Something Pretending to Patrol #9
"I'll answer anything! Anything! Just spare my life…!"
"Alright. As long as you answer quietly."
I locked eyes with the man shaking in terror and gave a nod. I genuinely meant to let him live.
"Where is this place? It felt like we were sailing for quite a while."
"It's… an island a little ways off the count's territory. It looks uninhabited, so people treat it as a temporary rest stop—but we actually use it as our anchorage."
I'd wondered why the ship had taken so long to stop moving. An uninhabited island explained it. Of course, once these men had set up camp, calling it truly uninhabited was a stretch.
I sensed a presence approaching slowly from behind and put the next question. It had to be Helena; no need to stay on guard.
"How many are outside?"
"T-twenty or so. We were resting on the ship while keeping watch."
"Any Sword Experts? High-circle mages?"
"W-why would there be anyone like that?! If we had someone like that, we'd have swallowed the whole count's territory and made a fortune by now."
The man waved both hands in panic. I nodded, granting that he had a point. If they had someone that strong, they would have conducted business far more boldly. Not out in the open, of course—but still.
"Then are you an independent outfit? An allied group? Or someone's subordinate organization?"
The next question came from behind me. Helena, as we'd agreed beforehand, had finished dealing with the other five and returned. I glanced back to check on her—no wounds that I could see. That cool, settled look in her eyes was the same as always.
"N… nothing like that."
"Anyone else in this count's territory doing the same work as you?"
"No one. We're… the only ones. At least as far as we know."
Fortunately, things were going fairly smoothly. I couldn't swear there were no other outfits operating in secret, but knowing at least that no more of this particular breed existed was welcome news.
"How are the rest of them positioned?"
"They're just scattered around, but still clustered within a certain distance."
"Shift changes? And why didn't you move the hostages somewhere else?"
"Ugh—there aren't any set shift changes. The people inside take turns among themselves… As for the hostages, we often just leave them on the ship since we'll have to move them eventually. If we capture a lot of people we take them off and manage them separately, but…"
"With only two of us, there was no need. Got it. One last question—where is my sword?"
"The blades the two of you were carrying… the boss took them."
Helena fell silent, as if she had nothing more to ask. When they had a lot of slaves or hostages they apparently moved them to the uninhabited island and locked them up to prevent escape; with so few captives, there was no need. That much made sense. An ordinary person would have a hard time breaking through eight healthy men—especially when those men were grouped up.
I followed Helena out of the room and spoke over my shoulder to the man still groaning in pain.
"Stay right here. If you want to live."
"Y-yes! I'll stay still! Thank you! Thank you!"
He kept blurting his gratitude for being spared. After staring death in the face, feeling thankful was only natural.
"Think he might have been lying?"
"Unlikely. He didn't look capable of lying with a straight face when his life was on the line. If he were that kind of man, he would have tried something before he went down so helplessly. Even if it were an act, throwing away both ankles would be an absurd waste."
I answered with conviction as Helena and I climbed the stairs. People show their true colors under pressure, and when a life is hanging in the balance they stop having room to invent stories. And as I'd said—if he had been hiding real skill, or if he could stay cold-blooded even in an emergency, he never would have reacted the way he did. Whatever this was, it wasn't important enough to sacrifice both ankles over. Helena's indifferent reaction after looking him over sealed it: he was just an ordinary man. This being my first time dealing with something like this, I was probably overthinking everything.
"What should we do? Kill them all?"
"They're kidnappers and traffickers, so wiping them out wouldn't be a problem… but let's keep the boss alive at least."
Hearing myself so casually suggest killing left a faintly uneasy taste. I wasn't some madman who enjoyed murder—but once I'd decided to go through with it, hesitation was a luxury I couldn't afford. My hands were already stained.
"It's dark."
Come to think of it, the sun had already sunk and the moon was rising. Night felt so natural I'd almost forgotten—but the setting sun meant real time had passed.
"You're right. I didn't expect it to be night already."
"Zion. I told you to speak casually when it's just the two of us. You keep…"
"Ah—sorry. Force of habit. The formal speech sticks too easily."
We kept our voices low, trading idle talk as we searched for a way down. They would have put out a makeshift gangplank for easy boarding and disembarking. After a quick circuit of the ship we found a thick plank bridging deck and shore—the bridge, no doubt.
"No one in sight on the other side. We can go straight down."
Helena confirmed the coast was clear, then walked the plank down to the dock without a care in the world. Night made us harder to spot than daylight, sure—but even allowing for that, she was bold. Maybe she had already sized up the opposition and decided they weren't a real threat.
"We could hit them head-on… but an ambush would be cleaner. Shame there were no weapons on the ship."
Helena sighed, thinking of the men who had charged them bare-handed. Weapons would have made everything easier; she seemed mildly resentful of reality for denying them that convenience.
