## Chapter 881 – Illegal Slave Trader

I carried the unconscious mage back to the underground cave. Surely, in a place like this, I could do whatever I wanted without being heard. Anyway, I tossed the mage onto the floor and used the tools around me to thoroughly restrain him.

“Wake up.”

ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!
ㅡThwack!

“Ugh…! Ugh!! Ughhh…! Hngh!! It hurts, it hurts…!”

I unleashed an inhuman barrage of flicks to the forehead, like a machine gun, and the mage, blood spurting from his forehead, groaned and woke up.

I have a lot to ask this bastard.

First, I need to be careful because mages can manifest magic by chanting spells. But I can’t gag him because I need to hear his testimony.

There’s no other way than to be careful.

“Hngh! Wh, who are you!”

The mage, groaning in pain, quickly assessed the situation and shouted in great surprise.

Does this bastard not recognize me?

“Can’t you even recognize your own mother?”
“Mother…?”
“Are you going to keep acting like this, son!!! Huh!!! Are you going to treat your mother like this!!! Mother is a person too, a person!!!”
“Ah, AHHHH! Wait! Wait a minute!!!”

I held a knife to his throat and messed with him a bit, and the terrified mage shook his head. Of course, he couldn’t move because he was restrained.

“This is… an underground cave!!! Wa, wait! I’ll tell you everything I know!!!”
“Oh.”

Is this bastard quick-witted because he’s a mage?

He seemed to have figured out my purpose as soon as he realized he was in an underground cave. I couldn’t ask for anything more if things were going quickly.

“What do you know?”
“I, I am…! A mage hired by the manager of Sangulla! My name is Kormat!”
“Good. You seem to know something I’d want to know. Tell me.”

ㅡThwack!

I planted Bügal into the ground, flipped over a cart, and sat on it.

“M, my specialty is… preservation magic. I can keep corpses in relatively intact condition… I’ve been doing that work in this underground area.”
“Who ordered you to do it?”
“The manager of Sangulla!”

The manager, huh.

“The manager ordered me to manage these corpses… B, but I only know what he looks like, I don’t know his real name! I just call him Manager…! Those kinds of guys always use aliases and launder their identities! You won’t get any real information even if you ask me! Of course, the manager would never tell me where he lives!”

That’s true.

He’s a mage, so his head works fast. He’s spitting out logical things. Of course, it could be a lie, but I should listen to the story first. I can determine the truth later.

“Is that so?”

Anyway, it seemed that the manager of Sangulla had been involved in illegal human trafficking and corpse smuggling for a long time.

In the end, that bastard is the main one.

The fact that he immediately appointed a foreigner, Tertan, as an executive… He must be a high-ranking member of that New World Advent Society. He was using illegal methods to quickly and efficiently raise money for his religion or whatever.

A lot of money, too.

“But why is a mage working in a shitty place like this? Is the pay good?”
“Not at all… The salary is terrible.”
“Tell me why.”
“…”

When I asked, the mage was silent for a moment, then glanced at me before rattling off his unfortunate history.

“I… I have a lot of debt.”
“Oh.”

The story was that this mage, Kormat, was once a very promising young mage, but his life fell into ruin after he made one wrong move in Reitas, where he came for entertainment.

“And I got addicted to drugs…”

A promising young man.

In other words, he was a complete sucker. After coming to this city, he became addicted to gambling, and in the process, he became addicted to drugs.

He lost all his possessions and accumulated a huge debt, but because there was no magic tower nearby, he couldn’t get help and ended up living like trash here.

Reitas is far from the capital. There is no church, no magic tower. All there is are guys who come to the city for entertainment, criminals, and sailors who turn into pirates if things go wrong.

In the midst of all that, the mage was almost sold to Sangulla, signed a lifetime contract, and ended up working like a slave.

Originally, if you couldn’t repay the money you borrowed in the world of criminals, you would be tortured and disposed of without anyone knowing, but he was still useful because he was a mage. So, the manager of Sangulla, who had been eyeing the mage who had become a wreck in Reitas, bought the debt.

