Ch.446Episode 17 – The Blood-Drinking Tree

“What are you talking about? About to be caught soon.”

“It’s a bit long to explain.”

While the communication with Camilla continued, the keffiyeh wrapped around my head started to get in the way.

Rough hands pulled down the fabric.

The shemagh I had tied skillfully came undone without much resistance. But there was a slight awkwardness in the motion of untying the knot, and dried bloodstains added an inexplicable sense of danger.

“……”

I wiped the blood residue from my knife with the shemagh.

Then I hurriedly went to the bathroom to wash off the blood, and grabbed the communication device while scanning my surroundings.

“…Francesca has been discovered.”

Episode 17 – The Tree That Drinks Blood

It was supposed to be a simple job.

Gathering intelligence on the cult members who had stolen Lucia’s blood.

Since Necropolis was an area unknown even to the Royal Intelligence Agency, Military Intelligence Bureau, and the Inquisition, having a collaborator wasn’t optional but essential. We made contact with the “Devourer of the Abyss,” known for having extensive connections in the Port of the Dead Whale.

It should have been a simple job.

Just an intermediate step to recover the blood and thwart the cultists’ plans.

Intelligence agencies often contact local armed groups in the process of achieving their final objectives, and I’d done it dozens of times myself. Tasks like retrieving information obtained by cultists—I could do this with my eyes closed by now.

But then,

“Isn’t that Ranieri?”

At the warehouse we visited for identity verification before the deal.

A woman lingering near the exit muttered while staring at Francesca.

“What, Ranieri? Francesca Ranieri?”

“Yeah, that person there. The face looks familiar, doesn’t it look like Ranieri?”

The woman was a mage.

Her worn and faded clothes were closer to rags than garments, but the hooded cloak was clearly a symbol of a mage.

The female mage, who had been chatting with a male mage presumed to be her companion while smoking at the exit, looked at Francesca. Since Francesca was passing through the door with her hat pulled down, the pair’s gaze only caught her from behind.

“You’re saying that’s Ranieri? Can’t tell just from the back view.”

“I saw her clearly.”

The Devourer of the Abyss had instructed everyone except mages with business to wait outside.

As a Gano identity, I had to stay near the exit, which allowed me to hear the conversation between the two exiles clearly.

“What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“Why are you being ridiculous?”

“Think about it logically. Why would the Ranieri come all the way to Necropolis? It’s dangerous with so many people here who hate the magic tower…”

The male mage, who had draped his cape over his shoulders, shook his head. He scolded the woman, failing to recognize Francesca’s identity.

The problem was the woman.

“I’m telling you it’s true! I saw her clearly when she passed by!”

The female mage with heavy makeup insisted that the person who entered the warehouse was Francesca. And with a very confident voice at that.

Carr began sending signals with his eyes. The therianthrope, who had been holding his nose against the cigarette smell, carefully placed his hand on his assault rifle, and I quietly shook my head to restrain the intelligence officer.

Meanwhile, the exiles’ conversation continued.

The man argued they should “just leave without stirring up trouble with other exiles.” The woman stubbornly insisted they should “just wait to see who comes out.”

“Don’t you remember what happened last month? The Fabula guys suspected an innocent man of being a spy sent by the magic tower, lost the duel, and got beheaded. It caused such an uproar. What if we wrongly accuse someone again?”

“I just want to take a quick look at her face!”

“She looked like a newbie. Let’s just leave quietly. I’m hungry.”

“Food my ass. You’re probably thinking about going to the cockfighting arena again.”

“Hey, I only went because the guys asked me to…!”

The two arguments were evenly matched.

But in a fight between a man and woman who have feelings for each other, the woman usually has the advantage unless there’s a special issue. The man, caught with what appeared to be a gambling habit, finally surrendered.

“Fine. We’re just going to look at her face and leave, right?”

“Yes~ I’ll handle it, so you just watch quietly~”

“……”

I ran my left hand down my forearm. Seeing that gesture, Carr looked at my face and disappeared into the alley with his rifle slung over his shoulder.

And shortly after.

“I’ve obtained the information. As you advised earlier, I bought other information as well to avoid suspicion. Joaquin is packaging the items and will be out soon… Oh, where did the officer go?”

“He had something to take care of…!”

By the time Francesca emerged, I had returned to my position after neatly resolving the issue with Carr.

We had dealt with the potential threat questioning our informant’s identity and obtained the information we wanted. Now all we had to do was return to the safe house.

That should have been it.

“Whoa-ho! Guys! We’re all fucked! Some blabbermouth exile in the warehouse recognized Francesca and ratted her out!”

