Ch.49005 Investigation Record – The Sword Thief of the National Museum (4)

“You want to know about us… What do you want to know besides the glory we earned on the battlefield? If you want to know about glory, one verse of that song would be enough. ‘The Argonne Invincibles are heading to Berlin to grab the Kaiser by the collar.'”

He gave me a gentle smile, as if they truly would have gone all the way to Berlin if they’d had enough time.

If he really had the abilities of a detective or sword thief… even so, the Great War was horrific.

I try to recall what I’ve heard about the Argonne Invincibles. Not much comes to mind. Heroes, war heroes, and… indomitable heroes, distinguished heroes. Nothing beyond that.

I’ve heard nothing about them except that they were heroes. I haven’t even heard what they did to earn the title of heroes—I’ve only seen people mechanically praising them as heroes.

I knew too little to say I wanted to know more. After considering what to ask, I decided to confront the issue directly.

“If you brought glory back from the battlefield, what did you leave behind? I mean… I’ve heard nothing about you all except the word ‘hero.'”

I didn’t ask if they were truly heroes. They had risked their lives going to a war that wouldn’t have reached America, and many had lost their lives and never returned. That’s an undeniable truth.

A journalist must always walk a fine line. What’s a story and article material to us is someone else’s life and part of their existence. Reminding myself of this principle, I look at him.

I worried he might hide something again, but he spoke quite candidly. This question seemed to please him more than the tactless “Have you ever killed someone?” At least, I think so.

“What did we leave behind, what did we leave behind… Probably ourselves. People who were ordinary before going to war returned as members of the Argonne Invincibles after the Great War ended.”

He said “Argonne Invincibles” in a voice that seemed to chew and swallow the words. I felt an inexplicable chill in his voice.

“Our humanity remains the same, but we become different people than when we left. Our faces are the same, but we can never make the expressions we wore when we departed. Do you have any war veterans around you?”

Shamefully, I shook my head. At that time, my father’s only concern was which European country’s bonds to buy.

“You’re lucky. When someone returns different from who they were when they left, those around them suffer. Anyway, we’re all probably similar. Everyone went to the battlefield with different purposes, but after a week in the trenches, everyone has the same goal. Going back to before the war.”

A smile appeared on his lips as if it were a joke, but no laughter came. It just felt… terribly awful.

I couldn’t even imagine how it felt to see all our trusted science and magic being used to kill just one more person, and even rituals normally forbidden being abused for victory.

I thought I wanted to dig up information, but that feeling didn’t last long. I just thought that perhaps some things should remain buried.

Should I believe, as he said, that the Invincible did what he did to overcome the ritual inscribed on him? My resolve wavered a little.

Seeing my trembling eyes, the veteran leaned forward to meet my gaze. There was something strange about his eyes, but his gaze was warm.

“If you asked that, you probably expected a better answer than this… I’m sorry. I seem to have rambled on too much about myself. Rather… may I invite you when the funeral schedule is set? You should be there, since you were probably the last person to see him, not us.”

I didn’t think about whether the detective would attend the funeral if he were a real veteran. Looking at him, I decided to think only about the deceased.

The dead weigh more than the living. The living can come to us on their own, but we must go to see the dead ourselves. I nodded.

“I will. Oh, but was there something special in the photo? I mean, you all seemed happy looking at it…”

“Ah, it came out clearly, didn’t it? I’m just happy it wasn’t blurry. We’re people who don’t photograph well.”

I wasn’t sure if being clearly photographed was related to their happiness… but the detective’s photo was definitely blurry too. Could there be a connection?

The casual question I asked turned out to be the only gain of the day. I had given up on trying to gain information midway, but perhaps it was because I gave up that I was able to gain something.

Having received an invitation to the funeral, I was about to turn and leave when I heard the voice of the veteran holding a telephone in the distance. He seemed to be calling someone named Michael again.

His voice was quiet, but in the silent building, no voice could escape an elf’s hearing.

“Damn it, how many times do I have to call before you answer? Anyway, mongrel. The Poet succeeded. How do I know? His face showed up properly in the photo. Perfectly clear.”

