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"Money was stolen?"

Inside the sheriff's office, the victim's nephew merely frowned when he heard this.

"Yes. According to the suspect's statement, he encountered an extraordinarily ugly child on the road. The money pouch was probably stolen from him then.

We checked his pockets, and they had indeed been cut open. The room had already been searched, but no money was found. We interrogated the innkeeper and the servants as well, and their statements matched.

The other party hadn't left the inn since arriving.

The suspect must have sensed that the search at the city gates had been intensified.

In fact, if we weren't worried about driving the criminal into a corner, we could simply post a wanted notice. It wouldn't take long to find him that way."

The sheriff reporting the progress sported a handsome little mustache. Its resilient hairs had been carefully tended by their owner, and now gleamed beneath the sunlight with a leather-like sheen.

Clearly, this was a sheriff who represented the interests of a local family.

The victim's nephew set down the porcelain cup trimmed with gold, but his gaze shifted to the priest from the Wealth Church sitting nearby.

"Since the suspect has already been apprehended, I hope the trial can be completed as soon as possible. My family needs me to bring back the head of a murderer, not some so-called suspect.

"Also, I need a written statement from you confirming my uncle's cause of death. He can't simply have died without any clear explanation."

Elwin looked at the young man before him. After a brief pause, he nodded.

"Regardless of anything else, I will recount everything I saw exactly as it happened."

The victim's nephew narrowed his eyes, apparently dissatisfied with the answer. However, the other party was a member of the clergy, so he did not continue pressuring him. Instead, he turned to the sheriff before him, who was eager to claim credit.

His gaze slid over the man's proudly displayed mustache. That had been the fashion in Huika more than twenty years ago. By now, even people of his father's generation no longer groomed their beards that way.

"Thirty gold coins isn't a small sum. People often say that copper coins dropped in the street can never be recovered, but this isn't thirty copper coins. I hope you will recover the loss if at all possible.

"Of course, if that proves impossible, giving the thief a lesson he will never forget is also acceptable."

This time, the victim's nephew did not look toward the priest of the Wealth Church.

He knew the other man would not do such underhanded work for him. Nor would he dig in the soil with a silver spoon, since a shovel was cheaper and more practical.

"Please rest assured. Our people are already in place."

"Mm. I understand."

The man replied indifferently, then rose from his seat.

A carriage had already been prepared outside, and a ship was waiting at the pier as well.

The man's gaze remained fixed entirely on Elwin. The meaning was obvious: he only needed a letter from a priest of the Wealth Church, and then he would leave.

Elwin looked at the man before him and slightly furrowed his brows. He had already uncovered a few details. For example, the victim had previously hired a group of adventurers as guards, but the adventurers' commission was only to escort him here.

After they arrived, the victim and the adventurers had failed to renew the contract because of the price. The local Adventurers' Guild had a record of it, and the victim had recently been looking for local mercenaries with a good reputation.

He had been murdered during this gap. It made perfect sense, but there was always something conspiratorial about it.

He hated the feeling of compromise, but he had no evidence at present and could not refuse such a reasonable request.

Elwin stood up and simply straightened his collar. It had been making him feel somewhat stifled.

"I feel a little cooped up."

Heka placed the brush in his hand into a jar beside him that held wood wax oil.

No matter how cramped and filthy the lodging provided by the gang was, at least he could see the blue sky there. Here, he could only see a few rays of light coming from the ground.

It was somewhat embarrassing, but that was the truth: the first person unable to endure it was not Tuft of Hair, but Heka.

"It's hard to go from luxury to austerity. But after seeing the light, who could endure the darkness?"

Heka patiently brushed a layer of wood wax oil over the completed crossbow before him.

Crossbows and bows operated on the same principle. Both converted the elastic potential energy in the bow limbs into the kinetic energy of the arrow.

In essence, a crossbow merely allowed the shooter to stop exerting force continuously during the firing stage. The principle was not difficult, but repairing a crossbow with both power and accuracy still required some effort.

As the crossbow's components were installed one by one, Heka drove a pin into the side of the stock to secure the trigger mechanism.

Heka examined this trump card he had prepared for himself, then stepped on the stirrup at the front of the bow limbs.

When one's foot pressed against the ground, it often created a false sense of solidity.

Heka took a deep breath, then pulled the bowstring upward with all his strength. The veins on his arms bulged. Even with a layer of cloth between them, he could still feel his fingers being painfully constricted.

A moment later, Heka felt that his slender arms had reached their limit. Any further and he would either injure his arms or damage the bow limbs.

"As expected, I still can't do it."

Heka sighed, then slowly released the bowstring.

Because the bow limbs were made of wood, this crossbow's force curve was unusually steep. Even someone as weak as Heka could pull it through the first half, but the second half probably required the strength of a strongman.

Fortunately, Heka had anticipated this.

It was a roller mechanism that could be attached to the end of the crossbow's stock. With this little device, even Heka, whose strength was 0.257, could pull the bowstring.

Once the roller was in place, Heka began turning the handles on either side. It was still somewhat strenuous, but he managed to finish.

The bowstring was finally pulled into the latch position. As the trigger mechanism rotated, the string was firmly locked in place.

After placing a specially made armor-piercing arrow in the groove, Heka put the loaded crossbow into the box beside him.

Tuft of Hair was very obedient. He would not touch anything here.

As Heka closed the lid, another item appeared in his backpack: Simple Crossbow ×1, loaded and ready to fire.

"It seems there won't be a chance to replenish it a second time for now." Heka looked at the trump card that had finally been put in place and sighed inwardly.

The other crossbow in his backpack was a hand crossbow. Though it was inferior to this crossbow he had happened to salvage from the sewers, it was still enough against unarmored targets.

Perhaps this crossbow was the real coincidence. It may have been left behind by a crossbowman who had planned to subjugate the sewers but unfortunately died. After all, with this much force, it was powerful enough to pierce ordinary leather armor.