Chapter 406 - Episode 389: The Great Manhunt
Even in the dead of night when most people have fallen asleep, human activity continues in certain areas of the urban center.
The pleasure district located in the center of Noeina, the capital of the Archduchy of Arqvist, is one such city that never sleeps. There is a street lined with taverns, eateries, and brothels that remain open until dawn, frequented by merchants visiting from abroad, mercenary guards, and laborers hauling cargo. Among the residents of the capital, there are also those who occasionally enjoy nightlife.
The pleasure district was bustling tonight as well. A short distance from there, in the inn district, there were those who quietly stepped outside from one of the inns.
A window on the top floor of the three-story inn opened, and three shadows descended to the ground via a rope lowered from it. These black shadows climbed over the wall surrounding the inn's premises and entered the grounds of an adjacent rental warehouse. They passed through the back entrance of the wall surrounding the rental warehouse and emerged onto the street.
Then, while confirming that there were no people around the street, they advanced soundlessly toward the southeastern district where the residences of the wealthy are lined up.
Looking down upon those three shadows from the rooftop of a nearby building was another shadow—a beastman soldier belonging to the Archduchy of Arqvist army.
The race was a cat-person. The lightly equipped soldier, wearing only a leather cuirass as armor, kept watch over the three shadows using night vision while speaking in a low voice toward the void.
"—Yes. The suspects are moving toward the southeastern district via the expected route—Understood. I will continue to tail them."
Having finished speaking to the void, the cat-person soldier utilized their physical abilities to leap from roof to roof, tracking the three shadows.
.....
A few hundred meters away, in the southeastern district of the capital Noeina. Konrad, who had finished speaking with the soldier acting as the lookout at the inn via the dialogue magic 'Far-Talk', turned toward Yuri, who stood beside him.
"Your Excellency Granat. The suspects passed through the back entrance of the adjacent rental warehouse and emerged onto the street. They are moving toward us via the expected route. I will reconnect the 'Far-Talk' in sixty seconds."
"Good. Until then, contact the other lookouts and tell them to assemble here."
"Understood."
Yuri himself, who commanded the execution unit, could also use 'Dialogue', but since this operation required contacting lookouts deployed at several locations around the inn, Konrad had been brought in for this purpose.
Sixty seconds later, through Konrad, who reconnected the 'Far-Talk' with the lookout, a rough estimate was made as to where the three suspects were heading within the southeastern district.
Shortly thereafter, one of the beastman soldiers stationed at various points in the southeastern district came to Yuri and reported that the three suspects had stopped in front of a house's premises and had likely begun taking out tools to write words on the wall.
Yuri gave instructions to assemble all personnel around the location of the suspects and moved himself.
In less than ten minutes, a capture unit of over thirty people in total quietly surrounded the three suspects. They blocked all roads that served as escape routes from the street where the three were, and personnel were also deployed within the premises and on the roofs of surrounding houses to prepare for escapes via climbing over houses.
"Hey, not yet?"
"H-heh, just a little more."
"Thirty seconds more is the limit. Hurry it up."
Among the three suspects, one young man was in charge of writing words of contempt on the wall, while the other two were tasked with guarding the surroundings.
However, this was limited to the extent of worrying whether they were being seen by passersby or neighboring residents; they did not seem to consider that trained soldiers were surrounding them while holding their breath. Indeed, Yuri was watching the suspects from the shadow of a distant alley, but the opposing side showed no sign of noticing.
"...Whistling arrow, prepare."
"Ha!"
When Yuri commanded in a hushed voice, the soldier beside him nocked a whistling arrow to the bow and aimed it at the sky.
The moment Yuri's lightly raised hand dropped, the soldier fired the arrow straight up. At that instant, a high-pitched "Piiii!" echoed through the midnight residential area.
"!?!"
"W-what is it!?"
"Tch!"
Before the suspects, who showed three different types of surprise, the soldiers leaped out and aimed their crossbows.
What was loaded in them were scatter-shot arrows, and what was coated on the arrowheads was 'Angel's Honey', diluted to a concentration appropriate for a paralytic drug.
The soldiers of the Archduchy of Arqvist army were well-accustomed to handling this equipment, which specialized in rendering enemies combat-incapable while keeping them alive. The scatter-shot arrows, aimed at the suspects from various directions but ensuring no allied soldiers entered the line of fire, were fired almost simultaneously.
