019 – A thief must be good at hide and seek # 3

019 – A thief must be good at hide and seek #3

6 or 7 p.m.

When the sun goes down and the sky turns from orange to dark blue.

The children in my memory held their mother’s hand and went back to their own homes.

dinner.

Evening was the time when all the children went back to their parents.

I did too.

Mom didn’t give me dinner if I came in too late.

“Where is Naru?”

but.

Even though the sun disappeared far away and the world became dark, Naru did not return.

From what Garot said, it seems that he was playing outside with the kids.

Maybe he forgot the time to come back after playing so hard?

“I can’t.”

I decided to go looking for Naru myself.

No matter how fun it is to play, you don’t have to eat dinner.

Naruto is 6 years old.

I was at an age where I was growing up, so if I skipped meals, it would be a big problem.

“Where are you going?”

Garot asked me as I was about to leave the lab.

I answered simply.

“I am going to look for my daughter. It was on 55th Street?”

“It was like that when I saw it.”

“I see.”

“Judas, let me go with you. There was something that bothered me a little.”

Garot slung his leather jacket over his shoulder and followed me.

Are you bored of being alone in the lab?

With that feeling, we headed to a place called 55th Street.

The night streets of the Principality of Phrygia, where the darkness fell, were very beautiful with the colorfully shining street lamps.

Compared to other kingdoms and cities where shops are closed and bolted at night, there were many people wandering the streets in this city.

It must be because of the good security and the advanced technology of magic engineering.

of course.

It seemed that not all streets were the same.

“The Principality of Phrygia has been developing differentiated by ranking it in order from 1 to 60 according to the importance of distance and region. Number 55 is on the poor side.”

Street 55.

A slum with no street lights and no one walking around.

When I entered the place, Garot explained as above.

Certainly, as Garrott said, Street 55, which I had just entered, was so gloomy that it did not match the sophisticated Phrygian principality.

The wall is broken.

The road is not paved, but wet with mud.

“Naru was playing with the kids here?”

“yes.”

“Can’t you see?”

Have you ever seen 6 or 7 year olds running around?

When I was a college student, I had a part-time job at a kids cafe, and it was really noisy.

It’s not like there’s a No Kids Zone store for nothing.

By the way.

Street 55 was much quieter than I thought in the dark.

“Hey you bastard!”

“What is this bastard?”

Clink!

Puck, puck puck!

Although I could hear the drunken beggars fighting promiscuously.

The sound of children’s laughter is also nowhere to be found.

Sssss-.

What you might call an ominous ‘persimmon’ invades the nape of my neck.

“It looks like Naru got caught up in some kind of incident. An unsafe neighborhood. children who do not return. Even if you pretend, you can smell the incident.”

I was in a good mood.

As I calmly assessed the situation, Garot looked around and said,

“Can’t you? I have no choice but to read ‘Trace’.”

“Five.”

Veteran hunters have heard that there are people who read ‘trace’.

The better the hunter, the better the skill.

It seems that the opportunity to get a glimpse of the skills of Garrot, a demon hunter who has passed level 40, has come.

“Is this here?”

Ssuk-.

Garrot found fallen dirt and dented footprints nearby.

I wanted to follow them one by one, but then I muttered a little.

“There are wheel marks on the wagon. Two footprints of an adult male. The children’s footprints are all gone around the corner here. There must be a particularly important trace around here… .”

Garot rummaged around for a while.

The place where such a guy’s eyes stopped is in front of the straw that looks like a horse or beast’s trough.

sereung-.

A garot that pulls out a small sword.

Shashak-.

As he swung his sword as lightly as splitting a falling leaf, the thick straw split left and right.

It was quite an excellent swordsmanship.

“hehehehe!”

There was a little boy inside the straw that was cut off like that.

He was a scruffy and scruffy kid, so anyone could see that he was a poor boy with a dirt spoon. Are you about eighteen years old?

Garot grabbed the guy by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out.

and then ask

“you. Tell me what happened here.”

* * *

“I was playing hide and seek… . All of a sudden, terrifyingly, adults… ! bell… ! He was like a loser… ! He told me the location of the children with the sound of bells… !”

The boy was talking about things he couldn’t understand.

He was so frightened that he couldn’t seem to calm himself down.

However, Garot was a person who could skilfully extract only the necessary information from the gibberish stories.

“So you mean there are guys who kidnapped the kids who were playing hide and seek? And among the children, is there a guy who was collaborating with them?”

nod, nod

When the boy nodded, I could tell roughly what had happened.

In other words, Naru was kidnapped by unknown people here.

“Judas, maybe he was targeting your daughter. Have you ever bought someone a grudge enough to have your daughter kidnapped?”

If there is a crime, first of all, I suspect “resentment”–.

It was a standard reasoning method.

“It’s a grudge.”

I bet you can’t count the number of guys who want to get revenge on me.

But I don’t think it had anything to do with the grudge against me.

