They Came to Make a Deal (3)
"Ugh...!"
Bile rose all the way up my throat.
"Ughhhh...!"
I quickly turned my head and slammed my forehead into the corner of the cell.
"Central Officer! Are you all right?"
"Are you hurt anywhere!?"
Startled by the sight, the Touch Officer and Smell Officer rushed over and shouted in alarm.
Having barely emptied my stomach, I raised a hand toward the two of them and answered.
"It's— it's nothing. I was just startled, that's all."
As if I could possibly be fine.
This was the second time.
The second time I had watched someone die right in front of my eyes.
Along with the fishy stench, the warmth of the blood splattered on my cheek slowly went cold.
This horrible feeling—I would never get used to it. The circumstances were the exact opposite of the Sight Officer's death, but the result was the same.
The gruesomely mangled body of a person lay limp on the floor.
My gaze drifted slowly toward the Changeling.
The bile rose again.
Calm down. Pull yourself together, Nathan Kell.
I shook off the thought and took a deep breath.
Desperate to occupy my mind with something—anything else, I spoke to the wolfkin beside me.
"Smell Officer. G-go inform the Count what's happened."
The thing I had to do right now was tell the Margrave, who had delegated his right of interrogation to me, exactly what had occurred.
"There must be no misunderstandings. Bring him here yourself."
The Changeling had died while under interrogation—while I was the one conducting it, having received that delegated authority. There was enormous potential for this to be misread. Which meant he had to see the evidence with his own eyes before it vanished.
Grasping the gravity of the situation, the Smell Officer nodded.
"I'll be right back. Touch Officer, look after the Central Officer."
With those words, he shot out of the dungeon at a blistering pace.
The Touch Officer patted my back with a worried hand and said quietly.
"Breathe deeply. It's all right. With this officer here, nothing will go wrong."
"Hoo. Hoo..."
I wrestled my emotions under control.
As an Immigration Officer, I had seen countless things over the years—but watching someone die before my eyes was something I simply could not bear.
The image of Rene's final moments kept surging up, and I fought it down with everything I had. It was then that Lacrissa carefully offered her opinion.
"Shall we step outside for a moment? A bit of fresh air might—"
"We can't. The scene must be preserved."
If both of us left, there was no telling who might come in.
Until I know who's behind this, I absolutely cannot leave this spot.
Everyone except the Count, the Five Senses Officers, and myself was a suspect.
"Touch Officer. Are you certain there was nothing inside her body? Besides the fur—no trace of magic, nothing of the sort?"
She retraced her memory for a moment, then shook her head.
"There was nothing. It was clean."
Lacrissa was incapable of lying.
Then this hadn't been magic activated from within her body.
Someone outside did it.
But that raised a contradiction. Normally, magic requires a caster nearby. Yet this was an underground dungeon. In this narrow, sealed-off space, there had been only the three of us and her.
How could anyone have reached into this space beneath the earth and formed a magic circle?
"And that dark crimson aura, besides..."
It was a sensation unlike anything I had ever encountered. A profoundly alien energy.
It could be a curse.
A curse would make it possible. A spell laid down as some manner of restriction, triggered the moment that restriction was broken—that would be consistent.
But who?
The problem was that everything hit a dead end right there.
Just then, frantic footsteps echoed down the passage. Moments later, Count Reyes appeared with a host of guards in tow, his face plainly betraying his alarm.
"Central Officer!"
"Count."
He, too, froze at the sight of the horribly torn-apart corpse and the magic circle beneath it.
"What in the world is this..."
Raised to my feet with the Touch Officer's support, I opened my mouth slowly.
"It's terrorism."
This was an act of terror. A terror of a different kind than what had occurred at the border—an extreme act expressing one single, unmistakable message. And that message said this:
Keep silent.
"It appears someone laid a curse to stop her from speaking."
"Who?"
"..."
That much, even I could not answer.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Six hours later, late at night at the Southern Border Immigration Office.
The interview with the Margrave had somehow concluded without incident—after all, he had witnessed the entire situation with his own two eyes, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
The problem wasn't that. The problem was that we had no information at all.
"Bring me the departure records, and any books on Changelings."
As I spoke, rifling through the material like a madman, the Taste Officer with visible strain set the complete volumes of the Compendium of Continental Species onto the desk.
After digging through the mountain of books and documents for a long while, I stared down at the desk with bleary eyes and muttered quietly under the crushing weight of exhaustion.
"Border terrorism, kidnapping, and now the silencing of an informant on top of it all."
No matter how much I searched, nothing came to mind.
Who on earth was behind this? What kind of lunatics would go this far?
I traced back through the Changeling's final words once more.
"M-my employer is Hatensil—"
"Hatensil."
My hand shot straight for the entry records. As I combed down the list, names matching the criteria began to surface.
— Hatensil. Human. Western desert origin.
— Hatensilia. Arachne. Northern great forest origin.
— Hatensilla. Human. Northern Skadi Empire origin.
— Hatensillure. Fishfolk. Southern coastal region origin.
— Hatensiphi. Centaur. Eastern nomad origin.
"Damn it all."
With a short curse, I shoved the records to the corner of the desk.
Too many. There were over fifteen names alone containing the syllables "Hatensil." And their entry dates, origins, and destinations were all completely different. Tracking down every one of them was impossible.
"Taste Officer. Could I have the departure records? Starting from three years ago."
But at the very least, I could narrow down the list of people.
However, the answer came not from the Taste Officer, but from the Smell Officer.
"Central Officer. It's late. Let's head home for today."
I looked up. The wolfkin was standing right in front of me, frowning down at me.
"I'm not finished. Things are just getting started—go home? Now?"
"Your attendants have all clocked out already. Look at the time."
