Ch.171Request Log #015 – Even a Single Drop of Blood Calls the Shark (6)

If this ogre had lived his life as a skilled tailor according to his nature, none of this would have happened. I grabbed the ogre’s completely smashed face and forced him to look up.

“You know what? I came here knowing nothing. I was talking with my informant about the kidnapping case, and someone made a ridiculous suggestion that ogres might be eating people. With no other leads, I started here. If you had just acted more like a normal person—yes, if you hadn’t been so eager to rush me out—I would have just scolded my informant and that would have been the end of it.”

The ogre spat out a blood clot and barely managed to lift his head to look at me. Though my trouser cuffs now had dark reddish stains that would be difficult to remove, fortunately I had a suit I’d purchased at this tailor shop.

The ogre managed a sneering smile with his torn and twisted lips. Not the kind of smile you’d expect from a tailor’s face. He seemed relieved that I didn’t know something.

“So… huff, kek… heh, what do you, what do you know now? You still don’t, ugh, kek… don’t know anything, right?”

“I know that the Old Gourmet Society is real and that this damned cannibalism story is real. My delusions have become reality. Oh, did you think I was going to ask you to tell me where those bastards are?”

I liked people who could handle their own business. Everyone tries to become the kind of person they like. It’s very human.

But the ogre laughed again. This time he made a gurgling sound as if he wanted to burst out laughing, but more blood clots leaked out instead of laughter.

“You shouldn’t have, kek, urgh… shouldn’t have come with such a casual attitude, detective. Did you think you could just dip your toe in and then run away? Hmm? My kinsmen will, kek, already be coming…”

Had he asked other ogres to watch this area since my visit yesterday? If so, I should never have come with such a casual attitude in the first place.

No, there was no point in dwelling on regrets now. I had only come here because I was swayed by Yehoel’s nonsensical words. I came without knowing I would end up asking where the woman was.

I couldn’t have prepared from the start. I heard the heavy footsteps characteristic of ogres. He must have spoken because he thought enough time had passed. I pulled a gun from my pocket. Fortunately, I had one spare magazine.

I could hear sounds coming from a wooden door that seemed to connect this secret back room with the tailor shop’s storage room. Something heavy was being moved away from the door. They had even hidden the door.

Yehoel was a useless bastard even on days when he had unusually good intuition. I was holding my gun ready to shoot when someone approached the door, when I heard a knock from outside the changing room I had broken into through the one-way mirror.

They apparently didn’t expect a knock to be returned from inside. With my gun still aimed at the secret back room door, I briefly turned my head to glance at the changing room door. The door didn’t open.

Even a shotgun blast wouldn’t kill them with one shot. Still, I covered the mouth of the ogre who was barely breathing with his face smashed and hid behind his body. He would at least take a bullet or two for me.

Around that time, I heard an ogre’s voice. It was an old ogre. The gentle and soft-spoken voice was uncharacteristic of an ogre.

“Hello, Michael. I’m not sure how much our friend has revealed, but I am Dmitri Briner, the chairman of the Ogre Old Gourmet Society. You can probably see the door on the opposite wall. Inside are two young friends from our society holding rifles. They won’t shoot until I tell them to, so don’t worry. They’re like sons to me, quite loyal.”

Since I gave my business card to this tailor yesterday, he must have passed it on to the Old Gourmet Society. The ogre continued speaking, apparently aware that I was listening.

“There’s another reason you can feel at ease. We are cowards. We don’t have the ability to cover up a shooting incident in the middle of the city where two people die. We are gourmets, not gangsters or soldiers. That’s why we had to borrow a professional’s skills when kidnapping Miss Julia. There’s also a professional with me right now. So, please stay calm.”

“You could make your confession to the police, you know.”

Laughter came from beyond the door. After chuckling casually, the ogre continued.

“What a mischievous joke. I don’t want to go to prison. In prison, a person becomes something less than human. Not someone who eats food, but livestock that eats feed.”

He was sane but insane at the same time. He knew that if this matter went to the police, he would be tried and imprisoned, yet all he worried about was not being able to eat decent food.

Some people are obsessed with appetite. Most ogres were gourmets, but they typically worried about how to turn ingredients bought from grocery stores into better dishes.

It would be funny to say “most” though. Except for these negligible decimal points gathered here, ogres didn’t eat people.

“So, you come armed with a gun and want to talk? I’m not stupid enough to fall for such tricks.”

At the very least, the guns held by the ogres outside the secret door wouldn’t be the Doppelgewehr that the Germans used against the Argonne Invincibles. If so, I might be able to handle them somehow.

