Chapter Forty-Four: The End is Near

  Regel and Matthew are members of Marlo's Shadow Troop, an organization mostly composed of orphans. In the coup d'etat in Marlo ten years ago, Regel and Matthew lost their parents. At that time, they were only eight years old and were sent to an orphanage in Marlo City after the turmoil ended.

  If it were still the era of Maro Wang Nili's reign, they would not have been adopted by the orphanage so easily. At that time, most of the orphans in the Maro Empire would be taken in by unscrupulous merchants, either to be sold as slaves to mines or to become playthings for perverted nobles due to their good looks.

  A tiny number of lucky orphans would be recruited by some mysterious organizations in the dark, and trained to become the organization's needed dead soldiers. Although the ending is also mostly tragic, it is still much luckier than those who died quickly in the minefield, or were played to death.

  Nero's son Caesar was a different king from his father, young and charming, striving to make the country a strong nation. In the second year after he took office, he found that there were many orphans in the country due to his father's tyranny and incompetence.

  Caesar then passed a law to organize these orphans into an army, with all the expenses borne by the state. After rigorous training, they became Caesar's eyes in the dark, ears listening for secrets of other countries, and daggers assassinating traitors and enemies. This army, personally named "Shadow" by Caesar, secretly killed many corrupt officials who appeared to be untouchable during Caesar's domestic purge.

  They were active in Carthage, gathering Carthage's military and economic strength, plotting against important officials. Moreover, when the capital was under siege, they stirred up the contradictions of the southern nobles of Carthage, making them unable to support the capital. As a dark organization, they developed into an existence that made all kingdoms vigilant in just ten years.

  Ragel and Matthew joined Shadow after leaving the orphanage at the age of 15, receiving all the necessary training. And graduated with excellent grades, Matthew and Ragel officially began to act as Shadow, starting activities in the dark. The two who were originally acquainted in the orphanage, after graduating from the training camp, were even assigned to a small team.

  After the outbreak of direct war between Carthage and Rome, both were killed in an assassination operation due to their superior performance, and just happened to be the captain and deputy captain of a small team. They were promoted to captain and deputy captain, and led the team into Elam a month later to pursue the fleeing Carthaginian royal family, after which they disappeared.

  "Have you seen the lord of the city?" Matthew, who was staying in the office, looked at Regal as he walked in and asked: "What did the lord say? If it's him doing it, then everything will be easy. We can just make up some suitable reasons, find a few scapegoats, and that'll be the end of it."

  "Then your wish will be in vain." Regal's leader relaxed his mouth a bit, sat back in his own seat and said: "The city master doesn't know anything about this matter because it involves leaking secrets. Even if we catch the culprit, we still need to investigate the unstable blacksmiths. And when doing that work, we also need to start our training."

  "Ah, I really don't know what else we need to train for." Matthew said weakly, lying on the table: "We are the best of the best, except for that one mission where our captain messed up and got himself killed, we have never failed!"

  "Not failing, how did you end up here?" Regal tossed a weapon that looked like a short sword to Matthew and said: "This is our party's exclusive equipment. It's said there are also uniforms, but they don't seem to be ready yet. Since the lord of the castle was investigating this thing recently, he handed out the weapons first."

  "Completely black, a knife?" Matthew pulled out the weapon, which was only half as long as an ordinary longsword, and looked at the straight and slender blade with a puzzled expression: "What is this thing? If it's a short sword, it should have only one edge, and the tip is obviously curved like a knife. Although the all-black design is good, it won't be discovered due to reflection."

  "Well, the weapon is like this." Reg said: "I didn't ask what it's called either. The usage of this thing is similar to a knife. I tried it when I got it and it's quite good. The attack speed is very fast, very suitable for us who only use one hand."

  "By the way, that guy named Glock just sent some stuff over. It seems to be some leads on the case." Matthew put away his gun and hung it behind his waist, handing a document to Regal saying: "Well, since I wouldn't understand it anyway, I didn't bother looking at the contents."

