Chapter 73
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: Memories Become Thorns (1)
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A few hours later, inside a conference room at the Immigration Control Office.
Even though the sun was slowly setting, the room shimmered with a brilliant golden glow, unlike the dim offices elsewhere.
A newly attached nameplate on the door bore a freshly made title.
[Recovery Room]
It was a new department established when Erzena started working at the Immigration Control Office.
A place where anyone weary in body or mind, suffering from overwork or job stress, could come to receive that golden energy.
Despite the Central Officer insisting several times that it wasn't necessary, Erzena had pushed so strongly that she secured her own official spot.
Thanks to her, sick leave requests at the office had dropped to a tenth of what they were, proving highly effective.
Now, everyone struggled to start their day without her.
In that Recovery Room, Erzena stood before the door with a rare flustered expression.
"Uh..."
It was because Elaine had come to visit.
"I... I didn't expect you to come here."
She stuttered in a way that was unlike her.
Elaine was now her roommate, but Erzena hadn't anticipated a visit from someone with whom she still hadn't bridged the emotional gap.
She didn't dislike her. But she wasn't close enough to welcome her warmly either.
Moreover, there was something awkward she'd witnessed just a few hours ago.
'She was definitely with Nathan earlier.'
She had seen it through the window while tending to her attendants who had collapsed from overwork.
Nathan taking her outside the office.
At the time, Erzena thought he was just showing her around outside.
But now, Elaine's condition was even more dejected and withdrawn than when they'd first met.
'What on earth did they do out there...'
It made her stomach feel a bit uneasy.
Not because they'd gone out alone without telling her.
No, definitely not.
"What brings you here?"
Regaining her composure as best she could, Erzena quickly scanned Elaine's state with her eyes.
'No injuries, at least.'
Fortunately, it didn't seem like she'd been hurt. If she had, the entire border would have been in an uproar.
The only signs were a deeply pulled hood and a bit of dust on her robe.
Elaine slowly opened her mouth.
"...Ugh."
It sounded like an apologetic murmur.
But there were no words. Just mumbling.
Erzena momentarily looked flustered.
"S-Sorry. You can't speak, right."
She had forgotten for a moment.
That Elaine had lost her voice due to a tragic accident.
At that point, the Gustatory Officer who had accompanied Elaine spoke up.
"The Central Officer told me to bring her here."
"Nathan said that?"
Erzena tilted her head at the unexpected message.
Why would the Central Officer bring her to me?
Especially to someone like me, whom they barely even talked to properly.
"He really told you to bring her to me?"
The Gustatory Officer nodded.
"Yes. He said he could trust you with her, Erzena. Just to stay with her for a bit..."
At those words, the corners of Erzena's mouth lifted slightly.
Nathan said he trusted her.
'He doesn't say things like that easily.'
It was a short phrase, but Erzena felt deep trust within it.
Until now, Nathan had only said he trusted someone twice.
Once, when he promised to testify against the Pope in court.
And again, during the Yi-I-Jae operation, when he faced the Black Hand's master directly.
'This makes three times.'
A man entrusting something to a woman he trusts.
That held no light meaning.
It was something said only between those who were truly close and intimate.
For the Central Officer, who was so protective of this princess, to entrust her like this—it meant she was fully in his heart.
"That guy..."
Her voice softened in an instant.
Erzena's expression relaxed completely, a faint blush rising to her cheeks.
"Come on in."
Elaine peeked up at Erzena through the gap in her robe.
Their eyes met—golden and green.
She nodded.
The Reyes Margrave territory has two prisons.
One is the underground dungeon in the margrave's castle, for those who commit crimes in the territory.
The other is the tower prison for those captured directly by the Border Guard.
The place I was heading to now was the latter.
- Thud, thud.
The small golems, about the size of a person, guarding the entrance crossed their spears to block the door when they saw me.
[Access Denied. Only those with entry authorization may enter this building.]
"Good work, guards. I'm Central Officer Nathan Kell."
The guard golems briefly checked me and the people behind me.
[Central Officer Nathan Kell, Olfactory Officer Blaszek Winterfang, Auditory Officer Integrais Diorefusa Sen, and Agent R confirmed. Entry permitted. Suspects detained in Room 24 on the 3rd floor.]
With that, they retracted their spears and opened the door.
I passed them and headed up to the third floor.
Room 24 at the far end was sealed tight with a heavy iron door that looked incredibly sturdy.
"This is it, Central Officer."
"Let's go right in."
- Creak.
As the Olfactory Officer opened the iron door, the six mercenaries sitting slumped on the cell floor with their hands bound squinted against the light.
"Damn it, what now?"