I stepped onto the dock and started along the path toward the woods, scanning our surroundings. Having Helena with me was deeply reassuring, but not so reassuring that I let my guard down and wandered around half-asleep.
"True. Weapons would have been nice… but if we don't have them, we make do with the dirks."
"Right. If we find any, we pick them up and use them. If the enemy's holding one, we take it off them on the spot."
We settled a few more simple rules of engagement, then began closing in on the enemy from a distance, tightening the noose. The woods offered good cover, and the occasional brush of grass against our boots wasn't loud enough to worry about—so long as we didn't make a racket.
—Hahaha! We grabbed a noble trade company's officer—we're going to make a killing! What a catch!
The crackle of a campfire. The loud, cheerful voices of men gathered around it. Crouched behind a tree and watching them, I could only shake my head. They were drinking, laughing, thoroughly plastered. In that state they probably wouldn't notice if we sprinted across the grass. Helena, posted on the opposite side, seemed to think the same thing; she gave her head a little shake.
"Look at this sword! Quality goods—real quality!"
"Heh! The dagger too—they can't even use the things properly, but they walk around with ridiculously expensive gear…!"
One of the men held Helena's sword high and crowed over it. It looked plain enough, but it was forged from durable high-grade material. Being able to recognize that meant he had some eye for weapons—though the flippant tone and manner rather spoiled the impression.
"A house…?"
Anyway, the way they were clustered in small groups made an immediate ambush look difficult. Waiting for them to pass out drunk would be easiest, but the wait would be boring enough to fray our patience. So I decided to head for the cabin sitting a little apart from the rest.
The front door was lit by the campfire—hard to approach. The rear, though, was swallowed by forest shadow and night dark. Easy enough. The cabin seemed to serve as a simple storeroom; there wasn't even a single window. They could at least have put in wooden shutters, but no—nothing. A pity.
"Tch… no choice."
I poured aura into my dirk and began scoring a line across the cabin door. The plan was to cut through the wall with an Aura Blade and slip inside through the gap. It felt like working a saw. I wiped the sweat from my brow and focused on cutting. The dirk's short blade made the job take longer than I'd hoped.
Stab and pull. Stab and pull. The endless repetition was mind-numbing, but I finished before I could collapse from boredom. I had managed to cut a square hole large enough for a small child to walk through upright.
"Haa…"
I sighed and gave the bottom of the cut section a light shove, keeping it from crashing inward with a bang. The wall panel caught heavily against my leg; I lifted it free and set it carefully on the ground, then crawled inside on my belly. Something blocked the way mid-crawl—I started to shove it aside, then realized it was a crate and changed tactics. I braced it with my body as I eased it forward, muffling any noise. It was hard work.
The interior I'd fought so hard to enter was bleak. Darkness should have hidden everything, but my eyes had adjusted; I could make out the rough shapes of objects.
"Why are there so many boxes?"
The walls were lined with a festival of crates, enough to make me catch my breath. I'd already had to prop up a tower of them just to get in—I hadn't expected the whole cabin to be packed solid.
"Ugh."
I let out a heavy sigh and inspected the crates carefully. Most of them turned out completely empty when I checked inside—prebuilt stock for later use, apparently. I was ready to write the place off as an ordinary crate warehouse. Then I picked up one box from the bottom of the farthest corner and changed my mind. The other crates had some weight, but this one was far heavier.
"What the…?"
In the dark it looked no different from the empty ones. Yet it weighed more than twice as much. There had to be a reason. I set it on top of another crate and began examining it meticulously—running my hands over the outside, pressing firmly along the inner bottom.
"Huh…?"
My finger suddenly sank into a spot on the underside of the floor. The outer bottom wasn't a place you'd normally touch, which was why I'd been slow to find it. Since I'd found something, I decided to press as deep as I could. A sound like escaping air came from inside the box. I straightened from my crouch and looked in—and saw that the floor of the crate had lifted.
"I'll be damned."
Leather had been fixed beneath the false bottom, and another thick layer of leather lined the underside of that false floor for stability. No wonder pressing the bottom had given no clue. I peeled up the leather under the raised floor and tossed it aside. Instantly, even in the dark, countless objects seemed to catch and throw back the light.
"Is this all money?"
Gold—what people commonly called gold coins—and jewels. The crate was a kind of secret vault for hiding them. And there was a great deal of it—enough for someone to live in luxury right now. For one person, that is. Split among many, it would run dry fast.
Part of me wanted to clean the whole stash out, but this was no time to idle over money. Even if I'd had the leisure, I wouldn't have planned to take it—but it would clearly be useful. Perfect for throwing.
I'd considered cutting the wooden crates into makeshift throwing weapons, but with gold available there was no need for that much trouble. So, in excellent spirits, I raked up the gold coins and piled them onto the leather I'd tossed on the floor.