Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Two: The Suspect Mastermind
“What happened to that man?”
“More importantly, where’s Sis?”
In response to Julius’s question, Thor, who was heading to the tent where Isaac was being held, replied with a question of his own. He seemed concerned that Karen, who had been in Julius’s arms the whole time, was nowhere to be seen.
Julius eventually gave in and answered:
“Karen is sleeping in the same tent as Her Highness Waltride.”
“Ah, the friend of Sis that Sepl mentioned. That’s a relief then.”
“Hmm? Friend?”
“Anyway, you were asking what happened to that bastard Isaac, right?”
Though Julius felt like an interesting topic had just slipped out from Thor, he pulled himself together and turned his attention to the main subject.
“About half an hour ago, he changed from saying ‘help me’ to ‘kill me.’”
“…Any information?”
“I’m on my way to ask him. Up until just now, he was using information as a shield, insisting that if we wanted him to talk, we had to help him.”
“If he’s suffering so much he wishes for death, he might talk in exchange for ending that pain.”
“Exactly.”
Isaac’s treatment remained undecided. He had been isolated in one of the tents, and Boromias and the rest were continuing their meeting to determine how to handle him.
Without waiting for the nobles to reach a conclusion, Thor seemed to be visiting the tent where Isaac was confined quite frequently.
“I’m here again.”
When the knight guards saw Thor, their faces showed relief instead.
They admitted Thor into the tent without any objection.
Julius followed him in.
“They’re anxious too, I bet. Earlier, just touching him was harmful—if it gets worse, who knows what might happen just by being near him.”
“I suppose so. Just having you, a B-rank adventurer, come check on things must put them at ease.”
“If you understand that, don’t scold them for letting me in without permission.”
Julius’s expression softened at Thor, who was showing concern for the knight guards.
“Sure. We can say that I—who defeated the Elder Trent—forced my way in.”
“Or we can say I, a B-rank adventurer, forced my way in. Well, we’ll handle it flexibly as needed.”
“Uugh…”
At the sound of the groan, Thor’s expression dropped instantly.
Isaac was beyond the cloth partition. Thorny vines seemed to be wriggling inside his body, and apparently, each movement sent waves of intense pain through him. However, he couldn’t even cry out. If he tried to speak, the shock of it seemed to trigger another wave of pain.
“Kill… me… please, that’s enough already…”
Thor approached Isaac without any fear and smiled gently.
“I’ll kill you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. After all, you tried to kill me, didn’t you? You tried to kill Sis too, didn’t you? So even if those nobles want to keep you alive for experiments despite your suffering, I want to kill you.”
“Aah…!”
“But before that, tell me. Who told you to pour magical power into this stone? You didn’t obtain this yourself, did you? It didn’t seem like you knew how to handle it either.”
Isaac spoke as if to interrupt Thor’s words.
“A short… man…! A nobleman… with gray hair…! Using a cane… he said if I had this… the ones in my way… would disappear…!”
“Any more information than that?”
“No…! Wait, his presence was strangely faint…”
“Hmm, I see.”
“Kill me…! Quickly…!”
“Nope.”
“Huh?”
Tor stepped back from Isaac.
“If it were just me, maybe, but there’s no way I’d let someone who tried to kill Sis die easily, right?”
“N-No—”
“Let’s go, Julius… Julius?”
Thor peered at Julius’s motionless face and furrowed his brow.
“…Let’s get out of here for now, Julius.”
Thor pulled Julius out of the tent and brought him to a deserted area near the forest before speaking.
“You—have some idea who it might be, don’t you?”
“Yes… Though I hope I’m mistaken.”
“Don’t tell me it’s connected to Sis?”
Thor, who earned the respect of veteran adventurers and even older knights treated him as a capable warrior, looked pitifully young as his eyebrows drooped. Julius tightened his expression to avoid laughing at how endearing it was.
“Karen has nothing to hide.”
“I see… that’s good. Sis, as you probably know too, sometimes knows things that I don’t understand how she could possibly know…”
Julius’s eyes widened. Regarding some of Karen’s mysterious knowledge, now that it had been revealed that her younger brother Thor was a B-rank adventurer, he had been imagining that the knowledge might have come from Thor, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.
“I’m only telling you this, so don’t go spreading it around.”
“Of course… whatever Karen may be involved with, the Ehlertt Earldom intends to support her.”
“Whatever she may be involved with, huh?”
Perhaps Thor had also considered the possibility that Karen was involved with the organization called "Children of the Dark Night.”
“I won’t mention what you just said to anyone in the family either. Your existence will serve as a safeguard for Karen.”
Thor’s eyes went wide, and he covered his mouth.
“I see… so there might be people who’d think it’s knowledge that came from me. Then maybe I shouldn’t go around saying too much about how amazing Sis is?”
“That’s right. It could be information that only a B-rank adventurer would know, and they might assume she heard it from you. Letting people believe that is better. If Karen has any skeletons in her closet that would be painful if investigated, this can deflect suspicion.”
“Thanks for the advice. That helps. I see…”
Thor started to head toward Waltride’s tent, where Karen was.
However, Julius went a different way.
“Where are you going?”
“To question someone who might be the mastermind.”
“Hey, alone? Will you be alright? Should I come with you?”
“The person in question has almost no magical power, a bad knee, and has no ability to fight. It’s even questionable whether he’s involved in this incident at all.”
“A bad knee… this explains the cane.”
“Perhaps in politics it might be different, but in a dungeon, there’s not even a one in ten thousand chance I would lose to him. While he might be able to insidiously torment a young lady by mixing poison into her cosmetics, he could never defeat me in battle.”
How many times had he thought it would be easier if they would just confront him directly? Julius sighed.
Even if Horst—a small man, a gray-haired nobleman using a cane—knew something, Julius could only foresee him dodging the issue endlessly.
But that didn’t mean he could ignore Isaac’s testimony.
“So, you don’t need to worry.”
“Okay then.”
Thor had heard from fellow adventurers about Julius defeating the Elder Treant and had even sparred with him to taste a fragment of his abilities firsthand.
Thus, Thor saw him off without hesitation.
But Julius never came back—even after several days had passed.
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