## Chapter 572 – Nice to Meet You, Friend

“Hoo… Hehehe…!”

As I glared at the pagan residents, I heard Claudie’s laughter from behind.

“Seriously, what is it? You said it was a special interrogation, but it was just intimidation?”

Wondering what was up, I turned around to see Claudie smiling as she climbed down from the box. She approached me and gently tapped my shoulder with her wrist.

“Katt, it’s fun. Hoo, hehehe…!”
“Heh, hehehe!!”

Seeing how much she was enjoying it, I suddenly felt a surge of confidence and motivation. From this moment on, if these sons of bitches don’t talk, they’re all dead.

“Hey, hey! You goddamn bastards!!! Wanna go in the box?! Tell me everything you know!”

—Thwack!

“Miyaaaaaaooooong!!!!”

As soon as I kicked the box again, a bizarre scream erupted, as if they thought I was going to stab them with a knife again. Sounds like a real cat.

“Schröㅡdinger, you bastard!!!!!!”

An irresistible impulse!

—Boong-boong!

I couldn’t contain the excitement bubbling inside me any longer. I raised my sword high and danced a murderous sword dance, hopping like a rabbit among the prostrate residents.

“Aaaaaaaagh!!!”
“Kyaaaaaaaagh!!”
“P, please don’t do this!!!!!!”

Immediately, the residents screamed and tried to flee.

“Do not move!!!”

Of course, Elysee wasn’t going to let that happen. She immediately shouted and kicked the back of the heads of those who tried to get up.

—Thwack!

“Kuhek!”

The residents who got kicked slammed their foreheads back into the ground.

The scene was completely under control. Now, all that was left was to extract the necessary information.

—Schrödinger’s Interrogation.

This seems quite useful.

In reality, it was just a death box interrogation that had nothing to do with Schrödinger, but a plausible name is the most important thing. People tend to fall into confusion when faced with situations that transcend common sense.

“Hehehe, you bastards. Aren’t you afraid of God? Selling people to pagans, did you really think you could get away with that?”

As if playing a Mafia game, I walked among the prostrate residents, berating their evil deeds and moral decay.

“Ugh, ugh…!”

The residents were completely terrified and trembling, but some were particularly worse off. There was one guy who was crying his eyes out.

—Crocodile tears.

The thing I hate the most…!

“You bastard! Are you crying right now!!!”

I immediately shouted at the young man who was squeezing out tears.

“Huh? Huh?! N, no, I’m not!”
“The hell you’re not! This son of a bitch wants to go in the box!”
“N, no!!! Absolutely not!!! I’m sorry!!!”

How dare he!

“This bastard! I can’t let this go! Claudie!”
“Yes?”
“Open the box!”
“Hehehe, I will.”

—Creak.

“Euheek!”

As Claudie opened the lid of the box, the middle-aged man inside suddenly raised his upper body like a resurrected vampire. I immediately ran over and dragged his body out of the box.

“Kk… Kkeueuk! S, save me! Please!”

He begged me to save him, but that wasn’t important right now. I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shouted loudly.

“Look at this pagan who got stabbed in the thigh!!!!!”

At that shout, the prostrate residents raised their heads and looked at me.

—…!
—…!

They all had terrified expressions. In that state, I lifted the pagan’s body, blood dripping from his thigh, like a barbell.

“The moment you come out of the box, your future is determined! No one knows the result until they see it!”

The blood flowing from the pagan’s pierced thigh soaked my arm and fell to the ground.

—Schrödinger.

He didn’t know it when he was in the box, but it was confirmed that he had been stabbed with a knife when he came out.

“So I showed you!! His stabbed form!”
“O, ohhh…!”
“Kueuk…! Hueueuk!”
“Eueuheuk!”

The terrified residents groaned.
It was a perfectly natural sight.

“The box is empty. There’s plenty of time, and I’m going to put you all in the box.”

They need to taste a little more fear.

“And when the box opens again… you’ll end up like this.”
“N, no!”
“I will never forgive you!”

Immediately, I threw the pagan guy I was holding high down to the ground with all my might.

—Thwack!

“Gujaaagh!!!”

He let out a bizarre death cry and fainted.

“…!”

A strange silence descended on the world for a moment.

They must have seen it clearly.
—The end of those who served the pagan cult.

“Elysee.”
“Yes, Saint.”
“…Heal this guy’s thigh. I need to interrogate him more. Go over there and do it secretly. Got it?”
“Secretly, you say. I understand.”

