Chapter 159 : Interrogation

Interrogation

The executioner's axe swung relentlessly, and one ogre after another was slain by the furious Augustin. As a level 31 epic warbeast, fighting this group of level 18 bronze elites was nothing but a one-sided slaughter. What's more, the ogres were already exhausted after using Rage.

And the only one who could exchange more than a couple of blows with Augustin was...

"Let Garut eat you."

The giant ogre Garut swung his club, just as Augustin had finished off an ogre and had not yet pulled his axe free.

Clang!

The club struck Augustin's head, which was encased in a thick black-grey helmet.

Augustin, unfazed, simply pulled out his executioner's axe from the corpse and turned slowly.

"Uwah!"

The axe came down. Garut did not defend himself, and the axe's edge sank directly into Garut's shoulder. Overpowered by the tremendous force, garut fell to his knees, his shoulder shattered.

"So painful."

Garut grabbed the axe handle, trying to lift it, but Augustin used his full strength. The weakened Garut was no match for Augustin in power.

"It's you!"

Looking at the kneeling Garut, the flames of rage in Augustin's eyes roared even hotter, for he still remembered...

Back then, that goblin, in order to break his spirit and make him easier to be controlled, had ordered this monster to eat his wife and daughter right in front of him. That bloody scene was forever burned into Augustin's memory.

"Give me your life!"

Augustin raised his axe and brought it down again.

Crack!

It was the sound of bones snapping. This blow landed on Garut's other shoulder, and the tremendous impact even cracked the ground where Garut knelt.

"Argh, it hurts! You hurt Garut! Garut will eat you!"

Garut was enraged, but his fury was nothing compared to Augustin's at that moment.

"Ah!!!"

Augustin roared as he swung the giant axe again and again...

Starting with Garut kneeling on the ground and ending with Garut lying in a pool of blood, even as Garut stopped responding, augustin continued to roar and bring down the massive axe over and over.

Boom, boom, boom!

Each strike made the earth tremble, and the once-tough body of the giant ogre was hacked into a bloody mess.

Finally, when Garut was utterly still, augustin recovered a bit of his reason.

The Shortie goblin!

Right, there was still one more enemy he had to take revenge on!

Thinking of this, augustin looked toward the direction where Shortie had tried to escape, but he hadn't gotten far. At that moment, the Shortie goblin was being held by a skeleton not far away. There were also a large number of werewolves, elves, undead, and humans present.

"Hand him over to me!"

Augustin understood that these people had attacked Shortie's tribe and freed him, so he felt no hostility toward them.

"That's possible, but since we helped you break free, give me a little time, alright?"

"..."

Augustin forcefully suppressed his anger, but since his "saviors" had spoken, he could only watch Shortie from a distance.

And just that one look made the Shortie goblin, held by Little Black, wet himself out of fear.

That's right, he literally peed himself...

"No, no, don't hand Shortie over to that monster, or Lord Maregof won't forgive you!"

The Shortie goblin cried, his arm still dripping with blood. The agonizing pain left him terrified.

"You're scared? That's not the tone of someone who's afraid."

Serea mocked him. When she spoke, Little Black lifted his hand as if about to throw Shortie to Augustin.

"No, I'm begging you, please, don't give me to that monster."

"Oh ho? So even our little Shortie lord knows fear?"

"Oh great Queen, your strength has made Shortie submit, so I agree to anything you ask! As a Queen, surely you won't stoop so low as to bully a pitiful, weak captive, will you?"

"That depends on how cooperative you are."

"I'll do everything you say, Your Majesty!"

At this, Serea smiled in satisfaction.

"Good. Let's talk about your subordinates first. You relied on those ogres to invade the trolls, right? Where did these ogres come from?"

"It was Lord Maregof who gave these ogres to me and told me to form a tribe."

"Maregof? Tell me more about you and him."

"As for Lord Maregof, I only know he's from the goblin kingdom, a great merchant and engineer. I was just a local goblin here. When Maregof came to the jungle, I started following him. So after he established the great 'Silver Ear' tribe, he helped me become a little lord."

Shortie explained, and what he meant by "help" was giving him these ogre subordinates.

"Then why did he help you set up a camp?"

"Well... that's because..."

Shortie's eyes darted around nervously. Seeing this, Little Black raised his hand again.

"No, no, I'll talk, I'll say it all! Lord Maregof wanted me to help him block the 'merchant guilds' that traded here, because those human and alien merchant guilds would interfere with his control over the forest. He also ordered me to capture other passing or migrating aliens and send them to him. As for what he does with them, I don't know..."

"..."

Serea felt that things were becoming stranger and stranger.

Blocking merchant guilds—Serea could more or less guess why, since the camp was still piled with wrecked Xiyun Merchant Guild caravans and human corpses. But why was he capturing other migrating aliens?

Somehow, all these unrelated pieces of information connected, and a suspicion began to form in Serea's mind.

But she couldn't be sure yet, and that suspicion would have to wait to be confirmed later.

Undoubtedly, such a powerful tribe as hers would come into conflict with this Maregof eventually—and when that time came, she could "ask" him everything she wanted to know.

However, there was one thing Serea still needed to confirm...

"Leklis."

"Your Majesty, I'm here."

The undead mage Leklis walked closer.

"You said before that the person who hired you to attack the 'Xiyun Merchant Guild' was a 'short' man, right? Can you be sure whether that guy was human?"

Serea asked. Hearing this, leklis understood what she was getting at.

"Well... he hid himself well at the time, so I couldn't tell."

"Just as I thought."

Combining the interrogation and Dogsius's mind-reading, Serea had obtained the information she needed, so...

"I'm done asking."

"Your Majesty, then, may I..."

The Shortie goblin asked timidly.

"You may go."

Serea said magnanimously. Hearing this, Little Black let go and set the Shortie goblin on the ground.

Seeing that he was being released, shortie's face lit up with excitement.

"Oh, you are truly a merciful Queen."

"Right? I feel very merciful myself—but as for whether he's merciful, I really couldn't say."

As she spoke, Serea and the others backed away a few steps, and Shortie suddenly felt a chill down his back. He saw a massive shadow enveloping him and stiffly turned his head—

There it was: a blood-soaked executioner's axe!

(To be continued)