Chapter 1: Do You Admit Your Guilt? I Admit You’re a Fool!
92 – Chaos and Hero (10)
“…I don’t know about anything else, but we need to investigate that fool, Roses. He fled in violation of the strict military law.”
“Of course, if the Congressman reports the Vice Academy President, we will conduct an investigation.”
Austin, who was placed under investigation without detention, was confined to his home.
The investigator treated him politely, courteously, and formally as he was an active Congressman.
Formal treatment means common sense applies, or in other words, it was indeed dull and dragged on.
Austin discerned that the purpose of the charges against him was that.
“Arbitrary and unreasonable command, violation of peacetime regulations, bribery… I can overlook all of that. But a sexual scandal! Right now… my grandchild is entering the academy this year!”
“But there are credible witnesses, so we must conduct the investigation.”
The problem was that the charges against Austin were not just one or two.
Seeing the investigator’s indifferent gaze, Austin slumped into his chair as if he had collapsed.
Vice Academy President Roses Leblanc was not an idiot. He mobilized every means to strike decisively.
Austin realized that not only Roses but also opposing Congressmen who frequently clashed with him were behind his charges.
He had just been appointed as the Commander of the Defense Forces and had ended up losing, with a force of ten thousand soldiers decimated against any enemy. This indicated a politically very unfavorable situation for him now.
“We faced monsters that should never be underestimated! Other survivors will testify, but they are monsters that devour the world!”
“I have received reports about that. If you’ve managed to win against a force of ten thousand in the Defense Forces, I suppose those monsters are indeed bizarre.”
“…That statement is undeniably true.”
Austin perceived the investigator’s inner thoughts that he was not blaming the enemy for his defeat, but he set aside his pride and sincerely warned.
News had reached the central headquarters through communication tunnels, but the central attitude was lukewarm compared to the hellish outskirts.
“After all, they are just primitive beasts, aren’t they? Of course, the Vice Academy President lost, but he blamed the strong monsters for the lack of training among troops and the weak willpower. The elite central troops said they wouldn’t lose.”
The investigator’s reaction was an average one.
No matter how much Austin explained about the powers of the super-sized and advanced species he had directly faced, it remained just an excuse from the defeated commander.
‘Foolish… you will soon find out, but it will already be after many people have sacrificed. The old men have become wicked snakes engrossed in power struggles, and the young who don’t know the fierce times have become too complacent in peace.’
Austin clicked his tongue and shook his head. True chaos cannot be understood until one experiences it.
And now, that chaos was undoubtedly approaching.
“Don’t worry too much and just wait. And didn’t you say that the source of those monsters is an ancient labyrinth, and that the Vice Academy President of Clawclaw Academy covered it up despite knowing this fact?”
“That’s right. Are you suggesting that I’m lying to evade the responsibility for my defeat?”
“Oh dear. I didn’t mean that, Congressman.”
The investigator waved his hands, smiling. He then handed over some tea that he had personally brewed for him.
“However, the source of that testimony is not from you, but solely from that mage called Reina… Who knows, she could have deceived you with an unworthy ‘lie’, right?”
With that, he subtly gestured. Seeing this, Austin helplessly closed his eyes. He instinctively sensed what might be happening to Reina, who was now captured at the investigation headquarters.
“Let’s have another talk.”
In a dim underground interrogation room. No, it was closer to another place than an actual interrogation room. The room with the interrogation sign was up above somewhere.
“What did you experience?”
“…The Vice Academy President of Clawclaw Academy, Roses, ignored the plea of a survivor boy who came out of the labyrinth, collaborating with the head of the lab to kill him for personal research. After witnessing this, he attacked and imprisoned me, hiding the truth about the monsters that crawled out of the labyrinth.”
Water dripped from Reina’s drenched blonde hair and her sharp nose. However, with a pale face, she trembled and repeated the testimony she had given dozens of times.
“Hmm, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a young girl this tough.”
“Ugh…”
At the investigator’s order, her head was once again plunged into the ice-cold water puddle.
Her slender body, tightly bound by strong men, convulsed wildly, but they only pulled her out after two minutes.
“Ugh… Uweehk!”
After being pulled out, she vomited water. The shaking of her body intensified, and her eyes were nearly vacant.
She had endured several hours of water torture. For anyone of reasonable stamina, it would have been a time to surrender long ago.
