The Traveling Hero Won't Let the Innkeeper's Son Escape

To Ruth's words, Julia laughed loosely.

"War, spark? I wonder what you're talking about. I just thought I'd take a look at the oculus you caught. Maybe he's a Ziltanian prince. 'Cause there's a prize money on it."

Ruth slowly approached Julia, wondering what was wrong.

"Earlier on, you denied it wasn't, right?

"I reconsidered. Sometimes I can't speak my language because of some circumstances, and I think I need to help you soon."

Ruth, approached somewhat, now moves sideways to reposition herself with Julia. Then I saw Julia's foot, which I couldn't see earlier in the shadow of the table.

She now stands directly next to a large cloth bag where Ruth hid bows and arrows and the like. It's a chunk of cloth that moved when we talked about the oculus. But Julia's hands were hidden behind her back, and she didn't even know what she had, to the extent of the lamp's lighting.

Ruth stares at Julia with a spare smile. It was difficult to think that his eyes were to deceive Ruth, to put him in a truck, or to make a fabrication.

Ruth hit her doubts with Julia staring at her eyes that she didn't see as a threat at all that way.

"- Then why 'now'?

"……… I wonder what that means?

"You think we have to help the Prince of Ziltania soon, don't you? And yet, why are you moving by now?

"Because you said this morning that you were hiding and keeping the oculus, right? What's that?

Ruth laughed unexpectedly when she heard the words.

"What are you laughing at? Isn't that a little rude?

Ruth can pull a laugh into Julia, who looks a little angry.

Whatever Julia's excuse may be, it doesn't mean she wants to piss them off. The purpose is to proceed peacefully.

"That oculus has been barking many times since the first day of the five days of disconnection, hasn't it? Why do you, the Lapi, who are several times more earful than humans, realize by now the presence of an oculus? Isn't that strange?

"... eh"

People judge things by their common sense. So Ruth and Kia had suppressed their voices, and he took it for granted that they hadn't reached the room around them. Sometimes it was because Kia was all rampaged up in the warehouse on the first day, but only sounded a little noise. I thought the sound of the snowstorm that hit the inn had wiped everything out.

But listening to Rossa, I realized that it was strange for Julia of the Lapi tribe.

According to the story, the Rapids can pick up sounds within the boundaries of this village. Of course, even though the snowstorm is dampening his abilities a lot, he said that even if the noises in the inn were mixed, it would be enough to hear. They say that's their greatest ability with long ears.

(Yet Mr. Julia had not noticed the presence of Kia, who had barked many times. I mean, that's -)

When Ruth asked Julia, she was smiling sparingly, only slightly changing her expression. But it was just for a moment, and it didn't represent any obvious upset. Immediately returning to his expression, he sighed deeply.

"... Yeah, I actually knew you were there. I just thought it was the oculus I keep in this inn. I didn't think he was hiding it and taking it home to keep it, so I didn't say it."

"When you came looking for the prince, didn't you think to ask the question just in case you heard the oculus?

"... if you don't show it to your customers, I think there are quite a few circumstances. Maybe food. And then you can't speak poorly, can you? And I was a little upset about the herald."

There was no excuse that my abilities had just been curtailed, etc. In a situation where Rossa has been traveling with Julia for seven years and she has known each other for so long, she probably thought it would be pretty dangerous to lie badly.

She must also consider herself a slightly painful excuse, but for some reason she stares at Ruth without distracting herself. Such a grand attitude that you are likely to fool me into thinking that you really did. That's why I know I'm treading on so many occasions. It's very different from Seju, who tried to escape just because he heard the name of the brave man.

But Ruth had another reason why Julia couldn't excuse herself.

"That's strange."

"Why, you just didn't happen to ask questions, did you? I don't have that kind of" weird "thing. Even adventurers aren't omnipresent, are they?

"If you did just have an oculus voice, that might be fine. But the oculus that I brought home - Kia, the effect of the Slave Print, has faded, and she's human once. And he's shouting in the bathroom."

Julia's eyes open wide with a stunning colour.

Kia had become a human form after the effect of the slave imprint that anchored her on the third day of the five days of disconnection had expired. The bathroom is more robust than the rest of the room to prevent moisture and is in a remote position but still not far from the room. Just because I was feeling down about the herald, Julia of the Rapi tribe would have heard it.

"And then he's in his room, and he's telling me that he's the second prince of Ziltania. Your room and the room we were in are not far away. But why did you notice him by now? Even if you considered that something was going on, wouldn't you ask me enough questions if you were listening to the conversation?

According to Rossa, their debt was quite high. And with the request failing until we got here, that amount should have increased even more. And yet Kia in front of me - I don't think I'm going to miss the existence of 100 million Gods.

"The answer is simple, because you didn't know Kia was being secretly hidden from me. I mean, I'm supposed to have good ears, but I didn't hear that voice. I mean, you're from the Rapids... no, not Julia in the first place."