Joaquin burst out of the warehouse, grabbing his slipping cape as he shouted.

“What?”

“Shit! We’ll get skinned alive if we get caught explaining, so run until your feet sweat! Until the eternal snow of Mount Parang melts!”

*

We retreated to a dilapidated abandoned house on the outskirts of Necropolis.

It was a vacant house I had identified in advance based on Joaquin’s advice and my own research, designated as our rally point in case we needed to escape.

I knew it had been abandoned for a long time, but I searched the interior first in case any homeless person might be living there before letting the rest of the group in.

Safety was secured, but no one could relax. Or rather, no one could afford to.

“…What happened?”

Francesca lifted her hat and asked. I wasn’t certain, but there seemed to be a slight chill in her voice.

“Some crazy bastard recognized you.”

“An exile recognized me?”

“Uh-huh.”

Joaquin, who had barely escaped with his life, spoke while catching his breath roughly.

“That guy we passed in the corridor? The one with the ivory or beige dirty face. Him.”

“…Santino. So it was his doing after all.”

Francesca murmured a name. When asked who that was, she replied that he was a very dangerous exile.

“He’s a contract killer. A violent criminal wanted for 37 first-degree murders, and he was exiled for violating the precepts after killing police mages during his arrest.”

From what I heard, he seemed to be quite a notorious wanted criminal in the magic tower. A contract killer who would murder anyone—mage or civilian—as long as he was paid…

“How the hell did that bastard recognize you?”

Francesca explained briefly, as if there was nothing to hide.

“He possesses detection-type abilities.”

“He’s a Mystery possessor?”

Joaquin added:

“He can’t scan wide areas like search magic… but if he gets close enough, he can see through disguises. Even magical artifacts will eventually be penetrated—it’s just a matter of time.”

To think that a Mystery possessor, rarer than people with rare diseases worldwide, happened to be in Necropolis.

Given that it was a gathering place for exiles, we had anticipated that someone among the residents might recognize Francesca.

That’s why she had disguised herself with magical artifacts and even obtained forged identification documents.

…Damn it.

“……”

“……”

Silence fell.

“Sorry, guys. I should have been more careful…”

Joaquin apologized repeatedly with a marijuana joint in his mouth, not even lighting it.

Honestly, I did suspect the pot-smoking mage might have sold us out. The story about a detection ability user suddenly appearing and seeing through a disguise seemed less plausible than Joaquin betraying Francesca.

But thinking about it carefully, he had no reason to sell out Francesca.

If Joaquin had really intended to betray us from the beginning, he would have ambushed us while we were sleeping or exposed her identity before she left the warehouse. There was no need to wait for Francesca to rejoin us.

Rather than dealing with all four of us at once, it would be easier to split us into two groups and attack—even street thugs know that. Francesca didn’t seem suspicious of him either.

Lost in thought, I carefully broke the silence.

“…Let’s do this.”

*

We decided to continue with the mission.

It was true that Francesca’s infiltration into Necropolis had been exposed, and consequently, Joaquin’s position had become precarious as well.

But the underground city was large enough for five people to hide, and Joaquin’s experience and knowledge remained valuable.

“Is there a way for us to move around Necropolis?”

“Absolutely impossible in our current state. Both Francesca and I need to stay hidden for now.”

Someone needed to take the risk and go outside to gather information and monitor the city’s situation.

Francesca and Joaquin were excluded from consideration. Her identification could no longer be used, and Joaquin, who had brought a magic tower spy into the city, couldn’t go out freely either.

So the task of gathering information and monitoring the situation naturally fell to the intelligence officer.

“I’ll leave it to you.”

“Leave it to me.”

Carr, whose identity hadn’t been exposed, was the most mobile among us, and as a therianthrope, he had more freedom of movement than any other race except human mages.

Carr set out on reconnaissance disguised as a mercenary. His goal was to gather information from other therianthropes, mercenaries, slaves, and mages.

And the results came in.

“I asked around among the therianthropes.”

“How’s the situation?”

“There doesn’t seem to be any immediate problem.”

The overall atmosphere in Necropolis wasn’t much different from the morning.

This meant that the Devourer of the Abyss hadn’t yet widely announced Francesca’s infiltration.

Carr couldn’t figure out why the cult group hadn’t spread the news that a magic tower mage had sneaked into Necropolis.

However, we had a way to understand the cultists’ intentions.

“It’s because of the festival.”

Joaquin, a resident of Necropolis and our collaborator, explained about the Devourer of the Abyss and the underground city’s ecosystem.

“There’s a festival coming up soon. It commemorates the founding of Necropolis.”

“A commemorative event?”

