Chapter 24: The Investigation
The hall was completely silent as soon as an overbearing and majestic voice of the President of adventurer a.s.sociation echoed inside the hall.
Suddenly, half of the people present in the hall bowed in respect towards the Mage who was descending from the stairs.
"Solomon, my brother & men were killed yesterday! We just found their bodies this morning outside of West city gates. I need to find the murderer and this man is a suspect!" shouted Stragabor, the giant man & the leader of the Groundhog Adventurer team.
"That"s President Solomon for you." said Arkham who standing right behind the Mage as he did not like Stragabor addressing the middle-aged Elf without honorifics.
President Solomon raised his hand and stopped Arkham midway as he gazed at Kahn and then Stragabor.
"That"s your personal matter. But it gives you no right to cause a commotion here. Besides, do you really think you can do whatever you want or kill anyone inside Adventurer a.s.sociation while I"m here?" the Mage Elf said as he stared at Stragabor with no fear or any type of emotions in his eyes at all.
"Or are you trying to say that you no longer acknowledge my authority?" asked the President in a gentle tone, trying to see the reaction on the huge man"s face.
"I don"t give two s.h.i.ts about you & your authority, Solomon. This man is a suspect of killing my men so I"m here to take him in my custody and ask some questions." said Stragabor as he rebuked the President of Adventurer a.s.sociation right in front of hundreds of people.
"How dare you insult the President?!" shouted Arkham as he put his hand on the sword that was hanging on his waist. His deadly killing aura erupting like a volcano and raising the temperature of the entire hall by few degrees.
"Then why isn"t anyone from City Law Enforcement hall or someone from Law Enforcer Squad here? Why is it only you & your team?" asked the Elven Mage.
This question surprised everyone present in the hall as well. Why wasn"t anyone from authority here to take Kahn into custody if Stragabor only wanted the culprit of his brother & men"s murder found?
"Or could it be that you don"t wish to investigate by the rules of the law & just beat a confession out of the man without having any proof?" asked the pesident as he revealed the other side of the coin.
This made sense to many because Adventurers didn"t have any right to make any lawful arrests or take someone for custody under the name of investigation.
"Don"t try to twist logic with me.. "President". I"m only here to see the criminal brought to justice. What"s wrong with that?" asked Stragabor with contempt in his eyes.
Not only was he enraged, but he also wanted to kill the murderer with his hand. But Solomon"s reasoning brought his intentions to light in front of so many people.
"Is that so? Then how about I & Arkham accompany you to law enforcement hall then? We too want to see justice being brought to your people"s murderer." said Solomon with a benign smile on his face.
Kahn who was the main center of all the incidents shuddered in fear as he saw the kind-looking elf mage smiling.
Suddenly his Survival Instinct alarmed inside his mind, so much louder than when he faced Arkham or Stragabor today. His instincts telling him to run as far as he can.
Behind that kind & gentle smile, was an aura of absolute power.
[Is this man beyond the Grandmaster level?] Kahn asked himself in puzzlement.
Because Solomon wasn"t even releasing or directing his killing intent towards Kahn at all. He was simply standing on the spot.
Of all the people present here, only Kahn, Stragabor & Arkham could notice and feel the pressure of this aura. Rest were simply too weak to even notice that Solomon was releasing his murderous intent at the moment with a righteous smile on his face.
Solomon noticed the gaze of Kahn and looked towards him with an approving smile.
"What does it have to do with you?! Why are you interfering?" asked Stragabor furiously.
"Well, the incident happened yesterday & your brother also had a fight inside this very place. So it does concern the a.s.sociation as we don"t want people to say that we did not cooperate with the authorities during the investigation." said Solomon as he stood against Kahn.
"Young man, do you admit being guilty of any of his claims?" asked Solomon, however he no longer exuded any sort of aura as he stood in front of Kahn.
"No. I"m innocent. And I don"t have any reason to kill his people either." said Kahn as he folded his hands.
"Then come with us. We will accompany you to the law enforcement hall. If you"re innocent, I promise on my name that no one will harm you as long as I"m around." said Solomon with a benign expression as if he really cared about Kahn being wrongly accused.