Mongrel? Poet? Are these nicknames? After awkwardly saying goodbye and leaving Paulina to provide my name and address for the funeral invitation, I focused on the faint voices.

After that, the veteran in front of me escorted me to the entrance, and his voice drowned out the smaller one, so I couldn’t hear more. But that one sentence told me a lot.

The other veterans clearly knew that the sword thief would try to steal the sword. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have said “succeeded” but would have first explained what had happened to him.

And emphasizing that the face in the photo was properly captured suggests that this normally doesn’t happen. I could try taking a photo later to confirm.

Curiosity quickly dies down but also quickly ignites again. I definitely felt like I was walking a fine line. Still, I wanted to know what was going on.

The God-President is someone who tells us to live for ourselves. He’s not someone who tells us to take our own lives. If someone who serves such a deity took their own life, there must be a reason.

And before my eyes were people who seemed to have that same reason. I wanted to know. I wanted to know so I could help. Was it a delusion that I wanted to do something too? I believed it wasn’t.

For now, I wrote an article stating that the truth behind the sword thief incident remained unclear. Saying he stole the sword, fled, and took his own life wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

After submitting the article, again I couldn’t speak with the editor-in-chief as several more days passed. The article was merely printed in a corner of page 3 in an ordinary newspaper.

There was no obituary for him. Even for a veteran, it must have been difficult to publish an obituary for someone who took his own life while involved in a crime.

Today, as I was about to go out to meet a source, someone knocked on my apartment door. I thought it might be an angel again, but judging by the height of the knock, it wasn’t an angel.

When I opened the door, there was an elf in uniform. An elf with the blonde hair and blue eyes that elves consider ideal. Most elves are either not blonde or not blue-eyed, but this one was both.

Anyway, he looked at me while holding a piece of mail. It was probably mail announcing the memorial service schedule.

“Are you Miss Rose Leafman?”

“Yes, I’m Rose Leafman.”

After hearing my answer, he quietly handed me a piece of mail. It was an invitation to a private memorial service. Since the location was the Veterans’ Association Hall, it seemed his crime hadn’t made him a dishonorable person.

The invitation detailed that only fellow Argonne Invincibles and those who received invitations could attend the memorial service, and that the Veterans’ Association Hall would be open only for the memorial service that day.

There was also a note tucked between the instructions. It had a code phrase written on both sides… unfortunately, it wasn’t about the blood of the lamb.

The front asked, “Who has died?” and the back answered, “Christopher Wiggins, who is no longer an Argonne Invincible.” The tone seemed somewhat denying.

Even though they were the Argonne Invincibles, they had only experienced the horrors of war, and I felt like saying he was now free from that place. It made me feel a bit more at ease.

I bowed my head in thanks to the uniformed elf soldier who had quietly watched me read the letter.

He quietly left, and I quietly closed the door and came back inside. Since this was my first invitation to a private memorial service, I tried to be more respectful than usual.

I took out the plain black dress for funerals that had been forcibly packed among my belongings when I first moved out on my own, with the argument that I might need to attend funerals. It was a simple dress with no decorations, long sleeves, and just a few pleats.

I had worn it to the Cowboy’s funeral too. Feeling somewhat melancholic, I briefly stroked the Cowboy’s hat that I now kept in my room.

The day of the memorial service came all too quickly. I wore that dress, and Paulina wore a black suit as we headed to the Veterans’ Association Hall. I hoped the atmosphere wouldn’t be as somber as I imagined.

Paulina drove well today too, but not as fast as usual. We arrived at the Veterans’ Association Hall about 30 minutes before the memorial service and knocked on the door.

Again, only the peephole opened, and this time the gaze properly scanned downward to find me. Still, as if unable to forget the code phrase, a voice came through.

“Who has died?”

I cleared my throat quietly and answered. I responded with utmost respect, as if chewing and swallowing each syllable.

“Christopher Wiggins, who is no longer an Argonne Invincible.”

Upon hearing my answer, the door quietly opened. It seemed to make no creaking sound, and inside, the veterans I had seen last time were gathered in their uniforms.

