-- That night, too, a large number of knights were busy with their duties at the headquarters of the Silverwing Knights.

　In normal times, they would be able to return home shortly after sunset, but lately, the duties related to the Night Ripper (Night Ripper) had been piling up and it was difficult to return home.

''Commander-dono. The latest version of the list of suspects and the list of those at risk of harm has come up.
Let me see. Yeah, ...... it's still getting thicker.

　Carmine, the Knight Commander, received the two documents and wore a puzzled expression.

　-- The list of suspects is, as it reads, a list of people suspected of being the perpetrators of the serial murders.

　However, with the current situation where even the commonality of the victims has not been completely narrowed down, it was difficult to narrow down the number of suspects to a very small number.

　Of course, this was not a cursory list of all the suspects without thought.

　They were weighted through careful consideration and divided into stages according to the degree of suspicion.

　--The other list of threatened individuals, on the contrary, is a compilation of individuals who are in danger of becoming victims of the Night Ripper.

　Again, the list has not been narrowed down exactly, and is still being sorted according to the magnitude of the possible danger.

　Most of them are high-ranking adventurers, but there are a few designations based on other common denominators.

You should read it, Roy. It might help you.
Are you sure?

　Carmine handed two bundles of documents to a young man who was working on a report in the same room.

　The young man with the claw marks of a beast on his face - Roy of the Hundred Beast Plains.

　He was not a member of the Silverwing Knights, but an A-ranked adventurer sent by the Adventurer's Guild to assist in the investigation.

　The Adventurer's Guild had been generous in providing information to the investigation, having killed an active A-rank in the second case and a former A-rank executive in the third case.

　However, when it turned out that even the victims of the fourth and fifth incidents were retired adventurers, they sent a well-known A-rank adventurer to help them out, as if providing information alone wasn't enough.

　The guild may be under pressure to hurry up the progress of the investigation, but he himself is a nice young man who doesn't give off such an atmosphere.

　He had been detained for the investigation for a long time and seemed to be unable to accept normal requests for a long time, but he said there was no problem since it was also a digest of his service obligation to the guild.

''Then excuse me ...... hmmmm ...... I knew that the Marble and August troupe and the August troupe are all haters. That's also quite high on the alert.
''In both cases, the antecedents of the members are unclear. Moreover, they began their activities in the capital just before the first incident and there was no conclusive evidence of their innocence after that. We can't even rule out the possibility of organized crime.

　Not just traveling entertainers, but any profession that moves around from place to place tends to be susceptible to suspicion when there is an incident of some kind.

　This is not a result of prejudice, but a practical decision.

　Unlike permanent residents, it is difficult to find out where they used to be, easy to pack up and disappear overnight, and very difficult to follow their footsteps once they have left somewhere else.

　Once he has left, it is very difficult to track him.

''Of course, I heard that they checked their personal belongings during the entry procedure. Even the inside of the belly of the doll used in the escape and dismemberment trickery. Still, no mithril weapon has been found ......, but it's not impossible to get one locally.
'Local procurement? I hear King's Landing has the most mithril processors on the continent.
We've been doing some research on it from the processor side, but it's a lot of work.

　Carmine leaned his weight against the back of the chair and let out a long breath.

'That's why I'm so grateful that you're helping me. That's why nothing has happened for a while since the fifth victim.
You're overpaying. We didn't prevent the sixth incident after all.
"I believe the sixth crime was a copycat. Or it's a cover-up to make an impulsive murder look like the work of a night ripper. That's how strange that case is.

　To the humble Roy, Carmine gave him a sharp look.

　Excluding the two victims of the first incident, whose identities were unknown, the victims of the second through fifth incidents were all active or retired A-rank adventurers.

　However, the two victims of the sixth incident were both people who were not associated with the Adventurer's Guild.

　Although they were hardly good and honest royal city residents ......, they had nothing in common with the previous victims.

　Furthermore, the shape of the weapon used was also different from that of the other cases, and the case would have been immediately deemed unrelated.

　Nevertheless, the reason for their placement in the sixth case is that in both cases a mithril was used as the murder weapon.

'The latest list of suspects has also been added to the list of suspects considering only the sixth case. It's going to mean more work for you too, but I'm counting on you.
''I understand. I'm going to increase the number of spirits and beasts for surveillance and send them to you. If we generate a large number of them, their performance per unit will decrease, but they can work about the same level as the human guards.

　Roy quickly wove magic at hand, generating a small translucent bird composed of magic, and quickly drowned it out to return the magic to his body.

''How far can you go at the maximum?''
The self-recorded number of simultaneous operations is three hundred. If I increase it to that level, though, I'll only be able to make it to the small animal level.
''Enough. The Adventurer's Guild is always sending me the right people to help me out.

　The name Roy of the Hundred Beast Plains was derived from the place of origin, but the skills that were the mainstay of the group were also similar to that name.

　This was just Carmine's imagination, but perhaps the name of the place called the Hundred Beast Plain was born because of the belief in a god who gives such skills.

''By the way, Commander. It's not a mistake that the list of suspects includes A-rank adventurers, right?
'You're Bruno the Bloodied Blade. He's on both lists. He was seen in the vicinity of the crime scene around the time of the sixth incident.
I see. ......

　It seems that Roy wasn't a stranger either, and his eyebrows were furrowed as if he had found a nuisance.

　If it was a matter involving an adventurer, he would ask for an adventurer's opinion - that would certainly be an effective method, but the first adventurer Carmine thought of was Luke of the White Wolf Forest.

　Both the powerful and special [Restoration] skill and the new power that he said he had awakened during the battle against the Demon King's army were quite likely to help him solve the case.

　But that's no good. I'm not in a position to ask for cooperation right now.

　The reason for this is not one individual's personal feelings, but a political procedural issue.

　A request for cooperation from the knights to adventurers or civilians can easily be made, but if the knights want to request cooperation from another knight group, they need to go through a formal procedure, not just a verbal request.

　If it's an extreme situation like a battlefield, it's acceptable to make an ex-post consent as an emergency measure, but it's definitely difficult to be approved in a peacetime criminal investigation.

　-- So what if the other party is the Knights of the Order that is to be newly established?

　He agreed to the establishment of a new knight's order with himself as the wingman and communicated this to the royal palace.

　What kind of procedure is really necessary to request cooperation in this situation - the answer is 'unknown'.

　The establishment of a new knight's order is an unprecedented situation, and his situation of being a mere civilian but also a candidate for the head of a knight's order is also unheard of.

　It was a matter that could be resolved immediately if His Majesty the King made a ruling, but there was a three-day time lag between Luke's reply in the White Wolf Forest and His Majesty's return.

　In other words, during those three days, the procedures for each of the knights to submit a request for cooperation to Luke of the White Wolf Forest would be left hanging in the air, undecided.

''(The shortness of three days is also troublesome ...... If this was a month or so, the royal palace would probably issue a ruling on your behalf, but a mere three days would only say 'wait for His Majesty's return')'

　It is precisely because the knights are the agents of state authority that they have to follow the various procedures in accordance with the system.

　Otherwise, the various knightly orders that were once enemies of each other might cause a selfish outburst.

''Well, when His Majesty returns, everything will be resolved. Until then, we have to do our best.)