"Alright. I"ll follow you." said Kahn as half the crowd walked out of a.s.sociation hall. Many officials including Malcolm walked with them as they were the witnesses to yesterday"s incident.
After getting on various carriages owned by the a.s.sociation, many of which had different types of lizard-ish, horse type monsters and steed pulling the carriages; all the involved parties left.
Half an hour later, they all reached the law enforcement hall which was 2 times bigger than the Adventurer a.s.sociation building, guarded by a garrison of soldiers and weapons placed at the walls. After Stragabor and his team entered and filed the case about the deaths of their men, the case was officially under Investigation.
Normally, it would take them a lot of time to even begin the investigation but as soon as the officer saw the 3 strongest adventurers in the entire city in front of him, the matter was sent to the top-rank authorities and judges in just an hour. Soon, some official investigators started questioning all the involved parties in different rooms including Kahn, Malcolm, the Groundhog Adventurer team and few witnesses.
Kahn blurted out his yesterday"s routine except for the killing as if he really didn"t know what happened yesterday.
To cross-check his story, law enforcement hall sent few top-ranking soldiers to all the places he mentioned including the City Library where Kahn spent his longest time. Kahn being the calculative guy he was, still kept the library pa.s.s as proof before he threw away his clothes after the murder.
He even mentioned the color of his clothes, just not the ones he was wearing before the ma.s.sacre.
Elanev was brought for questioning as the only witness of Kahn"s evening to nighttime.
Since Kahn never looked like he had a fight or had any bruises or blood on him when he met Elanev in Black Griffin Merchant Enterprise, he too believed that Kahn was innocent and answered everything he knew truthfully.
Arkham & other people"s testimony about Kahn"s performance as an excellent swordsman during the a.s.sessment test also came in Kahn"s favor as the only weapon he was known to be excellent at using was a sword.
Besides, one man killing dozen of experienced men by himself and not even receiving a scratch on his body was found laughable by many witnesses as well.
The investigators also mentioned in their reports about injuries on the dead bodies indicating that they were done by a monster with sharp teeth and incredibly strong claws as some of the hard armor worn by the dead people was torn and had markings of the claws.
As the sunset was finally on its way, the investigation was done efficiently.
The verdict being nothing else than Kahn being innocent of the crime since the murder site and mutilated bodies hinted a group of wild monsters doing the killing than someone who was a human.
As soon as the verdict came and Kahn was found not guilty of any of the charges, the people from Adventurer a.s.sociation celebrated in cheers.
Because after their President backed up Kahn and this incident happened on their grounds, the a.s.sociation also had a lot of its reputation at stake during the investigation.
While the people of the Groundhog adventurer team stormed out of the hall in rage. Completely unhappy with the verdict.
Kahn finally let out a sigh of relief after being recused of all the charges.
He thanked everyone from the a.s.sociation and also Elanev.
The young merchant was shedding tears after the investigation was over. Kahn thought that Elanev was a very sensitive person who was simply happy for Kahn.
Little did he know that Elanev was crying after looking at Kahn"s costly equipment and weapons he bought from the letter Elanev gave him this morning.
[How the h.e.l.l am I going to explain this to Father? He"ll kill me if this got leaked to him.] thought Elanev as he kept sobbing.
"Kid, if you have time then come with us. The President wants to talk with you in his private quarters." said Arkham as they were going to depart.
Kahn bid farewell to Elanev and traveled with the crowd back to a.s.sociation building.
After some time, Arkham took Kahn to the president"s private quarters.
He entered after Arkham and saw the middle-aged elven mage staring outside the window, looking that the dark blanket which sky covered the entire city with as the night had approached.
"Sit." he said. Kahn simply sat down on a comfortable sofa with Arkham standing on the opposite one.
"I believe you understand why I asked you to meet me here, right?" asked Solomon as he gazed at Kahn.
Kahn however, had no bewildered expression on his face. He looked calm and composed without any worry.
He simply poured himself some wine in a gla.s.s that was on the table, took a small sip and tasted the wine as he rested his back against the soft cushions.
Kahn gave a big smirk to both the old men in front of him and said,
"Yes. It was me."