“I think it was just that Naru was randomly kidnapped along with the other kids. Thieves who kidnap children and hold them for ransom are overflowing in this world. And this trick… Maybe if my guess is right… .”

I searched further for what appeared to be the place where Naru had gone missing.

And there, I was able to find the mark of the letter X drawn on the old leather flag.

It was a mark made by crossing two daggers.

“Also. You marked the area again in a place like this.”

“Is that from Alubaba?”

“The Arubaba bandits did everything to make money, such as murder, robbery, and arson. My biggest source of income was kidnapping kids and holding them for ransom. The tactic of using peers to lure potential victims is the same.”

The situation was pictured in my head.

“Are the opponents the dead of the past?”

“Judas, what did you just say?”

“Garot, I am going to look for my daughter from now on. You go back to the lab and call Brigitte to the place I write down.”

Cheek-.

I wrote an address in mud on an Alubaba flag and threw it at Garot.

Chak-.

Garrot, who skillfully received the item in the air, frowned in the dark.

“Are you going alone?”

“Yes, thieves are more cautious than I thought. If you go with a group, you will be caught rather. Then there’s a chance they’ll take the kids hostage and start a sit-in. Then things get complicated.”

“Yuda, I also investigated more about the Arubaba bandits operating in this area today. They’re not your average gang of bandits. It means that you are not an opponent who can do it alone with your skills.”

Garot said cautiously.

Platinum tier.

It was no wonder that those over level 40 were called ‘superhumans’.

That kind of garot is paying attention to me.

It was sure to be dangerous.

Garot said.

“How about contacting the Phrygian Guard? The guards of the Principality of Phrygia are at least the same level, and their skills are certain. Maybe El Cladeco can help.”

“There is no time.”

pat-.

I jumped into the air.

* * *

Garrot had finished investigating the Arubaba bandits all day long.

Garot was a person who hunted ‘devils’.

The Arubaba Bandits are a group of terrible villains comparable to ‘devils’.

It made me feel bad to have people claiming that name nearby.

So Garot had a rough idea of their size and power.

The risk level of the Arubava bandits, which Garot evaluated, was indeed ‘Platinum’ or higher.

“The second coming of the Arubaba bandits, who were notorious in the kingdom of Ordor… , no, it might even jump over them to be picky. Their risk level is at least platinum.”

Platinum-level superhumans were put in.

Or, it was an issue that could only be dealt with by injecting elite soldiers at the national level.

“Yuda, you don’t know, but those guys now are cultists and—”

It was time for Garot to warn them again.

When I turned my head, Judas was nowhere to be seen.

“… … .”

Garot looked around.

However, Judas was nowhere to be seen.

“… has disappeared?”

It was impossible.

Disappearing as if evaporating from the perceptual range of Garot, who has trained his ‘sensory’ to the limit in order to chase the anomalous demons.

Even though Garot was careless, this was a great thing.

“At least as a thief, you’d say it’s a gold grade level.”

gold.

Garot’s evaluation of Bendit Judas was gold, nothing more.

Although he surpassed a veteran, he was not enough to be called a ‘superman’.

Garrot was well aware that there was a ‘state’ that could not be crossed on the border between gold and platinum. Because of that, I thought that Judas’ actions this time were reckless.

“I know you were excited about your daughter being kidnapped. This is nothing but suicide. Bastard Judas, I thought he was better than a gossip, but he was just an ignorant criminal after all.”

Shuk-.

Garot looked at the flag in his hand.

Along with the bandit’s mark, the coordinates Judas wrote down were written on it.

“Brigitte.”

Garrot had high regard for his employer, the wizard.

She will be of great help in clearing out the Arubava bandits.

Ssuk-.

Garrot quickly ran to the lab.

Fortunately, the wizard was back in the lab.

“Wizard, the situation is urgent. Naru and the children have been kidnapped, and Yuda is pursuing the Arubaba bandits. The risk level is at least platinum. I need your help.”

Garrot, like a skilled veteran, summarized and delivered only key information.

After hearing the story, Brigitte frowned slightly and shook her head.

“I don’t need any help.”

“What are you talking about? Was my explanation not enough?”

“No, I understand everything. Are you saying Naru was kidnapped along with the children and Judas is after the Arubaba bandits? But I will not help Judas.”

“What… ? no… .”

Garot let out a small sigh.

I already knew that the thief and the wizard had a little quarrel the night before.

The mage seemed to be thinking of pretending not to know about the crisis of his former colleague, as the remnants of it remained.

“Brigitte, I am a little disappointed in you guys. I agree that Judas was an evil man who deserved to die. Do you really mean that you don’t mind having your comrades killed by dogs?”

“Garot, I think you misunderstood something. If Judas said he would go alone, that would be enough. Even if I go there, I will only get in the way.”

“What do you mean?”

At Garot’s question, Brigitte calmly washed the dishes.

And then, he sighed lightly.

“Garot, you don’t know anything yet.”