Chapter 24: For the first time….. (Part 2)
Several weeks have pa.s.sed since then and we have sent the Korisaru Pellet down the river plenty of times in order to get in contact with the liaison. It would seem that they have yet to get into contact with Myun. However, on a certain day, a strange man was mixed in the guards of one of the caravans that came to deal with our village. In antic.i.p.ation of what might occur, I haven’t been going hunting since then. This is so that we can save the magical power of Myun’s bracelet. According to Myun it seems that the disguised caravan member was the contact she was supposed to meet. Usually the caravan and merchants would stay for about two nights within the village, therefore, I predict that if the contact was going to meet with Myun, the contact would probably choose either tonight or tomorrow night.
According to my expectations the contact sent a message to Myun at around midday. A man approached Myun while she was washing the laundry and told her “Tonight at the stroke of midnight I will be waiting for you at the south of the village near the river”. When I used Appraisal on the man, I found out that he was level 12 and was actually quite strong. However, I was planning on settling it with magic instantly, therefore, I was planning on going ahead of Myun in order to set up an ambush at the location and forcibly get rid of the spy in one fell swoop.
Myun opposed my idea telling me it was dangerous, but I told her not to worry. I was getting ready and I set up my alarm clock with the minor magic: cantrip and I made sure that I would be able to wake up at night, so I eat my dinner and quickly went to bed.
Because I woke up a little early I managed to get to the meeting point ahead of time and I quickly climbed up on a tree and waited for the contact person to appear. I was getting a little nervous but before long the contact person appeared. Because he was carrying a torch, even though I was quite a long distance away from him, I could see pretty clearly around him. I used my Appraisal ability to confirm that it was indeed the contact liaison and I tried to hide my presence as best I could.
I almost thought that he had discovered me with his wary eyes, and he walked towards a sizeable stone on the river side and sat on it facing towards my direction. There wasn’t any change in his appearance, and it seemed that he was just sitting down. This is bad. If he’s facing in my direction, it will be hard to perform a surprise attack. Because it can’t be helped, should I try to use Void Magic from this distance and fling a stone into the river to distract him? No no, because his torch is still blazing, if I throw a stone from this distance, it will be exposed quite easily and he may discover my location.
What should I do?
It may have been better if I didn’t climb the tree. Right now he was right in front of me at approximately 100m distance. If it all goes well than it will be good, but if my attack fails, and he manages to dodge it, then it would only take him around 10 seconds to reach my location. I don’t think I could go down the tree in time to prepare my counter-attack. In any event, it would seem that I need to change the direction he is facing.
Should I use a lump of soil made by Earth Magic to distract him? If I do this, even if he had a torch, it may be harder to notice than a large rock. Ok, let’s give this a go! I produced soil of about one bowl in size, and using a combination of Earth Magic to create the soil and then Void magic to guide it into the river, I threw it into the river. Just like I expected the sound of the soil *splashing* into the river, made the man turn around to have a look. Now’s my chance!
Just like the time when I captured Myun, I created a large quant.i.ty of earth to transform it into the donut shape and launched it towards the man. Even larger in size than the one I used on Myun, I poured more magical energy into this one, and in the blink of an eye, it approached the man with surprising swiftness and pressed him together in one go. Alright! I managed to succeed somehow.
I slowly climbed down the tree making sure that I wasn’t going to slip, and I could hear the man cursing, I slowly approached the man and just like the time when I approached Myun, I made sure to put a wall of earth around his head to make sure that he couldn’t see me. I approached him from behind and I began to talk to him.
「Now then, can you tell me what you were doing at this time of the night at this kind of place?」
「W-who is it?!」
「That doesn’t matter right now. You should answer the question」
At the same time, I summoned forth water right above the man’s head. Naturally the produced water begins to pour down into the man’s face and the rest was prevented from leaking out as the clay wall I made to wrap his body was very st.u.r.dy. The man was probably trying to escape out of the earth prison I made but that is also fine. The wall that trapped him was acting like a bowl that collected the water, and soon the surface of the water rises up to the man’s jaw.
