Chapter 57: Investigation

...

Easton POV:

"Sigh... so another child ended up disappearing, huh? With this one they are 38..." I sighed in exhaustion and annoyance while reading the document in my hands that showed all problems the city has faced in this month.

A lack of food thanks to the ever-increasing cold in this hellish winter that kills our animals and crops without discrimination. Many deaths for starvation in the slums zone of the city, and of course, the many cases of cultist kidnapping children for mysterious reasons. 

The only thing that kept our people happy was that we were managing to get a lot more of different resources thanks to the fact that there weren't that many goblins in our territory right now. Giving us freedom to explore more deeply into or territory and recover some of our territory from the hands of the goblins.

However, like to tear apart this happiness, the cultist suddenly started acting a lot more than in previous occasions, and on top of that, this time they were kidnapping children from different parts of the city.

"Yes sir! Fortunately, we have managed to apprehend a lot of cultists while they tried to kidnap more children, since then the cultists seemed to have completely ceased their doings, and disappeared from our eye. Whether we captured too many of their members and they decided to stop their activities for some time, or they simply succeeded in whatever they wanted to accomplish." 

So they stopped, huh? 

For some reason I can't be at ease at all....

Although they acted in previous times while we were at war with the goblins, they were still considered a minor group of criminals that wasn't worthy of our attention, thus, only a few soldiers were sent to take care of them, but failed ultimately. And since then they have gathered a lot of members and hid somewhere in our territory while managing to infiltrate some of their spies into our ranks.

So they stopping because we captured too many of their members doesn't make any sense, after all, they are known for sacrificing until the last one of their members if deemed necessary, not that the members care anyways as they are completely happy to offer their lives in order to revive their God Cutukulu.

Or was it Catzulu? I don't know anymore...

"Sir! We have been notified that Sir Aspen has come back and requested an audience"

As soon as I heard the words of the soldier, a grin appeared involuntary in my mouth, and I told him to let Aspen pass.

Soon, the door opened once again and a familiar face appeared right at the entrance.

This time his hair was a lot longer than the last time a month ago, with it almost reaching his back!

Of course, I recognized him instantly even after noticing his extremely long hair, after all, his ever tired look is something that no one else has.

With this, I was sure that we could manage to face whatever came to us.

"Hahaha, The hero finally comes back!"

...

°

°

°

Aspen POV:

...

*Yawn*

After a long talk with the old man Easton I managed to get in my hands a lot of useful information for me to start investigating the kidnapping cases.

Since the kidnapping cases were already over, supposedly, now I needed to know where to look for the Cultists and how to find their base to trample over them in just one go.

I couldn't allow them to continue ruining my ever lasting holidays after all...

*Gulp*

Alright.

*Bam!*

I kicked the stomach of one of the soldiers guiding me to the exit and threw him to the ground.

"Gah!!"

"S-sir Aspen?!" The soldiers in the surroundings looked at me dumbfounded and soon prepared for a possible battle, after all, perfectly trained soldiers couldn't flinch just because I'm a supposed important person.

I grabbed the soldier from his neck and threw him to the group of soldiers that was watching me attentively.

"That guy is a cultist, interrogate him or do whatever you have to do, I'm leaving."

"Huh? Err... sure..."

The reddish aura glowing around the unconscious soldier couldn't mistake him for a guy just plainly resenting me. After all I saw that even the people that had deep hatred for me when I was considered a scum had only a green aura around them, marking them as pacific creatures.

Although I still couldn't understand completely what were the criteria for considering someone an enemy, I knew that cultists or assassins always had a red aura around them, this time cultists being the most plausible option.

*Bam!* 

*Thud!*

*Bam!*

Three more soldiers fell after receiving a kick from me right before I left the militia headquarters, and soon many other soldiers carried them away with incredulous expressions on their faces.

"Now then..." I looked at the many houses and streets of the city and sighed softly.

Let's look for these guys.

...

°

°

°

*Smack!*

"Sigh... I guess my fists are still likely to receive damage when punching, huh?"

I threw the body of the man to the ground and took out a handkerchief from my pocket to clean up the blood from my knuckles. All this while from time to time small gasps for air and grunts could be heard from his already deformed mouth.

Behind him, a group of another dozens of cultists lied on the floor unconscious after receiving the same torture as the man from me to make them talk.

Unfortunately, I wasn't an expert on torture, so my only idea at the moment was to punch them in the face repeatedly while healing them from time to time so that they couldn't die before they talked.

Thus, after an hour or so all of them had now a face covered in blood and their facial structure was now a complete mess. Their jaws were completely in the wrong place and some of them were simply crushed, the noses of some of them were flattened to the point they seemed pigs, and some of them even had their skull sightly bent due to the repeated punches and healing that made their skulls change in shape.

Of course, I didn't just punch them in the face because after a while of noticing that they weren't talking, even when being punched repeatedly in the same spot, I decided to try to break their fingers or bones from different parts of their body while using some of my healing potions to make them recover their initial shape before being broken by me again.

And as I was about to start the process once again, this time while using the Inextinguishable fire from the torches, I heard the scream of a kid some streets away from here.

When I turned to look in that direction I managed to see through the walls in front of me a small green aura with the silhouette of a kid being dragged away by a red aura with the silhouette of an enormous man.

"Well, and here I was losing some of my motivation for continuing the torture. It seems like situations like these make me really angry for some reason..."

As I left the other cultists lying on the floor, I dashed towards that place with all my speed in order to stop that guy before he did something else to the kid.

...

"The slums, huh?"

As I entered the slums zone of the city, where hundreds of people slept on the streets or just looked absentmindedly at the air, I noticed the cultist carrying away a kid in the distance. This time entering into an alley, probably to escape the sight of any soldier patrolling this part of the city.

"Motherfucker..."

I ran as fast as I could, and entered the alley only to find the cultist still dragging the kid while being completely oblivious to my presence. His back was facing me and I couldn't see his face, however, I deemed that unimportant and decided to take action right there.

I gathered my mana and created a small rock bullet in front of my hand that I shot right into the direction of his leg.

*Bang!*

The bullet flew at a terrifying speed in the direction of his leg, ready to pierce through it and leave him unable to escape from me.

However...

*Ting!!*

A black aura appeared right in front of the bullet and blocked it completely, like it was made from thick steel.

'What the...?'

The kid, that was yelling in desperation all along, suddenly stopped screaming.

His head was sent flying and landed right in front of me, leaving a small puddle of blood in the ground that reached my boots.

*Ba-dump*

"We finally meet, so you were the so mentioned Alchemist, huh~?" 

He turned his head and looked in my way while speaking with an amused tone on his voice.

Although the rage inside me was starting to grow considerably, when I saw the cultist turn around to face me, my expression froze immediately.

A white mask with a beak in it, and complete red eyes that seemed to shine from inside the mask.

He is...!

...

---