I immediately called Elysee and whispered to her, and she dragged the pagan away by the ankle and disappeared somewhere.

Now, the atmosphere for interrogation was slowly being completed.

“You there! Why the hell do you look like that!”

I picked someone at random and started picking a fight with him.

“W, what?!”
“You look displeasing! A guy like you belongs in the box!”
“O, ooooh! N, no! Please don’t do this!!! I’m innocent!!!”

The quick-witted Claudie immediately grabbed the back of his neck and threw him into the box. I held a knife to him to prevent him from escaping and said,

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to! I can just close the lid of the box!”
“Heeik!!!”

As I tried to close the lid, he shouted frantically.

“I, I’ll talk!! I’ll talk, so please!! Please save me!!!”

That’s right.

“Hoo? You’ll talk? What do you want to say?”
“Before that, get me out of the box…!”
“Do you think you’re in a position to negotiate!!”

I don’t need a cocky bastard like this!

—Thwack!

I immediately closed the lid and stabbed it with a knife.

“Kyaaaaaaaagh!!!”

Reality isn’t a game, so there was no chance of a pagan stabbed by a knife popping out like in a pirate roulette game. The lid was closed, and Claudie was sitting on top of it.

“Cocky bastards. I ask, and you answer. That’s all.”
“Heo, heoeok!”
“You there. You long-nosed bastard. Are you an elephant?”

This time, I picked the guy lying face down in the front and beckoned with my finger.

“M, me?!?!”
“Yeah. Come here.”

He looked around in complete terror and slowly walked towards me.

—Swish!

“U, ugh!!”

I quickly subdued him, drew a dagger, and pointed the tip at his eye. It was an implicit agreement and a silent gesture that I would gouge his eye out if he didn’t talk.

“What did the pagans offer you? If you tell me, I’ll give you some leniency.”

As soon as I whispered in his ear, he shouted frantically.

“T, they wanted people! They demanded that we sell people!!”
“They demanded human trafficking?”
“Yes! That’s right!! B, but…! Kueuk! We had no choice! Those pagans threatened to kill all the people in our village if we didn’t cooperate!!”

So they were being threatened by the pagans.

“Hueuek…! Kueuk, hueheong!”

He burst into tears, wailing even though the blade was in front of his eyes.

“T, that bastard!!”

At the same time, jeers erupted from the surroundings.

“You snitch!”
“You son of a bitch!!”
“Are you betraying the village!!!”

…Are these bastards crazy?

“Hey, can’t you shut up?”
“We’re all gonna die anyway, why the hell would we shut up! Everyone! We have to figh—Eeeeeegh!”

—Thud.

I lightly threw a dagger and hit him in the forehead, and the guy who was trying to incite them fell over.

This is summary judgment.

“Milden!!!”
“M, Milden is dead!!”
“Hiiiiik!!!”

Was his name Milden?

Well, it doesn’t matter. Now that I’ve secured the testimony.

I sat the guy I was interrogating down next to me. About that time, Elysee approached.

“Saint, the treatment is complete.”
“Good. I’ve secured the testimony too. These bastards were being threatened by the pagans. They said they would kill them if they didn’t participate in human trafficking.”
“Threatened… Saint. No matter how much they were threatened, what they did is absolutely unforgivable.”

I think so too.

“I agree. Elysee. Now, grab them one by one and secure their testimony. Well, I guess I have to get permission from Captain Vakerel before killing them, so don’t smash their heads.”
“Understood.”

I immediately started securing testimonies with Elysee.

“You bastards! If you cooperate, I’ll give you some leniency! Who among you has committed the greatest sin!”

I slammed the sword of life into the ground and shouted loudly.

In fact, I don’t know what Vakerel will do even if I give them leniency. It’s just that.

“Those who do not cooperate will be executed immediately! You there! How many people have you sold so far!!!!”
“T, there’s a ledger in the village chief’s house! And the money they received from the pagans! The village chief did everything proactively!”

Once one guy started talking, it was a piece of cake.

“We had no choice!!”
“The pagans come in wagons! They come once in a while and buy people for a lot of money!”
“Please save us!! They said they would kill us all if we didn’t cooperate! We had no choice!!!”

They completely lost their minds at the word “leniency” and started blurting out everything they knew.

“Good, good. Very good. Those who have finished testifying, go over there and sit down.”