「If you don’t answer my questions, I’m going to summon another surge of water, do you understand?」
「Hiii, I-I understand. I’ll tell you anything. Please what do you want to know?」
「Like I said, what are you doing in such a place at this time of the night?」
The spy was seemingly frightened by my aggressive tone of voice and tried to intimidate him even more as I spoke with confidence.
「I am not here alone, I also have a companion, and if you don’t speak quickly, look more water」
This time around I summoned around a buckets worth of water.
「I was waiting for a friend. I was supposed to meet here」
「Why didn’t you just say so from the beginning? So, where is your so called friend?」
「They are one of the residents of this village」
「Hou? Weren’t you acting as one of the guards for the caravan party that arrived yesterday? Why would you have a friend in this village?」
「I’ve known them since a very long time ago. I only wanted to talk……」
Again I summoned forth some water.
「I-I’m not lying! it’s the truth, I think that they should arrive here soon enough」
「Is that so? Ok, then can you explain why you are meeting at this time of the night?」
「T-that is…….」
「Ahh, it’s because you don’t want to be seen by others right? After all it might be very important information」
「！！…… H-how did you…..?!」
Alright, I got the conclusive evidence. It’s not likely for him to say any more than this, should I just get on with it and deal with him?
「You already know what happens to spies that get discovered right? If you have no intentions of telling me anymore things, then it’s fine, let’s get this over with」
「P-please wait, what do you want to know? I will tell you anything!」
「Is that so? However, I bet that you don’t know the important matters, am I right?」
「Kuu, B-but, if you kill me at this juncture an investigator will come to this location」
「So what if they come? Once they investigate how you died, and they find out that you’ve been killed by me, so what? Are they going to take revenge for you? Are they going to suddenly try to attack me? Do you really think that there is anyone in this world who would go that far for a mere, contact liaison?」
「Wha, to what extent….」
「How do spies get in contact with each other?」
「I don’t know that much. I only came here because I received an order to get in touch with the spy」
Hmm, it doesn’t seem like he’s lying. Well even if he was lying, it doesn’t really matter.
「Who gave you those orders?」
「It was from Boss Beguru」
Beguru? Who the heck is that?
「What does he normally do?」
「 I don’t know what the Boss does but. Sometimes he would come here to confirm the signal from the spy, but I don’t know what kind of signal they send, it’s the truth! Please believe me!」
「How can I meet this Beguru?」
「It isn’t possible to contact him from my end. No matter what it is, when they need something, they will contact me. And then they will give me directions. This time around, my task was to meet with a woman called Myunerin Tobasu and receive some information」
Hmmm, is that how this works? Then, I guess this is a matter of being able to trick that Beguru fellow or whatever his name is. In that case, would it become inconvenient if I were to kill this guy here? Just when I was thinking this much, unfortunately Myun had already arrived. Perhaps this spy got slightly relieved that the new person who approached me was Myun, he actually floated a smile. However, immediately after arriving Myun said…
「Al-sama. It seems that you have successfully captured him. Have you been able to obtain any information?」
The moment the spy heard that Myun was on my side, he once again realized the absolute predicament he was in. Another thing is that he probably understood that he got betrayed by Myun. He began to curse Myun.
Ahh, Myun. It’s too fast for you to come out at this juncture. Or more like, didn’t I tell her to come a little bit later? Well if I didn’t then it’s probably my fault.
「Ahh, for now, I’ve managed to capture him, but he hasn’t said anything particularly amazing. Shall we just dispose of him?」
It can’t be helped. I actually wanted to let him live, and report that Myun had already died, but I guess this plan is a total bust now. It will be impossible to make him believe such a thing now. I don’t think I have any other choice but to take care of him here. Furthermore, I’m sure that this fellow has given a legitimate reason to go out at such a time during the night to the caravan members and so if we dispose of his corpse cleanly, it is unlikely that there will be any traces of evidence connected to us.
I don’t really hold a grudge against him, but without a doubt, he is working as a spy to conspire against us, besides just from speaking to Myun the other day, it’s the common sense of this world to kill off any spies that are captured. Especially if there is no purpose to it, letting a spy live would be high suspicious wouldn’t it? If I were to kill him by drowning, it would be really unpleasant to see, and the person himself would be in a lot of pain.