“Yeah. Like Independence Day or Constitution Day.”

A festival celebrating the birth of Necropolis. An event the locals called “Walpurgisnacht.”

Joaquin continued with a slightly excited voice.

“It’s a very important anniversary! It’s an especially joyous festival for exiles and cultists—on that day, everyone can eat and drink until they’re stuffed.”

“Is this Walpurgisnacht festival that valuable? Valuable enough to hide information about a magic tower person sneaking in?”

“Of course!”

As someone who once worked in the domestic division as an assistant to the counterintelligence director, this didn’t quite make sense to me, but Joaquin shook his head as if I didn’t understand.

The current drug offender looked at me with serious eyes.

“Walpurgisnacht isn’t just a simple festival. It’s a monumental day celebrating the birth of a city that provides a peaceful haven for those with nowhere else to go. What do you think would happen if problems arose right before the festival?”

He was saying that if news spread about a magic tower mage infiltrating during Necropolis’s anniversary, public sentiment would be damaged.

The explanation shifted to the connection between the festival and the city’s system. To summarize Joaquin’s long explanation:

“Necropolis looks like one city on the surface, but inside, many different groups live together. Exiles, cultists, adventurers, smugglers…”

“The city serves as a medium that binds various groups together. But if one group seizes power, they could drive out those they don’t like, right?”

“So whether they’re exiles or cultists, each manages their own street independently. The 6th Street of Ash Tree is controlled by the Eyeless Snake, the 8th Street by the Devourer of the Abyss, and so on. In exchange, encroaching on another group’s territory is strictly forbidden. When major city-wide issues arise, representatives from various groups gather to make decisions.”

“For Walpurgisnacht, the host is selected by lottery each year. By the way, this year’s hosts are the Devourer of the Abyss.”

In short, they decided to hide the problem for now because they needed to prevent incidents during their own event.

Joaquin explained that in Necropolis, any group that shows weakness quickly becomes prey. The law of the jungle always favors the strong.

“Joaquin. You said the Devourer of the Abyss is second to none among cultists, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve already heard they’re in competition with the Eyeless Snake, so let’s skip that. How many people dislike them?”

“Many! Merchants are annoyed because they monopolize sea routes and manipulate prices, fishermen are angry because they block sailing if fees aren’t paid. As for exiles… well, they hate all cultists!”

“When is the festival?”

“Wait a minute. What day is it today…? Anyway, the event is on Saturday, but the festival atmosphere starts from Friday night. The neighbor invited me to come over in the evening, so we’re meeting at the Bald Mountain Inn.”

“Friday.”

Today was Wednesday.

The city would be immersed in the festival atmosphere in two days.

Joaquin, who had been smoking marijuana in the dusty corner, suddenly jumped up and shouted.

“Oh right! The arena opens that day and I completely forgot!”

“To think about gambling at a time like this, you have no sense…!”

Amid Joaquin’s screams, Charnoi’s finger began spinning in circles as he pointed to his head.

“……”

I lit a cigarette and fell into thought.

Now that I understood the city’s internal affairs, I could roughly calculate how the Devourer of the Abyss would proceed. They would probably quietly search for Francesca until Walpurgisnacht ended.

If that was the case, we needed to strike the cultists before the festival ended.

After checking the information Francesca had brought, I picked up the phone and left the abandoned house.

And shortly after.

-‘Hello?’

“Camilla.”

I reached her.

*

The screen of the disconnected mobile phone turned black.

The window slid down silently.

As the vehicle departed, all that remained in the desert were tire tracks in the sand and the mobile phone.

The sound of tires crossing gravel roads and the noise of air conditioning cooling the heated air.

And a voice coming from beyond the passenger seat.

“Yes, Commander. I just received the coordinates.”

A man with a deep voice speaks into the radio.

“I will certainly recover the sacred blood.”

In the back seat were men with their hands clasped in prayer.

“Then I’ll see you at the holy site.”

Click.

As the sound of the communication ending was heard, the men’s hands lowered. Their bulletproof vests over military uniforms made noise as they hit their weapons.

The man in the passenger seat looked around at the procession.

The darkness-covered wasteland was eerily quiet despite its vast size.

Sand tapping against the glass obscured the view, and the wasteland flowed by like a panorama.

The pattern on the combat uniforms was not much different from the landscape outside.

-Click.

The man in the passenger seat reached out and pressed the radio.

“Gregory-6 to all Gregory units.”

A convoy of vehicles crossing the wasteland.

As cars full of soldiers cut through the darkness of the desert,

Ibrahim’s voice carried through the radios tucked into their bulletproof vests.

“Prepare for engagement.”