Dark Organization (3)

Yona felt like she was going crazy.

When she closed her eyes, Rubina’s image flickered before her.

No matter how much she regretted and berated herself for why she had done it, thinking that she shouldn’t have done it even if she was familiar with the person, Rubina was nowhere to be seen.

Even as Alec explained the situation to Kairoc and James after entering the inn room, Yona was in a daze.

She thought her head had cooled off a bit after stopping by the guard station.

But as she listened to Alec’s explanation, self-blame once again gripped her ankles like mud.

“Let’s go out.”

Kairoc’s hand roughly patted Yona’s head.

Alec quickly supported and lifted Yona, who was still unable to move.

“I’m a genius at finding children. Don’t worry and leave it to me.”

James smiled, his gold tooth glinting in the light as his lips twitched.

“When you raise children, you often lose them like this. It’s no different even if it’s a kidnapping.”

James patted Yona’s back, which seemed to have no strength left, and whispered to her.

He seems composed, like someone experienced in raising several children.

“Of course, if it’s a kidnapping, there’s usually a procedure, but that’s not difficult either.”

“Procedure?”

Alec, not understanding what he meant, asked.

As if waiting for his words, James tapped his bow.

“There’s a procedure of cracking open the kidnappers’ heads.”

“Right. It’s an absolutely necessary procedure.”

Kairoc opened the door with his axe slung over his back.

“Let’s go. The child must be so scared.”

Eventually, the four people returned to the place where Yona and Rubina were last seen, in front of the bench.

There were people already sitting on the bench, but when the four approached with an ominous aura, they quickly vacated their seats with startled expressions.

“So this is where you left Rubina with that guard… Neri?”

“Yeah, yeah… I must have been crazy… Why did I…”

Yona started to blame herself again.

Alec poked her side.

“Ouch.”

“Why are you digging yourself into a hole again? From now on, we just need to find her quickly.”

“There’s nothing here that could be a clue for now.”

James examined the ground here and there with his bow slung over his back.

Then he picked up some soil from the still damp ground and rubbed it between his fingers.

“Is this the mark from where the shaved ice was dropped?”

“That’s right…”

Yona nodded weakly.

It was unmistakable, seeing the fruit pieces rolling around on that wet mark.

“Then… let’s see… Fortunately, it’s night, so it hasn’t dried yet. So… here.”

James lay down on the ground and began examining the footprints around.

There were a jumble of children’s and adults’ footprints, but James rubbed each footprint with his fingers.

“This looks like it. I’m not sure if Rubina stepped on this shaved ice mark or not, but if she luckily did, it would be that way.”

James pointed his finger towards the opposite side of the square.

In the midst of the still bustling night market, the direction James pointed was opposite to where the guard post was, and also quite far from the inn where Yona’s group was staying.

“The footprints continue in that direction. It doesn’t seem like Rubina was forcibly dragged. The stride is consistent, and the depth is also consistent. And there’s a boot print right next to it. Let’s go that way.”

Kairoc nodded.

In a time with such a large crowd like now, Kairoc, Alec, and Yona had no other basis for estimation.

It was a situation where they had to trust James, who was an archer but also trained in tracking.

As they turned towards where James pointed, the streets gradually became darker.

The buildings that blocked the light coming from the square at strange angles created deep shadows with their crisscrossing shadows, and the winding alleys within were steeped in an eerily damp atmosphere.

The ground was now stone instead of dirt, a place where footprints wouldn’t remain.

As they entered that alley, James stopped.

“From now on, I’ll go ahead and search. It would be good for you all to split up and search too. If you find anything even slightly suspicious…”

James rummaged through the sling bag on his waist and took out four small marbles, distributing one to each member of the group.

Yona and Alec knew them well.

It was the luminous body, an essential item when entering dungeons.

The marble that emits a very intense light when squeezed tightly and thrown.

“Throw this high into the sky. Then everyone gather there. Understood?”

Everyone in the group nodded.

James disappeared into the darkness first, followed by Kairoc who nodded lightly to Alec and Yona before moving into an alley in a different direction from James.

