Why did that expression sound so brutal?
“The result?”
“Come and hear it for yourself, punk. Wasn’t that why you stayed here?”
“…I will.”
“And you, are you going to keep talking like that until the end?”
“If you show me some courtesy first.”
“Hah… You… no, never mind. Follow me.”
Evan glared at me once more, gritting his teeth, then turned as if to say ‘just you wait’.
I gave Rauel a look and immediately followed him.
* * *
“Ian, Evelyn, behind them, the Regner family… Ian, Evelyn, behind them, the Regner family… Ian, Evelyn, behind them…”
The eyes of Geron Aslan, imprisoned in the underground dungeon, were completely gone.
Tied up, drooling, and repeating the same words over and over, his appearance was nothing short of grotesque.
“…Can’t he say anything else?”
The guard, who flinched at my question, looked at Evan. The moment Evan nodded, he cautiously opened his mouth.
“You may not know this, but the drug known as truth serum is not a panacea. Before administering the drug, the questions must be imprinted through some light torture, and after that…”
“Briefly.”
Flinching again at Evan’s word, the guard immediately got to the point.
“We barely managed to elicit even that response.”
That statement sounded suspicious to me.
‘No way?’
When I glanced back, Rauel, whose eyes met mine, gave a bitter smile and said.
“It's not an easy task to adjust the drug to the interrogatee's condition. Well, if it were me, I would have drawn out a wider variety of answers.”
Indeed, when she had administered the truth serum to the Evil cultist, she had easily made him answer several questions.
However, seeing Evan’s eyebrows twitch, it seemed her words were not very welcome to him.
“You were the ace of the Daggers, right? I'm sure it would have been different if you had done it.”
“I would have gladly helped if you had told me beforehand.”
“How could we impose so much on a guest? Especially one who has turned her back on this family.”
Evan’s sharp gaze swept over Rauel, which was quite annoying.
And.
“But if it's an interrogation using truth serum, there are a few others who can do it better than me, right?”
“After your betrayal, there was a major inspection of the Daggers. It's different from the Daggers you knew.”
Evan’s subsequent reply also didn’t sit well with me.
‘Something’s fishy…’
Rauel, who tilted her head slightly with a blank expression, seemed to be thinking the same thing.
But no matter how hard I stared, Evan’s expression didn't waver.
Moreover.
“Ian, Evelyn, behind them, the Regner family…”
Geron’s repeated words, in his completely broken state, were real evidence.
For now, I had to focus on the reality before me.
“…What kind of family is the Regner family?”
“I don’t know the specifics. Only that they are a noble family located in the northern part of the empire.”
“That's all?”
“We’ll have to investigate further after this. But with just that, I believe our family has done its part. Is there anything else you want to confirm?”
At Evan’s irritable glare, I had no choice but to temporarily bury my suspicions.
“Well, that should be enough. The royal investigation team will supplement any missing parts.”
“Investigation team! What you should be doing right now is to testify to Aslan’s innocence via communication sphere and send the incoming investigation team back!”
“Isn't that for the royal family, for His Majesty the King, to decide? From what I know of him, he wouldn’t just take my word for it and turn the team back.”
“Then there was no reason for us to offer you such convenience in the first place!”
As Evan’s shout echoed resoundingly through the underground dungeon.
I picked my ear and grinned.
“There’s a difference between approaching an investigation positively and approaching it with the intention of finding fault, isn’t there? Why would someone who should know that difference isn’t so small act this way?”
“…This damn punk…”
The threatening sound of grinding teeth and cracking knuckles could be heard.
But I just chuckled and shrugged my shoulders.
At his seemingly more provocative behavior, Evan’s killing intent momentarily intensified.
But soon, that anger was contained within, disappearing in an instant.
“……Fine. In that case, testify properly about what you’ve confirmed yourself. Right now.”
Only Evan’s cold gaze revealed that his anger had not yet subsided.
‘He controls his momentum this easily. It seems he can handle mana too.’
I watched him, gauging his abilities again.
“Are you not going to move!?”
At his urging, I had no choice but to start walking again.
‘Sir Muno, what was that about?’
‘Geron earlier, something feels off.’
‘I think so too.’
‘You too?’
‘It feels like they deliberately broke Geron.’
‘Heh, these bastards.’
‘Should I check?’
‘Can you do it?’
‘If you can buy me some time.’
A conversation held only through glances and pre-arranged hand signals with Rauel as we left the prison.
I gave a light nod and opened my mouth as if I had forgotten something.
“Ah, Rauel. There’s something I left at the lodging. You know what it is, right?”
“Ah… Yes? Yes, I know.”
“Can you bring it now?”
“No, a guest can’t just move around on their own.”
Evan, who was guiding the two to the communication room, immediately tried to stop them.
“You can just assign a separate guide, can’t you?”
At my words, he grimaced for a moment, then gestured with his chin to a subordinate knight.
Soon, Rauel disappeared down the corridor with that knight.
Still feeling uneasy, Evan even spat out a threatening remark.
“……If you try any funny business, you won't die easily.”
“Hey, is there any reason for me to do that right now?”
“You would know best.”
“My, my, you're being too harsh on someone who's going to give a favorable testimony.”
“……You’d better.”
