The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick up Trash - Volume 2 - Chapter 102

Chapter 102:

I Did My Best!

S-SO TIRED… We’d been at it for three hours now. Sora had been doing so much heavy lifting recently. I was on edge from having to communicate its judgments, too, so I was almost at my limit. I looked out the window. There were lots of people still in line, but it was markedly shorter now. We just had to keep it up a little longer…

“My name is Adaliculi.” When the man in front of us said his name, my bag shook. I tugged on Bolorda’s shirt.

“Get him,” Bolorda said.

“Huh?! Wait a second. I’m not with the kidnappers, I mean it!” The man started to panic.

Huh? His reaction was a little strange. I tilted my head. We had arrested twenty-two people by this point. Twenty-two people in three hours…it was honestly too many. Were that many people actually in league with the organization?

The way this guy reacted was also different from the other twenty-two. Some had tried to make a run for it, and some had feigned calm to try to talk their way out. One person had screamed at Bolorda, but Gnouga had punched him in the stomach, making him go pale. I wonder if he’s okay. It was kind of his fault, though, so I let it go and focused on the person before us: He was pale and panicking. Nobody else had done that yet, right? Bolorda noticed as well and waited a moment to see what would happen.

“I mean it!” Adaliculi insisted. “I’m not involved with them. You can investigate me… I mean, umm…”

“Got a guilty conscience?”

“No! I just, um, it shouldn’t be that…but he did get arrested, too, so…” This man seemed so timid. Could someone like him aid and abet kidnappers?

“Excuse me…” a woman who seemed to be the man’s wife piped up.

“Keep quiet!” the man screamed.

“But if we don’t explain now…”

“If you don’t explain now, you’ll be taken in for questioning—” Bolorda started to remind them before the man’s wife interrupted.

“My husband just let them use it for a while!” the woman cried, ignoring her husband’s pleading.

“Use what?” Bolorda demanded.

“My husband had an unused house, and they asked if they could leave some items there. He’s renting it out to them on the condition that he doesn’t breathe a word about it.”

“Shut up!”

“Give it up! That guy was just arrested! And if you don’t stop protecting him, we’ll be next!”

“But…my debt…”

“Forget the debt! If people think we’re in league with kidnappers, we’ll have to leave this town forever!”

Is that true? I looked furtively up at Bolorda. He shrugged back. It must’ve been as she said. That makes sense. They said there were a lot of victims in this town, so it would be hard for the townspeople to forgive one of their own neighbors who helped the culprits.

“Where is the house?”

“It’s a two-story building five houses down from ours. On the day of that raid a while back, a friend of my husband’s came by. He seemed shady, but my husband agreed to it because he wanted to pay off his debt. Please forgive us.”

On the day of the raid…were the items documents?! I glanced at Bolorda again; shock was all over his face. He’d reached the same conclusion. I get it. They caught wind of the crackdown in advance, but since they were in a hurry, they couldn’t get the incriminating material to a safe place. So they had to hide it near the mansion. The captain did mention that he’d mobilized the entire guard force to patrol the town and that they’d strengthened patrols around the merchant’s mansion specifically. That means they never had a chance to move it again.

“Interesting,” Bolorda mused. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Huh? Um…Milea.”

I felt bobbing in my bag. That surprised me, but I tugged on Bolorda’s shirt. He froze up for a second, then chuckled. “Uh-huh. So you’ve cut ties with the organization, have you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about…” The woman became visibly flustered. 

“Don’t lie. You knew exactly who you were helping. Isn’t that right?”

“Wha—absolutely not! I swear I knew nothing. Maybe my husband did—”

“What the hell?!” her husband screamed. “You’re the one who told me to take the deal!”

“Sh-shut up!”

“Don’t tell me to shut up! This whole thing was your idea! I was against it from the start!”

“This never would’ve happened if you hadn’t driven us into debt in the first place!”

“What?! When it comes down to it, you’re the real reason we’re in debt!”

Whoa, this is like a battlefield. I can’t believe they can argue like this in front of the guard and Bolorda. He almost tricked us, too… Sora sure is incredible. I petted Sora’s bag and felt it bobbing a little bit inside. How soothing.

“Argh…I feel like I’m twice as beat now.” Bolorda sighed and buried his face in his hands. “Sorry, Rosay. Mind taking them away for us?”

“Will do.”

On Rosay’s orders, the guard trainees escorted the happy couple out. I could hear them even when they went outside—they were still going at it. What interesting individuals they are.

“Good work, Ivy.” Rattloore placed a mug of hot tea on the desk in front of me and patted my head. “That was unexpected, huh? You okay?”

“Yes. They were very strange people.”

As I drank the tea, the warmth spread through my body and relaxed me. I was even more worn out than I’d realized, but there were more people waiting. I looked to Bolorda and nodded once.

“All right!” he shouted. “Let’s keep going!”

“Right. Next in line, please step this way!” Marcreek, standing at the door, called to the people waiting outside.

Just a little longer!

Just under an hour later, I watched as the final person left. We still had adventurers to inspect later, but we’d cleared everyone in the area around the base, which was the largest group by far. I stood up and stretched. That felt nice.

“Well done, everyone. I’m not sure what to say…” Rosay said, staring at the mansion through the window.

The arrested guardsmen had already been taken away, so only the civilian conspirators were being held in the base for the moment. In total, we’d found thirty-four people working with the organization: twenty-three men and eleven women.

“That was a doozy,” Bolorda agreed. “I’d expected around ten, not thirty.”

So it had exceeded Bolorda’s predictions, too. Yeah. It really was too many.

“It’s gutting. We even lost five of our trainees.” Rosay sounded sad. It wasn’t easy to process the loss of his coworkers.

“Officer Rosay…”

“I’m fine. Ivy, I know today’s been a long day for you. Good work.”

“Same to you, Officer Rosay. Ah, it looks like the captain is back.”

I spotted the captain outside. He had reformed the expedition party and was setting off to deal with the fugitives in the forest. I was worried—there were murderers among them—but the guard and adventurers seemed unconcerned. We exited the building and went to speak to the captain. He waved when he saw us, but when he got a good look at the base, he froze. He was probably gobsmacked by the sheer number of arrested townsfolk. The vice-captain next to him was just as astonished.

“Hey! Are you kidding me?” the captain asked, a little agitated.

“Awesome, right?” Bolorda replied. “We were just as surprised.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say awesome…though, yes, it is.” The captain was all mixed up.

“Captain, take a deep breath,” the vice-captain cut in. “Thank you for handling this, Rosay. Were there any issues?”

“My pleasure, sir. No issues…oh!” Rosay seemed to remember something and looked to Bolorda.

Bolorda cocked his head in question, but he quickly caught on and scanned the area. When he spotted Lowcreek and Rickbert, he beckoned them over.

“We checked the house. They had more documents.”

Documents? Oh, the papers they snuck out of the merchant’s mansion during the crackdown? So that couple was telling the truth.

“Documents? What documents?”

“We found materials they snuck out of the mansion before the raid.”

“…Really?” The captain gazed at Bolorda.

“Yeah. A couple of birdbrains sang for us.”

The captain and vice-captain both raised an eyebrow. Rosay grinned. So they had the documents after all. That’s one more nail in the organization’s coffin. And one more reward for our efforts!