Chapter 33 : Chapter 33
Chapter 33: Interrogating Them for Information, the Warwick Family
“Now, I ask the questions, and you answer them.”
Ryan stood before Gram and Rod and spoke coldly.
“First question. Why were the two of you following us?”
“It was all him! He planned all of this! It had nothing to do with me! Please spare me!”
Rod spoke first.
The moment he opened his mouth, he sold Gram out and tried to shove all the blame onto him.
“Rod, you...”
Gram said in shock.
It was not that he was shocked Rod would betray him.
He was only shocked that Rod had betrayed him so quickly.
In their line of work, how could you grow bigger and stronger if you did not sell out your brothers?
What really angered him was that he had failed to seize the chance first.
Faced with Ryan’s overwhelming strength, Gram had also wanted to surrender immediately.
“Oh? Tell me the details.”
Ryan raised a brow as he looked at Rod.
“Yes. It’s like this...”
Rod had learned quite a bit of information from Gram, so he was able to provide some of the key points.
But Ryan still did not know the most important part.
Who exactly was the noble behind them?
It seemed that question could only be answered by Gram.
“Stop. I already know everything you’ve said. What I want to know now is this: who exactly is the noble backing you?”
Ryan cut Rod off before he could continue rambling.
“Uh... th-this... this...”
Rod stammered and could not get the words out.
“He doesn’t know, then. What about you? Do you know?”
Ryan turned to look at Gram.
“I do. I know.”
The moment Gram noticed Ryan’s gaze, he nodded frantically.
Even as he nodded, he glanced at Rod, his eyes full of smug superiority.
Gram’s expression seemed to say: Well? So what if you betrayed me first? You still couldn’t answer the question, could you?
Ryan noticed Gram’s little display and punched him once. “Answer me already.”
Even now, the old bastard was still playing around.
“Yes, yes. I’ll tell you everything I know right away.”
Then, as Gram slowly recounted the story, Ryan finally learned who the noble behind all of this really was.
The Warwick Family.
Three hundred years ago, the founding patriarch of the family, Marcus Warwick, was a knight who had earned distinguished military merit in a war between the kingdom and a neighboring country.
After the war ended, the king granted Valencia and the surrounding region to Marcus. He became the first lord there and established the Warwick Family.
After taking power, Marcus built the town’s stone walls, divided the settlement into a commercial district and a residential district, and encouraged merchants to settle there. Gradually, the town began to take shape.
He also implemented a relatively fair tax system. Farmers only needed to hand over one-tenth of their harvest as tax, and as a result, he won the support of the people.
After Marcus died, his second son, Olay Warwick, inherited the position of family head.
Olay was skilled in administration. He expanded the town’s farmland, built irrigation works, and greatly increased grain production.
He also established a guard squad of about fifty men, responsible for defending against the surrounding monsters and bandits and ensuring the town’s safety.
During that period, the reputation of the Warwick Family reached its peak. The family amassed enormous wealth and built the lord’s castle in the center of the town.
The next several generations of family heads continued the methods of governance used by Marcus and Olay, and the family developed steadily.
But during the era of the tenth family head, Finn Warwick, the family began to change.
Finn was greedy for pleasure. He raised the taxes on merchants in order to expand the castle and buy luxury goods.
He also reduced the size of the guard squad and no longer responded actively to monster incursions in the surrounding area. As a result, public dissatisfaction began to grow.
The fifteenth family head, Byron Warwick, was a warrior. He once again placed importance on strengthening the guard squad, repelled several large-scale monster attacks, and restored some of the people’s trust.
However, he had a violent temper. He often relied on force when handling affairs of governance, and he punished anyone who opposed him without mercy. The family itself began to fracture, and some branch members left Valencia.
Over the past fifty years, the power of the Warwick Family had gradually become concentrated in the main line, while branch family members were left with almost no real authority.
The family amassed wealth by controlling the town’s grain trade and mineral resources, and its oppression of the common people grew worse. Taxes rose to one-third of the harvest. Many farmers lost their land because they could not pay and became vagrants.
Today, the Warwick Family held absolute power in Valencia. Inside the castle, they maintained a private armed force of about two hundred men to protect family members and uphold their rule.
The family’s wealth mainly came from taxes, mineral resources, and monopoly trade. Though they were not considered among the top-tier nobles in the kingdom, their influence in Valencia and the surrounding region was enormous.
The current family head was Seth Warwick, fifty-eight years old, overweight, with graying hair and deep wrinkles on his face.
He was indecisive when handling political affairs and relied most of the time on the family’s old retainers. But when it came to protecting the family’s interests, his attitude was firm, and he mercilessly crushed anyone who threatened the family’s power.
He was addicted to wine and women. There were several maidservants and concubines in the castle, and although he was dissatisfied with his eldest son’s behavior, he usually chose to indulge him for the sake of the family’s reputation.
His eldest son was Kiel Warwick, twenty-seven years old, about one meter eighty tall, strongly built, with short hair and a vicious look in his eyes.
Spoiled from childhood, he was arrogant and overbearing, and he looked down on ordinary people.
He often wandered through town with several guards. Whenever he saw a beautiful woman, he would go up and harass her. If she resisted, he would have his guards drag her back to the castle by force.
Kiel Warwick was ignorant and incompetent, with no interest whatsoever in governing. His only hobbies were hunting and abducting civilian women.
