Chapter 451 - 361: I’ve Lost Count

Chapter 451: Chapter 361: I’ve Lost Count

Weber’s lips were pressed tightly together, his face drained of all color.

Cold sweat streamed from his forehead into his eyes, but he didn’t dare to even blink.

"What’s wrong? Speak up."

Zelir crouched down, his gaze level with Weber’s.

"You were quite the talker just a moment ago. You almost had me fooled."

"Couldn’t we have just exchanged a friendly greeting and quietly passed each other by?"

Zelir’s voice grew steadily colder.

"Why did you have to go looking for death...?"

"It’s... because..."

Weber took a deep breath, his eyes filled with nothing but terror. Mustering his courage, he said, "I just didn’t want you to go any further..."

Those words again.

Weber had tried to stop them from advancing twice, which had already made Zelir suspicious.

Now that he heard Weber say it again himself, Zelir was even more convinced that something was amiss.

"What’s up ahead? A Golden Treasure Chest you haven’t had the chance to open? Are you willing to die for it?"

"No..."

Hesitation returned to Weber’s face, and he started to stammer.

"AHHHHHHHH...!!! My hand! My hand!!!"

The unlucky Swordsman, whose right arm had just been shattered by one of Valles’s arrows, was still writhing on the ground.

Agonized shrieks tore endlessly from his mouth.

He desperately clamped his remaining left hand over the stump of his right arm, but hot blood still gushed out, impossible to stop.

Interrogation really tested one’s patience.

Especially with someone shrieking incessantly nearby, which only irritated Zelir more.

So he simply aimed Night Peace, cast his Wind Blade Technique, and sliced off the Swordsman’s head, putting the man out of his misery.

"Last chance."

Zelir said coldly, "Why don’t you want me to go up ahead?"

"If the next words that come out of your mouth are not the answer I want to hear..."

"Then I’ll start with your fingers and shave you down to the bone, piece by piece."

Hill cooperated by applying a bit more pressure.

The dagger at Weber’s nape sank a little deeper, its blade cutting through more of his flesh.

The trickle of blood immediately became a stream.

"It’s bec—because we took out another Adventurer Squad up ahead!" Weber blurted out, finally breaking.

"Took out another Adventurer Squad?"

Zelir’s eyes narrowed. "Explain."

Weber took a deep breath and confessed everything.

"I... we just ambushed and killed another Adventurer Squad in the chamber ahead and stole what they had gathered in the ruins."

"We were planning to leave the scene quickly and return to camp... but we didn’t expect to run right into you..."

"There’s only one path through here, so if we let you keep exploring... you’d definitely figure out we were the ones who did it."

"So..."

Weber trembled more violently, his lips quivering as he stammered, "So, to cover it all up..."

"So to cover it up, you decided to kill us to silence any witnesses, is that it?" Hill’s voice dripped with mockery.

"We were forced to do it!"

Weber lifted his head, as if to offer some excuse.

"I didn’t want this either! I know your squad is strong, but... but there was no other way...!"

"There were no other options!"

Zelir almost had to laugh at Weber’s words.

’Forced to do it? As if he had some tragic backstory.’

’To put it bluntly, Weber Squad did something shady and was worried that I’d stumble upon it and report them to the Adventurer’s Association.’

’That’s why they had to take such a desperate risk.’

In the wild, no one really cared if you ambushed and robbed other people.

However, once a witness reported it to the Adventurer’s Association, the Association would definitely intervene.

As for the bad apples who preyed on other squads in the wild, if the evidence was solid, the Association had only one way of dealing with them: execution.

If caught, they were sent directly to the gallows.

Even if a criminal managed to escape, the Adventurer’s Association would immediately revoke their qualifications and issue a warrant for their arrest at all its branches.

At the same time, the Association would pass the information to the Security Teams of major towns and ask them to keep an eye out as well.

Those wanted individuals would have to spend the rest of their lives with their tails between their legs.

One slip-up, one person who recognized them, and it was a death sentence.

"Lead the way."

After a moment of silence, Zelir said, "Show us the scene."

"Get up!"

Gray grabbed Weber by the collar and gave him a kick in the ass.

Weber could only raise his hands high and lead Zelir’s squad to the scene where they had ambushed and killed the other Adventurers.

They went straight out of the great hall of murals, turned left along the path, went up a flight of stairs, and arrived within two minutes.

It was a small, isolated chamber, and there was indeed only one path leading to it from the great hall of murals.

The space was a little over five meters wide and more than ten meters long.

The scene inside the chamber, however, was exceptionally bloody.

The Earth Spike Trap hidden beneath the floor had been triggered.

Two cold corpses were impaled on sharp metal spikes, each about 1.5 meters high.

One of the bodies was pierced through the abdomen by a spike, suspended high in the air.

The other body was in an even more gruesome state. The man had been running forward the instant the Earth Spike Trap activated.

As a result, the erupting spikes had shot straight through the top of his thigh.

Besides the two who stepped on the trap, there were two other bodies scattered nearby.

One of the bodies had a fatal wound through the heart, clearly from a sharp weapon.