* * *
“Don't follow me.”
“But I must…”
“I need to change my clothes too, are you going to watch?”
At Rauel’s deadpan remark, the knight wore a look of dismay.
But he had no other choice.
“You must come out immediately.”
“Of course.”
Click.
Rauel, who had smiled sweetly and closed the door, silently opened the window and jumped out.
She soon hid like a shadow among the large trees in the garden, avoiding the eyes of the patrolling soldiers.
She then quickly approached the underground dungeon, concealing herself in the shadows cast throughout the Aslan inner castle.
Even if someone had seen her, they would have doubted their eyes at her completely silent movements.
The movements ingrained in her body during her years living as a shadow of Aslan were truly uninhibited.
Even.
“This, is something really going to happen…”
“I know, right. The Commander and that Black Knight too…”
A small gap above the heads of the knights guarding the entrance to the underground dungeon.
Creak.
Through the hole in the iron bars, which was about the size of a child's head, her body squeezed through.
The Aslan knights did not notice her movements until she had passed.
Eventually, Rauel reached the depths of the underground dungeon.
“Ian, Evelyn, behind them, the Regner family…”
There was Geron, tied up and still muttering the same words.
“I definitely told you to kill him if he gets out.”
“You do it.”
“He’ll die anyway if we leave him like that. Why bother with the nagging feeling.”
“Right?”
“Hmm. Let's take a nap.”
“Yeah. We were up all night because of that guy.”
And the guards, sitting outside the bars, preparing for a nap.
Whoosh.
The moment the small darts shot from the tube in her mouth lodged into the necks of the three guards.
The bodies of the guards sitting in their chairs went limp.
Creak.
Squeezing her body through the bars again, Rauel stood before Geron.
‘There’s not much time.’
She hurriedly took out a small glass bottle from her pocket.
‘If I use this, this man will die, but.’
It was of no consequence.
Muno’s orders were far more important to her than the life of some trashy noble.
“Ian, Evel, Gurgle?”
Geron’s empty pupils widened as he swallowed the liquid that suddenly entered his mouth.
Watching his pupils slowly tremble, Rauel calmly asked.
“The connection between the Regner family and Aslan?”
A question she had suspected from the moment she first saw Geron in this state.
Geron’s eyes, which had regained a slight bit of light, stared at her blankly, then, as if possessed, he uttered an answer.
“Im-imperial trade, contract relationship, one of them.”
“Imperial trade?”
Rauel tilted her head.
More than three hundred years had already passed since the last war.
Officially, the Iron Kingdom was hostile to the Deus Empire, but the common people and nobles in the border regions were secretly trading with the empire, and the royal family was turning a blind eye to it.
Cities like Erundel, which they had recently visited, were the biggest beneficiaries, and Aslan was also openly involved in imperial trade.
Of course, usually, their counterparts would be merchant guilds under the empire’s nobles, not the nobles themselves.
‘But he said they made a direct contract with an imperial family.’
Still, this seemed weaker than the information she had hoped for.
Just as she thought it might have been a wasted effort.
An unexpected testimony came from Geron’s mouth.
“Regner family head, personally, recommended Ian……. Be-before Evelyn died, she confessed, Le-Lenok heard it too…”
Oh?
‘This is…’
It seemed to be enough.
The moment Rauel’s eyes lit up again, her body squeezed back through the iron bars as if it were being crumpled.
After she retrieved the small darts embedded in the guards’ necks and disappeared from the prison.
“…I, I am innocent, Lenok, that bastard did it too…”
Even as Geron’s eyes, which had regained a bit of light, momentarily went blank and his head slumped forward again.
Only the sound of the guards’ snores, slumped against their chairs, echoed in the underground dungeon.
Bang, bang, bang!
- Lady! If you delay any longer, we'll really break in!
- Get out of the way!
- I don't sense any presence, what are you doing? Just break it!
The moment Rauel returned to her room.
With a loud bang, the door was torn from its hinges.
Rauel, who was just pretending to take off her leather armor, and the three knights’ eyes met.
The moment the knights’ eyes were about to widen.
“Kiyaaaaaak!”
Rauel’s scream beat them to it, making them turn around abruptly.
“What, what are you doing!”
“N-no, there was no response…”
“You should have answered…”
“Get out! Get out now!”
“She’s so skinny, there’s nothing to see anyway…”
“What took so long…”
“What did you say!?”
“N-nothing!”
After a brief commotion, the knights hurriedly exited into the corridor.
Only after a moment did Rauel straighten her clothes and leave the room.
And.
“The item you were looking for…?”
“I got it. I was just late because I took the opportunity to change clothes.”
“Your clothes, they don’t seem to have changed… at all?”
“What do you mean, not changed? The gloss is different, and the pattern is different.”
…Does black leather clothing even have a pattern?
The knights, with puzzled expressions, dared not add anything further.
They had each heard similar things from their wives many times.
‘Women are all the same…’
‘Even a woman like her is the same…’
They could only force a smile and nod their heads.
And so, Rauel, following the knights again, came face to face with Evan and me, who were just coming out of Aslan’s communication room.
“Sir Muno, here.”
“Okay. Good work.”
I caught the money pouch Rauel threw and glanced inside.
The note contained within was enough to make me smile.