Chapter 118
[Quest: Rescue the Fallen Light]
Karl, looking up at the sky from atop his horse, stared blankly at the window that had popped up before departing for the Holy Knight Order.
‘It seems to mean there's some problem with the Holy Knight Order.’
The image representing the Holy Knight Order was light.
After all, they were the ones who had gone on the East Continent expedition under the banner of spreading the light of Essus to the world.
‘Karim isn't that kind of person... Ricardo... that doesn't make sense either.’
All he knew about the newly appointed vice-commander was what he had heard through Godfrey.
He had vaguely heard that the man was ambitious, but there seemed no reason for the vice-commander of the Holy Knight Order to consort with those demon-like elf bastards.
"I won't know until I go see."
"That's just how life is. Don't they say you can know ten fathoms of water but not one fathom of a person's heart?"
Though Sancho always wore a silly-looking face and smiled with crescent moon eyes, one could occasionally tell that he belonged to the quite elite class among intelligence agents.
Come to think of it, the proverbs here also had many similarities to those on Earth back then.
"Right, I won't know without confronting it."
According to the information provided by Anne, the disappearance of girls under the age of 15 was increasing in a city called Bairot, approximately a 5-hour horse ride from Amberg, where the Holy Knight Order was located.
That was precisely the place Karl intended to check first.
"What on earth are they doing, catching girls not even 15 years old?"
The deeds ordinary bad guys might commit were obvious, but the actions of those involved with demons or various magical powers rarely ended at just that level.
They were often used as live sacrifices, and he could only guess that this case was likely the same.
After traveling for a long time, Karl was able to reach Bairot.
"You probably don't need any special disguise."
Like Sancho teased, Karl had become so famous recently that his appearance and attire weren't that peculiar anymore.
During the journey to Bairot, countless people aspiring to be Knights of the Lighthouse sported the lighthouse knight hairstyle and wore surcoats and armor with a similar feel.
"I'm envious, such popularity."
The expression on Sancho's face as he spoke frivolously was unmistakably that of someone teasing Karl.
"It seems your training has been lacking recently."
"...Threatening people every time you're slightly displeased isn't good, you know."
"It's training."
"That's not training, it's harassment!"
"So, have you become weaker?"
"Well... as for that... I think I might have gotten a little stronger."
"Then it's training."
Karl smiled.
Sancho looked like he was about to cry.
"Let's begin. Training."
Thus, the training of the two continued quite late into the night.
***
"The supply has been slow lately."
Red eyes and vivid blonde hair.
The man standing before the unrealistically beautiful woman flinched at her words.
Although he was Sergei, a big shot recognized in the underworld who had created one of the top five slave markets in the West Continent in Bairot, he feared the woman before him.
‘If that crazy bitch snaps her fingers...’
The countless slaves who had died horribly before him surfaced in his mind.
Come to think of it, the fact that his slave market could grow this large was also all thanks to the woman before him.
"...It's difficult to meet the quantity you desire, there's a limit to the under-15 girls available nearby."
"Can't you just target the entire West Continent?"
"Of course, we are doing that. But as you know, to work without leaving a tail or trace..."
"So? Are you saying you can't do it?"
Sergei squirmed as he met the eyes glowing red with an eerie quality.
"How could that be? I will manage it somehow."
"I'll trust and wait. However, if it takes too long, you will simply be replaced. We are not a particularly patient race."
Did the human who first described elves as gentle and benevolent beings in stories die peacefully after spreading such lies?
"It seems someone has been tailing us lately. There's word that we have a tail. We tried to catch them through the kids, but they are extremely secretive, making them hard to catch."
"Continue what you were doing, we will make our move."
"Understood."
"You may leave."
At the dismissal from the red-eyed female elf, Einar, Sergei quickly rose and went outside.
"Interesting. Tailing us?"
As soon as Sergei went outside, other elves appeared behind her, as if they had been there all along.
They sat naturally in their respective places, like people who had originally been there.
"Einar, investigate the ones said to be tailing us. Gunter, Laura, and Olga will assist Einar."
"As the leader commands."
When the three bowed their heads and looked up, Mikhail had already disappeared.
***
"So, you're saying this is one of the top five slave markets in the West Continent."
"You seem excited."
"Slave markets aren't entirely bad things. Even if it's a black market, because of its scale, people gather from all over the continent. So naturally, there are many good restaurants around the slave market too."
For Karl, who possessed modern thinking, it was difficult to understand how a slave market, where people were bought and sold, could flourish as if it were natural.
"Sir Karl doesn't seem to like slave markets?"
Karl didn't answer, but through his silence, Sancho read Karl's thoughts.
He couldn't understand why Karl, who was born a noble, hated slaves, but considering the eccentric behavior he had witnessed while accompanying him, it wasn't entirely incomprehensible either.
"My sister is here! I definitely saw her!"
"Kid, this isn't a place you can just wander into, so go back. And your sister isn't here."
"That can't be true, I clearly saw someone take my sister into here with my own eyes!"
It was a boy with bright eyes, looking about 7 years old.
Such a boy was shouting, trying to enter a building on one side of the alley.
"Kiddo, there's a limit to how much we can overlook. Hurry up and leave before the uncles get angry. If we get angry, you die."
As the well-built man guarding the building entrance menacingly pressured the child, the startled boy took a few steps back.
"She's definitely here, my sister is definitely inside!"
The child, who had momentarily retreated a few steps, shouted again as if having no intention of returning.
"This little shit, taking our kindness for granted!"
One of the burly men shouted at the child, strode forward menacingly, and then struck the child's cheek with his huge hand.
Thwack!
The child was quite small, and the man's palm was exceptionally large.
The child, struck on the cheek, crumpled forward just like a stunned frog.
"Ah, Pim! Didn't you hear not to cause trouble?"