At his words, I glanced around. The Immigration Office was silent. Not a soul remained except me and the Five Senses Officers, and beyond the windows the evening had already given way to a jet-black night sky.
"...You go ahead and clock out. This officer will leave a little later."
I hadn't even finished digging through everything—how was I supposed to go home? I couldn't. No—I wouldn't. Not until I found out who did this. Absolutely not.
"You saw something quite shocking today. Your body and mind must be badly shaken. Get some rest and pick this up tomorrow."
"This officer said he is fine."
A sharp retort flew out of me before I knew it. But even so, the Smell Officer only countered more calmly.
"You'll end up letting it bleed into tomorrow's work as well."
"Smell Officer. Do not make me say it twice."
"Rushing like this won't produce results any faster, you know that—"
"How am I supposed to rest, leaving THIS behind?!"
In the end, my patience ran dry and I shouted.
"It's terrorism! Terrorism! Some lunatics killed a person to shut them up—and in such a horrific manner, no less!"
It made me sick. The kind of thing only those damned crime syndicates would do. Something that hadn't happened once in the past four years—the first incident since the Sight Officer's death, since I swept every criminal organization out of the South.
Seeing me lose my temper for the first time in a very long while, he answered quietly.
"Even if she had told us everything, she would have been executed regardless."
"Yes—she should have been 'executed.' Not killed like that, in that disgusting, wretched way!"
Just as the Smell Officer said, she was without question someone who deserved execution. Whatever her motives or circumstances, she had committed serious crimes. But she should not have died like that. She should have died lawfully, in accordance with procedure.
"What if this is a criminal syndicate resuming operations? What if some faction with backing has been planting criminals in our kingdom?"
The Margrave's words came back to me.
"If we keep a serious criminal like this alive for long, it could send a certain message to the territory's residents and visitors."
Now the situation had inverted. This, too, would become a message. The dangerous notion that the South had once again become a place where crime syndicates could operate freely.
"Terror at the border, then that criminal silenced—and if people learn we haven't found so much as a single lead on the forces behind it, what happens then?"
The border must be absolutely inviolable. Even when incidents occur, the aftermath must be handled flawlessly, and the culprits must without fail be caught. Only then could future safety and trust be guaranteed.
The border is the nation's first impression, its face to the world. However much we may waver internally, we must show the world that nothing is wrong. And right now, we knew nothing.
That grated on me unbearably.
"Which is exactly why you need to rest."
The Smell Officer picked up the papers scattered across the floor as he spoke.
"This isn't something that will be solved tonight. I understand you're anxious. I know this is only the second time you've watched someone die before your eyes."
"..."
"But today is not the day. You've already worked six hours with nothing to show for it—so take a breath, then start again. I'm saying this because I'm worried about you."
Only then did the figures of the Five Senses Officers register in my eyes.
"Central Officer..."
Blaszjek and Lacrissa looked as worn down as I did. An unbroken stretch of overtime, and they too had witnessed something no one should have to see—they must have been suffering mentally as much as physically. The Hearing Officer and Taste Officer also gazed at me with concern.
"...I apologize. This officer spoke far too harshly."
I let out a long sigh.
It was true that I had been driven to a fever pitch. The Smell Officer was right. Nothing would change if I kept at it now. And more than anything, there was no reason to keep my subordinates chained here on account of my own anxiety.
I said quietly.
"...Let's call it a day."
Just for today, let it end here.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Hehe, hehe~."
Meanwhile, a cheerful tune kept drifting from Nathan Kell's house. Erzena lay sprawled across the bed, swinging her legs this way and that.
She was still replaying the morning conversation with the Central Officer in her mind.
'W-well then... I'm off. Erzena.'
'Take care, Central Officer.'
He was a truly diligent, hardworking, and clever man. And she was a woman who saw such a man off at the door. It was the sort of farewell and manner a devoted married couple might have.
The moment that thought took shape, Erzena's divine holy power gave a sudden tremble.
"...What am I even thinking."
She buried her face in the pillow. And yet she was already rehearsing the lines she would say when Nathan returned home.
'You're home?'
The greeting of a proper, virtuous wife. And the reply to it—
'I'm home.'
The dependable greeting of the man of the house.
"Crazy, crazy, crazy!"
She kicked the bed over and over, shrieking into the pillow with all her might in a shout of pure mortification. Her divine power resonated along with her, spilling out light in wild bursts.
"B-but still... we're living together—no, I'm indebted to him—so that much should be fine, right...?"
Even as she said it, her lips were secretly moving, practicing those very lines—when—
— Click. Creeeak.
The sound of the door opening rang out.
"Ah!"
Erzena's eyes flew open, and she scrambled downstairs in a fluster, rushing to the entrance. There stood a man staggering in, utterly spent—shoulders drooping, a face carved with grave worries.
At the sight of him, she opened her mouth with a trembling voice.
"Y-you're home?"
And Nathan Kell nodded with a weary smile.
"I'm home."
At the perfect reply, the corners of Erzena's mouth quivered. He continued.
"I'm sorry I'm late. I ended up working overtime without even telling you. There was information I needed to find."
"That's all right. You always work so hard. More importantly, have you had din—"
But Erzena's words stopped dead there. And then she stared up at the Central Officer with wide, startled eyes.
He looked drained of all vitality, utterly unlike his energetic self of that morning. But that wasn't the problem.
Erzena felt it. A revolting energy, deeply familiar and the exact opposite of divine holy power, was rolling off of him in waves. Something different from the Central Officer's usual black aura—dark crimson, the color of dried blood.
She murmured, her voice shaking with alarm.
"Y-you met the Evil God Cult, didn't you?"
At those words, Nathan—still slumped with exhaustion—snapped his head up.
"What did you just say?"
The clue the Central Officer had been searching for so desperately had been waiting, quite unexpectedly, in the closest place of all.