The Academy’s Ankle Reaper – Chapter 281

The Blue Cat Tribe Village, located adjacent to the border of the Beastman Alliance and the Empire, has an atmosphere akin to a military encampment.

While there weren’t any sturdy castle walls constructed, barricades were installed around the residential areas to make it hard for monsters or other thieves to invade, and sentinels frequently guarded those barricades.

Though monsters often appeared out in the open, their vigilance was at an all-time high recently due to the emergence of missing persons.

In a plain where finding a hiding spot is tough, missing persons cases usually boil down to two possibilities. They’ve either been captured by monsters, or they’ve fallen into the hands of slave traders.

If they were taken by monsters, there would inevitably be some traces left behind.

However… this time, the traces had been deliberately erased.

It was the handiwork of a being with enough intelligence to do so.

—

Alexei Panta, the chieftain of the Blue Cat Tribe, wore a somber expression.

He only stroked his proud blue beard and stared off into the distance, where his daughter had set out.

“Are you sure you could just send your daughter out?”

“It was her wish. She’ll manage.”

A beastman of a similar age to Chieftain Alexei said. The remark from his old friend forced Alexei to voice the worries he had been trying to suppress within.

Initially, it was Alexei, as the chieftain, who planned to go personally after the warriors went missing, but during the recruitment of warriors, his daughter Irina volunteered herself. At first, he dismissed her idea, but Alexei quickly found himself swayed by her words.

Irina argued that if the chieftain went straight away, humans would underestimate them, so she insisted on going first to assess the situation.

With ten warriors accompanying her, she figured it wouldn’t be that dangerous.

Although he wasn’t pleased with the thought of his daughter entering enemy territory, Irina was destined to follow in Alexei’s footsteps as the next chieftain. Over-protectiveness wouldn’t do anyone any favors, so he entrusted her with the task.

“We should expect they’ll arrive soon, considering their speed.”

Alexei fixed his gaze on the distant hill. Everyone was advancing toward that hill, which signified the start of the Empire’s territory.

As he waited anxiously for something to happen, his eyes began to perceive something strange approaching from afar.

“Is that…?”

Something was flying towards them.

If it was a flying monster, it’d be quite bothersome. He considered preparing the warriors for interception, but as it came closer, the flying object gave off a mysterious aura, prompting Alexei and his friend to fall back in surprise.

“Wha… No way!”

“Am I seeing things?!”

A colossal golden dragon was flapping its wings and flying right towards them.

Among all the dragons, there’s only one kind that boasts golden scales.

“Gold… Dragon?!”

The Gold Dragon is the kind revered for producing the greatest Dragon Lords.

Beastmen worship dragons. The Gold Dragon is the highest rank within those dragons, and all members of the Blue Cat Tribe came out from their homes and bowed their heads.

And as if sensing that, the Gold Dragon didn’t just fly by but landed in the Blue Cat Tribe Village instead.

“We pay respect to the great one.”

The Gold Dragon lowered its upper body and touched the ground right in front of Alexei, who was at the forefront bowing his head.

What is it trying to show?

Raising his head slightly, Alexei was left astonished by the scene unfolding before him.

“Eek?!”

Before him lay a multitude of fallen Blue Cat Tribe warriors, unconscious.

Fortunately, they were not dead, but among them was Alexei’s daughter, who had left the village with confidence.

Two humans stood upright nearby; one was a remarkably small human, possibly a dwarf, while the other was a red-haired human woman… she seemed to belong to the Parker family.

‘Why are humans here with the Gold Dragon? What on earth is going on…’

A Gold Dragon is a noble being rarely seen in one’s lifetime; what on earth were they doing in the presence of humans?

Not just any humans but with the nobility of the Empire.

Alexei, the first to recognize one of the faces, turned towards the Parker girl.

“… Are you the Parker girl? I heard you went to the Academy and yet you’ve returned.”

“Yes, it’s quite unfortunate to meet under these circumstances.”

The Gold Dragon cut in, interrupting the tense atmosphere between them.

[Uh… I’ve heard you two used to get along well, but what is this quarrel about? I’ve listened to both sides, and it seems cross-verification may be needed, so I descended as a mediator.]

The Gold Dragon was stepping in to resolve the dispute.

Though they had brought the humans along, it seemed they had nothing to fear as they could converse comfortably.

“Given such reasons, I’d be more than willing to cooperate.”

—

Throughout our stroll in the village, members of the Blue Cat Tribe kept their distance from us.

As we walked by, everyone retreated into their homes, peeking at us through cracks in the doors.

“I will escort you this way.”

Nevertheless, they cooperatively engaged in the investigation. Was this the power of authority? It did feel uplifting.

