Ch.317Culprit Apprehension

# The Suspiciously Wealthy Adventurer Operation

The operation to lure out the culprit by flaunting excessive cash, then counterattacking using my crisis detection skill when they attacked me, was a perfect success.

I managed to subdue the serial killer who had been causing a commotion at the planned site of the 8th Western City without suffering even a scratch.

When her invisibility broke and the culprit revealed herself, she turned out to be, surprisingly, a young female of the Cat-folk race.

“Ah… ugh…?”

The culprit lay on the ground bleeding profusely, unable to grasp what had just happened.

Around her neck was a necklace identical to the ones worn by Calliope and Iris.

“A subjugation necklace… just as Jessica predicted.”

After confirming the existence of the subjugation necklace, I kicked away the knife she had dropped, then aimed my revolver at her head with my right hand while pulling out a recovery potion from my pouch with my left.

“Stay still if you don’t want to die. I’m administering first aid.”

After saying that, I removed the cork with my teeth and poured the potion onto the most severe-looking gunshot wound on her abdomen. The culprit looked at me with a face contorted in pain and struggled to speak.

“Why… are you…?”

“Saving you? I suppose it’s hard to understand from your perspective.”

According to Grantis law, someone who attacks a Frontier License holder with the intent to kill has no right to complain if they end up dying from counterattack.

I could finish off the culprit right now without any problems, and despite her being of the same race as Seti, I had no intention of showing mercy to someone who had killed three people and harmed Jessica’s mother.

Nevertheless, the reason I was pouring recovery potion and administering first aid to this despicable serial killer was…

“The reason is simple. Our party leader instructed us to capture the culprit alive if possible.”

It was because of the request from our party leader Jessica, who had predicted both the culprit’s identity and the existence of accomplices.

—

~ ~ ~ Several hours before Tia’s capture, second floor of the potion shop ~ ~ ~

“I believe this case wasn’t committed by a lone criminal. The culprits must be a small team of at least two people, and they’re outlaws who don’t yet have a strong support base.”

Jessica explained this to all of us before we implemented the plan to lure out the serial killer.

“What’s your reasoning for that conclusion? We haven’t found any clues that would help us identify the culprit yet.”

“That’s not entirely true. The clues have been more than sufficiently presented through the case summaries so far.”

Responding to Phyllis’s objection, Jessica spread her notebook on the table and continued her explanation while taking notes.

“The most important clue is that the culprit only took cash and jewelry from the victims. This suggests the culprit doesn’t have connections to dispose of stolen goods. Cash can be used easily anywhere, and jewels can be easily disguised by setting them into other items.”

“So they didn’t take magical items because they’re difficult to disguise as legitimate, and they didn’t take precious metals because processing them requires equipment.”

This leads to the conclusion that the culprit is a common criminal without safe channels to dispose of stolen goods, or the preparation to store them long-term or use them in transactions with other gangs.

“If that’s the case, the culprit must be in a position to use the stolen money legally. But even with invisibility abilities, if they directly killed a Frontier License holder, that trace would remain on their license card.”

“Which means they would be caught immediately if asked to present their license card at a store… So the person who kills and steals must be different from the person who uses that money to purchase necessary items.”

This is actually a common tactic used by many outlaw groups.

Even the most vicious outlaws have limitations when it comes to self-sufficiency, and hundreds of thousands of gold coins are just kindling if they can’t be used in any city.

To solve this problem, most outlaws plant spies in cities—people with no criminal records who maintain their status as legal citizens—to supply them with consumables, new firearms, and other necessities.

“So to completely solve this murder case, we need to capture not only the person who actually committed the murders…”

“But also the person managing the profits behind the scenes.”

“Exactly. And although this is still speculation, the murderer might possibly be a slave to the profit manager. And not just any slave, but an illegal one who didn’t go through proper legal proceedings.”

