9th Grade Civil Servant In Another World Chapter 181 - The Abyss (2)

Ameli closed the door. In the room left with only dim candlelight again, Johann asked bluntly.

“Did you know Lucas Redan became the Supreme Leader’s secretary?”

“Just because I’m trapped here doesn’t mean I’m completely cut off from the world.”

Erika snorted derisively and held up a thick bundle of newspapers.

“Then let me ask you one thing. What do you think the Supreme Leader’s intention is? Why did he go after you bastards?”

“There could be various reasons, but—”

“To keep Lucas firmly in his grasp, isn’t it?”

Erika ruthlessly cut off Oscar, who had confidently stepped forward.

“That’s right. In reality, the Supreme Leader doesn’t care whether you bastards get caught and punished or not. Though I don’t know why he’s so determined to draw Lucas Redan in.”

“That’s because.”

Erika opened and closed her mouth several times with a slightly disgusted expression, hesitating.

“They look alike…”

“Ugh, Lucas would absolutely hate hearing that.”

“Don’t you think so?”

“Well, but that’s such an insulting comment.”

Johann watched the two whispering and fell into expressionless thought.

‘Alike? Ridiculous.’

Does the Supreme Leader like Lucas Redan?

No, that’s not the right expression. That man can’t ‘like’ anyone. At least Johann thought so.

The most interesting toy. Or the most convenient target to exploit.

That would be about the extent of his feelings.

‘Rather, that’s exactly why he’s survived this long and climbed to the seat next to the Supreme Leader. But it’s a thorny path where his head could roll at any time.’

Even so, the reason Johann couldn’t let go of the Lucas Redan card was singular.

‘With that level of obsession, he’ll find a way somehow. Even if it means throwing away his own life.’

Of course, he didn’t trust him completely. Since he needed a way to survive regardless of who won, Johann had come to this old tavern.

“Let’s get back to the main point.”

At Johann’s quiet voice, Erika and Oscar stopped bickering.

“The wanted order is just a means to pressure Lucas Redan and blind the people’s eyes. But the police won’t think so.”

“You’re saying they’ll seriously try to catch me? To get in Kruger’s good graces?”

“That’s right.”

“It doesn’t seem like you came just to give an obvious warning. What are you planning to demand?”

“Tell me. What plan has Lucas Redan devised?”

At that moment, Johann expected a cold silence to descend. However, what came back was Oscar’s unexpectedly bright laughter.

“Puhah! This is really amazing, isn’t it?”

“How typical. Wait a moment.”

Erika glanced at him sideways and turned around. Rustling sounds could be heard. From her movements, it seemed like she was reaching into the chest area of her loose dress.

A moment later, Erika turned back toward Johann and held out a small folded note.

“Lucas left this with us. He said to give Colonel Werner this if he came asking for information.”

“If it looked like you were going to eliminate us instead, he told us to kill you first and cover it up.”

Oscar added while pointing to the pistol and dagger at his waist, and what looked like a detonation device.

“So don’t get any funny ideas. If I press this, poison darts will fly from all directions and stick right where they hit.”

What a pathetic threat.

At Erika’s bluff, Johann twisted one corner of his mouth.

“Why would I kill you bastards? What benefit would there be?”

“You’re asking something obvious. You’re planning to keep us alive for now and eliminate us without hesitation if it looks like Kruger will decisively win.”

Erika sharply accused.

“Calm down, Erika. Anyway, Colonel Werner straddling both sides is fine, Lucas said.”

“He probably said something like ‘that would be helpful in its own way’ too.”

“…Mind reading?”

Oscar shuddered once. Johann clicked his tongue and opened the note. The writing was so small he wondered how it had been written, packed densely with tiny characters.

「If you’re reading this letter… well, obvious words like that aren’t necessary. Below is a scenario predicting how Kruger will fall from now on. Whether you present it to Kruger or not is up to you, but if you plan to hide it, gouge out your eyes when Kruger makes you face the woman with the white body. That mage reads memories.」

Lucas had written about the battlefield situation.

What he would propose to Kruger, or the moves Kruger might take.

He wrote about the roles played by the desert elves and Cortana’s boy king, Queen Rubellia, Batalland’s prime minister, the fake White Raven Order, and Sophia Kohl.

「What are the odds everything will go according to plan? And what are the odds that telling you will be helpful? You said you hate gambling. But I love gambling. Can you see the difference between you and me now? Well, see you later.」

“Crazy bastard.”

