The Asshole Took So Long to Catch Because of This Guy
Bront’s dazed, empty expression twisted horribly.
His face flushed red, as if it might burst on the spot.
“D-Do you really think you’ll get away with this?! How dare you, the guard captain of a collapsing city, humiliate me like this!”
Bront shouted, his lips trembling with indignation. The sight was so absurd that Kael let a quiet smile tug at his mouth.
Bront sprang to his feet.
“Sit down.”
“...The deal is off! I’ll never set foot in this city again!”
“Sit down while I’m still saying it nicely.”
Unlike his smiling face, Kael’s voice and tone were chillingly flat.
Sensing danger, Bront quickly tried to bolt for the door, but Kael got his words out first.
“Luke.”
With a click, the door opened and Luke stepped into the office.
His face was expressionless, but the corners of his mouth were faintly lifted.
“You called for me, Captain.”
“Done with the investigation?”
“Yes, more or less.”
“Good. Strip this guy clean.”
“Understood.”
Bront, who had been opening and closing his mouth in a daze, suddenly began screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Y-You’ve all lost your minds?! You think you’ll be fine after doing this...?”
Luke frowned slightly and walked toward Bront. Then,
Grrrrk!
With brutish strength, he seized Bront by the shoulder.
“Hey, pig.”
Kael, who had been watching with his legs crossed, spoke up.
“Looks like you still haven’t grasped the situation.”
Bront’s face went white as he swallowed back a scream.
“You’ve been kidnapped.”
Kael was not the type to just say things. He stripped Bront of everything he had.
Truly, not a single coin was left behind.
As a merchant, Bront had been carrying quite a bit of hard cash.
If things had gone the way he’d planned, he would have used that money to buy slaves, but unfortunately, that wish never came true.
“Now then, from this point on, we’re going to arrest you under these and these imperial laws, in an emergency, of course.”
Kael, Luke, and the rest of the guards surrounded the mercenaries Bront had hired.
“If you want to resist, go ahead. I can’t promise you won’t get hurt.”
Kael announced with a grin. From the outside, he looked no different from a bandit.
Judging that they had no chance, the mercenaries tossed down their weapons and surrendered without resistance.
After that, everything moved quickly.
“Wow, you carry some nice stuff.”
Bront could only watch helplessly as his assets were stripped from him.
“Don’t take it so hard. You’ve been freeloading without paying taxes all this time, haven’t you?”
On top of that, Kael kept needling him from the side, which only made the fire in his chest burn hotter.
He’d come here to make a business deal, only to have every last speck of dust in his pockets shaken loose from him. That alone was infuriating enough to make him want to spit blood, but Kael kept scratching at the rawest part of his pride, and Bront was close to exploding from the inside out.
“...Why are you doing this to me, anyway?”
“Why? There are plenty of reasons. First off, you didn’t pay your taxes...”
Kael’s hand came down on Bront’s shoulder. He flinched hard.
“And you had the nerve to try to stand on equal footing with me.”
Wasn’t that reason enough?
* * *
“...That’s unexpected. I didn’t think you’d let me go so easily.”
“What, should I have executed you or something?”
Kael, after tearing every last bit of wealth from Bront, expelled him from the city without the slightest hesitation.
It was true that he didn’t like Bront, but that didn’t mean he could keep him detained forever or carry out an execution on a whim.
He wasn’t that much of a bloodthirsty lunatic, and he had no justification for it.
Selling and buying slaves was not illegal in the empire. If he killed Bront simply because he’d gotten under his skin, things would only become more complicated.
“There might be trouble later...”
“Well, sure, there might be.”
Kael didn’t especially care.
“If he comes back with another piggy bank, then I’ll even welcome him.”
...Was he being laid-back, or just hopelessly optimistic?
Luke let out a dry laugh.
* * *
Deep into the night.
People dressed like vagrants were walking along the road.
“...Damn it, damn it all! How dare some guard captain do this to me?!”
Bront ground his teeth. He couldn’t contain the boiling rage inside him.
His fine clothes and carriage had both been taken away.
The ragged clothes on his back and the bare minimum of food were all he had left.
The only thing he could count as fortunate in all this was that the staff and mercenaries he’d hired were still with him.
“Damn...”
Bront ground his teeth again, thinking of Kael’s face.
Had he ever felt such fierce hatred before?
He had never imagined that every last asset he owned would be stripped from him right in front of his eyes.
“...I’ll make sure you regret this.”
Bront’s eyes gleamed.
As soon as he reached the nearest city, he planned to use his connections and file a formal complaint.
He didn’t care how much it cost. Even if he had to squander his entire fortune, he would make Kael pay.
At the end of the day, he was only a guard captain. The moment a real noble stepped in, the flimsy title that bastard relied on would turn to scrap paper.
And when that happened, he’d be the one on his knees, begging for forgiveness.
Grinding his teeth hard enough to break them, Bront quickened his pace. But no matter how hard he tried to hurry, he wasn’t getting anywhere fast.