There were fifteen soldiers holding crossbows. A total of over a hundred arrows assailed the suspects.
The scatter-shot arrows, spreading over a wide area, pierced the entire bodies of two of the suspects, turning them into something resembling a mountain of needles.
And the remaining one spread the black robe he wore to hide in the night darkness in front of him, using it as a shield to break through the rain of scatter-shot arrows.
"One escaped!"
One of the soldiers shouted, and the others caught sight of the fleeing man and chased him on foot. The man, who seemed accustomed to fighting, displayed high physical ability, slipping through the arms of soldiers trying to capture him and leaping over soldiers blocking the path by kicking off a wall.
"Surround him!"
"""Ha!"""
However, the direction he fled was poor. Pence and several other members of the Guard, who were stationed on the road the suspects would almost certainly use if they were to escape, surrounded the fleeing man.
"Damn it!"
"Capture him! Don't kill him!"
The Guard, which gathered the cream of the crop from the Archduchy army, surpassed general soldiers by several levels in terms of combat power. Attacked by several such opponents, the man was soon subdued.
"Knight Bachelor Schoenberg, report the situation."
"Succeeded in capturing all suspects. All three are injured, but they are light wounds. No casualties on our side."
While the commotion of the capture operation caused surrounding residents to wake up and wonder what was happening, increasing the noise, Yuri received the report from Pence.
"I see, it was a procedure that could be called nearly perfect... With this, the recovery of the Archduchy army's honor, which had been lagging behind in responding to the series of incidents, has been achieved."
"Indeed. The soldiers all did very well."
While satisfied with the result, Yuri looked around.
"Now for the cleanup of the scene... What about the report to His Highness Archduke Arqvist?"
"I just sent a messenger a moment ago."
"Good. Then, assign the Guard soldiers to the escort of the suspects, and divide the other soldiers into those in charge of explaining to neighboring residents, those in charge of recovering the scatter-shot arrows, and those in charge of cleaning up the suspects' graffiti, and have them handle the response."
Thus, the capture operation for the three members of the Milleritz Company ended swiftly.
.....
At the headquarters of the Archduchy of Arqvist army, there is a detention center for holding criminals.
It is a stone-built semi-underground facility that exists independently next to the headquarters building, capable of accommodating up to about ten people.
However, in the capital Noeina, where at most only incidents of injury from escalated fights occur, the number of prisoners had never reached that capacity until now. In the first place, it was more common for there to be not a single person detained.
In that detention center, however, there were now people.
A chair was placed in one of the soundproofed cells, and a man was sitting there. The man, who had been stripped naked and rendered unconscious, had his torso tied to the back of the chair, both wrists tied behind his back, and both ankles tied to the legs of the chair with rope, in a state where he could never escape even if he regained consciousness.
And, several people were standing around the man.
Standing in front of the man, at a slight distance, was Noein. Matilda and Yuri stood by his side.
Standing closer to the man than the three was Pence, holding a bucket of water, and further behind the man, one Guard soldier stood at attention.
Pence poured the water from the bucket over the head of the man who was still unconscious. From that shock, the man woke up, raised his face in surprise, and looked around to confirm his condition.
The man, seemingly realizing that he had messed up and been captured, wore a bitter expression.
"Hey, good morning."
When Noein spoke in a light tone, as if greeting someone met on the roadside, the man turned his gaze toward Noein in front of him, and his bitter expression deepened further.
"You are Igor of the Milleritz Company, right? Well, it's probably a pseudonym. I have a few things I want to ask you. So, I've arranged this place for us to talk."
"...I am a mercenary. Mercenaries have a code not to disclose contracts with employers to others. I can say nothing."
The man—Igor—answered in a low voice, suppressing emotion, while glaring at Noein.
"Ahahaha! So you admit you were hired with money to do those kinds of things. You're quite straightforward. As expected of someone who put on such a grand performance trying to escape our army's capture."
Seeing Igor's attitude, Noein clapped his hands and laughed. The sound of the clapping hands echoed against the stone walls of the cell where a chilled air drifted.
"Right now, your two companions are in another place. Those two are even worse about accepting their fate. Both of them are playing dumb, saying this is some kind of mistake and that they are just merchants. It's not even worth talking to them."
"..."
At Noein's words, Igor showed no reaction at all.
"...Now then, shall we get to the main point?"
While observing Igor's demeanor, Noein wore a cold smile.