The Chieftain's Rite
The investigators stared at me, their faces blank with disbelief.
In the heavy silence that filled the room, one of them shot me a cold glare and spoke.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, sir. You’re not even an investigator—you’re the doctor who counsels Draksan, aren’t you? I understand you want to protect your patient, but there’s a time and place for everything—”
“Investigator Turner.”
A cool voice cut through the tension. Naikle rose from her seat and fixed Turner with a steady look.
“Who do you think took down that barbarian so quickly?”
“Well, that was Eris, not—”
“When the barbarian attacked me, the doctor saved my life. He’s helped us with investigations more than once before. His opinion isn’t something we can simply ignore. We should at least hear him out.”
Naikle squeezed her eyes shut.
“How could I make such a mistake at a time like this…”
Her muttered words were too quiet for anyone else to catch—only I, with my sharpened hearing, picked them up.
“It’s all right. No one noticed.”
“Really?”
“Probably. I can’t be certain…”
While Naikle’s despair deepened, Turner turned to me with clear reluctance.
“…Go ahead, then.”
Thanks to Naikle, I finally had the floor.
This is where persuasion begins.
My strongest domain.
“The barbarians—more precisely, the natives living near the southern Demon Realm—have a unique ritual. It’s performed when selecting a new warrior chief.”
I repeated Draksan’s words exactly.
“To prove a candidate’s worth, the aspirant must bring back the head of an enemy leader. That head is then burned as an offering while the tribe holds a festival of dance and song.”
“The offering can be anyone who fits the warrior’s spirit: a chieftain of a hostile tribe, a magical beast threatening the tribe, or a human who persecutes barbarians.”
Director Justin had persecuted barbarians—at least, that was how they saw it.
“Director Justin is a perfect offering.”
“An offering…!”
Someone gasped. I continued without pause.
“Furthermore, they never intended to kill Director Justin in the first place.”
“He’s the Commissioner now.”
“Ah, yes. In any case, you all saw it—the dagger the barbarian investigator threw struck Commissioner Justin in the leg.”
The words of the captured barbarian provided another clue.
“They said Commissioner Justin had become a glorious offering.”
There was no reason for them to say that without cause.
“Most decisively, when the barbarians charged the stage, what did they shout? Not ‘Kill Justin,’ but ‘Capture him.’ They planned to keep him alive from the very beginning.”
“So they could offer him as a sacrifice for their new chieftain?”
“Precisely—to make Draksan their new warrior chief.”
According to the ritual’s rules, anyone could capture the offering. But only the candidate for chieftain could sever its head.
“In other words, Draksan must personally cut off Commissioner Justin’s head. That’s why the barbarians kept him alive.”
The investigators stirred uneasily. Turner closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them.
“We need to discuss this among ourselves.”
“There’s no time.”
“It won’t take long.”
The investigators began their deliberation.
“So you’re saying the Commissioner is with Draksan…?”
“That’s ridiculous. The leap in logic is too great. They wouldn’t act so irrationally…”
“The theory that they intend to offer the Commissioner as a sacrifice has merit. When have barbarians ever been rational?”
I could roughly follow the discussion, though I couldn’t tell which side held the majority.
True to Turner’s word, the talk was brief. He soon returned to me.
“We remember your past contributions, sir. You were instrumental in solving a murder case that would otherwise have gone cold.”
“I was forced into it at Commissioner Justin’s request…”
“Your reasoning is persuasive.”
Turner’s tone had softened, though his expression remained grim.
“…However, sending every investigator to Zoeina Mine is too risky.”
“You want to split the forces.”
“Yes. One team pursues the Commissioner while the other heads to Zoeina Mine. That would be the safer approach.”
In my opinion, sending everyone to Zoeina Mine would have been better, but this wasn’t bad either.
I understand their caution. They can’t trust me completely.
Honestly, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain of my own conclusion either—maybe ninety-eight percent.
“How many investigators are going to Zoeina Mine?”
“Not many. Investigator Naikle and a small elite unit.”
“That’s enough. Let’s move.”
There was no time to waste. We split and departed at once.
“You’re not my father.”
“Justin. Listen to me, please. I had no choice. Even your father had no choice…”
“Shut up! You killed Mother.”
That damned dream again.
Justin wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, but they refused to close. Painful memories from decades ago played out before him against his will.
“Mother died at the hands of the gang. Instead of avenging her, you took their dirty money and licked their boots? You insane bastard—you’re not even human!”
Justin hated this era.
The so-called “transitional period”—an age when neither raw violence nor the law alone could protect anyone. A time when cunning, underhanded brutality and clumsy, foolish order were grotesquely intertwined.
Justin’s father had been a corrupt investigator of that era.
“Then what was I supposed to do? Tell me! I had no choice either. No choice at all!”
Watching his father weep and shout, Justin felt both loathing and pity.
His father hadn’t wanted to become that way. He simply lacked the power to mend the world’s flaws, and living honestly would have left him behind until he was cast aside. So he had done what everyone else did—exploited the cracks just enough to survive.
His father used that “no choice” as justification for his own corruption and pettiness.
A corrupt society creates corrupt individuals by handing them plausible excuses for their decay.
And the weak become its scapegoats—either devoured by the corrupt or forced to become corrupt themselves to prey on others.