"If we don't do this, things like that will keep coming back. That's more trouble."
"Still, how could you slap such a young kid's cheek so brutally?"
It was while the man named Pim, who had hit the boy, was talking with his colleagues.
Flinch. Wriggle.
The child's body, momentarily stunned by the previous blow, twitched, and the child staggered to his feet.
"My sister... here... she's here. My sister is here..."
Even with one side of his face completely busted, the child's voice, speaking towards the men, was small but desperate.
Even though the child spoke so desperately, Pim and the other large men couldn't hear the child's cry.
"My sister...! She's here!"
The child shouted once more.
Only then did their heads, which had been talking amongst themselves, turn towards the child.
"Give me back my sister!"
As the child screamed desperately, the face of Pim, who was watching him, contorted like a ferocious demon.
"This brat thinks we're blind because we let him off easy, is that it?"
Just as Pim was about to lunge forward again, his colleagues grabbed his shoulders and stopped him.
"Let go!"
His eyes rolled back, he shook off his colleagues, strode towards the child, and then simply raised his foot and kicked the child's head.
The child saw the incoming foot, curled up, and squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
Crack!
"Aaaaaaaah!"
The kid, who had curled up tightly expecting pain, slowly raised his face at the sudden scream of the man.
Before the boy's eyes, Pim was rolling on the ground, his leg broken at a strange angle.
"You okay, kiddo?"
The boy watched the strange man with bomb-like curly hair and dark skin wink at him, and nodded his head unknowingly.
"Where's the spot to hit such a young kid, you pieces of trash worse than human garbage."
Sancho, with his dark skin, stood with one leg casually forward in his characteristic slick manner, looking at the brutes before him.
"...Who the hell are you."
They frowned, looking at the bizarre interloper who had suddenly appeared.
"Well, you could think of me as just a passing righteous adult? Anyway, you guys are in a bad mood, right? And you're going to attack me anyway. Then wouldn't it be fine to just come at me without needing to figure out my identity?"
Hearing Sancho's taunting, the four brutes clenched their fists.
"The higher-ups told us not to cause trouble, but they didn't say anything about avoiding a fight that comes to us."
The brutes cracked their necks once and slowly closed the distance towards Sancho.
It seemed they weren't just neighborhood thugs, but guys who had learned some martial arts.
One man, slowly approaching, quickly lowered his body and went for a tackle to subdue Sancho's lower body.
Sancho lightly dodged the charging brute, took a back step, and then brought his knee straight up into the chin of the man aiming for his lower body.
Crack!
The man, who intended to quickly roll away after the tackle, gave up his chin to the knee that flew in half a beat faster and crumpled forward.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The following three were also quickly subdued by Sancho's light movements.
"You've improved a little."
"Did you say a little?"
"Not impressive."
Sancho with the bomb hair looked at Karl, who spoke from behind him, with a face questioning if he was even human.
"Let's take a quick look inside to see what's there."
"...Seems like trespassing...? Sir Karl? Where are you going?"
Whatever Sancho said, Karl ignored the unconscious brutes and walked into the building.
The boy, who had been shouting moments ago that his sister was inside, also followed Karl and ran into the building.
Creak.
The inside of the building, entered through the opened door, was dark despite having windows.
There were a few lights on in the hallway, but light couldn't enter through the windows.
‘It was thoroughly blocked from the outside.’
It was a structure whose purpose could be roughly guessed.
There were quite a few rooms, structured like a prison or a chicken coop, and bedding was messily scattered inside the rooms.
‘Nobody's here now.’
He had expected them to be absent since no human presence had been felt upon entering.
He heard upon entering that the kid's sister was 13 years old.
Looking inside the building, it was a place where people were gathered, and it was certain that those managing this place had noticed something and smuggled out those inside.
‘They already anticipated this and cleaned everything up.’
He scanned everywhere, but there were no specific clues.
The guys left guarding this place seemed like common thugs judging by their appearance.
It was unlikely they knew anything significant.
Karl meticulously examined the building, checking even for potential secret spaces, before finally exiting the building.
"Thorough bastards, they didn't leave a single trace."
Sancho grabbed the head of one of the men still lying outside.
Sancho's eyes, which had been smiling like thin slits until moments ago, opened slightly, and a cold chill flowed from them.
"Who ordered you to guard this place?"
"Frank bro..."
The guys spilled their superior's name without much resistance.
"As expected, seems like there's nothing to gain, right?"
Karl looked at the man lying on the floor, then at Sancho who asked with his slit-eyed smile, unlike moments before.
"Have him guide us to this Frank guy."
The man looked at the black-haired man exuding a far more dangerous aura than Sancho and quickly nodded his head.
***
Frank, the director of the Red Bear Office, was talking with his right-hand man, Pove, in his office.
"Boss, about the request we received this time..."
"Uh, why?"
"I was thinking it might have been better not to accept it..."
"It's just guarding an empty warehouse, what could possibly happen?"
Pove also wanted to think as casually as his boss did.
But this time, something was different.
His boss might not have seen it, but Pove had seen the splattered bloodstains there.
"You saw inside, didn't you?"
"What, it was just an empty warehouse."
"It was a place where people were kept locked up."
"Why are you suddenly acting like this? Like someone who only did clean work."
"It's because I have a particularly bad feeling about it."
"Hey, it's already a finished case. We agreed to take the job and received the payment already. You got your allowance too. What now, should we return the money?"
At his words, Pove's mouth closed.
Kwaaaaang!
Just as both their mouths closed simultaneously and silence fell, the sound of the guild door they were in exploding was heard.
Aaaack!
Kuaaaaack!
"Let's talk for a moment."
Not long after the loud noise was heard, Frank's office door opened, and a man with black hair and black eyes entered the office.