  "The werewolf's body has been found." Regal flipped through the pages of his report and continued, "The gnomes cleaning out the sewers discovered the werewolf's corpse while clearing a clogged drain. The entire patrol team was there, all torn to shreds. And that Glock really did its job - the tavern where those murdered Council spies were last seen has also been found."

  "Are we going to that tavern later?" Matthew asked, "If it were me, I wouldn't go to that tavern again after hearing that the informant was killed, and besides, their food is terrible!"

  "Not going there for now." Reg said, looking at the still bright sky outside. "Let's go take a look at those wolfmen first, maybe we'll find something different. The information in the file is too vague, it's better to confirm with our own eyes."

  The place where the corpses were piled up was on the outskirts of Thunder Cliff, a remote area that had been temporarily opened up. At first, Mo Yan didn't consider the disposal of the corpses, after all, it was fine to let the monsters eat them, there was no need to waste energy burying them. The Sart people in the city originally had their own family graveyards in their villages, so when someone died they would be taken back there for burial and wouldn't have anything to do with Thunder Cliff.

  But this time the murder victims were spies with the credentials of envoys from the Parliament, so their bodies needed to be stored somewhere and undergo some simple repairs before being returned to the Parliament. Thus a dark house near the city wall was used as a temporary morgue.

  "Bastards! No scavenging corpses!" Regal heard the voice from inside the house and pushed open the door to enter, seeing a group of goblins stitching together corpses. And a gray dwarf hitting one of them with a wooden stick, who had blood on the corner of his mouth.

  "Oh, it's you guys." The dwarf, seeing someone enter, squinted his eyes at Regal and Matthew, saying: "You've come too quickly, the corpses of those wolfmen were only just sent in at noon, and they haven't been fully repaired yet. They were chopped up too much. And on top of that, there are still gnomes sneaking around to steal food from time to time, it's really a hassle."

  "Do you have any idea what kind of weapon could have caused this?" Regal asked the dwarf in charge of repairs, looking at the piles of mangled flesh on the long tables. "You used to do this sort of thing in the dungeon, didn't you? You must be pretty experienced by now. What kind of weapon could cause damage like this?"

  "It's not a long sword, nor a knife, nor a blunt instrument." The dwarf picked up the wine jug on the table and took a sip, saying: "Moreover, there are quite a few bite marks on these wolfmen, and some of the weapon marks have been destroyed. I can only roughly infer that it was a long-handled weapon."

  "A weapon with a long handle? Could it be a scythe?" Matthew said, looking at the gashes on the minced meat: "If so, it's possible to cause such injuries."

  "There's a werewolf who's been completely plucked. The dwarf pointed to a piece of the werewolf and said, "The fur at the scene must have belonged to this guy. Hehe... it looks like he was still alive when all his hair was pulled out. Just thinking about it makes me hurt!"

  "Such a style... Matthew, have you thought of anything." Regal seemed to recall something and asked: "About a certain shadowy madwoman."

  "Hey, hey...... this joke isn't funny at all." Matthew, who was asked, replied with a rare sense of tension: "She won't be in Aylan! And it's not just her who uses the sickle!"

  "Well, I'm just saying. Regal looked at the tense Matthew with a smile and said: "This can't be what she did. If it was her doing this thing, she would have been spotted by people on the first day she came to the city. Such a showy way of acting is not like someone who operates in the dark."

  "Whew..." Matthew let out a sigh and said: "Don't scare me like that again! That crazy woman, if she knew I was here would chase after me to the death. I'd rather not marry a woman like that..."

  "Let's go." Reg said, shrugging his shoulders as he walked out. "We'll just visit that guy who sells information and we're done. When the time comes to make the arrest, I reckon it'll be chaotic in the city for a while."

  "Have you got a clue about the culprit?" Matthew asked as he followed up.

  "Of course." Regal smiled wryly and said, "The scythe-wielding guy and the obvious bite marks... That's a demon for you. A guy who went mad after eating a demon beast."

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