From that moment on, Justin’s goal had been to seal every crack in the world.
“In recognition of your great contribution to eradicating narcotics, we present you with this commendation.”
“Congratulations on being selected as Outstanding Investigator this year, Chief!”
“Thank you. And thank you for avenging my daughter…”
One by one, he filled the small cracks. It hadn’t taken long to rise to Director.
He had endured countless death threats from gangs, yet death itself never frightened him.
The only thing that terrified him was becoming like his father—a man who compromised just enough to stay comfortably corrupt.
“Director Justin, I really don’t think this is right. There’s no reason to go this far…”
The real problem began after he became Director.
To confront the world’s great evils, he needed methods different from before—unofficial methods. Some evils could only be fought by crossing lines.
Justin fought them even when it meant ignoring ordinary morality, because he believed it was right.
Yet the doubt never fully left him.
“At this rate, we’ll just become another evil fighting evil!”
If the Public Security Bureau became just another organization fighting over territory and interests like the gangs, what would be the point?
Even if every other crack were sealed, one would remain: Justin Dunham himself.
What then? When all other evils had vanished and only he remained as the world’s sole great evil, what would he do?
The answer came quickly.
“Mmm…”
Justin opened his eyes.
His hands and feet were bound, his head throbbed as if it would split, and his legs had almost no feeling left. He remembered the dagger the barbarian investigator had thrown.
Damn it. I never thought Hoian would betray me.
Hoian was the name of the barbarian investigator who had attacked him.
He’d been holding a grudge ever since the Draksan incident. Still, I never imagined he’d side with the barbarian rebels…
He should have noticed before it came to this. At the very least, he shouldn’t have assigned Hoian to the inauguration ceremony.
A meaningless regret now.
Justin turned his head, ignoring the surrounding barbarians as he studied the terrain.
No other buildings in sight, no sound of carriages… only faint birdsong and the noise of machinery.
A steady, rhythmic thudding—thump, thump—and the sound of something collapsing.
A mine.
There were many mines in the kingdom, but only one the barbarians would bring him to.
Once a sacred site for barbarians, later a place of their exploitation, and now their settlement—the Zoeina Mining District.
“The Zoeina Mining District, then.”
“You’re awake, Justin Dunham—enemy of the barbarians!”
The man at the head of the barbarian rebels shouted.
Barbarians were usually large regardless of age or gender, but this man was small and hunched.
His distinctive appearance made the name surface at once.
“Dementor.”
A notorious figure—the shaman who led the barbarian rebels, a wanted criminal ranked as a top-tier terrorist in the Lumentea Kingdom.
Justin hung suspended from a wooden pole, limbs bound. Beneath him lay scattered animal carcasses and blood.
The meaning of the scene was clear. Justin knew the barbarian customs.
“You intend to offer me as a sacrifice—for your new warrior chief.”
“Heh heh.”
Dementor grinned wickedly at Justin, then turned to the gathered barbarians and raised his voice.
“My kin! The position of warrior chief for the Rock-Hunting Tribe has long stood vacant! Ever since the great revolution that shook this very land—ever since Yurikah, hero of the Zoeina Mine Revolution, returned to the Warrior’s Mountain—we have found no worthy candidate!”
“Ugh, ugh!”
The surrounding barbarians responded with a chaotic mix of low and high-pitched cries that sent a chill down Justin’s spine.
“Now, under the schemes of that wicked mage and his pawn Justin, our Rock-Hunting Tribe has once again been reduced to little more than slaves! Never have we needed a warrior chief more!”
“Ugh, ugh!”
While the ritual proceeded under Dementor’s direction, Commissioner Justin thought:
If I die like this…
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad.
The dead were always idealized, and with time, they became legends—especially those who met a symbolic end.
Justin believed his death today would be symbolic.
Kidnapped by barbarian rebels on the very day of his inauguration as Commissioner, sacrificed in their savage ritual—what could be more symbolic than that?
It would be a death long remembered.
And with my death, my ideals will be proven.
Barbarians were different from humans.
They generally could not control their anger; some even lost their reason entirely when enraged.
This held true even for the gentlest among them.
The trait was etched into their very blood.
“The goddess Savina of Sword and Axe has personally granted us a candidate for warrior chief!”
“Ugh, ugh!”
He wasn’t advocating open discrimination.
For the sake of social stability, barbarians and humans needed to be treated separately. The evidence was overwhelming—their disproportionately high crime rates, especially in assault and murder.
Only the lack of proper pretext and justification had kept the issue ignored until now.
Today, my death will provide that justification.
Just as a rapturous smile spread across Justin’s face—
“I present to you the one who will become our great warrior chief! The hero who saved Sauhin Village, the revolutionary who fought against the tyranny of the Public Security Bureau, the warrior who risked death to battle magical beasts!”
The smile vanished from Justin’s lips.
The candidate for chieftain stepped through the crowd of barbarians, twin axes in hand.
“Draksaaaan—Kaliguuus!”
Draksan Kaligus.
The barbarians roared, “Ugh, ugh!”
“…No.”
At the sight of that face, Justin’s complexion turned deathly pale.
His teeth chattered from sheer terror.
“D-Draksan. Think again. This isn’t right. This is…”
“……”
Draksan looked up at Justin in silence.
His grip tightened on the axes.