[401-600] THE EVOLUTION OF A GOBLIN TO THE PEAK

Chapter 597: Execution: Start

After finishing his investigation, Souta went to the surface. He went to the pub, the meeting place of the three.

He was alone. Alice and Eztein haven’t arrived yet so he decided to listen to the rumors first.

“Hey, have you heard about it?”

“What?”

“The news!”

“It’s circulating fast.”

“The guards have captured the culprit.”

“For real?!”

“Yeah, a lot of people are talking about it for now.”

“Huuuu~ I’m glad that they captured the culprit. I’m afraid that I would get cursed soon, for real.”

The drunkards were talking nonstop and Souta picked up a lot of interesting rumors. The one that caught his attention was the culprit.

The guards captured the culprit?

It feels impossible so he wanted to verify if it was true or not.

‘I should wait for the others to arrive.’ Souta said inwardly before he drank a mug of beer.

Suddenly, the door of the pub was slammed open causing all the people inside to turn their heads.

Bang!

Souta looked and saw that it was Alice. He was about to call her when saw said, “Souta, come here. I need to talk to you.”

She sounded serious so he didn’t ask her any more questions. He just stood up and left a few coins on his table before he left.

…

The two went to the alley where there were no people that could eavesdrop on them.

“What’s wrong? Did you discover something important?” Souta asked.

“No, I didn’t find anything outside the dukedom.” Alice shook her head. “But have you heard about the culprit being captured by the guards?”

“Yep, I just heard it from the people in the pub. What’s with it? Is this rumor true?” Souta raised his eyebrows.

“No, but the one they captured was Eztein. They thought that he was the curse user that is murdering the citizens of Halbun in an unusual way.” Alice said.

“Wait! What?! Haven’t we just arrived in this city a week ago so how could they suspect us?” Souta asked.

“They didn’t want to listen to any sort of excuses.”

“It means that they wanted to make him the scapegoat for this case to calm down the citizen.” Souta realized it quickly.

Since the murder was happening for a long time, the citizens of Halbun were secretly terrified about it. After all, the culprit didn’t differentiate any victims of the curse and just kill anyone. If this continues most of the citizens would migrate to other lands to continue their peaceful lives.

“Should we rescue him immediately or not?” Alice asked.

“No, we’ll wait for a while. I’m sure that Eztein can handle it.” Souta suddenly recalled something. He narrowed his eyes and said, “But if the guards captured him, they will know that Eztein came from Athen’s Champion.”

“Eztein had the emblem hidden in his clothes. The guards will naturally find it as long as they thoroughly check his clothes.” Alice said.

“Yeah, let’s wait for that. If the guards ignored the emblem then they were in cahoots with the real culprit.” Souta nodded.