Young Master, Please Put Some Pants On! - Chapter 74

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 74

‘Why are humans here…?’

Five well-built human men were loading iron cages containing children onto cargo wagons while bursting into sinister laughter.

At that moment, words Garulus had spoken long ago flashed through Mellis’s mind.

“…Then will you put a collar on me and torment me like a pet?”

Hundreds of years ago, there had been a terrible culture among human nobles of keeping young beastkin who couldn’t yet transform as pets.

She had thought Garulus was just frightened by old ghost stories, but witnessing this horrific scene before her eyes, she couldn’t help but be deeply shocked.

“This should fetch us at least 5,000 nif, right?”

“Handle them carefully if you want full price. Even a scratch will lower their value.”

“Move quickly! We’re already running behind schedule, and it’ll be trouble if the Ducal Residence’s knight order catches us!”

“Why are you so anxious? We released so many high-level magical beasts that even Duke Severus will have his hands full for a while.”

Finally grasping the full chain of cause and effect, she gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. However, unlike her shocked state, Kermanomon simply ran his hand through his hair with an ice-cold expression.

“Human traffickers. I thought they’d been quiet for a while, but they’re at it again. They must be out of their minds to even mess with magical beasts.”

“For a while…?”

“Mellis, stay hidden here. I’ll be back shortly.”

When Kermanomon showed signs of jumping down immediately, a panicked Mellis grabbed his arm.

“No! You’re not even fully recovered, what can you do alone!”

However, he placed his hand on her head as if it was nothing and said,

“Dealing with just five or six humans is nothing at all. So I’ll be back.”

“Be careful!”

Leaving her worries behind, Kermanomon once again threw himself down the cliff. However, Mellis, who had been watching the scene with worried eyes, soon realized that all her concerns had been unnecessary.

* * *

“The flying unit should take the children straight to find a physician. The rest continue surveying the surrounding area.”

“Yes!”

About 20 minutes later, the two safely reunited with the knight order led by the search team. Of course, the entire situation had already been resolved before the knight order even arrived.

“Ugh…”

The men who had been unconscious and bound began to wake up one by one. Belatedly realizing their situation, they turned pale as they recognized the identity of their attacker.

“Y-Your Grace! We were wrong. P-please show mercy just this once…!”

“Mercy? What ridiculous nonsense.”

Kermanomon ran his fingertip along the well-honed blade without even glancing at them.

“Release magical beasts to draw the knight order’s attention, then kidnap children. Quite bold of you. Seeing how brazenly you operated in my territory, you must have been confident you wouldn’t get caught?”

“That is…”

The man gulped down dry saliva. Initially, they hadn’t planned to escalate things this far. No one paid much attention when one or two children from the slums disappeared, and they had been committing their crimes by targeting children from the Astina Marquessate, which had relatively less surveillance.

But a few months ago, a suspicious man approached them. He advised them to release magical beasts in the western mountains and use that as a base to avoid people’s attention, even teaching them methods to abnormally incubate magical beasts.

In exchange, he provided drugs that amplified magical power and proposed splitting the profits at a fixed ratio. Though they initially hesitated about getting involved with magical beasts, money easily earned once was hard to give up.

As expected, when rumors spread about frequent magical beast appearances in the western mountains, people stopped climbing the mountain entirely, and everything flowed smoothly just as he had said. The money they earned over several months amounted to hundreds of millions of nif.

But of all people, to be caught by Duke Severus! The man, knowing his notorious reputation, trembled as he defended himself.

“I never intended to touch the magical beasts from the beginning! We were just following that person’s orders!”

“‘That person’?”

When Kermanomon showed interest in his words, the excited man spoke rapidly.

“Yes, yes! That person took more than half of the money too. It was a half-blood bastard with a large reverse scale embedded in his face, and that man said it was for his master, kugh…!”

However, before he could finish his words, the man let out a pained groan. His body convulsed grotesquely as he went into seizures. Soon he vomited black blood from his mouth and collapsed helplessly to the ground.

“He’s dead.”

One of the knights who checked his pulse shook his head. Kermanomon clicked his tongue briefly as he looked at the eyes showing only whites and the black blood staining the surroundings.

“Word Binding.”

It seemed things were going to get quite complicated. If Word Binding was involved, there was almost no information they could extract from the remaining four. Kermanomon rubbed the back of his neck tiredly and turned away coldly.

“We’ll check the rest at the detention center.”

At his command, the knights roughly bound them. As he turned around with an ice-cold attitude, Mellis came into his view, hiding behind a tree trunk.

Her face was deathly pale, and she didn’t look well at all. Mellis was trembling and clutching tightly to his coat draped over her shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

At his worried question, Mellis startled and forced a smile.

“Yes, I was just a little surprised… It’s the first time I’ve seen someone die…”

However, tension was still evident in her voice. Only then did Kermanomon recall the appearance of the man who had just died. With his tongue torn apart in death, it certainly wasn’t a pleasant sight.

Having spent a long time in war, he had become numb to such sensations, but for someone witnessing death for the first time, it would have been a shocking scene.

Kermanomon let out a soft breath and adjusted the coat on her shoulders as he spoke.

“If that bastard hadn’t died, those children would have suffered terrible things. They were scum who deserved to die anyway. So don’t worry about it too much.”

“…Yes.”

After a moment of silence, Mellis slowly nodded her head. But she was still deeply lost in thought.

* * *

A few days later. Kermanomon emerged from the underground detention center, radiating cold air. He had just finished dealing with the last man who had held out until the end. Having been exposed to the smell of blood for too long, his sense of smell had also become dulled.

More than anything, the sensation of the humans’ sticky blood smell clinging to his entire body was indescribably unpleasant. He frowned as he untied his hair that had been bound up.

Malcolm, who had approached his side, handed him a prepared document file and spoke.

“Your Grace, this is the investigation based on what you mentioned.”

“Good work.”

Several days had passed since returning from the western mountains, but the atmosphere at the ducal residence was still excessively sharp. The children rescued that day had received treatment and safely survived, but with nowhere else to go, they were sent to the duchy’s orphanage.

The fact that human trafficking had occurred once again within his territory brought great shock and anger to Kermanomon.

The time spent at the detention center for several days wasn’t entirely meaningless. They had succeeded in securing some testimonies while avoiding the Word Binding. They all gave consistent testimonies.

When they took the drug that man had given them, their magical power was tremendously amplified, and they used that magical power to incubate magical beasts. However, none of them could properly testify about the man who had handed over the drugs.

Therefore, Kermanomon decided to directly pursue the source of those drugs.

“There’s exactly one place that matches the information Lady Rachel sent. According to Cherchiana’s investigation, there are several half-bloods among the people involved in this black market. Many unauthorized drugs are mixed in among the goods they trade.”

“Then we need to investigate that place. When is the next market day?”

“About a month from now.”

“I’ll participate directly, so prepare for it.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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