Chapter 862

When we returned to the plaza, both the beastmen and the dragonkin were quiet.

After taking on Fran’s intimidation and hearing the mysterious explosion, they no longer had the nerve to continue their dispute.

They were still wary of each other, but mostly just stood there looking confused.

The grunts in particular were kind of twiddling their thumbs. They had no clue what they were supposed to do next, and they couldn’t just leave without orders from their leaders, Wangon and Gephe.

Even Wangon and Gephe no longer seemed to have the will to fight.

「Miss and Boss! Are you acquainted with the Black Lightning Princess?」

「Ah, Wangon. That is correct.」

「Nn.」

「……So you are the Black Lightning Princess after all!」

「!」

Woops, Fran was still trying to hide her identity! Wangon must be smarter than I gave him credit for! Fran quickly shook her head in a panic, but it was too late.

「No, I don’t know any Black Lightning Princess.」

Wangon continued staring at her with squinted eyes. Fran tried to keep denying him, but……

「Uh, but Miss confirmed it just now!」

「……」

「D-Don’t give me that look…… Sorry.」

「Whatever.」

Fran muttered and slumped her shoulders after giving Mea a stare. She managed to hide her identity up until now, but Mea exposed her so easily. That made her a little sad.

「Since we have some things to discuss, why don’t you all just calm down and――Oh, I guess you already are.」

「Not like I have any clue what’s going on anymore.」

It seems that Wangon recognized Mea as well as Fran as a superior. He quickly accepted Mea as his boss and obeyed her orders to stop fighting.

Leaving Mea to explain the situation to the beastmen, Fran approached Gephe. I kinda expected her to be viewed as a friend of the beastmen, but Gephe showed no signs of suspicion.

The other dragonkin were apprehensive, but Gephe smiled instead.

「You’re pretty awesome!」

「Nn?」

「That power! No one has been able to make me shiver in a long time! If you were a dragonkin, I’d be in love with you!」

Apparently, Fran’s strength had impressed him. It’s as if he was about to ask to be her apprentice at any moment.

He would fall in love with her if she was a dragonkin……? But wouldn’t that make him a lolico――No, let’s just say it’s a figure of speech. Please be so.

「Stop all fighting.」

「……Fine, but we’ve lost some of our friends. We can’t just back down empty-handed.」

Gephe apparently wanted to obey Fran’s words. In the first place, he knew that Fran could defeat all of them if she had to resort to force.

However, outlaws were all about pride. He couldn’t afford to show any signs of weakness when his subordinates were watching.

「You mean Gazzol?」

「You know him?」

「Nn. But I don’t think the Beastmen Union did it. Come here and I’ll explain it to you.」

「……Okay.」

Now they started explaining the situation to Wangon and Gephe as the other outlaws looked on. First, Fran took out a certain something.

No wonder the outlaws went into an uproar, since she took out the lower half of Numerae’s body. Some of them held their mouths to stop themselves from vomiting.

These guys are surprisingly sensitive. Wait, I guess the people of this city often fought antidemons, so perhaps they weren’t accustomed to blood and gore.

「Y-You’re bringing out some pretty nasty stuff here. Who is this?」

「The one who shot this arrow.」

「Hohoh? You mean to tell me it wasn’t that dragonkin archer?」

「Nn. He used this arrow to make the beastmen and dragonkin fight.」

Wangon and Gephe glanced sharply at the arrow that Fran had taken out. They both realized now that someone was working in the shadows to incite a war between them.

「So he mimicked Miranleil’s arrows to pin the blame on us?」

「Who’s this guy? Where’s he from?」

「His name is Numerae. That’s all I know.」

「He died right in front of us before we could question him.」

Mea and Fran gave a brief account of what happened. Well, it’s not that complicated. Numerae admitted that he had shot the arrow, but then he got killed by a magical tool induced explosion.

「So you’re saying that someone somewhere wanted to incite a war between us and the Dragon King Syndicate? And this half of a corpse belongs to one of their men?」

「Nn.」

「……It’s hard to believe, but it doesn’t look like you’re lying.」

「Indeed. This is no lie!」

「……I see.」

Gephe looked at Mea rather suspiciously, since she was acting pretty self-important while hiding her face. Still, he didn’t ask for her identity due to the unspoken rules of the city.

Many people coming to the illegal city didn’t want to be asked about their past.

「I think they took Gazzol too.」

「Makes sense, but how do you know him in the first place?」

「Because we fought.」

「Hah?」

Fran recounted the time when Gazzol assaulted her, and she took him down. Also about how he was surprised when she healed his wounds. After that, she explained that he might have been kidnapped because she had left him unattended afterwards.

Fran grimaced during the explanation. Since we left him in a bound state, it might have been our fault that he got taken away without a chance for resistance.

The rage was clearly visible on Gephe’s face after listening to Fran’s story. However, his anger was not directed at Fran.

「They sent fucking Gazzol on an assassination? What the hell were they thinking? They should know he’s not the man for that kinda job!」

It was anger at their superiors for sending him on a mission he was not suited for.

「It seems like you feel responsible, but don’t. We’re a hundred times more at fault.」

「……Nn.」

We knew it’s mostly Gazzol’s fault for attacking us in the first place, but we couldn’t help but feel a little responsible if he’s one of the reasons for this conflict between dragonkin and beastmen.

「Anyways, I’m not going to be played by those assholes sneaking around in the shadows, so I’ll back off for now. We’ve gotta find out who’s really behind this, and also grill my higher ups.」

Oh, great! He’s willing to back down. My only concern now is that the Dragon King Syndicate might have an internal war, I guess?