Jessica’s subsequent explanation went something like this:

In crimes like this, the risk for the person committing robbery and murder is disproportionately greater than for the person purchasing goods.

While such role division might make sense for a notorious desperado and their underlings, it’s difficult to achieve between a pair of common criminals without a strong foundation as offenders.

For such a division to work, the person purchasing goods must be in an absolutely dominant position.

They must be confident they won’t be betrayed even after giving the murderer invisibility abilities, and the most representative case of such a relationship is that between a slave and master.

“If it were a legal slave, the crime record would be reflected on the master’s Frontier License as soon as they committed murder. But in the case of illegal slaves, they use modified subjugation necklaces that cleverly bypass this, allowing the master to collect money while transferring the risk of becoming a desperado to the slave.”

“That’s a clever method. But that means even if we subdue the attacking murderer through counterattack, we can’t catch their master.”

“There are ways. Even with illegally modified subjugation necklaces, the spell that makes the slave obey the master’s orders should still be functioning…”

—

~ ~ ~ Present time, forest near the planned site of the 8th Western City ~ ~ ~

About an hour after the serial killer Tia was subdued by Will’s counterattack.

Her master and the true criminal behind this case, Charles Baker, was hurriedly packing his belongings to flee.

Tia should have returned 30 minutes ago, and Charles wasn’t stupid enough not to understand what that meant.

“Damn it, useless woman failing me at such a crucial moment… One last success would have changed my life!”

Charles was furious at the thought of losing the opportunity to get hundreds of thousands of gold, but right now, rather than lamenting the failure of his plan, it was more important to leave this area as quickly as possible and escape to another city.

The subjugation necklace Tia was wearing was illegally modified, so Charles’s license information wasn’t registered on it.

He had also ordered Tia not to disclose any information about her master’s appearance or identity.

Moreover, if the subjugation necklace were removed, Tia would lose several years of memories, including her master-slave contract with Charles, making it impossible for the sheriffs to prove any connection between Tia and Charles, no matter what methods they employed.

The only thing he needed to be careful about was having the “master-slave contract spell” between Tia and himself detected.

Most sheriff’s offices are equipped with magical tools to detect such spells.

However, for this to work, both the slave and the owner must be near the magical tool, which means the sheriffs would practically need to take Tia around and check every person they meet.

‘If Tia has been arrested, a large-scale inspection will begin soon, but I just need to escape to another city before that happens.’

How many sheriff personnel would be deployed, and for how long, to chase the mastermind of a case where only three people died?

If he just holed up in Westend Seventh or Moon Lake, the case would eventually be closed, and Tia, as a victim of illegal slave trading, would be freed from her subjugation necklace, permanently erasing any way to prove the connection between Charles and Tia.

After that, he could simply return to his main occupation of hunting and live as if nothing had happened.

“Losing both the artifact and a slave is painful, but there’s no helping it… Heave-ho.”

Having finished packing, Charles began to make his way out of the forest, heading away from the planned site of the 8th Western City.

For a human without night vision abilities to start marching on foot at past midnight was madness, but if he dawdled until sunrise, the sheriffs might show up with Tia.

To avoid that risk, he had to accept the risk of a night march.

That’s what Charles thought, but…

‘Thud-thud-thud-thud…’

“Hmm?”

Less than five minutes after leaving the forest, he was spotted by two pursuers on horseback.

The pursuers were an elven woman with long blonde hair flowing in the wind and a cat-folk girl with gleaming red eyes.

“Human male over there! This is Phyllis Eidrada, C-rank adventurer with a sheriff’s warrant for discretionary arrest! I demand that you peacefully accompany us to the sheriff’s office!”

“My companion, Elem Lu Seti. If you resist, we’ll take you by force.”

Charles Baker regretted his decision to wait for Tia until the very last minute.

It was a truly meaningless regret, as he had no way of knowing that the tent in the forest where he had been staying had been under Aquila’s surveillance for quite some time.