🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 40
The water that had been around their knees had somehow risen to about thigh level. However, the others merely laughed it off.
“Did you forget this happened last time too? You made such a fuss about it back then!”
“Such a coward! Heh heh.”
The man who had been mocked turned red with embarrassment. But that lasted only a moment before fear soon overtook him.
“W-wha…?”
“AAARGH!”
The other miners were no different.
In an instant, the water had risen above their heads.
“Puaaah! Gah! What the hell is happening all of a sudden?!”
“Do something!”
“Damn it! What the hell is going on—glug!”
They were thrown into a panic by the sudden phenomenon. They desperately flailed their arms and legs, struggling not to be swept away by the current.
Jorje shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Just keep your heads above the water for now! It’ll stop eventually!”
“That’s right.”
At that moment, a clear yet captivating voice drifted down from above their heads.
“Y-you…!”
The first person to recognize her was Jorje.
Of course. He was a knight of the Verdi family.
“Ca-Calliope Verdi!”
“I expected as much, but I was still hoping it wouldn’t be.”
After recognizing the familiar face, Calliope muttered bitterly before issuing a cold command.
“Pull them out.”
“Yes, Young Lady!”
At once, the soldiers standing behind her rushed forward and dragged the miners out with large nets.
The moment they were pulled from the water, they were thrown onto the ground outside the well.
The soldiers waiting nearby pounced on the culprits and tightly bound them with ropes.
“Argh! That hurts—”
“Shut up.”
When the soldiers barked at them menacingly, the culprits immediately fell silent.
“Why are you doing this to us?”
Jorje, who had been captured and forced to kneel, shouted on behalf of the others. He acted as though he had done absolutely nothing wrong.
Calliope was dumbfounded.
“You were caught trespassing into the well without permission, and you’re seriously asking why?”
“We were merely investigating the abnormal phenomenon in the well. And look! We solved the problem, didn’t we? The water is flowing again!”
He shouted shamelessly.
It was so absurd that Calliope couldn’t help but laugh.
“What do you think, Lerazier?”
She was asking for his opinion on how they should deal with these shameless criminals.
Lerazier spun the sword he was holding, sheath and all, around a few times before resting it on his shoulder.
“A beating is the best medicine for a damn dog that doesn’t know when to behave.”
“That’s awfully insulting to dogs. They’re such sweet, adorable, and intelligent animals.”
Calliope poked him a few times as if scolding him for saying such nasty things, then waved her hand.
The culprits’ bodies floated into the air.
“WAAAAAAAH!”
“I guarantee you a thrilling experience. It might make you a little dizzy, though.”
At the same time, their bodies were abruptly flipped upside down, their heads pointing toward the ground.
“Down.”
At Calliope’s command, their bodies plummeted toward the ground.
“AAARGH! AAAAAARGH!”
“Up.”
This time, they shot back into the air.
Of course, their legs were still pointing toward the sky.
“Repeat.”
The culprits’ bodies began being violently shaken up and down in midair.
It was like someone grabbing the handle of a feather duster and shaking it.
“AAARGH! UGH! GAAH…!”
Clink. Clang.
With every shake, mana stones hidden throughout their clothing rained down onto the ground.
“Wow. What a sight.”
Lerazier was genuinely enjoying himself.
“To think I’d get to see mana stones raining from the sky.”
As he spoke, he pulled a magic recording orb from inside his coat and began recording the scene.
“We should make sure we have solid evidence.”
“You just want to watch it whenever you get bored later.”
“That too.”
Calliope only stopped collecting the mana stones once not a single one remained on their bodies.
“Ugh…”
When the culprits finally met the ground again, every one of them began vomiting.
Their faces were covered in tears and mucus.
“We’ve recovered all the illegally acquired goods. Now take these men to the security corps and prepare to escort them to the Imperial Capital.”
“Yes, Young Lady!”
The soldiers dragged the vomiting men away and loaded them into an escort wagon.
“And once dawn breaks, bring the evacuated residents back from the shelter.”
“Of course, Young Lady!”
The knights and soldiers brightened at the thought of seeing their families again.
Seeing their expressions, Calliope’s mood improved as well.
“We caught the culprits sooner than expected. More importantly, I’m glad we managed to restore the wells to normal.”
While the culprits had been confidently searching for their next target well, Calliope and Lerazier had located the blocked underground water veins.
“I suppose you could call them careless. Their method was simply too obvious.”
Surprisingly, they had been able to figure out their method quite easily.
It was impossible to obstruct or cut off the flow of an underground water vein through ordinary human strength.
Which meant there was only one method the culprits could have used.
‘Magic.’
Calliope and Lerazier searched for places where mana was strangely concentrated or pooled.
Whenever they dug up the ground in such places, they invariably found an artifact.
A device designed to disrupt the flow of the underground water veins.
After identifying the locations of all the artifacts, they concealed the fact that they had discovered them and laid a trap to lure the culprits out.
The result was a complete success.
“Let’s head back too.”
Calliope and Lerazier climbed into the carriage.
There was a sack in one corner of the carriage.
It contained the artifacts that had been placed in the ground around the wells.
“Are you going to examine the artifacts yourself?”
“Yeah. I need to take them to the Imperial Capital and dissect them one by one. I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
In particular, the magic placed on the artifacts was quite advanced.
It would surely help them uncover whoever was behind all this.
“I’m planning to leave for the Imperial Capital as soon as dawn breaks tomorrow.”
“Well, we’ve captured the masterminds and solved the problem with the wells, so there’s no reason for us to stay here any longer.”
“Exactly.”
Calliope nodded and stretched her interlocked hands high above her head, loosening her stiff body.
Then she noticed something outside the window and narrowed her eyes.
“Oh my. They arrived sooner than I expected.”
Lerazier’s eyes followed Calliope’s gaze.
Through the carriage window, they could see the Verdi Count’s estate.
And standing in front of its main gate was Gilbert, who appeared to have just arrived.
“Well, it’s already too late for that to matter now.”
Calliope shrugged as though it were nothing important.
But inwardly, one question continued to bother her.
‘How did he get here so early?’
The day after the situation had been more or less settled, Calliope and Lerazier left the Verdi territory and departed for the Imperial Capital.
A transport wagon carrying the captured miners was attached behind their carriage.
The wagon was enclosed on all sides by walls so sturdy that ordinary weapons could barely leave a scratch on them.
“We’ll interrogate the miners as soon as we arrive in the Imperial Capital.”
Lerazier said this as he locked the door at the rear of the wagon.
“Well, well.”
Calliope rarely praised him, but this time she did.
On the return journey, they had traveled by carriage instead of using a gate because the gate in the Imperial Capital was one-way and could only be used for departures.
‘Think about it. What would happen if a territory with a two-way gate were occupied by a foreign country?’
‘Enemy soldiers could enter through the gate, and the Imperial Capital would immediately be placed in danger.’
That was what Calliope’s parents had told her when she had complained about the inconvenience of taking long carriage journeys as a child.
‘They never dismissed even the smallest question or curiosity.’
As she recalled those old memories, which had now become distant recollections, Calliope wore a faint smile.
The carriage was now traveling along a forest road.
The uneven path caused the carriage to jolt from time to time.
Naturally, the passengers were bounced around as well, and, sure enough, Lerazier began grumbling.
“Ugh… Am I going to develop calluses on my ass from this?”
“Stop being such a baby.”
He was the kind of person who could roll around naked on a rocky road and come out perfectly fine.
Calliope had just lightly chastised him when Lerazier suddenly grabbed the sword resting beside him, sheath and all, and warned her in a serious voice.
“Put up a defensive barrier, and don’t come out.”
