"So let me get this straight…" Poppycock spoke with a dumbfounded expression etched deeply into his face.
"You got injured all over your body, got chased by goblins after stealing some herbs, got thrown over a cliff somewhere, landed in a secret dungeon, and got injured by the traps there again…is that all?"
Moros thought for a bit, I doubt he wanted to know about teaching the goblins how to punch, so he just gave his friend a deep nod.
"Essentially, yes."
The dwarf with a loving wife and trust issues shook his head.
"You are not nearly handsome enough to be this like…you know that right?" The question came accompanied by a puff of smoke that Poppycock exhaled into the air of the vehicle.
His friend looked at Moros with a slight smile, before extending his hand out before him.
Moros enthusiastically began to shake it. This was how the black market dwellers did things. The gentlemen of the underground kind were even now. As even as they always were, since nothing in this world was free.
Next Moros felt another hand extending towards him, with great enthusiasm he wanted to shake the hand of his saviour too.
Only to realise that this hand had handcuffed his hands together.
Poppycock looked at Moros confused, Moros looked at Poppycock confused. The driver looked back, very confused. The figure looked at Moros and Moros looked back in confusion:
Why were the toys Poppycock used on his wife used by the mysterious wink?
Looking at the toys, he gave his dwarven friend a knowing grin. That mother lover had gotten his wife to save him out of the central guild─he was the man amongst men.
"Moros Terra you are hereby arrested for your crimes, do you confess?" the masked figure spoke into the silence.
Prompting Poppycock and the driver to draw their weapons and aim at the mysterious person.
"Eyes on the road," Moros instructed calmly, this was not the first time he had been in cuffs and would not be the last time. The perks of being born into a famous family meant he could easily get out of most things.
"Let us calm down for a bit. Please let me know what crime you accuse me of?"
The figure removed their mask to reveal a face Moros had never seen in his life.
Her dark black hair fell over her shoulders as she gave Moros the most disdaining look imaginable. Her small eyes eyed him with contempt. A petite nose, blue iris and a round face came together to create a true beauty.
Not that Moros cared for such a thing, his mind was just wondering just what he was accused of. The list of potential charges that could get him into prison was a rather long list.
So, regardless of what dirt she had on him, his first objective was to find out.
"Are you serious? How could you not know your crime? Do you have no guilty conscience?" her question came out of her mouth full of rage and disgust.
She looked at the man and at everyone present as if they were insects, pests, vermin. Things that needed to be taken care of, so that society could stay clean.
"Miss, with all due respect without knowing what crime you think that I have committed, it is hard to know what I should feel guilty about."
Moros tried to speak as calmly as possible. Since Poppycock still had his weapon aimed at her hand, and if that weapon went off, there would be no car, no Moros nor a strange figure, who put handshells on him.
"PFF, why don't you have a guess, ya genius? If you are only half as smart as your brother, you will figure it out in no time."
Moros heaved a heavy sigh, this was the worst case scenario every wrong guess would be an admission of guilt for a crime he was not yet linked to.
As quickly as his brain allowed him to, he filtered through the lists of the people who might have snitched and deemed that one murder case to be the most likely scenario.
He knew, back then, he should not have let them dispose of the body in the Balla dungeon.
"Was it perhaps due to the missing person case? I swear, I did not know that they were disposing of the body in the family Terra dungeon?"
He was given yet another strange look by everyone in the car.
"No…" she replied after being at a loss for words for a few seconds. Poppycock gave Moros a nod of approval and the descendant of the Terra family was back at square one.
Moros' thoughts raced, if she was not taking him into custody for this affair, what else could it have been?
"Okay, I did not know that they were selling weapons used in terrorist attacks later on. I just got my money and I kept silent…I feared for my life, okay?"
Moros was given yet another round of even more stupid looks. He did not even get an answer, but he instinctively knew that it had not been this situation either.
Cursing on the inside, he came to understand that he was digging his grave deeper and deeper, but at this point, he was so far in, he could not stop there. Maybe if he listed more, he would be put into an asylum for the insane instead of being executed on the spot.
"Do you arrest me for selling government secrets to foreign agents of lower realms? You can be rest assured, I mostly faked those. The price they offered was way too cheap to not do so."
"Or was it the time I let a cult attempt to summon a high-end demon in the dungeon? If it was that I apologise profusely, I was not informed about their plans until they had already sacrificed a goat."
"Was it the blackmailing I did for my father? Was it the exchange of favours for my brother? Was it the fake gems and clothing articles I sold that my Mom told me to?"
The list of mentioned crimes went on and on. The lady who looked a bit older than Moros could only stare in shock as crime after crime came to see the light of day.
Were she not so shocked, she would have been impressed by just how much different crime one youth could commit at the age of 16. She had seen many seasoned criminals with less criminal acts to their name.
"No, Moros Terra you are accused of withholding important intel on the evolution of Ballas."
The accused teenager looked at her in confusion? What was so important about that in the first place? It was a Balla, these things were useless. Poke it with a stick and it goes boom.
"The Balla-Balla creature we have found in your magical visor logs was not a creature we have seen. Due to its immunity to magic, we have to place great certainty to know everything about this process. It is a matter of national security."
Moros looked at her and nearly wanted to laugh out loud…was she seriously trying to convince him that THAT was the reason for arresting him? A balla-balla, the thing that gave him 15 XP?
She could not be serious about such a small thing? Why would anyone care about a black slime worth 15 small goblins?
"Eh, such a small thing? What do you wanna know, that thing was useless and insignificant anyhow."
"How did you achieve this evolution?" the question came out with a chilling, nearly threatening undertone. Her eyes intently focussed on his face, to ensure that he would not mince any words.
Which, of course, he couldn't. He was still under the effect of the truth cocktail that he drank 10 minutes ago.
"Ballas are omnivores, they eat everything, even themselves. So if you give them cores of higher, more powerful creatures they evolve. It's that simple."
Moros did not mention that the exchange rate was awful and that the monsters were still weak beyond comparison, since that much was obvious.
He did not have to tell her things that every small child would know, right?
She began to contemplate the meaning of his words. It seemed to have been quite a vital information to her as she began to send messages with her magical visor. After 4 minutes elapsed of Moros still being handcuffed, she gave a sigh of relief.
"What you said was the truth."
"You are still going to prison for all your crimes"
…Moros gulped, this was not exactly how he thought this would go.