In the area where the stewards lived, all the maids had been taken away and resettled, and the guards were detained. Kalanda and Ji Yijun found an empty wooden house and began to interrogate the puppet master.
The puppeteer was really paralyzed, and one of his hands was broken. His face was pale and blue, and he looked almost dead. When he was not convulsing due to pain, it was obvious that he was a living person. Whether as a mage or an ordinary person, he was useless. Maybe because he had lost his will to survive, he was very uncooperative during the interrogation.
No matter what Ji Yijun asked, he just lay on his back, tilted his head and ignored them. He didn't even look at them.
After less than five minutes of questioning, Karanda lost her patience. She said to Ji Yijun, "I will interrogate him alone. You can leave now."
"Why? I can use torture, too."
Kalanda pulled out a dagger and said, "I'm afraid you will feel uncomfortable."
Ji Yijun was very curious and insisted on watching how Kalanda would do it. However, when she started to slice the opponent's fingers from the head, bones and flesh, into thin slices one by one, just like cutting carrot slices, Ji Yijun felt a chill in his heart. Killing the enemy is one thing, torturing the enemy is another. Ji Yijun only lasted half a minute before escaping.
From outside, he could still hear the puppeteer's shrill screams and Kalanda's extremely calm voice: "... Being a mercenary doesn't make you a complete good person. But no matter what, I try to be kind to everyone. Even if they are enemies, I will give them some leeway. But, when Lao Chen fell, I swore a vow that whoever made him like that, I would chop him into pieces!
I have always been a person who yearns for sunshine, but that doesn't mean I have never seen darkness. When you hurt the most important thing in my heart, you successfully helped me find an opportunity to release the darkness..."
An angry woman is so scary. Even a steady and kind person like Kalanda could be so angry because of Chen Hansheng. Ji Yijun thought about how he had so many ex-girlfriends, and it was not easy for him to live peacefully until now.
This scream and conversation lasted for about five minutes. Ji Yijun heard the puppeteer crying and shouting, "I'm telling you, I'm telling you! There is an antidote. It's in my storage ring."
After a moment, Kalanda came out.
"Ka, Sister Kalanda. Did you get the antidote?"
She nodded.
Ji Yijun heard no sound from inside and asked, "Dead?"
"No, he fainted. I'm not in a good mood right now. Please deal with it. I'll go and see how the slaves are being appeased." Kalanda's expression made Ji Yijun feel complicated and difficult to understand.
"Oh, okay."
Ji Yijun opened the door and was almost vomited by the bloody and foul smell. The puppeteer rolled his eyes and collapsed on the ground, with puddles of red and yellow everywhere. Ji Yijun stroked his forehead and cried, "Ouch, I am so screwed!"
—————
It was already dawn. About ten kilometers away from the village, in a clearing in the woods near a stream, two men on horseback came. One of them was wearing a cloak and a mask, and the other was dressed as a warrior, carrying a bow and a sword.
After they dismounted, they let the horses drink water from the stream and sat down on a rock to rest.
The masked man took off his cape, mask and brown wig, threw them into the river, and turned into a young man. He had short sea-blue hair and green eyes, and a long scar across his cheek and nose, dividing his face into two halves. He was Steward Hall. But if his face was intact, many people in the school would recognize his true identity: Hawke, the warehouse manager who was caught by Cole.
The warrior was another steward named Ubico. He looked towards the direction of the village with some uneasiness. "Hall, don't you even need to look at the result of the battle? Can you explain this to the Baron?"
Hawke took out two loaves of bread from his backpack and handed one to the other man. "You need to be responsible to Lord Baron, but I don't. I am only responsible to Lord Cole. Lord Cole hangs out with them every day, so how could he not know how powerful they are? Needless to say, the result of this battle will be the end of our people."
"It's such a pity. This camp was built with the joint efforts of three parties and a lot of hard work. In addition, we recently recruited several experts through Cole, even a mid-level magician. But now everything is gone." Ubico said unhappily while chewing on bread.
"If it weren't for your Lord Baron who wanted to deal with Chen Hansheng, we wouldn't have been exposed so quickly," Hawke said.
"They were watching us too closely. If we don't kill the man who was tracking us, we will be discovered soon. The Baron had no choice but to use the assassination method. But we didn't expect them to be so powerful. Not only did they track down the whereabouts of the puppet master so quickly, but they even sent troops to attack our camp directly."
Hawke said disdainfully: "In the final analysis, it's because you are too greedy. Lord Cole has long reminded us to avoid places where their caravans frequent. If you could spend more time selling the goods to the Empire, to the orcs, or to the sea tribe, this wouldn't happen!"
Ubico sighed and said no more.
"The puppeteer will definitely reveal his employer. So, Baron, you should make preparations early," Hawke said.
"Isn't it the same with you?"
Hawke waved his hands and said, "We? No, no, no, we are just small characters. We have always been the middlemen between you and those people in the China Tower. The people in the China Tower have no chance to move around, and they don't want to expose their identities, so they found Lord Cole and asked him to be their agent to discuss cooperation with the Baron. And you also need a hidden dialogue channel to communicate with those people in the China Tower. This is our value.
But the decisions you made have nothing to do with us. We didn't build factories, sell slaves, or sell products. We only did some auxiliary work. Lord Cole spent most of his time in their territory. So, even if they come after us, what does it matter? We are like a small ant. Should the hunter leave two elephants alone and go after a small ant in the middle? "
Ubico knew that this was indeed the case, and if it weren't for the lack of people who could manage so many complex things, Hawke might not have come to this village to manage the camp.
"Anyway, it's too late to say anything now. Let the Baron handle the follow-up matters as soon as possible. He should shirk responsibility and frame others. Haha, aren't nobles the best at doing these things?"