Most of the members of his personal guard were little more than street thugs. Relying on his power, they committed all kinds of misdeeds throughout the town and oppressed the people, who were angry but dared not speak out.
Although Seth Warwick knew of his eldest son’s behavior, he had never truly punished him for the sake of the family’s name and the inheritance of power. At most, he scolded him a few times verbally.
Nika and her younger sister had been targeted by Kiel, which was why they had suffered such a catastrophic fate.
As for why he chose to give up on Nika and her younger sister—
That was because the fiancée his father, Seth, had arranged for him was about to arrive in Valencia.
He had never even met his fiancée. The marriage was a political alliance between families.
His fiancée’s family was not weak, so before she arrived, he had to restrain himself somewhat.
But there was no way he was going to let Nika and her younger sister off so easily.
That was why he ordered Gram to sell Nika and her younger sister as slaves, and he even demanded that their masters had to be cruel people.
After offending Kiel Warwick, did they think they could still live peacefully in Valencia?
Impossible.
As for why he did not simply kill Nika and her younger sister—
That was where Kiel’s depravity showed. He wanted the two sisters to live in pain forever, without being allowed to die so easily.
“You... you people...”
When Nika heard this, her face turned purple with rage.
She had never expected the truth to be like this.
That man named Kiel was nothing less than a demon.
Death at least would be swift.
But instead, he wanted the two sisters to live in endless suffering forever. He was a monster among monsters.
Ryan patted Nika’s hand and continued, “Second question. Does anyone else know about you following me today?”
“N-no. Just the two of us.”
Gram answered in a trembling voice.
“Oh? No one else really knows? You never reported my information to Kiel?”
“Really, no.” Gram looked as though he was about to cry. “Please believe me. I really didn’t tell anyone else. Because the information I gathered was that you were a C-rank Adventurer, and Rod and I are both C-rank Adventurers. On top of that, you were bringing along a woman as baggage, so...”
At that point, Gram stopped, as if carefully choosing his words.
Ryan picked up the rest for him and said, “So you thought the two of you could kill me easily, right?”
He understood exactly what Gram meant.
In a way, Gram and Rod had simply been lucky enough to make a foolish assumption. They had believed the two of them could completely overpower Ryan.
After all, in their eyes, Ryan had Nika with him as dead weight.
That made it two against one, with the advantage clearly on their side.
Who could have expected Ryan to be that strong, knocking both of them down before even showing himself?
“All right, third question. Listen carefully. As long as you can answer this one, I can promise not to kill you.”
“All right, all right, all right. I understand. Ask away.”
The moment he heard he would not have to die, Gram immediately nodded.
A flicker of hope also flashed through Rod’s eyes.
No one wanted to die if they could go on living.
Even though he had sold Gram out first just now, he was confident he could repair their brotherhood later. What mattered most now was surviving Ryan’s hands.
Only the living had a future.
Once you were dead, you were nothing but a corpse.
“Third question. Where did you sell her younger sister?”
Ryan asked.
Nika’s eyes locked onto Gram.
Anything concerning her younger sister’s whereabouts left her overwhelmingly tense.
“Uh... her younger sister was sold to the Kingdom of Candel.”
“The Kingdom of Candel?”
Ryan muttered to himself.
Back when he had studied at the Orphanage, he had learned about the distribution of nations in this world.
The Kingdom of Candel lay to the east of the Kingdom of Mia.
Although the two countries bordered each other, traveling to the Kingdom of Candel by foot or by carriage would still take a very long time.
Fortunately, all major towns possessed teleportation magic circles that allowed people to travel between the two kingdoms.
But there was one problem.
The Kingdom of Candel was a nation where might was supreme.
Its people worshipped strength to an extreme degree, which had led to a culture where they solved every problem with force.
They never reasoned with anyone.
They only spoke through force.
For example: fists as big as sandbags.
Nika’s heart sank.
Her younger sister had been sold to a place like that. How could she possibly have a good life there?
“Tell me the name and location of the slave trader you deal with in the Kingdom of Candel.”
“No problem. Once I tell you, I can leave, right?”
“Mm. I promised I wouldn’t kill you.”
Ryan nodded coldly.
Gram promptly told Ryan the contact information and address of that slave trader in the Kingdom of Candel.
After Ryan obtained it, he turned to look at Nika.
Nika nodded.
Then, holding the Glock 17, she walked over to Gram and Rod.
The moment Gram saw what she was doing, he seemed to realize something.
Immediately afterward, he cried out in panic, “N-no! You can’t do this! You said you wouldn’t kill me!”
“Don’t talk nonsense. I said I wouldn’t kill you, and I’m not the one killing you. She wants to kill you.”
Ryan glanced at Gram and spoke blandly.
“Y-you...”
Gram still wanted to say something, but Ryan no longer wished to hear him. He gave Nika a look.
Nika’s gaze instantly turned fierce.
She raised her hand and aimed at the two of them.
Bang! Bang!
Two gunshots rang out.
Gram and Rod collapsed.
“Thank you, Master.”
Nika turned and returned to Ryan’s side.
“There’s no rush. If you want to thank me, wait until after we’ve rescued your sister. Let’s leave this place first.”
Ryan rubbed Nika’s head, then turned and left the Monster Forest with her.
Nika obediently followed behind him.