That was because his natural walking speed was painfully slow to begin with.
For Bront, who was used to traveling in the comfort of a carriage, walking on two feet was an unfamiliar ordeal.
Still, with not a single coin to his name, there was no way he could hire a carriage in the middle of the road, so he had no choice but to swallow his complaints.
And then, in the middle of that grueling journey...
“...What the hell is that?”
A person in black clothes with their face hidden behind a mask appeared, blocking the road.
The mercenaries sensed something cold and immediately rested their hands on their sword hilts.
“...Sorry, but I don’t like leaving loose ends behind.”
The masked figure drew a blade.
The mercenaries tried to curse and draw their swords, but...
Tap!
In an instant, the masked figure closed the distance and swept through them.
The fight barely even began.
Like a wolf that had suddenly appeared among a flock of sheep, the masked figure brutally overpowered the mercenaries with ease.
Drip, drip.
Blood fell from the blade. The moonlit edge shone with a faint, silver glow.
There were four mercenaries in total.
The masked figure finished all four of them off alone in the blink of an eye.
Blood ran from the sword, but not a single drop stained the figure’s clothes.
Terrifying skill.
As Bront watched the scene unfold, the fear of death bloomed in his mind.
“W-Wait, wait! Just hold on a second! I don’t know who hired you, but I’ll pay double, no, triple what you got, so please, just spare me...”
Thunk.
Bront struggled desperately to survive, but it was useless.
The indifferent blade pierced his throat.
“...Keh! Khh...”
Disbelief painted across his face.
Blood spilled from Bront’s eyes, red and bloodshot with shock.
He looked as though he wanted to say something, but no voice came out.
All that could be heard was the sound of blood boiling in his throat.
Before long, his body went limp and sagged forward.
After confirming that Bront was completely dead, the masked figure slowly pulled the sword free.
But it still wasn’t over.
He finished the disposal of the bodies perfectly as well. Even the blood on the ground and the footprints were wiped away clean.
It was a skill he had practiced until he was sick of it in the past.
After erasing Bront and the mercenaries as though they had never existed, the masked figure quietly returned to Nox.
Once he entered a deserted alley, he was about to remove the mask when a familiar voice came from behind him.
“Did you have a nice walk?”
The masked figure’s shoulders jolted violently.
“...You noticed?”
Luke took off the mask and turned around.
Just as expected, Kael was standing there.
“I got curious where you were sneaking off to in the middle of the night, so I followed you.”
“...Hah.”
Luke was not an idiot.
Now that everything had already been exposed, a half-baked excuse would be useless.
“...I’m sorry. I didn’t want to leave loose ends behind.”
Kael looked at Luke without saying a word.
Luke had just come back from dealing with the slave trader and the mercenaries.
He had killed them. That much was fine.
As Kael saw it, that bastard had been a piece of trash who deserved to die.
But Luke’s decision to act on his own, without listening to Kael’s order, was a different matter.
No matter how justified it might seem, Luke was a guard under his command, and Kael, as his superior, could not simply let independent action like that slide.
At the very least, he should have reported to Kael beforehand.
“You know this was overstepping, right?”
“...Yes.”
“And you cleaned up after yourself?”
“...Yes. Even an expert would have a hard time identifying them.”
“Then good.”
“...Huh?”
“I’ll let it slide this once. Just tell me before you do something like that next time.”
Luke had clearly done wrong, but this time Kael decided to brush it off.
You’re awfully soft about this.
I’m not in any position to lecture other people over this kind of thing.
When Kael had been in the Capital Guard, he had almost never listened to the orders of his superiors.
Of course he’d gotten yelled at and disciplined, but he had never paid much attention.
Why? Because he thought he was right.
With that splendid track record behind him, Kael couldn’t exactly turn around and preach at Luke now.
A man had to have some shame.
You couldn’t be a dog covered in shit and go scolding another dog for being covered in chaff.
“The weather’s nice, so let’s go grab a beer.”
Kael threw an arm around Luke’s shoulders and headed for the tavern.
On a pleasantly cool night like this, nothing beat beer.
The fact that it tasted like piss was a minor issue.
They arrived at their usual tavern, the Smiling Lion.
The inside was bustling with guards.
Marin, who was in the middle of carrying food and drink around, spotted Kael and shouted at the top of her lungs.
“Oh! At last, tonight’s star of the show!”
“Ooooh!”
“Why are you so late?”
“Why do you think? I was busy catching this bastard.”
As Kael patted Luke on the back of the head and said that, laughter burst out from all around them.
Nothing built camaraderie quite like alcohol.
If you acted too stingy all the time, it became hard to win the support of your subordinates.
Since he had a little extra money for once, Kael made up his mind and opened his wallet.
“All right, everyone. You’ve all worked hard today.”
Grinning, Kael raised his beer mug high.
“Tonight, we’re eating and drinking until we drop. I’ll deal with anyone who still manages to walk out on two legs.”
For once, he was planning to let loose properly.
* * *