「P-Please wait! Please don’t kill me. I will do anything!!」
「For a spy granting death is a natural thing」
Although this may be cruel of me to say, I can’t jeopardize Myun for the sake of letting this man live. I pulled out my knife and placed it on the scruff of the man’s neck.
「I’m begging you, please don’t kill me!! I’ll quit being a spy!! P-Please what do you say?!
When someone is begging for his life like this, it requires a serious determination to stick a knife into them. However, he already knows that Myun is alive and not only that, he even knows my name. If he were to speak of it to his superiors, without a doubt, they would be able to pin point it back to me as the second son of the Greed household. There is truly no other choice I cannot let him live.
I increase the water level up to the man’s lips. This is so that he doesn’t spurt out blood from the neck down. The man was frantically begging for his life, and I decisively put strength into the grip of my knife and slit his throat.
Though blood seems to gush out, because he was covered in the water, I didn’t get any of it on me. In addition, I used water magic in order to cleanse the blood on my hands. I confirmed that the man had indeed died. Up to here I was able to perform things mechanically. And after Myun asked me “What would you like to do with this man’s magical stone” I regained my senses. Do I really have to carve out his body in order to retrieve the magical stone? Do humans even have magical stones in them?
I was staying silent and Myun seemed to be aware of it. Myun used the power of her bracelet and changed the corpse into water. Ahh, that’s right I need to hurry up and clean this mess so that I can go home. Using Void Magic, I made a hole in the earth prison in order to take out his clothes and wallet.
His wallet had things like silver coins and copper coins. For now, I was uninterested in money so I handed it over to Myun. I also made a hole in the ground and placed his clothes there for now. Moreover I threw away the torch down the river. Nn? Is this a sword? This was the sword that was hanging on this man’s waist.
【Broad Sword】
【Iron】
【Condition: Excellent】
【Manufactured Date: 3/9/7428】
【Value: 97,500】
【Durability: 500】
【Effectiveness: 100-150】
【Effects: None】
Holding the sword in my hand I looked up towards Myun.
「I will take this. I think that it will become really useful in the coming hunts we will have together. Where should I hide it so that it won’t be found out?」
We solemnly picked up the man’s items and other than the sword and the money, I decided that it would be much safer to completely dispose of any other evidence, so rather than just burying it in the ground, I decided to burn them all away with Fire magic, and then using Water Magic to make the ashes flow down the river.
After completely finishing the clean-up process, I started to calm down and thought about the next step and how this man called Beguru would react to the failure of this contact liaison in gaining information.
The both of us walked back home in silence. After returning to the house, I noticed that I hadn’t completely used up my MP. Apparently my Level had gone up though.
【Alein Greed/5/3/7429】
【Male/14/2/7428 Greed House hold Second son】
【Condition: Excellent】
【Age: 6 years old】
【Level: 3】
【HP：30(30) MP：5242(5380) 】
【Muscular Strength: 5】
【Agility: 5】
【Dexterity: 4】
【Endurance: 4】
【Inherent Skill: Appraisal(MAX)】
【Inherent Skill: Gift of Natural Talent’s (LV 3)】
【Special Skill: Earth Magic (LV5)】
【Special Skill: Water Magic(LV 5)】
【Special Skill: Fire Magic (LV5)】
【Special Skill: Wind Magic (LV5)】
【Special Skill: Void Magic (LV 7)】
【Experience: 6098(10,000)】
For some reason, I gained around 2600 experience points. Was that spy really that strong? If I am not mistaken, his Level was at 12 and his HP was just a little over 120. Gift of Natural Talent is supposed to give me an increase of 80% at level 3. If you deduct it using maths, that means that the experience gained was 1400. Doesn’t this mean that that man gave an experience of about 1400?
In any case, this time around, all of my abilities went up when I levelled up. Is it because even though I used magic to trap him in place, the damage I dealt was given directly and physically using my own hands? I don’t really know how this works just yet.
Incidentally it’s been nearly 2 months since the product launch of my rubber products.
The durability test is also going favourably.
All I have to do is obtain father’s permission and I should be able to go into ma.s.s production.