The atmosphere wasn’t that somber. Everyone’s expressions showed a mixture of envy and relief with smiles. They weren’t not sad. Sadness was clearly visible in their expressions, but those other emotions seemed stronger.

The veteran who had guided me inside last time was also in uniform. He approached me and extended his hand as if asking for a handshake… I shook his hand with my black silk-gloved hand.

“He’s free from the ritual now, and free from the memories of war too. I’m almost envious. Sign the guest book first, then come this way. The Invincibles are waiting for you.”

After signing the guest book, I walked through stone tables arranged like trench lines and entered the inner part of the hall. His coffin was placed at the far end of the hall, beneath a stained glass window depicting a soldier. A fitting place.

“Ah, there’s one Invincible who didn’t hear your story last time… Could you explain to him too? Don’t you think?”

Even though he probably already knew everything, he was pretending not to… Wait. If it was an Invincible who hadn’t heard the story last time, it could be the person who might be the detective.

There seemed to be a few more people, but I still remembered how this veteran had drawn out his words when saying he couldn’t contact them.

Following his guidance, I walked toward the Invincible who wasn’t here last time. My heart was racing. It was pounding as if it would burst. The thought “What if he’s the real detective?” was frightening.

The former soldier who had been talking with his comrades with his back turned around at the call of the veteran beside me.

“Mon… no, ahem. Michael. Here’s Rose Leafman, the reporter who brought us the news of Chris’s death. She’ll explain what happened, so you two talk. The second room is empty.”

The detective was standing before me. He seemed to recognize me too, as his gaze sharpened, but when he looked at the veteran who had brought me here, he relaxed his gaze and nodded.

“Yes, Professor. I’m Michael Husband, who was in the same Argonne Invincibles as the deceased, Miss Reporter.”

He extended the same hand that had strangled my neck last time, now asking for a handshake. His briefly relaxed gaze had changed back to a warning look. Whatever had happened, he seemed to be saying he was just an Argonne Invincible.

Paulina tried to be cautious too, but she didn’t have her shield. Like last time, she had left it at the entrance on the way in. Fortunately, the detective didn’t seem to intend to use force here.

Trying not to show my trembling hand, I took his extended hand and shook it. He pointed to a corridor a bit away from the main hall.

“The room is over there. Well, usually it’s where doctors visit, or counseling happens… but even those people stopped coming after a few years.”

He spoke in a very casual tone as he led me to that room. The only thing reassuring me was that Paulina was following behind.

We entered a corridor separated from the main hall by a door, then opened another door and entered a small room. He naturally took the inner chair and gestured for us to sit in the outer chairs.

I thought I was hiding my anxiety well, but he sighed and shook his head. His expression said there was no need to worry.

“This is unpleasant. Do you think I’m going to kill you at the funeral of a comrade who fought with me in the Great War? That time was work, albeit overtime. Now there’s no work.”

When I couldn’t respond properly, Paulina stepped forward and sat facing him. A lawyer protects their client. With words, fists and shield, and legal knowledge.

“Is that all you have to say to someone you tried to kill, Detective? Or rather… Veteran Michael?”

“We have quite a deep bad relationship. Don’t start reciting. You have no information except hearing my name once out there. And yes, that’s all, Miss Paulina. I’m someone who can leave work at the workplace.”

He briefly looked at his wristwatch. He seemed to be timing something.

“Anyway, I’ve already heard everything from the Professor. I’m just here for appearance’s sake, so if you don’t want to talk, we can leave after about five minutes and the Professor will be satisfied. Let’s avoid conflict here.”

“Would you please ensure that we don’t have to expose your true face here, Detective?”

Fortunately, Paulina wasn’t easily swayed by his eloquence. In any case, he probably knew Paulina’s name because he heard me call her at the hotel, so there was nothing to worry about.

“I won’t, so it doesn’t matter. No one goes to a stranger’s funeral purely for mourning. You seem to have come here wanting something, but if you start shouting to reveal my identity and disrespect the funeral, you’ll sour relations with the Veterans’ Association. Then you won’t get whatever you want. Isn’t that right?”

There was no evidence for that incident. The marks on my neck had long since faded, and if he just denied it a few times, the people outside would take his side.

