Surviving as a Knigh Chapter 119 : Chapter 119

Chapter 119

"Believe ! We really just received a request to stop anyone from entering or leaving the building! They paid upfront and wore masks, so we don't even know who they are!"

Frank, despite not being asked any particular questions, bowed his head on his own and spilled everything he knew.

"Anyway, Sir Karl knew there was nothing to gain from shaking these guys down, right?"

Sancho twisted Frank's wrist and bent it completely sideways.

"Aaaaaaaah! Uuuugh...!"

Frank, his wrist completely twisted, writhed on the floor, groaning in pain.

"Alright, I'm asking one last ti. This ti it was the wrist, next ti I'll twist your head."

Sancho smiled at Frank with those usual murderous eyes.

"Really... Really... I don't know anything... All I know is that they paid upfront and told us to guard that building...!"

Frank pleaded with Sancho, tears and snot streaming down his face, kneeling on the ground.

Sancho looked at Frank with indifferent eyes, then drew his Rapier and struck down rcilessly towards Frank's neck.

"Ugh!"

Frank clenched both hands tightly, curled up, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Live virtuously. If we et again next ti, there won't be a second chance, understand?"

As Sancho smiled gently and sheathed his rapier, Frank's eyes snapped open, and he confird once again that his neck was still attached.

Thump.

The mont Frank collapsed onto the floor, his body limp with tension.

A stream of yellow liquid flowed down from his lower body.

"Ugh."

With a short word, Karl and Sancho went outside, leaving Frank and Pove in the office, staring blankly in the direction they left with expressions like they had just seen a ghost.

***

The two, having left the Red Bear Office, had entered a safe house belonging to Anne's intelligence agent.

"On the way here, we went to a place called the Red Bear Office."

"Ah, you must have visited because of the building those guys were guarding."

"That's right."

Inside the safe house, the intelligence agent wore heavy makeup and flashed a seductive smile.

"You won't get anything from those guys. It seems they assigned the job after already cleaning everything up. It looked like they also intended to cause confusion on this side."

"Did anything turn up?"

"Well."

The intelligence agent, Sonia, looked at Karl with a seductive expression, letting her gaze wander.

"This is getting unpleasant. My patience ends here."

Sonia flinched unknowingly upon eting Karl's utterly indifferent eyes.

The aura of a knight who had reached the Master level and was striving for greater heights was far beyond what an ordinary person could handle.

"...Funds that appear to have flowed from the slave market to the Holy Knight Order."

Sonia, her attitude changed from monts ago, handed Karl a ledger she possessed.

"The scale of the funds transferred is considerable. We haven't figured out how they smuggled the girls out, but we were able to identify so of the places where the money flowed."

[Holy Knight Order Vice-Commander Massimo Dobrovic.]

Karl, taking in the na, still stood expressionless.

"You're not particularly surprised."

"I expected it."

"And yet, your expression isn't relieved either."

"Because it's too obvious."

Sonia was genuinely impressed by their brief exchange.

"You seem to think differently. From the various knights I've known."

"It has nothing to do with being a knight or not. Thinking, that is."

At his last words, Sonia's eyes flickered for a mont before becoming clear again.

"You are peculiar in many ways, Sir Karl."

She showed a smile of pure admiration, unlike her previous seductive one.

"If you had smiled like that without makeup, I might have fallen for you."

"Pardon?"

The mont she asked back, montarily flustered, Karl was already leaving the safe house with Sancho.

"Were you always an expert in that field?"

"What?"

"No, you seed quite the player at swaying won's hearts?"

"Nonsense."

***

"If you were nearby, why didn't you contact

first?"

"There was sothing I needed to investigate without contacting you."

Godfrey understood that various anings were implied in that short sentence.

Thump.

Karl placed a ledger in front of Godfrey, who was seated before him, without saying much else.

Since they had t at Anne's safe house, there was no need to be conscious of surrounding eyes.

Godfrey picked up the ledger and began examining its contents.

"..."

His face, usually showing little change in expression, flushed red.

"Is this information reliable?"

Nod.

"If you trust ."

"If you ask

which of the two to believe, I would choose Sir Karl without hesitation. Massimo is capable of such things."

"There seems to be a story behind it."

"That bastard, he's the one who took money from Count Calido."

"Were there no revealed circumstances back then?"

"No, we ultimately couldn't find anything. He also has considerable support within the knight order, so there was no way to do anything with just circumstantial evidence."

"There's sothing else truly important."

Karl told Godfrey about what happened in the north and how he ca to be here.

"It's a hard story to believe."

"I suppose so."

"Even when I first heard the story that elves had appeared in the world, I wondered if it was really true, but the Holy Knight Order possibly siding with elf bastards who offer young girls as sacrifices..."

"We need to investigate the details further, but I think I'll need help."

"This is for the sake of our knight order. I must do it. Who else could help?"

Karl nodded and urged him to move as carefully as possible until he made the next contact.

***

"There's no trace of them. How could they disappear so completely?"

A month had passed since Karl arrived in Bairot.

During that ti, he had made every effort with the intelligence agents to find traces of them, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn't find even the smallest clue of their movents.

"What about the Holy Knight Order side?"

"They say there's no particular movent there either."

"..."