“I understand you’re looking for Miss Julia… We can return her to you. Isn’t gambling on a conversation with us worthwhile enough now?”

Why would they suddenly offer to return the woman? The reason didn’t make sense. If they had taken her to wherever they were staying, there would be no better witness than her. There was no reason to release her.

They might have already eaten her, these cannibals. Most likely, they were using her as bait to lure me in after realizing I was the only one investigating this case.

Did they really have a professional with them? The door was closed, they were many, and I was alone, so there wasn’t much I could do right now. I might have to agree to their deal.

“Why would you return the woman? You kidnapped a perfectly sleeping woman using magic. It would be troublesome if she woke up and started talking.”

“Above all, she didn’t taste good. With our tailor friend’s help, she looked like she would have soft flesh with good fat when we saw her here, but her body was firmer than expected. We dislike meat with tough tendons.”

I decided to stall for more time through conversation. I had no intention whatsoever of negotiating with these cannibals. I have my own lines. The same lines I had when I didn’t refuse Madam’s request.

It would be good if I could hand them over to the police and deal with this simply, but if not, I needed to find a way to handle it. I should determine their numbers, assess their armaments, and then kill them all.

New York didn’t need cannibals. Murderers are occasionally useful. That’s it. I couldn’t appear too eager to comply or they would become suspicious, so I had to show enough wariness.

The ogre continued to speak with an attitude like someone approaching a wary wild animal. I felt irritated but suppressed it. I needed to appear as though I was being persuaded to talk.

“Do we have reason to fear that? Who would seriously believe a young woman who disappeared when she talks about ogres eating people? Rather, we ogres, with our history of eating people, won’t be suspected. She may be able to open her mouth, but it’s as good as not being able to speak.”

So he plans to walk through this with his head soaked in prejudice. It was a fairly good method. They could even counterattack by claiming the woman was anachronistically accusing innocent ogres of being cannibals.

Even so, it was strange that he wanted to talk with me. He seemed to think I couldn’t prove anything either, but there were many ways.

“We’re not worried about you either. You’re not one to be picky about clients. I thought it would be better to hire you to handle this than to have you as an enemy. Besides, we have reasons not to harm you. Within a day of meeting our friend, you found the Old Gourmet Society and came to us.”

Yes, thanks to Yehoel’s nonsense. They seemed to have a serious misunderstanding. For information this easy for me to provide, they wouldn’t resort to torture.

Then they wouldn’t need a hostage. I looked down at the tailor who could barely make a sound due to severe bleeding, trying desperately to repeat what I had whispered to him under threat.

I held the back of his head from behind, gripping his nape. He was already near death, so it wouldn’t take long. Applying pressure, I spoke to the ogre at the changing room door.

“So you’re curious about who knew about you, and how I heard that story.”

I deliberately spoke a bit louder. The choking sounds of the ogre in my hands didn’t escape this secret back room. I continued speaking naturally to cover the sound.

“But, I’m sorry for the person you consider like your child. You know what happened in here.”

Just as I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. The ogre who had been barely clinging to life went limp.

While hiding behind his back, I shook off mirror fragments from my shirt, which was getting soaked with lukewarm blood. The ogre outside answered, either wisely or foolishly.

“We’ve already weighed our options. Even if our friend dies, it would be better to bring a detective who found us in just one day to our side. While I truly regret that our friend took his own life, I would appreciate it if you didn’t kill any more people belonging to our Old Gourmet Society. That’s all.”

Heartlessly stupid. I just listened as he spoke, not knowing that the ogre had been alive until just moments ago.

“If you really want to talk, let’s do that. All I need to do is find the woman and hand her over to my client. If she keeps talking about cannibal ogres, my client might send her to a mental hospital or whatever. So… can we share some comfort with each other?”

This ogre was rational. If he weren’t, he would have gambled by sending in the ogres waiting outside the secret door, but he clearly wanted to end this with negotiation rather than gambling.

Of course, that was his mistake. It was like the Great War. Thanks to everyone’s rational efforts to prevent war, so many people died, and even the War Spirit King was born—his rationality resembled that war.

Still, his judgment wasn’t completely useless. If these creatures had been like the Followers of the Forest’s Firstborn, I would have gladly taken back the woman, ended this assignment, and worked for the ogres.

This ogre, obsessed with appetite, didn’t seem to understand the difference between cannibals and criminals. That’s not a bad thing for me.

