Chapter 159: The Two Men Will Go All the Way Through (2)

In crime movies or dramas that he used to watch, there was a certain trope that he could always find. The trope where they filmed the scenes in gloomy places to make a gloomy scene even more gloomy. To name such places; construction sites, docks, empty lots, workshops deep in the dark mountain, abandoned buildings, etc.

Most of the time, they’d use those gloomy and eerie places to scare the viewers even more.

Lee Han understood their reasoning, though. The genre was crime, it just wouldn’t make sense to film it in bright places.

After all, crime wasn’t something people should do proudly.

However…

In contrast, if someone does it proudly, it stops being a crime.

With that logic, an action that someone showed proudly without feeling any shame or remorse couldn’t be considered a crime.

Hence why…

“There’s no need to hide. Just tell the world what you’ve done proudly!”

“…”

“So? Ready to tell me now?”

“…”

“You fuck, you are not even answering.”

Lee Han chided him, saying, “As expected of a magic freak, even your personality is bad. Can’t even answer a question.”

“I heard that the cake here is really good.”

“The world really has become a better place. Who would’ve thought that they’d ever open a cafe for commoners.”

“I heard the owner here is a black-haired nobleman. Maybe…”

“Ey, that can’t be. How could it be him? Haha!”

Currently, they were in a dessert cafe; one that became popular in the capital recently. This place was famous for selling desserts and coffee at such a low price that even commoners could freely enjoy them.

Although most of the customers were women, judging by the fact that there were also a few male customers, it was clear that the temptation of sweets didn’t discriminate between genders.

So, a large knight sitting here wasn’t a strange sight.

“What would you like to order, Sir?”

“One fruit crepe cake and one milk tea, please.”

“How about the person sitting in front of you?”

“Just give him a cup of coffee. Ah, this person likes ice in his coffee, so please put a lot of it in.”

“I-I understand…”

The waitress gave a cold look to the blond man who was sitting in front of Lee Han, muttering to herself, ‘He looks nice, but his taste is vile.’

She simply didn’t understand how anyone could bear with a bunch of ice in their coffee.

“!?!!”

The blond man felt wronged. After all, he didn’t have the preferences to put ice in his coffee. The fact that he couldn’t even say anything to correct this misunderstanding made him feel even worse.

The blond man, Hyui de Beiron, moved his chest, feeling deeply sad..

Unfortunately…

“Ugh…”

He couldn’t open his mouth, or even lift a finger for that matter—all he could do was roll his eyes. Indeed, he had been deprived of his physical freedom.

At that moment, Hyui shifted his gaze, which was blazing with fury, towards the knight who took away his freedom.

But the knight…

“Oh, wow, this cake has a lot of fruit in it. It’s pretty good.”

Was just happy that he had found a wonderful cafe that he could become a regular at.

It had been a full 17 hours since Hyui de Beiron was kidnapped. As a guest of the kingdom, naturally they’d dispatch countless troops to find him, additionally the mages of the Magic Tower would also be looking for him frantically.

That was why he found it strange that he was still here even after 17 hours had passed.

Not only that…

Slurp-!

“It’s been a while since I drank this. As expected, iced coffee is the best.”

“…”

“What’s wrong? You want some too?”

“…”

“Why aren’t you talking, you punk?”

“!?!”

The fact that he and his kidnapper could boldly enter a cafe without being searched by anyone was a twist that he never expected in the slightest.

Just…how…?!

“How the hell have you been living your life? Not a single one of your colleagues are looking for you. Honestly, I thought I’d run into one or two magic freaks, but I heard that they’re all resting in the palace. Well, that’s just how magic freaks are I guess, so it isn’t that strange.”

“…Ummmmmm!”

The blond wizard bristled at Lee Han’s words which were dripping with mockery. However, his face turned bright red as he did so, probably because he was embarrassed that he couldn’t refute those words.

More than the fact that he was ridiculed as a magic freak, he was more ashamed by the fact that his reputation as the great disciple of the Magic Tower was actually worthless.

However, Lee Han didn’t find this surprising.

From the moment he heard about the Magic Tower, the den of the magic freaks, he was already certain that the fuckers had no sense of camaraderie whatsoever.

I’ve dealt with enough magic freaks to know this.

When Lee Han was working as a ‘magic freak hunter,’ he’d occasionally see the fuckers hanging out in groups, but those groups were the groups with the smallest sense of camaraderie and cooperation that he had ever seen.

Selfish to the extreme.

Mages were social misfits who only cared about their own research and interests.

They’re like university project groups’ members.

Except that every single one of them are trolls.

Considering that, Lee Han had already expected that kidnapping the blond in front of him wouldn’t cause any major problems. Since he only had to avoid the soldiers, he could afford to go to places like this cafe all he wanted.

