Volume 1 - CH 14.3

Act 1-14.3 : Cygnus’s Knight

「Exactly. Normally, we can’t get our hands on this kind of item. But, it’s a different story if there’s one living so close to us. For example, the one that attacked people from three years ago.」

「！」

Upon hearing Chiyuki’s words, Boven sprang up in surprise. His reaction to this kind of revelation was several times more turbulent than his surprise at the presence of the manticore’s poison; the severity of these two issues couldn’t even compare.

「No way, Chiyuki-sama! Do you mean the manticore of that time has survived? Even with such severe wounds? I mean, we thought we killed it since we never saw it again later…」

Boven shook his head as if he couldn’t believe such reality.

「Sure enough, there’s no information about a manticore appearing again in this area later. And yet, you can find manticore’s poison appearing frequently in the market, don’t you think that this is strange?」

The situation was rather peculiar. The frequency of the appearance of such poison was impossible in normal circumstances. The reason being that gathering the poison from a wild manticore’s excrement was only achievable under specific circumstances, which was that the beast itself and its poison were in their natural habitat. In other environments, such as in this country, the poison’s efficacy would not last as it would be purified as soon as rain falls.

The only way the poison could retain its efficacy in such an environment would be if they were still in the area, raised as a pet.

But, manticores are extremely dangerous demon beasts. Furthermore, they prefer human meat over other kinds of meat. They’re cunning and can use magic. Normally, it should be impossible for humans to tame them.

「So that means, someone hid the severely wounded manticore of that time.」

「Yes, I also arrived to that conclusion.」

Chiyuki and Boven were in agreement with each other’s reasonings.

Normally, it should be impossible for a human to tame a manticore. But, the manticore was a cunning demon beast. It would gladly cooperate with humans as long as their interests matched. It most likely cooperated with a good-for-nothing fellow to satiate to its man eating habit. It was a great way to feast on human flesh without attracting any unwanted attention, especially when it currently dwelled in a foreign country.

「Such a thing is… Oh well, about this matter, Chiyuki-sama…」

Chiyuki looked at Kyouka and Kaya upon hearing Boven’s words.

「Our discussion is unintentionally getting longer than what I originally intended. Lord Boven, Kyouka-san over here has an offer for you. You two should know each other already.」

When Chiyuki and the others had set on their journey to subjugate the Demon King, Kyouka Founded Midou company in the Holy Republic of Lenaria.

The company was built in accordance to Kaya’s business plans, Kyouka had started the company for Kaya since she was preoccupied at the time. It was a joint effort between Kyouka and Kaya with Kaya being the major stakeholder of the company.

However, what was initially intended as a small company grew bigger and bigger as the days went by, until it became the country’s largest and most successful company. Kaya henceforth became the wealthiest person in the country, Kyouka being not far behind as her aid.

The company dealt with various services, one of them being providing escorts for travelling cargos. The business was running very smoothly until a recent accident occured: a caravan escorted by Midou company was attacked by goblins on its way back to the Holy Republic of Lenaria.

This was not to say that caravans and Midou escorts had never suffered any attacks; however, this one was particularly serious as the cargo’s couriers suffered fatal wounds, resulting in their death. Naturally, the cargo’s escorts did their best to protect the cargo and managed to repel the goblins, but still, lives were lost.

Since the couriers had now passed away, the rest of the team were puzzled as to where they had to send the cargo now. Thus, they decided to take it back to the country and leave it to the higher ups to find the original owner.

The cargo, therefore, was sent to Kyouka and Kaya.

Kyouka and Kaya tried to find the source of the cargo. However, despite their attempt to find the original owner of the cargo, they failed to do so. Not having any other choice, they decided to deal with the issue by looking at the contents of the cargo and figuring out how to dispose of them. What they didn’t expect was for them to find a highly dangerous and rancid substance—the manticore’s poison.

These events happened five days ago. Chiyuki finished her explanation to Boven.

「Thanks to our stinky luck, the entire mansion was filled with its foul smell!」

""

Kyouka’s anger ignited whenever she recalled that time.

The poison that was excreted from a manticore’s abdomen smelled extremely putrid. Just opening the package was enough to fill the entire place with its smell.

Nevertheless, she had heard of the serious issue that occurred with that cargo, so they had no other option but to open the package since they didn’t know what was inside, and the result was a disaster.

（It was the same for me.）

After they had opened the package and were assaulted by its smell, Kyouka and Kaya had no idea what it was. So, they decided to get Chiyuki’s help and leave the investigation to her.

Chiyuki had a well established network, so, using her connection with the Magician’s Association, she managed to find out that the substance was the manticore’s poison.

Chiyuki recalled the horror she experienced during the examination process. She had stayed in the examination room for a long time and had to endure the reeking stench of the manticore’s poison; she truly felt like dying.

「I see now… But then, what about the cargo’s couriers, who were they? If even the Merchant’s Association didn’t know about them, then they might not be citizens of this country, but…」

Chiyuki stated as she glanced at Kaya.

「As Chiyuki said earlier, we had concluded that the original owner of that cargo might not be a citizen of this country. Thus we expanded our search range to the outer city, and this is something that we found out after the investigation. But, along with that, we found numerous cases of people mysteriously disappearing one after the other.」

Kaya reported the result of her investigation.

Truthfully speaking, doing this kind of search mission was Nao’s forte, but she was currently dispatched to deal with the Perdas.

Thus, this matter was handled by Kaya and her subordinates, which led them to find those many disappearing cases.