Indeed, dragons were the best when dealing with beastmen.

Gemma performed her role as agreed upon.

The Blue Cat Tribe, which would have been particularly suspicious had we just shown up, treated us extraordinarily well.

Of course, they continued to show some signs of discomfort.

We decided to retrace the steps of the missing persons.

“I don’t know what you hope to find after such a long time, but I hope we uncover a clue.”

One of the Blue Cat Tribe members guiding us mocked.

Gemma decided to wait at the entrance without polymorphing into a human.

After all, if she returned, the formality would dissipate, as per our instructions.

“Is this the residence of the most recently missing person?”

“Yes. They disappeared just two days ago.”

The home of the missing beastman was well-preserved.

Inside, things were tidied up, and despite a few days having passed, it looked exactly as it did back then.

Clearly, a person was missing from within, but the tidy interior raised suspicions that the victim hadn’t resisted at all.

Well, it wasn’t strange.

From sleep magic to various methods for quietly toppling a person, this world has an abundance of ways to do so.

Though I heard about it while interrogating in a prison, I confirmed it once more.

Evidence held by the Blue Cat Tribe went as follows.

Artifacts that humans likely used to erase scents and footprints were found, and it was clear they had been used.

If they were taken by monsters, there should have been some traces, but the use of these methods indicated it was definitely the humans’ doing.

“There aren’t that many territories touching the border, are there?”

“While we thought they could have come from other places and searched the surroundings, we found traces of slave traders near Parker’s territory as well.”

This meant that traces of the same artifacts found in the village were also discovered in Parker’s area.

“This artifact was found near the territory…?”

“Yes.”

Amy was bewildered by the fact that there were individuals using such items located near her territory.

She didn’t absolutely trust everyone in her territory, but given the substantial evidence, it seemed to be swirling around in her mind.

However, I ignored such concerns and continued searching every nook and cranny of the house where the missing person had lived.

“Hey, human..! What are you rummaging through?!”

“Hold still for a moment.”

A beastman attempted to stop me, but I shoved him aside and kept searching.

If my hunch was correct, there had to be something hidden here.

And I found it.

“I got it. Here it is!”

“What did you find…?”

What I uncovered among the household items was an object that looked like a black pearl.

It definitely didn’t seem like something a human slave trader would possess.

“This right here is the evidence.”

The black pearl I discovered turned out to be an invitation from the ‘Demon Church.’

—

It’s perhaps a natural occurrence, but what I had been tirelessly tracking down in this plain were none other than slave traders and the Demon Church.

Exactly, the issue didn’t lie with slave traders in general but with ‘illegal slave traders.’

While slave trading itself is a legitimate occupation in the Empire.

Because buying slaves under lawful agreements is common within the Empire, regulating the trading of slaves is virtually impossible.

Oh, sure, the slave trade is legal, but the legality of the contracts with the slaves is another matter entirely.

There are countless ways to kidnap anyone, erase their identity, and sell them as slaves or to trap them into becoming slaves through crippling debts.

I had often hunted down these illegal slave traders for fun.

Since slave traders are men with a death sentence, it was perfectly fine to kill them and haul them off.

There was a degree of enjoyment in the chase.

Among the captured slaves were the daughters of kidnapped nobles, fledgling elves, beastmen, and many others.

Since I was the master back then, I utilized abilities that only I could use to send them back home, thus aiding in diplomacy or whatever.

Well, that’s none of my concern. The important thing is that I had often taken down slave traders, allowing me to roughly deduce their way of thinking.

It’s a remarkably simple inference.

Would a slave trader who settled near Parker really sneak into the Blue Cat Tribe village just in front of us to conduct such kidnappings?

No matter how hard I thought, it just didn’t add up.

This place was patrolled even during the night.

While a person could manage to cross a barricade, sneaking away while sensitive beastmen also roamed was incredibly challenging.

Thus, slave traders typically prepared copious amounts of stench bombs to drive the beastmen crazy, launching a frontal assault to kidnap numerous victims at once.

Or they’d take one or two members from the group who strayed away.

But the scenario they depicted mentioned that the sentries didn’t catch wind of anything until the next day.

It sounded completely ghostly.

Could slave traders, who managed to evade all that vigilance, really engage in one-on-one kidnappings?

If they were skilled enough to pinch one or two without a soul noticing, they would undoubtedly have taken at least five at once.

That’s how the numbers would add up.

However, this place has seen a steady rate of one to two people disappearing each week.

It’s all quite the contradiction.

In the end, slave traders act for the money.

Unless they were truly insane psychos, they wouldn’t engage in actions that made no sense economically.

—

Was there truly an intruder?

Could it be that the culprit was in there from the beginning?