Ch.168Request Log #015 – Even a Single Drop of Blood Calls the Shark (3)

I didn’t pay attention to the New York scenery. Scanning the view wouldn’t make the missing woman appear. I merely glanced at a butcher shop while passing through Auger Street, filled with specialty food stores.

I briefly thought about having meat after a long time, but I didn’t have the luxury to cook and sit down for a meal. I just passed by and returned to my apartment.

I immediately sat in my office chair and opened the book of rituals I had borrowed from my comrades. This was also our record—a record of regret and our efforts to pull ourselves out of the mire.

I turned to the chapter about dwarf rituals. Wotan, whom the dwarves served, was a god of madness and passion. He was a warlock who gained power by sacrificing people. Their rituals were imitations of Wotan.

Even so, Wotan was far better than the warlocks who imitated him. While warlocks sacrificed others, Wotan always sacrificed himself.

Wotan’s power transformed people into his warriors called Einherjar, but the rituals that imitated his power turned people into monstrosities.

Wotan sacrificed his eye to see everything, but warlocks… This is the part. Warlocks can temporarily imitate that power by shedding their own blood.

When the blood a warlock has left behind disappears, they can see and feel that place where the drop fell, no matter how far away they are. I was glad I hadn’t touched the blood droplet.

There might be more traces of rituals in the house, so I grabbed the book and left again. If I couldn’t find the warlock, I’d make the warlock find me.

I just needed to let them know I was looking for what they had done. They would come looking for me. Fortunately, they were experts in rituals, and I was an expert in tailing and subduing.

This ritual also imitates a god’s vision, so they might see my connected comrade, but if they did, they would be terrified. Terrified people make mistakes. An unchanging principle.

Would they just flee outside New York? Not likely. I wasn’t that recognizable. They wouldn’t know me. They would barely know I was cursed.

Then dealing with them would be better judgment than running away. That was true for warlocks capable of kidnapping people.

If I quietly dealt with one, the other would talk. Watching others die is frightening. It becomes even more frightening when you might be next.

I took out a newly stocked can from the closet. I opened the lid of the can with a widely smiling man giving a thumbs-up, and took out enough fishing line for two uses. After cutting it generously, I put it in my pocket.

It was such sturdy fishing line that I wondered how Mr. John Volt made it. For something so sturdy, it was also very thin, making it useful for various purposes. I didn’t enjoy fishing.

I returned to the house where my client’s mistress had lived. The fishing line wouldn’t be visible anyway, and after briefly placing my gun in the mailbox in front of the house, I walked inside.

There were more things to check before touching the blood droplet. If there were more rituals to watch the house, even what I was doing now would be foolish.

I had already checked most places where evidence might be, so now I scanned the ceiling, which is usually out of sight. People often fail to find things that are just slightly out of their field of vision.

Fortunately, not this time. After confirming there were no other ritual marks, I put all the letters I had taken back in the drawer and pretended to search through it. I stepped back. I stepped on the blood droplet.

I felt an eerie sensation as if someone’s gaze had fallen on me. Though I knew no one was there, I pretended to be startled and turned around. I rubbed the back of my neck as if it had been just my imagination.

After pretending to be stupid for a while, the feeling of being watched disappeared. After pretending to search the drawer a bit more, I left the house and retrieved my gun. I put on gloves and prepared the fishing line.

They would come soon. The investigation wouldn’t take long anyway, and to them, I would have appeared to be just an ordinary investigator with good instincts.

I waited by the door as usual. This time it was in front of the bedroom door instead of the front door, as the bedroom window facing the street made it much easier to look outside.

After waiting motionless for about twenty minutes, I heard a car stop in front of the house. The engine sound was loud, as if they had rushed here. The braking sound was also loud. I prepared by winding the fishing line well around my palm.

“Hey, Hans. Can you see inside? Does it look like they’re still there?”

A human voice sounded first. As the dwarf approached the window, I silenced my footsteps and hid where I couldn’t be seen through the window.

The bed sheets had been thrown back, and the drawer left open. The fact that I wasn’t visible in the house and there were signs of searching everywhere meant big trouble was about to befall them.

The dwarf’s distinctive gruff voice followed. It wasn’t difficult to distinguish by voice.

“No, shit… We’re fucked. Hey, hey. Get the key out. We need to go in and check what’s missing first. Keep quiet in case someone’s hiding inside. Be quiet when opening the door.”

