Chapter 157: Friend or Foe

It’s troublesome to torment them one by one, so I toss fist-sized Flames down each of their collars.

“Damn it, kill him!” “Hot, please stop!” “Stop! I didn’t do anything!” “I’ll definitely kill you! I’ll torture you until you cry and beg for your life!”

The pleasure killer guy is energetic, so I need to entertain him properly. I pull at the front of his pants and toss a Flame in to warm up his precious parts.

“Uwooooo, hoooot!”

“That’s quite an obscene way to move your hips. You’re not a dog in heat, so it’s embarrassing to move like that in public.”

Since these are Flames without magic power, I can make them almost endlessly. I present Flames to their stomachs and crotches one after another.

A dull thud sounded.

It’s troublesome, but since I don’t want to die, I break all their uninjured arms as well.

“If you obediently follow my orders, fine. Otherwise, I’ll torture you until you beg me to kill you—remember that well!”

It was a bluff. Tormenting one or two might have been manageable, but there were far too many of them, so I decided to be selective. I would concentrate on the man Appraisal had identified as a pleasure killer.

“You have Magic Pouches. Will you hand them over obediently, or will you try to resist?”

“You bastard, saying that after breaking both my arms.”

“Oh right. Sorry about that~”

I kicked the man over, searched around his waist, and pulled out his Magic Pouch. Blood was flowing freely, so I dabbed a little onto the registration plate and held it to his mouth.

“Here. Remove the user registration.”

“Lick it, brat.”

Along with his angry shout, spit flew at me.

“Pleasure killer old man, it seems you need some discipline.”

I toss a thumb-sized Flame into his mouth.

“Weeh, ah, hothothot” <Ptooey>

“Hmm, you’re the first to spit this out. You’ll want a bigger replacement, won’t you?”

Oh, he closed his mouth, but his crotch is wide open. As I place a fist-sized Flame on his crotch, I also place Flames on both his sides and left and right of his stomach.

He flailed his uninjured legs in delight, so I left him to play by himself and greeted the man beside him.

“Where’s your Magic Pouch?”

He only glared at me in silence. This one had some backbone too.

“Would you rather suffer through heat and pain before finally talking, or talk quickly—which is better?”

“Do what you want. No matter what happens to us, you and your family will die.”

“I see, then there’s no need for restraint.”

The pleasure killer man lets out a <Uwoooooo>

He startled me. I didn’t intend to let him die yet, so I jammed a middle-grade potion bottle into his mouth and forced him to drink about half.

Now then, the neighbor is a sadist with sadistic tastes, so I’ll arrange Flames to match his hobby.

“Stop! Please stop. It’s in the left pocket’s inner side!”

“You enjoy tormenting other people but don’t want to experience it yourself? Remove the user registration. You know what will happen if you hesitate.”

“Yeah, I know very well.”

I held the Magic Pouch to his mouth. He muttered the release phrase, then turned his face away with a contemptuous snort.

One pouch contained countless teeth of various sizes. Another was so full of claws that their shapes showed through the fabric, while a slightly larger pouch held dried fingers and ears.

Nausea overwhelmed me. I pulled out a bottle of liquor and drained it in one go, then drenched myself with Water. I vomited directly onto the man’s face, washed myself three more times, gargled, steadied myself, and densely arranged Flames over his crotch.

“Next! Where’s your Magic Pouch? Anyone who doesn’t hand it over quickly and cancel its user registration won’t be allowed to die easily!”

While I was vomiting and gargling, I kicked the laughing man in the side and shouted at him. He grimaced in pain and glared at me, so I placed Flames along both sides of his body and smiled at his neighbor.

“When this guy is nicely roasted, I’ll make him drink a potion and start roasting him from the beginning, so watch closely.”

“W-wait, I don’t know anything. I’m just an errand runner, please forgive me.”

“Is that so? If you’re just an errand boy, I have no use for you. Burn at the stake until you die.”

When I arrange Flames surrounding that man, he panicked and said “I’ll give it! I’ll give you my Magic Pouch, so please put out the fire. Please.”

His Magic Pouch contained assorted clothes, bags, shoes, and other belongings that the lower-ranking members had stripped from their victims. I decided to question the man carrying three coin purses.

“I recognized some of you from the Adventurers’ Guild, so you live in Lynas too. Who hired you? Better yet, what organization do you belong to? When several men appraise as kidnappers and human traffickers, there must be an organization and a base behind them.”