Moreover, he had hit the nail on the head. No, it’s not important that he hit the nail on the head. I am indeed someone who easily reveals my true thoughts. There was something more important.

I could see he was trying to slip away again. I let him go last time, but this time I didn’t want to just let him leave. I placed my hand on Paulina’s shoulder and spoke.

“Fine! Ah, um, fine… at least give me your business card. Since you’re accusing me of coming here to get something, I might as well become that person.”

The detective smirked at my expression.

“You look like you used up a day’s worth of energy just to say that.”

Even as he smirked, he took a business card from his wallet and handed it to me as if it didn’t matter. It was a card with the name Husband Private Detective Agency.

Yes, now we’re a bit more even. He would know my name is Rose Leafman… and I knew his name was Michael Husband.

“Not at all. Five minutes, you said five minutes would be natural, right? During those five minutes, I need to hear what kind of person you are. What’s your specialty, Mr. Michael Husband?”

I tried to threaten him by reciting his full name like the detective and Paulina did, but even to my own ears, it wasn’t very threatening. The detective’s expression didn’t change.

“From union busting to missing person searches to fugitive tracking, I’ll do anything if you pay me.”

I frowned at his statement that he’d do anything for money. I had expected the detective to be this kind of person, but it was extremely unpleasant that he was so brazen about it.

“You really are a villain, aren’t you?”

“I don’t discriminate against clients, elf. The nobles who claim to do righteous deeds hope I’ll be impressed and work for free, but the people you call villains actually pay properly.”

“So, if I hired you, you could do good things too?”

The detective smirked as if my words sounded naive. He also seemed like he had no intention of taking me seriously.

“Of course. You’d be surprised how gentle a human I am when I’m not working.”

“Then you must always be working.”

After returning his smirk, I recalled the nicknames they called each other. I asked, thinking there might be some meaning to them.

“Ah, what do those nicknames mean? I mean, the deceased was the Poet… the person who guided me was the Professor, and you’re…”

It was a word that an elf would be uncomfortable saying aloud, so I trailed off. Only FFF members use words like “mongrel.”

“Mongrel? Not a good word for an elf to say out loud. Anyway, there’s no special meaning. Chris cried for two straight days after entering the trench, so he was the Poet because his sensitivity was like a poet’s. The Professor is the Professor because of his demeanor. I once killed a dwarf with my bare hands, so I’m the Mongrel because I’m as barbaric as an orc mongrel. Satisfied?”

This really seemed to be just a nickname without any special meaning. I thought there might be something significant here… anyway, time was precious. If there was anything else to ask, I needed to ask it now.

“Then, what does that code phrase mean? The one about not being baptized in the blood of the lamb. I heard it here, and the deceased asked Paulina about it too. So, if not lamb’s blood…”

“For trench cleaners like us, with endless friendly fire and enemy fire raining down, we get baptized in gunpowder-mixed dirt rather than lamb’s blood. It’s just a joke about that.”

That’s not the truth. I was certain. The answer came immediately, as if he had prepared it specifically for this question.

I recalled the phone conversation from before. The detective already knew about the sword thief’s plan. It would be right to think that the detective and the remaining Invincibles were sharing information.

I might need to confirm a bit more, but it seemed clear that the Argonne Invincibles were trying to systematically bury something.

I’m not just saying they knew about the sword thief’s plan. The sword thief stole the Hexenbane to solve something… a ritual.

Judging by the Invincibles’ reactions, it would be correct to assume they are under the same ritual. The effect of that ritual is probably to give a person the strength and vitality of two people. This much can be inferred.

Are there any clues to know more details? The sword thief pierced his heart with the Hexenbane. It might be a ritual affecting the heart. There’s also the possibility he did it simply to end his life, so let’s not be too certain.

Even the Hexenbane shattered after purifying the ritual. It must be some powerful ritual. This is an undeniable truth, since the Hexenbane was said to cut through all rituals easily.

Did the Invincibles use some ritual to become stronger? That doesn’t seem right… The sword thief was in great pain and tried to repent. What if there’s some dark circumstance involved?

There’s no use worrying about it now. To know whether it should be revealed or not, I had no choice but to go all the way.