"We told you we don't know anything!"
"Hey, it's that bastard from before!"
"What? Where? Shit..."
They greeted me with curses.
I addressed the largest one, Crane.
"Good to see you again, Mr. Crane."
"Get lost. I got nothing to say to you."
A curt response came back.
But when he saw the two people entering behind me, he shouted in shock.
"O-Olfactory Officer!? And even the Auditory Officer..."
The two examiners stood beside me and spoke.
"Hm. Looks like we've gotten pretty famous, Auditory Officer. Even these ragtag free mercenaries know us."
"Yeah. Or maybe they're not just mercenaries but pro smugglers who know us well."
The martial Olfactory Officer.
The magical Auditory Officer.
For a simple interrogation, I could have come alone.
They were bound anyway, and the guards were watching constantly.
But there was a reason I brought these two.
Intimidation.
A 2-meter-tall werewolf and a skilled elven mage were pressure incarnate for mercenaries.
- Drag.
I pulled over a chair from the corner and sat down in front of them.
"You seem to have cooled your heads a bit, so now I'd like to ask a few questions."
I threw out the first one.
"Did you know Elaine was here?"
"...Elaine? Who's that?"
Crane asked back as if it were a completely unfamiliar name.
"Your girlfriend or something?"
"...That would be a big problem."
At that moment, Matthew from the back frowned and muttered.
"Sounds familiar... Elaine... Macbeth? No, Elaine Cas... Caster..."
About five seconds later.
"N-No way... Princess Elaine Castor!?"
A shout full of astonishment echoed.
"What!? Fuck, what did you say!?"
Crane jumped in surprise.
"Hey, is it true? She was really here!?"
"..."
I stayed silent.
There was no need to answer.
They had tried to activate an unauthorized artifact in a place where the princess was.
This was no longer simple terrorism.
It was an assassination attempt on the princess.
Thus, this interrogation would be handled with utmost severity.
Realizing the truth from my lack of response, Crane shook his head frantically.
"W-We didn't know! Really, we didn't! That idiot Matthew acted alone—"
"Four years ago, I made a vow,"
I cut off his pathetic excuse with a low murmur.
"No matter how powerless, low-born, or young I was, I would never turn a blind eye again. I swore no dark organization would ever operate in the south."
I gestured toward the door, and the Auditory Officer drew runes on the wall while quietly chanting.
"Imraba Hashuroa Dimetadis."
⟨ (No one shall hear.) ⟩
At once, a muffled sensation covered everyone's eardrums.
Like ascending a high mountain, ears feeling stuffy and blocked.
It was a perfect soundproofing spell.
Now, no one outside could hear our conversation.
Not even screams.
"But you all appeared to break that vow."
Memories become thorns that embed themselves.
And they never come out.
You stirred them up again.
"Smuggling. Attempted terrorism. And even trying to assassinate the princess."
I lowered my voice.
"You've crossed the line."
The line that must not be crossed.
You crossed it right in front of us.
You dug up memories, scratched the present, and nearly erased the future.
You reignited the princess's trauma.
You derailed my plan to show her the brighter side of the world, after she'd only seen its cruelty.
You'll pay the price.
"Y-You mentioned the princess first!"
One mercenary shouted desperately.
"We didn't know! We swear! Fuck, why is a princess holed up in a dump like this!?"
"That doesn't matter. What matters is that the princess was here."
It didn't matter if they didn't know about Elaine.
Attempting to activate an unauthorized artifact where she was—that alone was a grave crime.
They could never be forgiven.
"And one more thing."
But the charges weren't over.
"The fact that the princess is in the south must remain known only to a select few."
Royal orders must be upheld.
But now you know.
Another justification was born.
A reason we can't let you live.
"Y-You're insane... You came to kill us from the start..."
One mercenary muttered, completely losing the will to fight.
I didn't deny it.
"Y-You're just an immigration officer! You don't have the authority for this!"
Crane cried out in desperation.
"I know. Public servants like you have to act within your role. This is overstepping!"
He was right.
Immigration officers weren't permitted interrogations involving force.
They had to be verbal and in a non-hostile environment.
They'd done some research, at least.
"Watch your mouth, before I rip it off."
The Olfactory Officer bared his claws and fangs.
I raised my hand to stop him and spoke.
"You're correct. I lack that authority. But I know a department that has it. Auditory Officer?"
"Yes. Please wait a moment."
The Auditory Officer brought in someone who had been waiting outside the cell.
"Allow me to introduce Agent R."
It was the intelligence agent I'd worked with during the previous Yi-I-Jae operation.
Still active in the south, so I'd called him in.
"A-A-Agent? You mean a national intelligence agent!?"