“That’s right. Let’s keep things pleasant. Will you come out? We’ll need to take a car, so you might want to change your clothes…”

I heard the sound of something heavy being dragged away from the door connecting the tailor shop’s storage room and this secret back room. I wouldn’t have to worry about someone bursting through that door and shooting.

Still, I couldn’t just follow them out easily. After finally pushing away the tailor’s limp body, I said:

“Don’t worry about the suit. I got one from the tailor. And, shouldn’t I know if the woman is alive? Bring a salt mage to connect us.”

Now I only had one place to watch. With my body leaning against the changing room wall and my gun aimed at the broken-mirrored changing room, I waited as the door slowly began to open.

As the ogre had said, there was a professional standing there. A professional with a submachine gun typically used by police or postal inspectors made eye contact with me and shuddered.

“You cruel bastard… Put down the gun. If my client wants to make a deal, I have no intention of stopping it. I’ll put mine down first.”

A relaxed person becomes merciful. He slowly removed the magazine from his submachine gun and tossed just the magazine inside. I also threw my magazine with one bullet missing and the one bullet remaining in the chamber into the changing room.

The tension that had filled our bodies like suffocation began to fade. An old ogre with a neatly trimmed beard that left only his chin and mouth area walked into the changing room.

With a cleanly shaved head, wrinkles and age clearly visible elsewhere, but still with sharp and unusually long canine teeth like a young ogre… Under normal circumstances, I might have called him a neat old gentleman, but he was a cannibal wearing a human disguise.

He smelled of ozone. Placing one hand to his ear as if answering a phone, he began to mutter. Judging by the smell, he was probably using salt magic properly.

“Yes, Miss Julia. I told you yesterday that there was a detective looking for you, didn’t I? He turned out to be more capable than I thought. Since he’s trying to find us today, we’ve agreed that he will take you away and keep quiet about the Old Gourmet Society. He might want to hear your voice, so I’ve connected you. The salt connection is established.”

How polite to a woman they’ve imprisoned to eat. It seems once they discovered her body was firm, they lost interest in her as an ingredient and started treating her somewhat like a person. Creepy creatures.

The smell of ozone grew stronger, and the voice that had been small enough to fit in the ogre’s palm grew louder. The woman’s voice, speaking into the air, was desperate.

“Looking for me, that, who, who sent…”

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

I needed to verify, as they might be magically mimicking her voice. The voice that came back sounded like they really were keeping the woman alive.

“Morris! Morris Murphy! From southern Manhattan…”

One verification wasn’t enough. To properly confirm, there was one more thing I needed to ask. Something more personal, something only she could answer.

“Alright. When were you planning to repair the window frame?”

“Window frame…? Oh, that, I was going to fix the part rotted by moisture this week. Last time when I checked its condition, I even cut my hand while feeling it…”

That matched exactly what I saw at her house. Fortunately, the woman was still alive. Somewhat relieved, I clicked my tongue at the professional behind the old ogre.

“Come in and take back the magazine you threw. I’ll just change clothes and leave. If the woman is alive, what you eat is none of my business.”

No, it was my business. Now that the situation had improved somewhat, now that they had started to lower their guard against me, I counted their numbers. If there were fewer than fifteen, I might be able to handle it somehow.

The professional was in his late twenties. A red-headed human. He couldn’t keep his left hand still, fidgeting pathologically. Two ogres who had come out from the storage room peered in this direction, apparently curious to see me.

I put the gun in my bag where it wouldn’t be visible from outside. I really didn’t intend to shoot. Through the changing room door, I could see two ogres talking. Since they weren’t guarding the door, they weren’t security.

There were already six people here, including five ogres. I didn’t know how many more might be at their headquarters, but at least ogres weren’t the kind of species that carried guns to dinner.

Normally in such situations, they would have armed guards even at dinner, but this rational yet appetite-obsessed ogre wouldn’t do that. It was like an obsession with etiquette among nobles.

I changed into the suit recommended by the tailor, with the tailor’s pool of blood right in front of me. Even after wiping off the blood, my body still gave off a slight metallic smell. If I went to Bar Enoch today, the vampires would love me twice as much.

After inserting the spare magazine into my pistol and placing the gun in the holster I had moved to my suit pocket, I walked out of the changing room. The chairman of the Old Gourmet Society smiled warmly at me, as if I understood him, though it was just an appearance.

“That tailor did have good taste in clothes. Let’s go. We’ll return that woman to you, and share proper comfort.”

Today’s evening newspapers in New York would again carry stories of murder.