They must have committed the acts here, but by what ans could they have smuggled the girls out?

The number of girls who disappeared from the vicinity was said to be well over several hundred.

What thod could possibly make them all disappear at once?

"There are no secret spaces underground either. The buildings suspected to have been used by them are all empty."

"If they moved, there should be traces, but there are none. To feed that many numbers, there should at least be movent of supplies, but there's none of that either."

Karl suppressed his frustration, stood up, and walked towards the slave market area.

He had co here so many tis now that he was on the verge of morizing the geography.

"You're here again? Your attendance rate is quite good."

Since Karl participated in the auction almost daily, even the gatekeeper at the entrance greeted him.

Only, Karl had never once bought a slave until now.

"We will now begin the auction. Now! The item I will introduce today is!"

The mont the auctioneer introduced the person like an object and stated the price, those seated called out prices.

The young girl, losing the light in her eyes inside the iron cage fit for livestock, seed to have no hope whatsoever about where she was going.

Everything looked gray, and Karl too sighed at the atmosphere of the auction house and was about to stand up.

"My sister isn't a slave! That's my sister! My sister isn't a slave!"

A familiar young boy's voice erupted from within the auction house.

"The person in there is my sister! My sister isn't a slave, bad people caught her! That's my sister!"

As the boy ran towards the iron cage, nearby guards rushed out and began to restrain the boy.

The girl inside the cage stared at the young boy with hazy eyes.

The boy clearly said sister, but the girl in the cage didn't recognize her own brother.

There was no focus in the girl's eyes.

"Drag that rat outside! What on earth were the guards doing!"

As the person who appeared to be the auction host shouted angrily, the person who seed to be the head of security nodded and chased the boy outside.

"Let go! Sis! It's ! Tony! Sis!!"

The boy scread desperately, but the guards took the boy and moved away, out of the auction house.

"Ah, apologies for the brief disturbance. We will now resu the auction. 100 gold has been offered! Is there no more than 100 gold?"

"200 gold."

Just before the auctioneer called 100 gold and concluded the lot with three taps of the gavel, 200 gold ca from Karl's mouth.

"200 gold has been offered imdiately. Is there no more than 200 gold?"

"300 gold."

Just then, soone wearing a mask in the corner called out 300 gold.

"500 gold."

This ti, Karl called out 500 gold.

The man in the mask briefly turned his head towards Karl, who had called 500 gold, stared intently at Karl for a long ti, then turned his body and walked out of the auction house.

"Sold to custor number 77 for 500 gold!"

Karl issued a 500 gold check from his subspace, paid, and imdiately moved to receive the girl.

‘That girl was definitely kidnapped.’

No kidnapped girl had appeared anywhere, but for the first ti, one showed up at the auction house.

By what ans could that girl have survived?

Karl moved slowly, received the girl, and then loaded her onto the carriage prepared by the auction house.

The girl, still lacking focus in her eyes, stared blankly ahead without a word even inside the carriage.

The carriage departed, regardless of the girl's condition, and moved towards the mansion Anne had secured for him.

"We've arrived."

The coachman provided by the auction house dropped Karl and the girl off at the house, then slowly moved away.

"Co out now."

Karl spoke into the empty air where no one was.

"I won't say anything, so co out."

When he shouted once more into the empty space, a boy hesitantly walked out from a place untouched by light.

"We've t before, haven't we?"

"...Thank you very much for last ti."

When he had saved the boy the other day, the kid had already gone sowhere, so he couldn't even talk properly.

He had many questions for the boy back then too.

The young boy seed anxious, left alone.

"Is this child your sister?"

"Yes! It's Sandra sis."

"Was your sister originally sick?"

"No! My sister was healthy! She didn't have eyes like that, my sister... my sister..."

The child cried.

The 7-year-old kid, who hadn't cried even when knocked out by the large thug's slap, suddenly burst into tears.

"Sis... Sis..."

The child repeated only the word 'sister' and cried endlessly.

Just then, the girl, who had been staring ahead with a hazy expression, sat up and hugged the boy tightly.

The girl's eyes were still hazy, but she naturally held the child and patted his shoulder as if doing sothing she was supposed to do.

Until the boy, who had been crying for a long ti, cried himself to sleep exhausted, the girl patted her brother's back with a dazed face.

Watching the two children, Karl felt a bitter feeling and turned around, spotting Sancho picking up tissues, head bowed low.

"What are you doing."

"It's too... hic... sad..."

Seeing Sancho, with his larger build than an average farr, bomb-like hair, and dark skin, crying was quite the sight, unbearable in its own way.

Karl lifted the boy and girl, laid them on the bed, and then walked out of the mansion.

The next day, Karl fed the two siblings heartily, cleaned them thoroughly, and provided new clothes.

Tony couldn't seem to believe the situation of eating and resting warmly in the huge mansion, his eyes constantly darting around.

"Sir Knight, why are you helping us?"

"I'm not just helping. There's sothing I want to know."

"What are you curious about?"

"I think I'll have to ask when that child cos to her senses."

As Karl's gaze turned towards Sandra, the young boy's expression beca crestfallen.

"Will my sister be okay?"

"If you take good care of her, there might be a chance."

The boy resolved to definitely follow the words of the great-looking knight before him.