They didn’t seem to think I might be hiding in the bedroom with just a wall between us. Opening the door with a key couldn’t be quiet either. They seemed to try to move as gently as possible, but the clicking sound was unmistakable.

They weren’t skilled at hiding their footsteps either. Each slow step made the wooden floor creak. Hiding my footsteps from that sound, I approached behind the door they were about to open.

The door opened. The dwarf carefully stepped in first. I took a step forward and kicked him in the torso with the metal-reinforced heel of my shoe, making him roll into the bedroom. There was no need to silence my movements anymore.

Leaving the dwarf still groaning and unable to get up, I ran out of the bedroom door. There was no one there. Clearly, the footsteps I heard when they entered were from two people. The door was closed and hadn’t been opened.

They hadn’t disappeared. I could faintly hear the sound of deep breathing. They were nearby. What was happening?

“Hoo, ha…”

There was also the smell of ozone. Yes, it was a sensory confusion spell. That smuggler woman from last time used this magic too; it was also a German specialty. I needed to figure out where I was actually looking.

Still, if I just stood there dazed without properly coming to my senses, it was obvious where hands would reach. The moment the deep breathing sound I’d been hearing stopped abruptly, I swept my hand in front of the pocket where my holster was. I caught something.

It was better not to hold your breath to prepare yourself. I tightened my grip on the human wrist I had caught. I heard a scream as the flesh was squeezed, and now I could see where I was looking.

I was looking toward the back door connected to the hallway. This magic was always annoying, but just annoying. Feeling my sense of direction return, I grabbed the forearm with my other hand as well.

After pulling the human into the bedroom too, I applied force in crossing directions with both hands holding the wrist. Human arm bones were incredibly weak. There was a sound like wood twisting.

The warlock whose wrist I had caught began to struggle. The dwarf seemed terrified. As the warlock reached out to scratch my face, I closed my eyes and continued applying pressure. Not even a scratch formed on my skin.

A sound somewhere between a crack and a snap rang out. The human warlock, legs giving way, couldn’t even scream and just made gasping sounds as he clutched his wrist that now had an extra bend in it.

As I put down the wrist, I wrapped fishing line around his neck. I deliberately made no sound. The moment I made a sound and revealed my intentions, they would start using their heads.

I couldn’t let them think rationally. I wrapped the fishing line around the neck once. They needed to be so terrified that they wouldn’t know how much to keep their mouths shut. The fishing line dug into the human’s neck.

Resistance with just one hand was pitiful and ineffective. He struggled desperately with his weakened legs. When his face had turned blue, I briefly loosened the line and spoke.

“Where is the woman, warlock?”

There was no need to threaten to kill if he didn’t speak. Actions speak louder than words. Sometimes they lie too. I was planning to kill him even if he talked.

The dwarf also began to fidget. The human warlock, still with fishing line loosely wrapped around his neck, seemed to be sending desperate glances.

If they were close enough to call each other by name, it would cloud their judgment. I could throw away Yehoel because he would be resurrected anyway, but for other collaborators, I might hesitate a bit.

“H-how would we know where that woman is…”

I tightened my grip on the fishing line and pulled again.

“If you really didn’t know, you would have asked what woman I was talking about. Am I giving you too much time to think and make plans?”

The body that had briefly regained breath resisted more violently to the renewed choking. It didn’t matter. Anyway, with the cursed double vitality, no human bare hands could inflict any wounds.

“You even brought a car. The information in your pockets and car will help me find that woman anyway. So don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself and your friend, warlock.”

Despite pointing out “warlock” twice, there was no mention of Doppel in response, which suggested this warlock was weaker in perception than the warlock-soldier the reporter had introduced me to.

Seeing the strength drain from his struggling friend’s body, the dwarf began to spill words while leaning against the wall.

The fact that he was sitting there unharmed while his friend was dying created guilt and responsibility. There’s no better truth serum than those two.

“Littlehold, we took her to Littlehold! Damn it! The contract was to put her in a small hotel room in Littlehold! What do you want from us?!”

So these two weren’t the final destination? I briefly loosened the line. There was also a ritual mark on the inside of this human’s neck. Death, deception… vitality and healing. It was a ritual to deceive death. Well prepared, I see.

