American: Native Empire - Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Exposed.

‘…Oh my God!’

Red Leather listened secretly to the conversation of the three men and covered his mouth.

He doubted his own eyes and ears.

But nothing changed even if he doubted.

‘Those crazy bastards! Are they trying to kill us all?’

It was true that the farther away from the mainland, the higher the possibility of being involved in a sinister incident, but he never expected them to try to kill their comrades.

‘Why?’

Red Leather did not understand.

They left most of their money in the financial office anyway.

What benefit would it bring to the sharp-eyed man to kill the sailors in this way?

Rattle.

‘This is not the time.’

The guys were about to strangle the sailors with the tough ropes in their hands.

This was not the time to think about the reason.

He had to come up with a countermeasure and deal with it.

Red Leather quickly scanned his surroundings.

‘Is there no one but me?’

There might be other sailors who were hiding like him, but the possibility was very slim.

There was probably no one who did not drink a sip of the liquor that the sharp-eyed man brought, except for Red Leather himself.

He was not feeling well today.

Besides, he had a weak alcohol tolerance for a sailor, and he had a severe hangover the next day.

But when sailors drank together, it was a good way to get scolded by the rough boatmen if they refused.

So Red Leather developed his own know-how of switching drinks without being noticed during his long sailor life.

He did not drink today either, using that method.

And at some point during the night.

Red Leather felt a strange sign that was different from usual.

After some time passed, suddenly even those who were strong drinkers lost their consciousness and collapsed.

And that was without exception.

At that moment, Red Leather snapped out of it as if he had poured cold water over his head, and felt a sense of foreboding.

And he immediately hid himself.

Sure enough, this situation unfolded.

‘I have to get out of this predicament.’

There were three men in front of him.

They were all veterans who had been sailing for a long time, so they were not easy opponents.

‘I can’t win in a head-on confrontation.’

Then the only answer was to divide and conquer them.

And just then, the three men started to move.

“Don’t bother to see blood. It’s a headache if the ship gets dirty.”

“Hehe. Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it cleanly.”

“Then let’s get started.”

After that, only Black Leaf remained in this place.

‘Phew. That’s a relief.’

Red Leather sighed inwardly as he saw them scatter in different directions.

He was worried about what would happen if they moved as a group, but it seemed they didn’t do that.

There were many people on the ship, so they seemed to divide their work areas and do their jobs.

Then it was important from now on.

‘I can’t make any noise.’

If he did, there was a risk that someone would hear the loud sound and rush out.

‘I can’t use a gun.’

And even if he did, he wasn’t confident that he could hit their necks or heads accurately in the dark situation.

The only answer was a surprise attack.

He had to ambush him and cut off his breath with a single stroke.

Red Leather planned his route and moved stealthily to his hiding spot.

And he held his breath and waited for the right moment.

Crack!

Meanwhile, the sailors kept dying one by one.

‘I’m sorry…’

But Red Leather watched them die without blinking.

He could have died trying to save them.

That’s when about six sailors had their throats slit.

‘He’s here!’

Finally, Black Leaf approached the place where Red Leather was hiding.

There was a sailor here.

“Whew~”

He seemed to have no guilt for killing, whistling as he came closer in an unguarded state.

‘You crazy bastard!’

Seeing this, Red Leather lost any human emotion that remained in his heart.

That guy was a monster, not a human.

Then, when he turned the corner.

Swoosh!

He sprang out like a wolf, darting behind him.

“Huh!”

And after covering Black Leaf’s mouth.

Slash!

He cut his throat with the strength of a suckling baby.

“Ugh…!”

He let out a muffled groan and then,

Thud!

He collapsed like a puppet with severed strings, spewing hot blood.

Red Leather made sure to cut off his breath completely in case of any trouble, and then slumped to the ground.

“Huff, huff…”

As the tension that had been tight was released, he felt a wave of fatigue.

But he still had two more left, so he quickly snapped out of it.

‘You never know when they’ll show up.’

It was a race against time now.

Soon, his body moved swiftly again.

Red Leather’s next target was Rough Beard.

‘Just kill him.’

Sharp Eyes wasn’t very good at physical abilities anyway.

He didn’t think he would lose if he fought him one-on-one.

And then.

“Cluck!”

After killing Rough Beard in the same way as before,

Red Leather was half sure of his victory.

But he soon shook his head.

‘Don’t let your guard down until the end.’

Complacency leads to unexpected mistakes.

Red Leather steadied his mind and raised his tension again.

And he ambushed Sharp Eyes in a similar way to the two who had already lost their lives.

This ambush was successful too, as he didn’t let his guard down either.

But the difference was that he didn’t kill Sharp Eyes.

Crack!

“Ugh!”

From behind Sharp Eyes, he strangled his neck with the tough rope that Rough Beard had used as a murder weapon.

“Cough! Cough!”

He struggled for a while, but then he suddenly went limp.

He had lost consciousness.

‘You can’t die. You have to confess why you did such a thing.’

The sharp-eyed man was not someone who would do such a thing without any reason.

He must have had some big plan in mind.

Something that he had to do even if it meant causing such a horrible thing.

The red leather man did not forget to clean up the mess.