Johann muttered cynically as he burned the note with the candle flame.

The student council president who led the protests, those White Raven Order bastards, and above all Lucas Redan. It was hard to understand how they could throw away their own lives without any hesitation.

Actually, there was no need to understand. In any case, what mattered was…

‘Caught in the snare.’

He had expected it.

That once he learned all of the White Raven Order’s information and plans, it would become difficult to choose to abandon Lucas Redan. But this was so ridiculously beyond expectations that.

He felt more satisfied than ever before. To the point where the corners of his mouth trembled.

“Are we done now? Stop making that unpleasant smile and get out quickly.”

Erika snapped irritably and pointed to the door.

“If you interfere with our plans, you won’t remain unharmed, as you well know.”

Such a warning from a face beaming with a grin. Johann replied while adjusting his expression.

“Never get caught.”

“Yes, as long as you don’t betray us, we won’t die.”

Erika distrusted Johann to the end. Wisely so.

***

“So, I’m telling you for the umpteenth time. I don’t know where Miss Brightner is. I haven’t seen her since the party.”

Bang!

“Stop with the obvious lies!”

Lüdelheim Central Police Station, interrogation room.

Police Chief Heinrich Mates slammed the table and roared. However, the platinum-haired doctor sitting across from him in handcuffs showed no sign of being intimidated and just stared at him blankly.

‘Damn it…’

He whirled around and left the interrogation room. He lit a cigarette roughly and spat out curses.

Actually, his cold reason had already reached a conclusion.

Richard Enke’s statement was true. He really didn’t know Erika Brightner’s hiding place. From the beginning, his reaction when he was first dragged in for questioning had hinted at everything.

“What? Eri—I mean, Miss Brightner is alive?!”

The intense relief that spread across his face.

If that was acting, Enke should immediately switch careers to become an actor. Unless he had lived a false life his entire existence.

Moreover, he was someone Mates couldn’t rashly touch. He was under that damn Ossel’s protection. If he conducted an ‘interrogation’ as usual, there was no telling what kind of backlash might hit.

It was a misunderstanding that would have made Richard burst into laughter if he had known, but Mates sincerely believed it.

After finishing a cigarette, Chief Mates reached a conclusion. It seemed things wouldn’t go easily.

Erika Brightner had wanted posters up by order of the Supreme Leader himself. He had to catch her. In that case…

Just then, a clerk came running toward the interrogation room shouting.

“Chief! Urgent telegram!”

“I told you not to disturb me!”

“But Ossel movement has been detected. Colonel Johann Werner is personally taking action regarding the wanted suspects!”

Deep furrows appeared between Chief Mates’s brows.

‘Why?’

They should be incredibly busy with the Lüdelheim Comprehensive University incident, with no time to spare.

‘No, is it because the fire has reached their feet?’

The story of the protests at the university had been buried without being reported by any media, but it was spreading rapidly through rumors.

Naturally, the Supreme Leader would have noticed too, and perhaps strong punishment had been imposed on Ossel, which had handled the case. In such a situation, finding Brightner to make up for the mistake…

It was quite a plausible hypothesis.

The chief nodded and headed upstairs. He had to get ahead of Ossel.

***

“Lucas? Why that piece of trash?”

A woman wearing a dress with a deeply cut neckline and holding a long pipe roughly set down her drink and asked.

“He’s become the Supreme Leader’s secretary now, so maybe he’s changed, but when Lucas was freeloading at our place, he was really! completely hopeless.”

The woman shook her head as if she didn’t want to remember, then suddenly opened her eyes wide and asked.

“But this really isn’t dangerous, right? You’ll keep your promise about the money!”

“I promise.”

“Good. That bastard was a serious degenerate and an alcoholic. No, maybe he couldn’t even reach the level of addiction. He’d pass out after just one drink, so there was no time to get addicted. All his various tantrums were the problem. At least his loyalty was extreme…”

Johann took meaningless notes in his notebook.

He was wearing civilian clothes instead of his Ossel uniform, wandering around the district commonly called ‘Heart of the Night.’

On the surface, he was stirring up Lucas’s acquaintances to find out where Erika Brightner was hiding, but that was just theater. To deceive the police chief.

His real purpose was…

‘Why am I curious about that bastard’s past?’