Before I opened Schrödinger’s interrogation box, information was uncertain. But when I opened the box, that information became certain.

As I expected, the village was being threatened by the pagans.

In return, they received a considerable amount of money, which they used to go to the cities outside the Misty Plains and buy the supplies needed for the village.

But once they had joined hands with the pagans, they were in the same boat. They could no longer refuse or report them, and they had been luring people out and selling them for years, as the pagans ordered.

The victims were countless.

I immediately raided the village chief’s house, tearing up the floorboards, the pillars of the house, and the walls to steal the ledger and the money from the human sales. And I immediately stole a pen and paper and recorded the circumstances.

“Well, there’s nothing that works better than threats. So, are you going to kill all those darkies? I think it would be better to kill them all.”

Winia said with an annoyed look.

“We have to kill the ones who deserve to die.”

I’ll kill all the ones who deserve to die. And the rest can be sent to Isvant.

Actually, it’s not my problem to think about. Captain Vakerel is the person in charge on the scene.

I just need to interrogate them, record it, and hand the documents over to him.

“Hueuek… Hueuek!!! We’re all dead…!”
“Kueuk…! I knew this would happen…!”
“Please save us! We had no choice!!!”

The residents cried out, begging for their lives.

No matter how much they were threatened by the pagans, the crimes they committed were too clear. They kidnap people, cut off their ankles, raise them like pigs, and when the pagans come, they sell them for money.

Yes, people may have lost their minds when threatened.

But as a seeker of Fusion Confucianism, I thought that the fact that they deliberately cut off their `ankles` meant that the villagers had lost even their last bit of conscience and had become corrupted.

They simply cut off their ankles to make it easier to keep them locked up. They did it only for their own convenience. I cannot forgive that. Even if they pretend to be wronged, even if they cry out that they were threatened, the evil deeds they committed will not disappear.

“Hehehe, when you were selling people, did you ever think about their feelings?”

No one opened their mouths to my question.

—Step, step.

Just then, a strange man began to walk towards me from the other side.

…A strange man?

I wondered for a moment, but it was Vakerel.

“…”

Captain Vakerel had a completely Yaksha-like face and was grabbing the village chief’s head and dragging him along.

It was literally like a jailer from hell escorting a prisoner.

—Thud.

Vakerel, who had approached, threw the village chief down like trash.

“Gek, gegegek…”

The village chief’s limbs were twisted in strange directions. He was even foaming at the mouth with his eyes rolled back.

What the hell kind of interrogation do you have to do to make someone like this?

Even I, who am quite strong-hearted, was getting creeped out.

“…Paladin. How did the interrogation go?”

Vakerel asked in an extremely cold voice.

His fierce attitude conveyed how angry and enraged he was. Is this the quiet rage of a true paladin?

“Here is a report summarizing the interrogation.”

I handed over the document and summarized the interrogation.

“I see.”

He nodded after hearing the whole story.

“The crime of aiding the pagan cult, torturing innocent people, and selling them.”

—Crack!

“Execution.”

Vakerel simply crushed the village chief’s head. Even though he simply stepped on it, his neck was crushed and torn off.

“C, chief!!!”
“Chief!!!!”

The residents were shocked to see that.

“It seems that the residents cooperated with the interrogation. I am aware that they were threatened by the pagans to commit these heinous acts. But… the fact that they deliberately cut off people’s ankles can only be seen as a way to easily manage and sell them.”

Vakerel pointed out the same thing as me.

“The ringleaders will be executed according to the severity of their crimes, and the rest will be sent to Isvant. Holy Knights, tonight is overtime. I hope the Paladin will help too.”
“Of course.”
“And… you did a really good job with the interrogation and cleanup. As expected of the talent praised by the Saintess. Thank you very much.”

Vakerel, who said that, looked somehow complicated.

Although they look like madmen, their roots are good people.

That night was busy.

The priests were working to document the testimonies of the detained people, and the Holy Knights were interrogating the residents all night long, extracting information.

If they were pagans, they would have been executed immediately.

However, they were not worshiping the pagan god or following the teachings, but simply collaborators due to threats. Of course, the Holy Knights were aware of this as well.

According to the teachings of the Brass Sky Angels, this was not subject to summary execution, but the crimes had to be revealed and punished in accordance with due process.

In conclusion, as Captain Vakerel said, all the ringleaders would be executed, but the rest would be sent to the city.