After reading the ritual mark, I pulled the line completely until the human’s body went completely limp. I put him down. With the temporarily dead human lying face down, I placed my foot on the back of his head.

“So you hesitated because you had one chance to survive. Does that ritual work twice?”

The dwarf shook his head. He looked like he had no more options now that his last card had been read.

“The hotel name and room number. And, did you use rituals when kidnapping her?”

“H-Heartland Hotel, room 603… Rituals? Is, is that important? We did use them. There was a requirement to put her to sleep. Are you a detective? If you’re a detective, you just need to find that woman, right? Huh? It’ll be troublesome if you get involved in murder. Seeing that they hired a detective instead of calling the police, it seems like a secret matter, and if we die here, surely…”

I had no intention of listening to that desperate attempt at persuasion. I was quite good at cleaning up. Instead of quietly listening, I asked:

“Do you know what a Doppelsöldner is?”

Once again, actions spoke louder than words. As soon as he heard the word Doppelsöldner, the dwarf’s expression showed even more disgust and fear. He tried to play dumb immediately, but it was obvious he knew.

“Doppel, Doppel? What are you talking about, double soldiers? Oh, if you mean Doppelsöldner, I do know about it, but that’s…”

At least he was better than the previous warlock who spewed hatred even knowing he was going to die, but only just. I pretended to believe him. When the mind is at ease, the tongue becomes lighter.

“Good that you don’t know. Who’s the client?”

“W-we don’t know either. Just, this note typed on a typewriter came with an envelope full of money. The down payment was quite substantial, so we just did the job! You, you must have done dirty work like this too!”

With those words, the dwarf threw down a typewritten note from his pocket. He had no room to lie anymore, and if he was a former warlock-soldier, he wouldn’t want to be involved with Doppel for even one more second.

I had now obtained everything I needed. I had heard everything I needed to hear. There was no reason to talk to or keep alive a former warlock-soldier who was still using rituals on people.

“You ask if I’ve done it? I’m doing it right now. If you were just a former warlock-soldier, I wouldn’t have cared, but if you’re still making a living doing that kind of thing with rituals…”

The human warlock being stepped on began to shake as if having a seizure, then inhaled. He began to laugh with joy at the fact that he had barely survived. He seemed almost insane, but resurrection probably feels like that.

Hans was desperate. Trying to save both his friend’s life and his own, he gestured to the human to restrain himself while speaking in the softest voice possible to persuade me.

“There was nothing personal about it. It’s just, the amount was so large…”

I lifted my foot and stomped down on the human’s head with the metal-reinforced heel of my shoe. The laughter full of relief and reassurance was cut off.

“It’s personal to me, Hans. And my amount is large too. Too bad.”

This is what should happen to warlocks. Today, instead of visiting the client to report, I decided to just talk on the phone. It would take quite some time to go to the docks.

After sinking the two bodies in the sea and abandoning the car in a place that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, I returned home. It was already past 10 PM.

My client would be anxious too, so after just washing my hands, I picked up the phone. As soon as I dialed the client’s number, the call connected almost without a ring.

He must have been sitting by the phone waiting. I should apologize.

“I’m sorry. Have you been waiting?”

But he was the one who needed something. For me, just dealing with these two warlocks today was satisfying enough to sleep well.

“Even if I was waiting, I, I didn’t think you’d be working until this hour, so there’s no need to apologize. Um, Julia…”

“It seems she wasn’t missing but kidnapped. Warlocks appear to be involved. It looks like human trafficking. I heard they left her at a hotel somewhere in Littlehold.”

If she had been his wife rather than his mistress, his response could have been called that of an ideal husband. There was a sound of the phone hitting something, as if he had collapsed.

“Oh, my goodness, Lord… Can you find her? I hope she hasn’t been taken to the red-light district, but, say something! Tell me what’s happening!”

“It won’t be the red-light district. Even without that, the police have been on edge since those filthy perverts were caught last time, so they wouldn’t try to sell a kidnapped person. Since they sold her for money, we should be able to find her in decent condition. Ah, may I visit you tomorrow morning? All that’s left is to find her, and I’ll need a photograph.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll wait for you even if I have to delay my work hours. Thank you, really thank you…”

What started with a banker’s mistress was once again growing uncontrollably large. At the very least, it was my responsibility to ensure this banker wouldn’t regret hiring a detective.