An order had come down from the Supreme Leader. Investigate Lucas Redan’s background thoroughly and report back.

He probably already knew everything, so why did he need such information again now?

Pushing aside the minor question, he went around looking for Lucas’s former lovers.

The three women he had dated before meeting Ameli all worked at bars. Perhaps because their income had been poor lately, when he flashed thick cash, their eyes rolled back as they spilled everything about Lucas Redan.

He could sense their level, or rather, no matter how desperate for money they were, the carelessness of blabbing about someone who had risen to the Supreme Leader’s closest aide was beyond ridiculous—it was pitiable. Even though Johann had disguised himself as a cheap gossip magazine reporter.

‘To think he lived like a parasite leeching off such women. Well, at least that Ameli woman is the best.’

In looks, character, and intelligence.

Lucas’s so-called friends were the same.

Most of the men who lived like parasites in the red-light district were busy emphasizing how well they had treated Lucas.

Some even openly showed their greed, hoping Lucas might remember old times and give them a position.

He had guessed from meeting them, but after confirming the results, Lucas Redan was worse trash than he had imagined.

He didn’t beat women or backstab anyone. They said his loyalty was remarkable, but he never informed on neighbors or framed them as reactionaries.

All Lucas Redan had done was simply apply to the military, get brutally rejected, roll into the red-light district, and then loaf around.

Absorbed in fanatic behavior, he would foam at the mouth with his friends every night praising the Supreme Leader and cursing mongrels, then collapse at dawn. He would wake up after noon had passed and spend all day lounging around, collecting articles about the Supreme Leader and reading the Supreme Leader’s autobiography obsessively.

That was Lucas Redan’s daily routine repeated for three years.

Such a pointless life that committing crimes would have been more productive.

‘Can a person change this drastically?’

Johann sat in the first-class car of the train, looking out at the rapidly changing scenery and lost in thought.

Lucas’s former lovers and friends, First Lieutenant Dominik Schuster who had gotten him into public service, colleagues from his civil servant days.

Sometimes disguising his identity, sometimes abusing his authority as Ossel, he had gathered all the information.

And he reached a conclusion.

Originally, Lucas Redan was a weak-willed person with no particular attachment to life.

His transformation was something beyond what could be called dramatic. It was as if he had suffered an accident that changed his personality in an instant, or as if another person’s soul had entered him.

‘Or perhaps the experience of being betrayed for the first time and caught by Ossel was that shocking.’

No matter how he thought about it, it didn’t make sense. Not that he had ever considered him worthy of understanding anyway.

The train slowed down and sped up, running for a full day. Because they were limiting speed to save magic stones, it took much longer than usual to pass between stations.

Finally, at noon—the hottest time of day—the train stopped at a place too shabby to even be called a station.

Johann got off the train and looked at the rural scenery that was lonely beyond being merely quiet.

Lucas Redan’s hometown.

It was Heidel Province, which could be called the most backwater among Schufaben’s 24 provinces.

***

Johann had conducted background checks from the first moment he encountered Lucas Redan. Of course, he hadn’t moved personally. He had sent First Lieutenant Philip Decker to Heidel. But there were still many unresolved questions—not that he hadn’t investigated, but that he hadn’t bothered to dig deeper since there was no need to uncover them.

He rented a horse at the station and headed to the most remote and peaceful village in Heidel Province.

Heidel Province was Schufaben’s representative granary region. Its very pastoral scenery was characteristic.

Vast rice fields and wheat fields, the stinging smell of nature. In the scorching heat, drooping cattle followed their herders, walking sluggishly. Johann rode his horse quickly while looking at the still-green wheat fields. Those houses scattered in the distance.

After a while, the horse stopped in front of a mansion with a blue gate.

Actually, it was too shabby to call a mansion, but anyway, it was the largest house in this village.

And this was Lucas’s family home. The place where the Redan family, who had lost most of their property to the revolutionaries, had retreated and settled as if in exile.

He pressed the ornately decorated doorbell, and a woman who appeared to be the head maid came out.

“Who are you? If you have an appointment with the master—”

“Get out of the way.”

Johann, who had presented his Ossel identification, pushed past the terrified head maid and strode into the house.

“Who’s here? Ahhh!”

At the commotion of the maids and servants, some middle-aged man came rushing out.

“Tobias Heiman. Is that right?”

“Th-that’s…”

Johann dragged him into the reception room as if pushing him along.