“Now, shall we try saying it again?”
“B-blayclaw Academy’s Vice President Roses…”
However, even while spitting out water, Reina continued to repeat the same words. It was so bad that even the investigator, skilled in torture, exclaimed in admiration.
“But you see, nobody cares about a mere research mage like you. Hang her up. Make sure she spits out all the water left in her insides.”
However, the investigator already had a necessary answer he had to hear.
Reina’s soaking body was hung upside down in the air with ropes tied around both of her ankles. Her face quickly turned red as blood rushed to it.
Her skirt that reached her shins flipped, revealing her underwear, but there was no time to worry about that now.
“Quite a pretty face, but I didn’t want to touch it.”
The men, under the investigator’s command, brought in large clubs. In Reina’s blurred vision, she saw the clubs being raised toward her body.
*
“Why not calm down and stay composed, Vice Academy President of Blayclaw? The Academy President is also willing to help.”
“…Could you remain calm in your situation?!”
“I really can’t understand what you’re worried about.”
At that time, Austin was confined to his home, and Reina was being tortured in the underground torture room of the investigation headquarters.
Roses, who had reported both of them, was in an uncomfortable situation as well.
“Congressman Schultz is currently the defeated general, and all sorts of allegations have burst out at once. That mage Reina, well, it’s actually fine to just kill her and bury her. You need to bear the responsibility for your defeat, but is that all that’s making you anxious?”
“There’s more complicated matters!”
Finally losing his composure as he paced around on the carpet, Roses shouted.
The man, casually seated in the chair and speaking to him, was a young man with brilliant silver hair. His golden eyes sparkled.
“Complicated? What is?”
“Those monsters… we absolutely must not underestimate them.”
“Oh? When you were testifying, you seemed to spit and say they were nothing special. Do those monsters seem like units to you?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. Seeing that, Roses unintentionally broke into a cold sweat.
He was the one who had first approached Roses, realizing he was a Player. After confirming their worlds did not overlap, he was also the one to extend a hand of alliance first.
“Well… I don’t know exactly. Anyway, ‘you guys’ can tell just by looking at them, can’t you?”
“Indeed. The power granted by him through his blood has given us the foresight to see what mere creatures cannot.”
He was a Unit. A notably strong Unit.
While others might not know, Roses was aware that they had secretly slaughtered nearly a thousand people across the continent due to their competing units.
‘The youngest Speaker of the Continental Assembly is a Unit, and effectively the entire continent is in his hands. There’s no way others can endure.’
Recognizing his own pride, Roses also realized that the individual in front of him was one of the few he needed to break that pride.
Lost in thought for a moment, he ran his fingers through his silver hair and murmured absent-mindedly.
“I suppose I should see it once.”
“What if they are Units? Isn’t that a bit too relaxed?”
“Do you think we will lose? The entire continent is with us, right? I don’t think so. Besides, the reports from the front say those monsters suddenly vanished.”
“That…”
Roses fell silent. The sudden disappearance of the monsters. The monsters that had been rampaging without pause.
If their rampage had been any worse, they wouldn’t be able to have such leisurely conversations now.
‘What the hell is going on?!’
Thanks to that, Roses found himself in a rather ambiguous situation, struggling to determine whether this was good news or bad news.
“Still, we should finish this quickly just in case. If we give them time, we don’t know how much stronger those monsters will become.”
“That makes sense, but now that we’ve got the opportunity, we should ensure we maintain internal discipline as well.”
Roses fidgeted, but the other party remained relaxed. His rationale came from the powers granted to him by the Player.
Using that ability combined with his own capabilities, they would grow stronger over time. So time was on their side.
That was his thought.
However, it wasn’t just them who would grow stronger over time. There were others as well, at an unimaginably rapid pace.
The problem was that they were unaware of that, or rather, couldn’t even imagine it.
The world was vast, and they were ultimately no more than frogs in a well. They were falling into the same arrogance and complacency that the former Demon King, Casaras, had been so wary of.
“Now is the time to blow away opposition like Austin and devour the entire assembly. You should pay more attention to the Academy side.”
“…Understood.”
“Don’t worry about that woman who was exposing your corruption. You can kill her during interrogation or interrogate her until she’s executed.”
Roses, who possessed a degree of awareness, leisurely poured himself another cup of tea.
