Chapter 55 : Krio Dispatch (2)

‘The facilities are on par with the academy?’

Since it was a headquarters located in the underdeveloped Krio region, I thought the facilities would be poor, but there were more than enough luxurious interiors and amenities.

As we were admiring and looking around inside, the two who had finished bickering followed us.

“Are these children your students, Cled?”

Camilla looked at each of us one by one, then spread her arms wide and hugged the four of us tightly.

“Cute..! I’m also from the academy!”

“Hey. Stop it, you’re making them uncomfortable.”

When Cled intervened, she finally released the restraint.

“Are you all hungry? Put down your luggage and come to the dining room right away.”

She hummed happily as she headed to the kitchen.

I quietly asked Cled, who was looking tired.

“Were you really dating Camilla? Your personalities are so different..”

“..Let’s talk about that later.”

I unpacked my luggage in the room she gave me and went straight to the dining room.

“You must have had a long journey? Eat a lot.”

The table was filled with dishes made with surprisingly luxurious ingredients. They were dishes that were not easily eaten even in the capital, Semal.

“Where did you get.. these foods?”

“I went a little overboard for our precious guests. They’re my Cled’s students.”

When I spoke in admiration, she answered with a smile.

While everyone was busy eating, Cled alone didn’t pick up his fork and said to Camilla.

“..Camilla. We came here on a mission to eliminate bandits. But, there were only scattered bones in the bandits’ hideout. Do you have any idea about this?”

She, who had cut a piece of luxurious steak and put it in her mouth, answered with a snort.

“Bandits? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard this year. Do you think we’d let those guys run wild with our headquarters right here? We wiped them out a long time ago. The hideout you went to is probably a place we already dealt with.”

“Really? That’s strange. There were rumors that there were frequent disappearances around here.”

“Maybe it’s because of wild animals or Sarkas? If there really were bandits, they wouldn’t have escaped our eyes. You know my skills well, Cled?”

“..Well, that’s true.”

The topic of conversation quickly changed to old stories. It was an opportunity to hear about Cled’s mercenary days in detail, so everyone seemed to enjoy it, but Yuri seemed uncomfortable all the time. After a while, she put down her fork and got up.

“..Excuse me. Can I leave first? I have a bit of a headache..”

Camilla looked at her for a moment, then nodded.

“Of course. You must be tired from the long journey, so it’s not polite for me to keep you here.”

When Yuri left, Camilla continued the story.

“So, at that time, Cled said..”

“I’m sorry. I’ll go rest too.”

“Huh? Alright.”

I also apologized to her and quickly left the seat to follow Yuri.

“..Yuri, is it because of the successor thing?”

Her expression, seeing me following her, said in a small voice, looking around somewhere cautiously.

“..No. It’s not because of that. Of course that’s a concern, but this facility itself is somehow suspicious. Especially Camilla.”

She looked around, then grabbed my wrist and pulled me.

“Let’s talk inside. Follow me.”

In the lodging room I entered following Yuri, she told me what she felt.

“It’s strange that a regional headquarters has such state-of-the-art facilities. Moreover, the food Camilla served was all made with high-quality ingredients that only come from each region.”

“Well, it was a bit unexpected.”

Usually, a regional headquarters is just a large barracks tent with only the really necessary living elements, but even if it was a remodeled building that existed from the beginning, it was an unimaginable luxury.

“The Semal headquarters wouldn’t provide this much funding, and the bandits are strangely wiped out. But, the fact that there have been reports of missing traders or travelers until recently..”

“…”

Yuri was suspicious of the Krio Regional Headquarters. I also, as I listened to her, began to have doubts one by one.

“Let’s secretly search here tonight, Saya. Until then, don’t show any suspicious behavior.”

“Alright.”

At the promised time in the dawn when everyone was asleep, I woke up with Yuri and came out to the hallway.

“Saya, do you have anything to illuminate the surroundings?”

“Wait a minute.”

I used Floga, a basic fire spell that I stole from Julius in the past, to create a small flame on my hand.

“Okay. That should be enough.”

The headquarters had far more rooms than we thought. It was strangely luxurious, to the point where it was simply a residence for Spirit Masters.

“There’s a strange door on the floor?”

What I found was a square door that seemed to lead to the basement. As expected, it was tightly locked with a padlock.

“Shall we break it?”

“..No. That would leave traces.”

To enter the basement without leaving a trace, there was no other way but to unlock the padlock properly.