The man’s face changed color and he began to tremble, so my guess appeared correct. Abduction and human trafficking required an underground support network; one group couldn’t manage everything alone. They couldn’t conceal kidnapped people outside the city indefinitely, and a market limited to Lynas would be too small to remain profitable. They had to maintain connections with organizations in other cities and territories.

I was planning to beat the stubborn guy, but this is becoming serious. For now, I need to secure these guys without exposing them to public view and start interrogating them—but who should I rely on? I forgot to ask something important.

I addressed the groaning old man whose clothes had been burned. “Listen, you sadistic old bastard. Shall I burn you some more, or will you drink a potion to ease the pain and answer my questions honestly?” I shook a high-grade potion before his eyes.

“I’ll talk about anything, so please let me drink that. Please.”

“Tell me how you bring the people you abduct into the city. The names of your collaborators, and where you take them.”

“That’s…”

“Balkan, you know better. Don’t tell him anything unnecessary.”

“It seems you need a bit more punishment.”

I toss a Flame into the mouth of the guy trying to silence him and shut him up.

“Talk quickly. Depending on your attitude, I might feed you to goblins. Whether you want to survive as a criminal slave or die amidst all kinds of pain, I’ll at least let you choose that much.”

“I’ll talk. We get into the city because a collaborator, one of the security teams, looks the other way.”

“Hmm. And once you’re in the city, where do you go?”

“To the back of Corantie Street, the brothel [Garden of Flowers and Honey]. We lock them in the basement there. I don’t know what happens after that.”

“You said one security team—one unit?”

“Yes. The unit captain named Rainz takes money from Lord Heinz, who runs the brothel, and looks the other way.”

“Runs the brothel? Not the owner?”

“The surface owner is a pig called Moritz. Hey, I’ll tell you anything you want to know, and I’ll give you half my hidden treasure, so won’t you let me go?”

“There’s no guarantee you’re telling the truth, so we can negotiate after you tell me everything. As you guys said, me and my family would be exposed to danger, so I can’t make a sweet deal.”

“That’s why—if you report what I say to the lord and it checks out, the brothel’s property will go into the lord’s pocket. Then rewards will be as you wish. You could even become an official. I’ll help with that, if you’ll let me go.”

“Good thinking, but one security unit couldn’t make what you said possible. You’d need help from someone higher up.”

“You understand well. I’ll tell you that if you let me escape.”

“You don’t understand your position. After you tell me everything I want to know, I’ll decide whether to let you escape or not. If you don’t want to die or become a criminal slave, tell me everything you know.”

“All right. Not only the security unit—Count Arkwright is involved too. If you hand us over, you and your family will be imprisoned and die in the dungeon.”

“Hoo, Count alone? Continue.”

“That brat called Klein also gets allowance from Lord Heinz and gets to play there. I don’t know if you’re a dragonslayer, but do you think you can survive making an enemy of the lord?”

“I see, the Count and Klein. Then there should be more collaborators in the Count’s household—what about the butler?”

“Butler… of course the butler is a collaborator too.”

Good grief, he can mention Klein’s name, but it’s unnatural that the Count and butler’s names don’t come up. Plus, he doesn’t seem to know the heir’s name. The fact that Klein gets to play at the Garden of Flowers and Honey is a problem.

According to Mintz and Scott, the Count seemed upright and his heir appeared serious. What should I do? This had grown far beyond what I could handle alone, but Duke Barland was too far away to rely on immediately.

Should I negotiate directly with the Count and secretly appraise everyone? If Appraisal showed no involvement in human trafficking or murder, I would have to leave the matter to him. Still, Balkan’s account made it clear that Chancellor Brighton and the kingdom would probably need to become involved.

For the moment, I gagged everyone and packed them into a compact dust-filled [Dome!]. Holding fifteen men inside magic was exhausting, but I had no time to rest. I filled the dome with enough mana to keep it from disappearing for quite a while.

Returning home once, I call Ted and order him to absolutely not let any visitors into the house, and if Mom and the others return, not to let them leave the house.

“You expect me to tell Madam and Master that? What reason should I give?”

“I had a run-in with some underground business people, and it might even connect to the Count.”

“The Count? It’s hard to imagine that stiff man connected to underground business.”

“I’m going to check that now, so please.”

I climbed out through the attic window, flew to Count Arkwright’s mansion, landed outside the service gate, and told the guards that I wished to see the Count.