That’s how he became involved in this illegal business.
That was already five years ago.

“That’s my history… I don’t know anything about the main information of this human trafficking organization. It’s the truth! I’m just doing what I’m told! No organization shares all the information with its members!”

Kormat, on the verge of death, fully activated his brain from his promising days and defended himself as much as possible.

“Calm down. I know you wouldn’t share organizational secrets with low-level members. I know that.”
“Th, that means…?”
“But how much is the pay?”
“I, I told you, it’s terrible… I live under surveillance by the Sangulla members even in the dorm… I can’t go far. I just get money to live on and gamble with the occasional allowance…”

He said that he had reached a point where it was impossible to repay his debt. He could liquidate it if he ran away to another city, but it was impossible to escape the surveillance of the organization members with his drug-addled body.

Still, they were giving him some convenience because he was a mage. It would be difficult to find someone with these skills again. They hardly spent any money on him, so they had to let him breathe.

“Okay, you bastard. That’s enough with the unfortunate story. Anyway, do you know an organization called the New World Advent Society?”
“Ah…! Is that why!”

He seemed to know something.

“Do you know?”
“I once heard the Sangulla members talking about it! I’m a mage, so my memory is good…! The Sangulla guys said that they all belonged to that group or religion!”

That was a possibility.

Considering that the guards fought so hard even when their heads were being pulled off, it was worth suspecting.

“But what did they do with the preserved corpses?”
“W, well, I don’t know the details… Of course, I’ve been doing this job for years, so I’ve wondered how the corpses I preserved are used… But I couldn’t find out anything special. My world is very small. This cave, the house where I’m watched, and the downtown area and gambling den are all I know…”

Kormat, after setting the stage, continued.

“The reason why they bother to keep the corpses fresh and smuggle them somewhere… Honestly, I’m a mage, so I’m guessing, but it’s either human experimentation using corpses… Or some cultists are using human organs or human flesh to make health foods… That’s all I can think of. Whatever it is, that’s all you can do with preserved human corpses… That’s the truth. There are cases where crazy people believe in false facts and commit cannibalism.”

If not, they might offer them as sacrifices to the gods or use them in rituals. That would be common for pagans. And human experimentation… Those cultists involved with liches would need a lot of those corpses.

There are connections.

“Are you here to catch the manager of Sangulla?”

He asked, watching my expression.

“I should. But I can’t see that bastard.”

There was no one among the guys I caught today who looked like the manager.

“…What happens if he gets caught?”
“I’ll have to catch all the Sangulla bastards and kill them. They’re an illegal human trafficking organization. I have to wipe them all out.”

Innocent people were being enslaved and sold to various places. Who else but me would solve this!!!!

“I hope you’ll take my circumstances into consideration…”
“I don’t know, unless you spit out useful information, but it’s not really helpful. Just accept your fate. Even if you’re lucky, you’ll probably be locked up in prison for a dozen years.”

Assuming that this bastard’s words are true, if he just cast preservation magic on the corpses, he’ll probably be locked up in prison for about ten years or go to work in a mine or manor.

Of course, I can’t kill him yet because there’s more to dig out.

I have to verify the truth of his words.

I’ll do that later, but if it turns out that this bastard lied during the investigation, I’ll kill him.

“That’s better than dying here… So I’ll be able to escape from here?”

I’m planning to transfer all the arrested guys to a nearby church first. I can’t take them all to the capital at once.

“At least you’ll get out of the city. Put your neck here.”
“What? Aagh!”

ㅡGrip!

I strangled him unconscious, slung him over my shoulder, went up the secret passage, and headed to the 5th floor of Sangulla.

* * *

I roughly finished the work.

I confiscated the vault where the huge amount of cash was stored, and I collected all the ledgers and certificates used in Sangulla, as well as the supplies used to forge documents, and revealed whether the slave certificates were forged.

It was relatively easy to finish because I conducted the investigation with torture.

All the slave certificates I confiscated, that is, those stamped with forged seals, were forged, but those stamped with other seals besides the confiscated seals were actually bought from the prison.