“Let’s move together. I’m worried about you being alone.”

“…Okay.”

Regrettably, Yona’s own combat ability was virtually non-existent.

If by any chance a fight broke out, Yona wouldn’t be able to do anything.

Yona nodded, suppressing her strangely pounding heart.

Her breathing started to become rapid.

This feeling isn’t the first time, no.

“Then let’s go- No, wait. Yona, are you sick somewhere?”

Alec peered at Yona’s face.

Her face was definitely red.

And her breathing was rough, giving the impression that she was in a lot of pain somewhere.

“No, I’m not sick. Just, my breathing is a bit rapid.”

“For that, your face is red and your breathing sounds strange.”

Alec suddenly had a sense of déjà vu.

He had seen Yona’s face like this before.

Was it when they were heading towards the divine tree in James’s village? It seemed to be around that time.

“Let’s just hurry. We need to find Rubina…”

Although he was doubtful whether Yona, who was panting, was really okay, Alec nodded.

Anyway, there’s no time to be lost in thought now.

Finding Rubina is the priority right now.

An adventurer must always remain calm.

That was James’s motto.

As they often encounter unexpected situations, is there any other profession that requires as much calmness as an adventurer?

In that sense, James could certainly be considered disqualified right now.

James was in a state of extreme anger.

He had always been fond of children, and James deeply cherished and loved his own children.

Although she wasn’t his own daughter, Rubina was a child he had grown very fond of during this nearly month-long journey.

To dare to kidnap such a child.

There might be various reasons for kidnapping children, but-

‘We need to find her first.’

James took a shallow breath, trying to suppress his rising anger.

His eyes kept scanning the surroundings sharply, and he examined every building that showed even a slight sign of oddity in more detail.

After a long while of moving between buildings, leaping and climbing up to opposite buildings to survey below-

‘Two men.’

Two men were guarding the entrance to a building.

There had been such buildings before.

Although not many, there were certainly buildings with guards at the door.

But there was a reason James observed these men closely.

The small pendants hanging around the men’s necks.

A tiny pendant that could never be seen unless one was a mixed-race like James, and moreover, one with particularly keen senses like an orc and in the archer class.

A rising sun at the very top, a vertical pillar supporting that sun.

And a horizontal bar crossing that vertical pillar.

This is the emblem of the Celestial Church, symbolizing humans supporting the Celestial God like the sun, and faith assisting those humans.

But on the pendants the men were wearing now, that Celestial Church emblem was reversed.

An emblem with the sun symbolizing the Celestial God at the bottom, as if humans were trampling on the Celestial God.

‘Suspicious fellows.’

James leaped onto the building opposite and climbed up the wall, stepping on the grooves.

Without making a sound, James reached the rooftop and looked into that building.

No candlelight leaked through the windows that were tightly sealed with wooden doors.

Only faint, flickering candlelight was seeping out from the first and second floors.

‘What to do…’

He pondered for a moment.

Whether to call his companions here, or to attempt an assault by himself.

But the deliberation didn’t last long.

When he saw that emblem reversed from the Celestial Church’s, he felt something was off.

If he called his companions, who knows what might happen in that time, and if it got noisy, wouldn’t it unnecessarily harm Rubina?

James soon made up his mind.

It’s fine as long as he doesn’t get caught anyway.

James climbed onto the rooftop of the opposite building.

He pulled out two arrows, put them down, and rummaged through his sling bag to take out two blunt arrowheads, replacing the original ones.

It would be simple to just kill them, but that would become murder.

Although they were doing strange things, James was an adventurer, and dealing with them wasn’t his responsibility.

James quickly shot the arrows with replaced tips one by one.

The arrows struck the foreheads of the two men guarding the door, and with the impact, they rolled their eyes back and collapsed on the spot.

‘Hope they come quickly.’

After leaning the unconscious men against the wall, James grasped the luminous body and crushed its core.

He threw it straight up into the sky, confirming that the flash of light blinked, and then James removed the pendant from one of the men’s necks and put it around his own.

“I hope these bastards aren’t damned racists.”

Muttering like that, James slowly opened the door and stepped inside.