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861: Silenced

「It’s been a while, Mea.」

「Fuhahaha! You got me! Long time no see, Fran!」

Fran called out to the figure landing next to her on the rooftop. However, this figure made no attempt to remove the cloak covering her head, only using her hand to uncover her face slightly.

She must not want anyone else to know her identity. However, the face peeking through the gap was unmistakably that of our acquaintance.

Her white skin and white hair were visible through the gap in the cloak, but those crimson-colored eyes gave the strongest impression of all.

We only know one person with those characteristics.

Princess of the Beast Kingdom and wielder of a divine sword, Nemea Narasimha――Mea. She must be hiding her true identity because of how famous she is.

However, the man accompanying Mea removed his cloak and revealed himself. A young male beastman that also looked familiar appeared from under the cloak.

「Hey there, do you remember me?」

「Nn. Of course. It’s been a while, Zefmate.」

「Yeah, it has been a while.」

The young man smiling happily was the blue cat, Zefmate.

We had fought him during the martial arts tournament, and he was one of the few decent blue cats we met outside of the Beast Kingdom. Not even Fran had any ill will toward him.

He used to lead a mercenary group called “Blue Pride”, but they were already destroyed by the Beast King. Unbeknownst to him, his men had been active as black market slavers.

After receiving his punishment, he was supposed to be re-trained as one of the Beast King’s retainers.

Fran looked at Zefmate and tilted her head suspiciously, not understanding why the two were here.

「Where’s Quina? Why are you two together?」

「Well, it’s a long story…… We’ve been acting like bouncers for the Beastmen Union.」

It seems Mea and Zefmate were actually the the Beastmen Union’s helpers.

「But wouldn’t it be better to take care of your business first?」

「I think so too.」

「Nn. True.」

「Urgh?」

Numerae grunted after being overwhelmed by the stares coming from all three.

Under the pressure of three heavy gazes, Numerae was completely paralyzed. All three were clearly powerful opponents.

Zefmate seemed to have trained pretty hard, and was now much stronger than before. Not to mention Mea and Fran. The duo’s sharp aura of intimidation could not be ignored.

Getting tortured by these three would be nothing short of a nightmare. Seems like this turn of events only made him more willing to cooperate.

「Why are you doing this?」

「T-The Sanatorium――」

Numerae opened his mouth with a resigned look on his face, but then that exact moment……

『What the!?』

「Something’s glowing?」

「W-What the hell is this?」

A burst of light leaked out from a gap in Numerae’s armor, particularly intense around his chest. The light appeared to be coming from something like a pendant hanging from his neck.

But my appraisal said nothing was unusual! Did he camouflage his own appraisal too!?

I thought it would be a tool for teleportation or something like that, but Numerae was also screaming. This was apparently happening without his knowledge.

Numerae forgot about the sword pointed at his neck and desperately tried to remove the pendant from his chest. However, he had trouble getting it off since it was covered by his armor.

As the pendant continued glowing, I felt a surge of magic power. This isn’t going to be a pleasant effect by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s not like I didn’t try anything myself. At first I thought that I could disable it by placing it into my storage, but that didn’t work because it was treated as Numerae’s equipment.

My Magic Absorption didn’t have any effect, and striking it seemed too dangerous. In the end, all we could do was to keep our distance so as to not get caught in the middle of it.

Fran and the others jumped back in unison, and then…

BOOOOOM!

A crimson flash erupted from Numerae’s location along with an ear-piercing roar.

Scorching heat and the shockwave of the blast caressed Fran’s cheeks. If we hadn’t been protecting ourselves with a barrier, we would have taken some injuries as well. However, there seemed to be surprisingly little collateral damage considering the power of the explosion. The rooftop we were on ended up completely fine.

I bet the force of the explosion was adjusted to divert upwards, focusing on the upper half of the target’s body.

After the blast subsided, only the lower half of Numerae’s body remained lying on the ground. His torso had been completely vaporized.

「Self-destruction?」

『No way. Numerae’s fear was real, so he didn’t expect this to happen. He must have been silenced.』

The timing was too good to be a timebomb, so I have to say he was probably killed by remote control. That would mean someone was eavesdropping on our conversation.

Did the warding stone have that kind of effect? Or maybe they set up the bomb to be triggered if Numerae tried to leak any information about the mastermind?

Either way, this means the culprit can cause a huge explosion remotely. And they can do so without us recognizing the magical tool until just before the explosion.

『Our greatest potential source is gone!』

「Nn……」

Numerae mentioned the Sanatorium just before his death. Were they the ones behind this? No, we can’t say for sure. It’s possible he was just trying to explain his goal, such as getting the Sanatorium caught up in the war between outlaws.

Either way, it seems we have no choice but to investigate the Sanatorium. Fran stored Numerae’s remains away and turned to Mea and Zefmate.

「What are you gonna do now, Mea?」

「We’ll have to look into the Sanatorium.」

She did hear Numerae’s words too, after all.

「I don’t know if they’re related to our goal, but we can’t let them incite a war.」

「What did you guys come here for?」

I thought they might be here for training, but that doesn’t explain why they were hiding their true identities and infiltrating the Beastmen Union. Moreover, I wondered why her companion was the blue cat Zefmate instead of the palace maid Quina.

「I’m here to perform my royal duty as well as train. We are to seek out and destroy the black market slavers that lurk in this continent!」

「My job is to assist her. Since I’m a blue cat, it may be easier for me to contact the slavers.」

「Quina is currently working separately to investigate from behind the scenes. Well, considering her, I’m sure she’s doing just fine too.」

Much to our surprise, Mea also came for the slavers. It seems the reason they assisted the Beastmen Union was to obtain information from them.

Although she managed to identify some of the lower-level members, she didn’t know anything about the organization as a whole.

「I would love to exchange information, but…… We’ll have to settle the ruckus in the plaza first.」

「Nn.」