I summoned Invidia in the form of Daengdaengi and asked him.

‘Invidia, can you open this without breaking it?’

[It depends on the structure.]

He brought his front paw to the hole.

“What are you doing?”

“Wait a minute.”

Yuri thought it was strange, but soon, with a click sound, the padlock was unlocked.

“…Huh, haha..”

I quickly dispelled the summon to avoid unnecessary suspicion and opened the door on the floor.

‘Stairs..?’

Where the door opened, stairs that continued endlessly to the bottom appeared.

We carefully started going down the stairs that continued deep down. It was so long that it seemed like it would never end, even after walking for a long time.

“It seems like we’ve arrived.”

When the stairs that seemed like they would never end were all descended, a wide underground was revealed.

‘Why is there a place like this underground…?’

All kinds of weapons and armor that seemed to be trophies were proudly displayed on the walls, and as I continued to move forward, what appeared to be a huge vault was revealed.

“Yuri, doesn’t this look like a vault?”

“..Yes. Whatever is inside, it’s not obtained in a normal way.”

Yuri said that, and I was about to touch the vault.

[Stop, human!]

At Invidia’s strong thought, I flinched and stopped my hand just before touching the vault.

‘What’s wrong?’

[A high-level boundary spell is set. If you touch that, a signal will go directly to the caster.]

Hearing Invidia’s advice, I put my hand back in place.

“It’s done. There’s no point in touching it..”

“Grrrrrrrrr..”

“…?”

At the sound of an animal-like sound from somewhere, Yuri and I stopped moving and looked at each other.

“…Did you hear that just now?”

Yuri, with a serious expression, carefully opened her mouth.

“Unless I heard it wrong, it sounded like an animal’s cry.”

As we followed the direction of the sound through a narrow path, a foul smell began to sting our noses.

“..It smells terrible.”

Splash.

Something was stepped on under Yuri’s foot, who was walking ahead.

“This.. could it be.”

The fishy smell of iron that hit my nose like a punch brought on physiological discomfort. There was only one liquid that I knew of that had this kind of smell.

‘….Is it blood?’

A while later, what was revealed before our eyes, passing through the narrow path, confirmed our doubts.

“Grrrrrrrrr….”

A huge, unnamed beast, at least 3 meters in size, was gnawing on a human leg like a snack.

The scattered bones and pieces of flesh on the floor indirectly showed the history of its actions.

“..We can’t stimulate it, Saya.”

Yuri and I quietly backtracked and tried to get out of there.

“…!”

When a bone fragment was stepped on and made a cracking sound, the excited beast looked this way.

“Yuri, let’s go!”

“Krrrrrr!!”

Leaving the monster’s roar behind, we ran and climbed the stairs like crazy. I quickly closed the door leading to the basement and locked it again.

“…Haa…. Haa.. Ugh!”

As I was catching my breath with her, someone’s hand grabbed me from behind and I was sprayed in the face with an unknown spray.

“Sometimes you have to know how to look the other way, kids.”

We, who were forced to the floor by the hands that attacked us from behind, checked the face of her who was walking from afar.

“If you hadn’t tried to dig too deep, I would have let you live, out of respect for my relationship with Cled..”

‘This smell, is this the smell of Ypnos..’

It was the scent of Ypnos, with a sleep-inducing component, that I had inhaled in the past to kidnap the young Gillian and me. When I inhaled the gas in spray form, my strength left my body as if my soul was escaping, and I fell asleep.

…

When we, who had lost consciousness due to the oncoming sleepiness, opened our eyes again, it was at the end of a snow-covered cliff with a cold wind blowing.

With our hands and feet tied, in a kneeling position, only the distant cliff below was visible.

‘Cliff…?’

Unlike me, Yuri was still unconscious.

“There’s also a way to feed you to my Bredon, but I don’t feel good about seeing my precious juniors being torn to pieces..”

‘Bredon? Is she talking about that monster..?’

That monster that was tied up underground and gnawing on people, she called it Bredon.

“You must have seen it too. That lovely appearance.”

Camilla, who was making a sad expression, was approaching this way.

“Since I’ve seen that, I can’t let you live.”

‘Invidia, respond…!’

I desperately called for him, but for some reason he didn’t answer.

“Curiosity killed the cat, and I never thought it would be my juniors.. It’s a pity.”

She put her hands on our backs and lightly pushed us off the cliff.