He tightly bound the sharp-eyed man’s body and hung it on a pillar.

‘This place is dangerous.’

There were three ships in the fleet.

Considering the sharp-eyed man’s personality, there was a high chance that something similar had happened on the other two ships.

He was sure that the liquor that had been transported earlier had been evenly distributed among the three ships.

Then, his colleagues on the other ships might have noticed something strange and approached.

‘I have to get away before the other sailors come to their senses.’

If that happened, all the sailors on the two ships would die, but this was inevitable.

Soon, the red leather man used all his knowledge and power to create some distance from the other ships.

Fortunately, it was a dark night, so the other ships seemed to not notice anything.

And when the two ships were out of sight.

‘It’s over…’

The red leather man was finally able to relax completely.

***

The next day.

“Wha, what is this…!”

After the effects of the drug had completely worn off, the sailors who regained consciousness were shocked by what they heard.

While they were asleep, half of their crewmates had been strangled to death.

The red leather man explained everything that had happened last night to them.

From how he had switched his drink because he was feeling unwell, to the terrible things that the sharp-eyed man and his two men had done.

“That bastard!”

“I’ll kill him right now!”

The sailors were extremely agitated after hearing everything.

They were very sad about their colleagues’ deaths, and they also had a terrible imagination of losing their lives in vain like their dead colleagues.

But the red leather man stopped them.

“We can’t kill that devil bastard! Don’t we have to find out why he did such an unbelievable thing?”

“…That’s true!”

The sailors regained their reason at the red leather man’s remark.

And they removed the things that had sealed his mouth.

Then, all kinds of excuses came out of the sharp-eyed man’s mouth.

“I, I’m not the culprit! This is a false accusation! I’m also a victim!”

“Ha, culprit? Then drink this.”

“Tha, that is!”

“That’s the liquor you brought yesterday.”

“…”

When the red leather man handed him a glass of liquor, his mouth closed like a clam.

“You can’t drink it, can you? Of course. You’ll lose consciousness if you do. But you’re saying you’re not the culprit when you brought this liquor? Do you expect me to believe that?”

With such clear evidence, the sharp-eyed man’s face turned pale.

“Wait. You won’t die easily. You’ll suffer terribly and confess everything.”

The red leather man glared at him with bloodshot eyes and sealed his mouth again.

He might do something stupid like taking his own life otherwise.

***

After that, they searched for and captured the other two ships nearby.

As expected.

On the other two ships, all the sailors except the accomplices were dead.

They had thrown the corpses into the sea, so they couldn’t even find them.

Out of the six men who were on the two ships, they killed two and captured four.

With this, they had caught a total of five culprits, including the sharp-eyed man.

“This is not a matter that we can solve by ourselves. We have to report this horrible incident to the imperial government.”

“That’s obvious.”

Since it was not an incident that they could handle, they went to Yanghae and reported it to the security bureau.

Then, this incident turned the empire upside down.

“What a crazy…”

After receiving the report of the mass murder of sailors, Kim Kiwoo was also greatly shocked.

He had seen many cases of mutiny on ships, but never one that tried to kill everyone without blood or tears.

Of course, there had been similar incidents with the purpose of hijacking ships, but the instigator of this incident was the owner of the fleet of three ships.

“Find out exactly what happened without missing anything!”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

There was no way he would do such a big thing without any reason.

So Kim Kiwoo ordered them to find out the details.

The imperial decree was severe.

It didn’t take long after they were tortured for the whole plan to be revealed clearly.

“I have committed a sin worthy of death, it is all my fault! Please punish me!”

Thud! Thud!

The head of the sanitation department banged his head on the floor and apologized to Kim Kiwoo.

“Stop! Get up right now!”

“Ye, yes…”

“Doesn’t my word make sense?”

Kim Kiwoo roared at him.

He understood why the head of the sanitation department was doing this, but he thought it was too much.

“Did you catch the main culprit who sold the vaccine to the criminals?”

“…Yes. We got a confession from him too.”

“He must not be the only rat-like bastard. Investigate this thoroughly and find all those who stole the vaccine without missing a single one.”

“Yes! We will definitely do that!”

Kim Kiwoo looked around at the tense atmosphere of the meeting and sank into his thoughts.

‘I was too careless.’

He felt bitter as he recalled the bold plan of the sharp-eyed man.

The plan was roughly like this.

First, he got the vaccine and lured the people of South Continent.

Then, he killed all the sailors except his eight accomplices who had planned the crime beforehand.

After that, he boarded the prepared people and set sail for the western sea beyond.

Of course, the sharp-eyed man did not plan to join this voyage.

‘He was very smart.’

He had already made an excuse to stay in South Continent.

Thanks to that, his three ships were supposed to trade without him, and he had written a scenario that they had gone missing for some unknown reason.

‘If there was maritime insurance in this era, it would have been a perfect scenario.’

If that was the case, he would have surely pocketed the insurance money as well.

Anyway, the missing ships would have headed to Asia Continent, and if they succeeded in trading, he planned to secretly sell them and make a fortune.

Since his eight colleagues would be considered dead anyway, there was no one else who could distribute them except for him.

It was a very elaborate plan that could make a huge amount of money while maintaining his status as an imperial citizen.