Abduction On a certain day that"s not so different than usual, I"m working out inside the inn.
Eyes are the weakness of human body, but I have no intention to leave such a weakness as is.
Thus, I pour chili pepper juice into my eyes to train them.
At first, this training felt more like a torture, but once I got used to it it"s actually nothing much. It feels no different than eye drops.
However, as the effect diminishes when I get used to it, I keep on increasing the concentration.
The current concentration is four thousands percent.
The stimulus is pretty intense, as it also blows even my drowsiness away…. honestly speaking, it hurts like h.e.l.l.
“However, this very pain is what makes my eyes stronger! Do your best, me!”
Inside the room where none else present, I shout so.
By the way, Firia"s going out shopping by herself.
Today is her turn to buy food.
It"s already past noon, but Firia still hasn"t returned yet.
We always have meals together, but is she having lunch alone somewhere, I wonder?
No, if that"s the case she would"ve told me in advance… Did something happen?
I feel it to be strange, so I decide to look for Firia.
As long as I have her scent, I can track her anywhere.
I remember her scent, but just to make sure I"d better ascertain it first.
Luckily, I"m staying in the same room as her, so there are many things that have her scent on it.
I approach the bed and smell the pillow.
In doing so, I suddenly realize that if by chance Firia suddenly returns and finds me doing something like this, my reliability points will immediately take a steep dive, but I"ll just cross the bridge when we get there.
Yeah, it has a gentle flower-like scent.
After ascertaining her scent, I immediately set out.
Since Firia"s scent is very spa.r.s.e, I have to be fully focused. Thus I spare no effort in tracking her scent.
I walk through Mossenmorges following her scent.
“…here?”
I soon arrive at a certain place.
The scent is leading me to the house in front me. Among the surrounding stone houses, the house is quite standing out.
Rather than a house, perhaps calling it mansion would be more appropriate.
Does Firia have some sort of business in this house, I wonder?
Firia"s human acquaintance is few in number.
Maybe Firia met the house"s owner when she was outing alone before, but there"s this just in case scenario.
And so I push the intercom. However, there"s no reply.
“Excuse me, anybody home?”
Even when call out to them, there"s still no reply.
I then sharpen my senses to grasp the presences inside of the house.
Inside the house, there are six living presences. This is getting more and more suspicious.
Since there are people inside, someone could"ve replied earlier, but given the fact that none did, there"s the possibility that they"re trying to hide something.
I want to barge in right away, but…
I look around first.
In the street in front of the house, there"s a few pa.s.serby walking about. Barging in without them noticing would be impossible.
“Well, guess that doesn"t really matter. Finding Firia is my top priority."
And so I break through the front door of the house.
If it ends up to be just my misunderstanding, I can simply apologize later. Luckily, thanks to taking request on daily basis, I have quite a saving on me.
Following her scent, I head into the house. There"s no presence on the first floor.
“…which means they"re on the second floor, huh.”
I go up the stairs. Before long I reach the source of her scent.
“What"s the sound just now?! b.a.s.t.a.r.d, who are you? Why are you in my mansion?!”
There"s a fatty lying in wait.
It"s a plump man with greasy face.
He wears quite fine garments, but I have no time to bother about him.
“Where"s Firia?”
“I feel like I"ve seen your face somewhere… ah, the champion of the martial arts tournament, right? Are you that elf"s friend? I like that elf, so I"ve decided to make her mine. That"s all, now go away, otherwise…."
When the guy says so while grinning, five guys appear behind him.
Three are surrounding the man to protect him, while the other two are jumping straight on me.
He"s totally guilty. Which means, there"s no need to hold back.
That instant, I release my muscles limiter and knock down the two jumping on me and then I beat down the remaining three the next instant.
I then grab the man"s chest and raise him into the air.
“Otherwise, what?”
“Pyo!? …Pyopyo!?”
“Stop letting out such a disgusting voice. Where"s Firia? Otherwise, I"ll kill you.”
“Th, there"s a secret path underground! I planned to use a special magic tool to manipulate her will! I, I"ve told you everything! Please, don"t kill me!”
Throwing the man away, I head down to the first floor.
I soon find a wall heading downward, I do know that this path will lead me to somewhere, but since they seem to have covered up everything after pa.s.sing by here, I can"t track her scent anymore.
I return to the second floor and pick up the lying down man.
He seems to have lost consciousness, so I peel off some of his fingernails. Along with a scream, the man immediately regains consciousness.
“Hey, where"s that path connected to?”
“Aaaaah, my nails!!”
“Answer my question!”
I hit his abdomen.
I carefully chose the place I hit so that he won"t lose consciousness again.
“Where"s that path connected to! Answer, now!”
“I don"t know, they also didn"t tell me about it! I swear! It"s Velquis from Velquis bandit band! He"s the one that took the elf away!”
I hit him again before asking once more time, but his answer is still the same.
In other words, this fatty isn"t lying, huh.
However, if that"s really the case… the situation is worse than I expected.
I lost an important lead to track Firia.
In exchange, I"ve acquired information about the one abducting Firia, this bunch called Velquis bandit ban.
I have to find out where their base is located at.
I leave the rolling around man and head out of the house.