…Well, part of the reason why he didn’t consider kidnapping this blond magic freak as a crime was probably this confidence of his.

In any case…

“From what I’ve seen, it seems like there won’t be any problems even if we were to go around the city for another week. Not because the soldiers are incompetent, but because the guild is helping me out a little. If I want, I can make you disappear for good. Now that you understand your position better, can you answer my questions now?”

“…”

“Blondie, where is Greg Bean? You know his whereabouts, don’t you?”

“!”

“By the way, if you still refuse to talk today, I’d have to resort to extreme measures. So, it’d be better to answer me when I’m still being nice.”

Crack…!

“Right… Why did I even try to have a normal conversation with a magic freak?”

Lee Han grumbled. He had forgotten that communication would only be established when both sides were humans. Human-to-magic-freak communication was impossible.

However…

“Ummmmm!”

Crazy bastard, let me talk first so I can say something!!!

Hyui, whose mouth had been sealed for 17 hours, had grown extremely angry and resentful at Lee Han.

Please let me talk!

He felt like he was going crazy.

Currently, Hyui de Beiron’s body was filled by Lee Han’s Martial Power.

In terms of technique, it was something similar to [Hitting the Acupuncture Point].

The blondie was in the state where he couldn’t use hand gestures, foot gestures, and mouth muscles properly. Although this was Lee Han’s usual preventive measure. After all, to those who use magic, their tongue and hand movements were like a knife. Letting them open their mouths meant giving them an excuse to attack him, hence why Lee Han couldn’t afford to let him talk.

So the guy had no choice but to accept his inability to talk.

However…

“I already told you that you should communicate with signal, or blink, but you kept trying to speak, huh, you fuck? Do you even understand human’s language?”

“…Ummmm!”

“You little shit. Still so prideful at times like this.”

Lee Han knew it wasn’t because he couldn’t open his mouth that the bastard refused to cooperate.

It was because he was just being disobedient.

Perhaps it was due to his pride, or because he was just bad at judging situations.

Seeing this, someone might ask Lee Han, ‘Why don’t you just torture him?’.

A magic freak always mixes 50% truth, 30% lies, and 20% fabrication into their words.

He had hunted more mages than anyone else, so he was well-aware of that.

In other words, torture wouldn’t really work on magic freaks.

Even if he were to give them real pain, he still couldn’t just trust the things that came out of their mouths.

That was why the best method to get the magic freaks to tell the truth was to make them speak on their own volition. They wouldn’t tell one the truth otherwise.

However…

Time is ticking.

He couldn’t afford to continue this war of attrition, as he was running out of time.

While yes, he could just attack the sultan directly and find the illegal mage, if the illegal mage decided to hide, things would just turn into a headache for him.

Hence why he needed the guy’s cooperation.

This guy…

Definitely know where that fucker is.

Lee Han was sure that the blondie knew about the illegal mage he was looking for. This didn’t just come from his intuition, but also judgement that was based on his experience and knowledge as a knight who had hunted illegal mages more diligently than anyone else in the past 100 years.

Hence why…

Guess I can’t help it.

While it would be tiring, he decided to get the answer out of the fucker’s body directly.

By speaking directly to his ‘body’.

“You’re probably thinking: ‘Why did this crazy guy suddenly kidnap me and suddenly look for that illegal mage?’.”

“!”

“You’re probably also thinking: ‘Even if he’s looking for him, he should have politely asked for my cooperation. Why is he doing this?’.”

“…???”

“Bullseye.”

The blondie stared at him dumbfoundedly.

‘If you know that, why are you still treating me like this?’ It felt like he was asking that.

“You wanna know why I’m treating you so badly? Well, let’s go back to about two years ago. Among the magic freaks I killed, there was a girl named Christine. She was an illegal mage famous for conducting human experiments.”

“!!”

When he heard that, Hyui could feel his breath was caught in his throat.

Christine, the brain magic’s master. Her name was famous even in the Magic Tower.

“Back then, she told me herself. That she was a member of the Magic Tower.”

“──.”

“Then I heard an interesting tidbit. ‘Mage who once belonged to the Magic Tower will have to report their actions to the Magic Tower even if they are kicked out of the Tower’.”

“…”

“…I see, so what that bitch said was true.”

“!!”

…Hyui de Beiron felt goosebumps for a moment.

He hadn’t said anything, but the worthless knight in front of him seemed to be talking to him.

Just how…?

It was an incomprehensible situation.

An ‘unknown fear’ enveloped the mage’s heart as his body started to tremble.

Ugh, my head hurts.

However, unlike what the other person who was terrified thought, what Lee Han did wasn’t something complicated.

But still…

It’s tough because what I did was reading his heartbeat and muscle contraction at the same time.

Indeed, what he was doing was imitating [lie detector] in his previous life.

…This was probably a talent that only he had.