I checked all these certificates, kept the legal slaves locked up, and released only the kidnapped people. And I gave some of the money I stole from the vault to those freed citizens as travel expenses.

Even though I saved them, I can’t take responsibility for them all the way. Now that they’ve been freed, they have to live on their own. Still, I gave them enough money, arranged for them to buy food and weapons, and even arranged for a carriage, so I can say that I’ve done my part.

With this much, they’ll be able to get off at a nearby city and return to their hometown.

After sending the freed people away, I locked up all the remnants of Sangulla in prison. Even though it’s Reitas, there are city guards. I showed them the legal investigation warrant that our Saintess gave me and bribed them with some of the money I stole from the vault, so I was able to borrow the prison.

There were a total of 20 people, including Sangulla’s armed guards, employees, customers, forgers, and mages.

There were originally more, but I killed some of them while I was investigating.

Tertan was currently being held in my personal custody.

But the manager bastard was nowhere to be found.

The employees all said they had seen him a few days ago, but he seemed to have suddenly disappeared. He was supposed to show up at the VIP sales event, but he didn’t come. He might have sensed something and ran away. If he came near when I was making a mess and ran away, I wouldn’t be able to catch him.

“Then take good care of Tertan. Find out anything you can. I’ll go to the lord for a while.”

Above all, I had applied for an audience with the lord. As I was spending the days organizing things, the date was soon set. That’s today.

“Okay, darkie, have a good trip. But I can’t use the confiscated vault money as I please, right?”
“Use about half of it as you please.”

There was a considerable amount of money stored in Sangulla’s vault, and I destroyed the ledgers appropriately and diverted half of it to my share. Of course, I had killed all the employees who knew about the ledgers.

There was no doubt that it was my money.

Of course, some of it was used to help the victims. I’ll take the rest of the money to the Order.

I met the lord and talked to him.

“Hmm… To think that such a thing happened in my territory… Paladin, you’ve done a great job. I’m really grateful.”

The lord said with a serious face.

Honestly, I suspect this bastard too. He may not have been involved in illegal activities, but he probably received bribes and leaked enforcement information or provided convenience. But the employees I tortured didn’t know much about the lord, so there was nothing to pursue.

I can’t do anything to a nobleman with this much.

At least for nobles, I need solid evidence that this person clearly sided with the pagans before I can touch them.

“To think that Sangulla was such an organization…”
“Didn’t you know?”
“Even though I’m the lord, I can’t know and deal with all the crimes that occur in my territory. It’s similar to how the church can’t kill all the pagans.”

The lord continued with a serious face.

“Sangulla has been audited and inspected several times already. We couldn’t find any illegal evidence at all. And they paid their taxes well, so there was no need to touch them separately. I know very well that Reitas is a city with a high crime rate. Sangulla… At least until now, it was one of the stores that operated cleanly without any such criminal activity. It’s a great pity for the victims that it turned out like this. It’s no wonder we couldn’t find it, with document forgery and secret spaces.”
“Is that so.”

He’s a lord after all.

In fact, it’s over if he says he doesn’t know.

“But… You said you locked up the people involved in the prison. If it’s okay, I’d like to handle it myself. Would that be okay? It happened in my territory, so I’ll punish them myself.”
“Currently, there are signs that they sided with the pagans, so that’s a bit difficult, but as for the customers who frequented the store, there’s no pagan suspicion, so please handle those people directly.”

The Sangulla employees are suspected of being pagans, but the guys who wore masks and came to buy things are not pagans, but just guys who frequented an illegal store.

As a result of checking their identities, they seemed to be doing well, so I killed only half of them. Even so, there was too much evidence of their wickedness left. It would be okay to entrust the remaining half to the lord.

“Pagan suspicion… Then there’s nothing I can do. The Paladin has collected all the evidence himself. I understand. I’ll do that.”
“This is the list.”

I handed over the document.

“But are there any legal slaves left in the Sangulla underground now?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for controlling the criminals well in the midst of the chaos.”