At the fearful question, the agent looked down at them with a stiff expression.
"So these are the ones who tried to assassinate Her Highness."
"Yes."
"No need to inspect further. Let's begin, Central Officer."
"Very well."
A brief exchange.
I stood from my seat and cleared my throat.
"Interrogation commencing as of now, under the supervision of an Intelligence Bureau agent. Prior to starting, does the Intelligence Bureau consent to all actions taken in accordance with Immigration Control Office interrogation procedures?"
The agent nodded without hesitation.
"We consent."
"Authority delegated."
The Intelligence Bureau had approved.
This meant one thing.
All subsequent actions would be deemed legitimate for interrogation purposes.
Now, no shield protected you.
The mercenaries' faces turned deathly pale as they realized it.
"Olfactory Officer."
"Yes."
The werewolf had been waiting for this moment.
"Begin the interrogation. Leave nothing out."
A growl echoed through the cell.
The Auditory Officer closed the cell door.
- Creak.
"N-No! No! Noooo!!!"
"I'll tell you everything! Everything!!!"
Just before the door shut, terrified screams burst out alongside the wolf's roar.
- Bang.
But once the door closed, only silence remained in the underground prison.
No one would hear.
No one would see.
There would be no mercy for those trying to paint tragedy upon tragedy.
The border must have no seeds of unrest.
By any means necessary.
30 minutes later, outside the prison in the park.
The interrogation had concluded splendidly.
The bodies would be handled by the golems and Intelligence Bureau.
Whatever we extracted would be dealt with alongside them, with no records left.
Our job was done.
- Splash.
At the water station, the Olfactory Officer silently washed his hands.
The dried blood and flesh under his nails finally came off.
"..."
After the interrogation ended, he had been unusually quiet.
"Good work, Blaszek Winterfang."
I called the werewolf by name for the first time in a while.
"Go rest now. You're free to head home first."
I offered him unprecedented leeway.
After thoroughly washing his hands, the Olfactory Officer let out a hearty laugh without a hint of surprise.
"Hahaha, I'm fine. I'll stick around and leave with everyone."
"..."
Instead, the Auditory Officer and I looked at him with even greater concern.
For a werewolf, violence was akin to instinct.
Seeing blood excited them, and their primal fury often became hard to control—a perfectly natural reaction.
But what he had shown earlier was... different somehow.
More brutal, excessively threatening.
The blood splattered up to the ceiling was still vivid in my mind.
I'd held back as long as I could but eventually left the cell first because I couldn't take it.
'I know why.'
Smuggling was a reverse scale not just for me.
- Can you show a different path from Gerard's?
- I could have stopped it. I could have... But I...
- ...Give me a chance to make it right. No, please let me!
For him, smuggling tied directly to his past failures.
Memories of his mistakes under Gerard, whom he could never forgive himself for serving.
That's why he'd handled the mercenaries even more viciously than usual.
"At least for matters like this, it should be me doing it."
The Olfactory Officer muttered in a low voice.
"That's the promise we made."
- Tap, tap.
The Auditory Officer silently patted his shoulder.
"It's okay. You've paid more than enough. Even the Visual Officer forgave you."
"...Thanks, Sen."
The two who had guarded the Immigration Control Office longer than I had stood silently staring at the water in the station for a while.
I watched them quietly.
Everyone has painful memories.
For them too, the tragedy four years ago was a thorn embedded deep.
A moment later, the Olfactory Officer shifted the topic with his usual bright tone.
"What are your plans now?"
His question brought back Crane's desperate cries from the interrogation.
- They said it was to hunt a dragon! Said they needed the artifact for that! That's all!
That terrified shout hadn't been a lie.
But even he hadn't said who said it.
- I don't know... Please spare me...
Words spoken because he truly didn't know.
"Hunting a dragon..."
It gnawed at me.
Who would attempt something so insane?
Dragons were beings of time, mana, and power.
The pinnacle among all races, living for a millennium.
'Hunting such a being is nearly impossible.'
No one could defeat time, and dragons could only be killed by it.
At least as far as I knew.
Yet someone had committed smuggling to make it happen.
Preparing massive quantities of unauthorized artifacts with utmost sincerity.
This wasn't something to overlook.
And we at the office lacked the capacity to handle it alone.
'Then I should report the artifacts and consult someone who knows about dragons.'
Plus, I needed to request handling of the 'Blood Diamond' the dwarf had brought.
I thought of the most suitable department and spoke.
"Connect me with the Mage Association."
While at it, I had a few questions about the princess's abilities too.
"I need to speak with the Association President."
The Auditory Officer's eyes sparkled.
"Ah, to our dear junior?"