According to stories Rossa heard from Herald, Julia's attitude has been strange since she found a transport job in King's Capital. The Rossa and the others thought that was also due to the tension caused by the high demand, but it is quite possible that the real and fake had been replaced at the time of the breakup to find work in the Wang capital. It would have been a rap about the inn to make the people around you assume that you were Julia. The things she was talking about at that time were all things that she could hear as much as she wanted to hear from herself.

"- Who the hell are you who replaced Julia?

When Ruth glanced at her, Julia never smiled softly before and smiled distorted with her mouth twisted.

"hehe...... hehe uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

In an odd laugh that never suited Julia before, the moment Ruth, wary, tried to distance herself, she took a large quantity of knives out of her hidden hand, as many as her unpatterned palms, and threw them standing on the cloth that was at her feet.

A blunt sound of a knife stabbing the meat, zero blood coming from the inside of the bag.

"- So what!?

"Ha ha, now I have nothing to do with you trying to reveal who the eagle is"

The person who changed the way she spoke to Galari looked at Ruth as she looked at Julia.

"Soon this contract of slave imprint will disappear, and rumors of the death of the prince of Ziltania will soon reach the neighbouring country by the merchant of the king's capital who imprinted this slave imprint, that way the beasts of fellowship will come to beat up this country. Hashi village and others are immediately caught in the war and crushed. … that's the end of the eagle's work."

"……… Why are you doing this?"

"I don't have an in-laws to teach."

Those who imitated Julia said so again, from under their clothes, took out a large number of knives, and tried to throw them towards Ruth.

- But at that moment, another sign of sudden appearance moves.

"Wow on!"

Kia jumped out of the "behind the counter on the kitchen side," not from the cloth at the feet of those who mimicked Julia, causing her to drop the weapon she had bitten into her hand as she jumped on her opponent with the knife.

"Damn, you beast!? Why!"

The person who manages to wiggle Kia away again takes out the knife with no wax while taking the distance and throws it toward him at a tremendous speed. But Kia ran through the wall and landed on the floor avoiding it on the verge.

"Woo!"

Kia roared with her fangs out to those who imitated Julia as she lowered to Ruth's front.

"Kia, are you okay!?

"Wow!"

Kia replies brightly to Ruth, who says nothing.

Actually, Kia had me waiting inside the kitchen counter, not in the cloth I put like that behind Ruth. Deliberately revealing her presence or making her bark in the near field is also to see Julia's reaction.

When those who imitated Julia looked bitter as they understood everything, they threw a knife at the bag and turned the cloth. From underneath the cloth, which was precisely released with a knife, appeared a mass wrapped in a leather bag with blood on it. It was made from cloth and the like and looked like an oculus.

"Oh well, this one's a fake... you played a play like that to make the eagle mistake where the wolf is"

The man who imitated Julia stabbed him with a sack of wild wolf blood on an old piece of cloth that was in the warehouse room. Ruth snuck out what had been frozen in the darkroom with the blood of the last prey of winter, which he had captured a little before the five days of severance had come. By the way, I kept the blood together because I thought it might be possible to find out it was fake as soon as blood didn't come out in situations like the one I just did.

"For once, I wanted to make sure. Because there wasn't a line about Mr. Herald that I didn't really hear from psychological influences."

"... but the eagle caught on to it, misplaced it and completely wore it out. Do it."

If you were a true Lapi, you couldn't possibly have misplaced Kia's voice at that close range. You can't hear the heartbeat from under the cloth in the first place, so you'll know there's no kia there when you get close. But the person in front of me became suspicious.

But in the first place, I was almost certain that Julia was a fake when I agreed with Ruth's phrase, "not a prince." I'm sure whoever mimicked Julia didn't think Ruth was asking about the situation from Kia, who had become a person, so he wanted to get it done as just an oculus.

"Besides, that move... it was you who killed Mr. Wonok, after all"

"Heh, you were realizing that man wasn't a suicide...... when?

"I knew from the beginning that it wasn't suicide. And that the first two aren't even accidents. But it was only yesterday that I realized that there were two people in the inn who were trying to kill someone else."

At first I thought one of us was doing this. But when I finished the three cases and thought about it again, I realized that it was supposed to be moving with one thought, but for some reason there were too many strange things.

"Weird thing?

"Mostly poisonous."

The first Herald case was beaten and left in a cold room. The next Nicolas case was stabbed with poison so no trauma could be found. The third Wonok knifed his abdomen from the front. One at a time is not that complicated.

"But there were traces of poison in both the first and third cases, which were not supposed to have been used. The first one came out from under the bed in my room, the same poison needle as the second one. The third case was found to have been planted in a borough stew for dinner."

When he realized the second person existed, Ruth looked for a borough stew that had been dumped as garbage. The abandoned stew could not be helped where it was touched, but the talisman borrowed showed a slight reaction.

"If everyone was killed by poison, it's not strange to have traces of poison. However, the first and third cases clearly had different causes of death. I found it strangely uncomfortable. … and while I was thinking about it, I was worried about something weird."

"You think it's weird?

Those who imitated Julia looked at the way Ruth said it.