「Missing and disappearance cases? Impossible! I mean, this is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing?」

Chiyuki heaved a sigh seeing Boven’s reaction.

The public order inside of the rampart was left for the vigilantes and guard soldiers, while the outside of the rampart was left for the knights. This meant that knights were also in charge of protecting the outer city, which was located outside of the rampart.

But, since in general, countries had no cities outside of the rampart, the knights’ jobs were to only fight monsters. This, however, also included protecting the farmers who cultivated their lands outside of the rampart and anyone who passed the highway and main roads.

However, in the Holy Republic of Lenaria, things were different—an outer city existed. Yet, the Temple Knights stuck to the status quo of other countries and tended to overly focus on the monsters, completely neglecting the outer city and its people.

This was the reason why the manticore could remain hidden from the Temple Knights’ eyes.

Chiyuki was well aware that Boven didn’t cut corners when he did his job. But, his eyes were basically dead set on the monsters, completely overlooking the disputes amongst humans.

Thus, he didn’t even know about the crimes committed by the outer city’s people—there would always exist individuals who were as dangerous as monsters.

「Lord Boven. I know that it’s your duty to protect the people from monsters, but I think you have to spare some of your time and attention to the situation in the outer city too.」

After hearing Chiyuki’s words, Boven couldn’t speak for a while.

「Huhm… But, Chiyuki-sama, I hear that the Freedom Fighter association has been working together with the warrior groups to maintain the outer city’s public order. What were those people doing all this time?」

Chiyuki sent a glance to Kaya upon hearing Boven’s question.

「Boven-sama, this system is exactly the problem. During our investigation into the disappearance cases, a warrior group’s name always came out in every single case. Their group is called the Black Fang. The leader is a man called Gendor, his nickname is “Man-Eater”. This is the biggest warrior group in the outer city and they were nominated by the association to maintain the public order.」

「Gendor? I’ve heard about him before. He should be one of the Freedom Fighters who participated in the manticore subjugation three years ago.」

Boven nodded as soon as he heard Gendor’s name from Kaya.

They sometimes employed the Freedom Fighters when they felt that their manpower was lacking personnel.

As Chiyuki had guessed, the knights had employed Freedom Fighters for the manticore’s subjugation three years ago.

「Yes. The one you’re referring to might be that Gendor. During the investigation, we found many fishy and dangerous rumors about him. Moreover, it seems that this warrior group is accumulating a lot of money and riches without any clear source, which is a real problem. I mean, where on earth are they getting that much money? In addition, many of the missing people have a connection with Gendor. They were either hostile towards him, or were his targets for some reason or another.」

Boven was frowning upon hearing Kaya’s explanation.

「Do you mean that Gendor is the one who hid the manticore all along…」

「Exactly. We found from our investigation that manticores are quite gluttonous. Moreover, they prefer human meat over other kinds of meat. Then you have the disappearance cases happening frequently. I honestly don’t want to imagine what happened to those people after their disappearance, but…」

Chiyuki shook her head.

「I see, now I know why Chiyuki-sama summoned me here. You want me to search for the one called Gendor, right?」

「Yes. Also, please note that we’re only requesting you to look into it and deal with the issue; we’re not thinking of getting ourselves involved in this. Truthfully speaking, the public order in the outer city should be kept by the knights. We just wanted to get Lord Boven’s attention into this case, that’s why I called you here.」

「No, we’ll deal with it even without your request. We’re the ones responsible for our failure in subjugating the manticore. I never expected that such a dangerous demon beast was lurking right in front of us, trampling the Holy Land of our Goddess…」

Chiyuki nodded upon hearing Boven’s words.

They had to make their move as soon as possible. Initially, Chiyuki and the others could’ve dealt with it right away, but after properly considering it, she felt that the problems of the humans of this world should be dealt with by the original inhabitants of this world. That’s why she had no intention to get herself or the others involved more than necessary.

「Lord Boven, though I think that the manticore isn’t as powerful as the Perdas, it’s still a dangerous demon beast. Please be very careful when you deal with it.」

「I understand, Chiyuki-sama. We fought it once before. Seeing that we’re going to fight in the outer city, I guess we have to dispatch our Heavy Warrior unit.」

「The Holy Republic of Lenaria’s Heavy Warriors, huh? I guess our worries are unnecessary.」

All citizens in this country were believers of the Goddess of War. That’s why they’re trained as warriors from childhood.

Since all the citizens are warriors, for them the people who join the Heavy Warrior unit are the toughest. They are the strongest warriors in the country and they protect this country along with the Temple Knights.

When deemed as necessary, the Temple Knights’ Commander had the right to dispatch them.

「Please wait a minute!」

Suddenly, Kyouka interrupted.

「Is something the matter, Kyouka-san?」

「Let me join too. I’ll make sure they pay for filling my room with that stinky smell.」

Chiyuki pressed her throbbing temple upon hearing those words.

Kyouka isn’t that skilled in using magic, that’s why she would be nothing but a hindrance.

「In that case, let me join too, Chiyuki-sama, I’ll accompany her. Let’s also add escorts from our company.」

Chiyuki heaved a relieved sigh after hearing Kaya’s proposal. Defeating that manticore might be a piece of cake for Kaya because she was the second strongest after Reiji in close quarter combat.

「Yup, I guess there’s nothing to worry about since Kaya-san will accompany you. But, please be careful, Kyouka-san.」

「Yes, leave it to me.」

Kyouka flashed a smile as she said those words.

Chiyuki couldn’t help but feel worried seeing that smile.