Chapter 116: Ominous Premonition (2)

༺ Ominous Premonition (2) ༻

Originally intended to be used as a military stronghold for border surveillance, Shubaltsheim surprisingly attracted adventurers who sensed the scent of money, and thus became known as the 'City of Adventurers.'

Of course, not all inhabitants of the city were adventurers.

But with restaurants serving food to adventurers, blacksmiths forging weapons for adventurers, and merchants buying items brought by adventurers at high prices... With so many adventurers around, naturally, a market centered around them has developed.

And naturally, where there are many people, there are also the poor.

Those who could no longer be adventurers due to injuries, children who had been irresponsibly born out of a night's frolic, families who followed their adventurer husbands and were left alone after their deaths as beggars, prostitutes, and so on.

The slum in the south of Shubaltsheim, often referred to as the poor district, was where such underprivileged people gathered.

The kidnapped victims were almost all concentrated in the slum area. Therefore, even when their own families were kidnapped, proper investigations could not be carried out. The city guards were reluctant to approach the slum, and they had no money to hire adventurers.

Based on the information received from Louis, we went to the house of the woman who was most recently abducted. We determined that she would likely have the highest chance of survival.

"Thank you, thank you! Adventurer, please do find my sister...!"

"...Yes. I'll do my best."

When I vaguely mentioned that I had come as an adventurer to investigate, the victim's older sister didn't doubt me and let me into the house. Or maybe she was just that desperate.

I looked around the victim's room and asked.

"Has anyone tampered with this room?"

"No. Nobody touched it since she disappeared. The guards did come to look, but they didn't really touch anything..."

Just as Louis said, there were no traces left in the room.

If she was kidnapped, there should be signs of resistance or intrusion, but nothing of the sort could be found. It was as if she had evaporated and disappeared.

"Someone mentioned a monster appearing, have you seen this monster?"

"Oh, that... You must have met Mrs. Beril. She witnessed her daughter being abducted."

The woman bowed her head as she spoke.

"But she didn't exactly see what she was talking about. She just said something vague appeared in the house and her daughter disappeared while she was hiding in fear... My sister also disappeared suddenly one morning. But the guards just concluded she ran off with a man... Emma is not like that at all...!"

I silently looked at the woman who covered her face and burst into tears.

Despite her makeup, red rashes were visible on her hands and arms. It meant she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease. Probably got infected while working as a prostitute.

It was a bit of a rude question, but I had to ask.

"Did your sister do the same work as you?"

"No, absolutely not! Even though I'm doing this job, I wanted Emma... to meet a proper man and live a good life."

"......"

If the sister was as sincere as she said, the probability that the younger sister had no experience with men would be high.

What a coincidence, they kidnapped a virgin... I couldn't help but feel an ominous premonition.

While there were no physical traces to be found in the victim's room, there was one unseen trace.

It was the residual aura of dark mana.

It was so faint and minute that even I, who is particularly sensitive to dark mana, could have missed it if I hadn't focused. Following this, a clue would surely emerge.

I left the victim's house and took to the streets, detecting the dark mana not with my sense of smell, but with my other senses, and followed the trace leading to the city's underground.

'The sewer.'

That's where the trace led me, I was certain.

Including this woman named Emma, all the victims seemed to have come to this place on their own accord. Probably, their rationality was removed and they were made to come here themselves. Naturally, there would be no signs of abduction left.

The fact that there were no signs of them leaving the house could mean that perhaps the victims were commanded to erase their own traces. Erasing footprints is not too difficult if one knows how to do it.

Contrary to the general perception that sewers are dirty and unclean, they are in fact one of the key facilities of the city, and not anyone can enter.

If it were a place now unused, like the dark side of the system, that would be one thing. But it was only natural for a city to assign administrators to manage and restrict access to facilities that are in active use.

Shubaltsheim was no exception. As I headed toward the entrance to the sewer, a city guard blocked me with a gruff attitude.

"Hold it right there. This area is off-limits without city hall permission."

I also felt the residual aura of dark mana from this guard.

It would have been simple to return to city hall immediately and obtain permission from Elizabeth. If it's a royal command, ordering around a city official would be no big deal.

But it would have been a waste of time, and it was questionable whether this guard, who I suspected was under some sort of spell, would let me in without trouble.

So, the method I used was simple.

"Hey, if you don't have business here, scram!"

As I stood silent, the guard's attitude became even more hostile.

Instead of replying, I grabbed the guard's head and slammed it hard against the wall.

Bang!

"Gah!"

With a loud echo, the guard instantly lost consciousness and fell.

His helmet was a bit crushed, but he didn't die. Instead, he would probably be unconscious for a few hours.

There were a few other guards inside, but I took care of them in the same way. After putting all the guards to sleep, I entered the sewer.

The sewer was dark and extremely dirty. Due to poor ventilation, the air was filled with the smell of rotten water and human waste.

This in itself would have been toxic to an ordinary person, but for me, it posed no problem. If I could endure the smell, that was it, and I could see as brightly in this darkness as in daylight.

However, the real problem was another very familiar smell that was mixed in with the filthy odor. It was an overwhelmingly strong smell of blood.

To put it simply,

None of the abducted victims were alive.

"Damn it...."

It was good that I didn't bring anyone with me.

Given the blood smeared on the walls and the grotesque crafts made of human bodies, anyone would have been unable to bear it without retching.

Even for me, who had seen all sorts of horrors on battlefields for over a decade, this scene was quite a shock.

I carefully checked the victims' bodies.

'They were alive... and screaming.'

On the floor, there was a magic circle drawn in blood, and the victims had been alive on top of it for quite some time. Of course, that time must have been horrifying for them.

Perhaps that's why they chose this underground sewer. No matter how much they screamed, it wouldn't leak outside.

'It's crude, but it's a well-made workshop.'

I checked the experimental equipment scattered around. Most of it was cheap, but it looked like they had managed to arrange something resembling a workshop even in such a poor environment.

Managing to create a workshop of this level while avoiding the eyes of others would indicate a considerable knowledge of dark mana.

There was a book on the desk. It wasn't a magic book made of human skin or anything like that, so I immediately checked the contents.

There, a man's diary was written.

To summarize adequately, the owner of the diary was an adventurer in this city.

He was an A-rank adventurer, a ranger active in a fairly high-level party. Their party was capable of exploring quite deeply, even in the lands of the ruined Iona Kingdom.

That was their poison. At the party leader's suggestion, they decided to go much deeper than usual. They decided to explore the royal road of Karia.

While exploring the royal road of Karia, they discovered an unusual place while being chased by high-level undead, and they took refuge there...

In that place, all party members were wiped out, and only the ranger was able to return to the city alive.

All he brought back was a red gem of unknown purpose.

A red gem?

Something about that seemed familiar. But it was not yet the stage to be certain of anything.

There was more written in the diary.

Just as I was about to turn the next page.

"Hmm?"

Thud, thud.

I heard footsteps from afar.

Someone was coming this way.

Since I had caused such a commotion at the entrance, it could be someone who noticed something was amiss and came to check the situation inside.

However, there was no light that should have been there.

Like me, the intruder was walking straight into this darkness without a torch.

"......"

I held my breath and slowly heightened my guard.