The Barbarian Howl
I quickly scanned the area.
The other investigators were fully occupied holding back the rampaging barbarians at the edge of the square.
I had to act.
No—we had to act.
“Eris!”
“Yes.”
Eris nodded as though she had been waiting for the signal and raised a finger toward the barbarian investigator.
Whiiish—swish!
A blade of wind burst from her fingertip like a bullet and carved into the barbarian’s shoulder.
“Gah!”
The barbarian investigator staggered, his stance breaking with a short cry of pain. Yet barbarians were a race numb to suffering. Enduring pain—and even taking pride in it—was considered a virtue among them.
Thud!
Even from his broken posture, the barbarian hurled a dagger that buried itself in Director Justin’s leg.
It was fortunate the blade had struck his leg.
Without Eris’s wind magic, the dagger would have found his torso instead—and the wound would have been fatal.
A heavy silence fell over the square.
Time seemed to slow. The quiet lasted only a moment, yet it felt as though hours had passed.
“Doooooolgueeeeergh—!”
The silence shattered with a roar.
It was a deep, rumbling cry that mixed low and high frequencies, a battle-hunting howl only barbarians with their unique vocal cords could produce.
They said the sound struck terror into prey and set the hunter’s blood aflame. I had dismissed it as mere superstition—until now.
The scent of fear.
From the investigators and guests who heard the howl came a thick, choking smell of terror.
From the barbarians came the scent of excitement and pleasure.
“Uwaaaah—!!”
“Grab Justin! Get him!”
The barbarians bellowed and charged straight for Director Justin.
“Stop those bastards!”
The investigators, finally snapping out of their shock, gave chase—but they were too late.
The barbarians, roused by the howl, no longer moved like men. They ran like beasts, wild and impossibly fast. Nothing could hold them back.
“Agh!”
Spectators caught in their path cried out as they were knocked aside like rag dolls.
In seconds the barbarians reached the platform, hoisted the fallen Director Justin onto one of their backs, and bolted away.
“Catch them—urk!”
“Graaah—!”
There was no chance to pursue. More barbarians had remained beneath the platform.
They raised axes, knives, and clubs and fell upon the investigators.
Crack!
“Damn it! You crazy bastard—subdue him!”
“Graaah, graaah—!”
Even barbarians could not hold out long against systematically trained investigators. The one who had thrown the dagger at Justin was already pinned down.
The real problem was how fierce their resistance proved to be.
Investigators fell one after another—shoulders split by axes, fingers severed. One was even knocked unconscious by a barbarian’s howling swing.
The tide is turning.
At first the barbarians seemed to be losing ground, but gradually the investigators began to fall back.
Amid the metallic scent of blood, I caught the sharper odors of madness and fear.
The madness came from the barbarians. The fear came from the investigators.
“Naikle!”
In the chaos, Naikle was under attack as well.
Or rather, she was fighting—holding off two barbarians at once.
Werewolves, like barbarians and orcs, possessed tremendous physical strength. Naikle was among the strongest of her kind.
Even so, this fight looked like it was pushing her to her limit.
Two armed barbarians would do that.
I cut through the fleeing crowd and sprinted toward her, pulling the spray from my pocket.
Hisss!
I released the sedative directly into the faces of both barbarians.
They drew in deep breaths to swing their axes—and inhaled a lungful of the drug. The bloodlust faded from their eyes.
Thud! Thud!
Both collapsed.
“Naikle, are you all right?”
“Th-thank you. What… what is happening?”
At that moment a crackle came from the radio in her pocket. Naikle pulled it out and listened, her expression hardening.
“The transport carrying Draksan to prison was ambushed and overturned. They… they say a group of barbarians took him. He’s been kidnapped.”
Her voice was flat, as though she were reporting someone else’s problem.
Emotional detachment.
When something too shocking occurs, the mind sometimes refuses to process it. People can even laugh or feel nothing at all when their parents die—this was the same defense mechanism.
“Naikle.”
“Hic—yes?”
I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“Let’s sort this out. Right now both Director Justin and Draksan have been taken by the barbarians. Correct?”
“Yes… yes.”
People lost in emotional detachment often cannot even grasp the situation they are in.
“We need to lay out the facts clearly.”
By repeating the situation in precise language, I could help her accept reality through reason rather than raw emotion.
“Which one should we…?”
“That’s not something we can decide yet. With the barbarians still rampaging, we can’t reach either of them.”
“R-right. Of course.”
A faint light returned to Naikle’s eyes. As she began to understand the situation, the emotions she had locked away were slowly coming back.
“We’ll decide who to rescue first later. Right now we have to stop the rioting barbarians. If you and I work together—”
“Doctor.”
Eris tapped my shoulder.
Even in the middle of this chaos, she remained perfectly calm. Her steady gaze met mine.
“Shall I handle the cleanup?”
“Cleanup sounds excessive. Can you just subdue them?”
“I’ll try.”
Eris opened her palm. Dozens of tiny spheres rose from it and began orbiting her like satellites.
Each sphere was minuscule—barely larger than an insect. From a distance they looked like nothing more than dust.
But I knew exactly how dangerous those “dust motes” could be. Still, I asked again, just to be sure.
“Eris, only subdue them… right?”
“Don’t worry.”
Her answer did little to ease my nerves.
“Go.”
At her quiet command, the spheres shot forward like a swarm of bees.
“What the—?”
At first the barbarians paid them no mind, swatting at the spheres as though they were mere insects.
Thwack!
The spheres dodged gracefully and stuck to their bodies like butterflies.
The barbarians’ expressions darkened as they finally realized something was wrong.
But it was already too late.
Pop! Pop-pop-pop!
The spheres detonated.
“Gaaah!”
“It hurts—it hurts!”
Barbarians with broken arms and legs rolled across the ground, screaming. Cries and groans echoed from every direction.
But no one died.
Eris had honored my request to the letter.
“Well done, Eris.”
She responded with her usual blank expression, raising only her thumb in approval.
Naikle stared at the scene in disbelief.
“This… this is…”
She looked back and forth between Eris and me, then spoke in a trembling voice.
“Why would someone like her be working under you?”
“You sound exactly like Director Justin. She’s not working under me—we’re partners.”
Naikle continued to stare at me, clearly unconvinced.
“Still… is it true what they say about your hypnosis ability?”
“Who told you that nonsense? Don’t tell me it was Justin.”
“It was…”
Of course it was.
“That’s not it. We’ve simply known each other for a long time. But why is Justin so obsessed with hypnosis anyway?”
“He seems to admire your abilities a great deal. He sometimes says he wishes he could read and control people’s emotions too…”
“And you think someone like that should be running the Public Safety Bureau?”
“Honestly, I agree… but there’s no one else available.”
While we spoke, the investigators finished subduing the fallen barbarians. The screams and shouts gradually died down.
“We’re innocent!”
“Innocent? How many investigators are injured because of you?”
“You looked down on us first! We only took what was owed!”
From a distance came the voices of the captured barbarian rioters as investigators loaded them into transport vehicles.
The badly wounded investigators had already been rushed to the hospital.
Once most of the personnel had left the scene, the uninjured investigators—including Naikle—gathered in front of the platform. Eris and I stood with them.
We had only one purpose.
“It might already be too late…”
“Unless they killed him on the spot, the Director should still be alive. If we move now, we’re not too late.”
We needed to plan the rescue of both Director Justin and Draksan. There was no time to return to headquarters for a formal meeting—we had to decide here and move immediately.
“Do we have their locations?”
“We still don’t have the Director’s. For Draksan, we can track the mana signature from the necklace he was wearing.”
“Damn it… how did this happen?”
The investigators kept their exchanges short and direct, prioritizing speed over formality.
“We just got a fix on Draksan. He’s moving—probably heading toward the Zoena mining district.”
“If they’re trying to escape, that’s the only place that makes sense. The mining district is practically extraterritorial for barbarians…”
“Forget Draksan. Focus everything on rescuing the Director.”
“Agreed. If we split our forces and waste time, the Director could die.”
The discussion was rapidly shifting toward abandoning Draksan and prioritizing Justin.
It was a coldly logical decision.
Objectively speaking, Draksan is just another criminal among many.
Whether he disappeared, died, or joined the barbarians, society would not descend into chaos.
But Director Justin is different.
His death—especially so soon after taking office—would throw not only the Bureau but the entire kingdom into turmoil.
Wait a moment.
I listened to their discussion and felt something click into place.
There was a glaring hole in this incident: the “why.” The barbarians’ motive for kidnapping both men was unclear.
These were not ordinary kidnappers. They were closer to ideological extremists.
They had done this to achieve some goal tied to their beliefs—most likely the abolition of discrimination against barbarians.
That raised a question.
Why take Draksan at all? And why keep Justin alive?
If their only goal was to protest the Bureau’s discrimination, they could have simply killed Justin. And they could have simply released Draksan.
There had to be another reason.
A reason they had kidnapped Justin instead of killing him.
And a reason they had taken Draksan instead of freeing him.
“How do we locate the Director?”
“We’ll have to trace the route the barbarians took with him and search the entire area.”
“We should mobilize every available investigator right now—”
“Your precious Director is probably already a glorious sacrifice by now!”
“Shut your mouth, savage!”
The distant argument between a captured barbarian and an investigator reached us.
Sacrifice?
The word stirred a memory—something Draksan had mentioned during one of our sessions.
The unique barbarian ritual performed when selecting a new chieftain.
…No way.
My suspicion hardened into certainty.
The realization was horrifying.
“Wait!”
I shot to my feet.
“You said we have a rough location on Draksan. Send every investigator there. Now!”