The soldiers stepped away from their leader, who only gritted his teeth.
"What is the meaning of this?!" he shouted. "I don't consent to this."
Then, everyone heard the sound of scraping bodies on the ground, and without anyone noticing, the younger Inquisitor arrived behind the leader, who quickly turned around to face him in fear.
"Your consent isn't relevant," the young Inquisitor said as his hand threateningly stretched towards the bald man's head.
At that moment, Mana gathered around the man's head.
He was trying to kill himself with his Affinity!
But, of course, he didn't even have the power to kill himself in front of an Inquisitor.
The Inquisitor's hand reached the man's head in an instant, and he became unconscious.
The soldiers looked with shock and fear at the Inquisitor.
And then, two other soldiers tried to kill themselves.
But, just like the bald man, these two also became unconscious as soon as they showed an inkling of resistance.
None of them could escape.
Inquisitors were very good at their job.
After that, everyone became silent out of fear. One comrade after the other had become unconscious, and the soldiers feared that they would also fall victim to the Inquisitors if they showed any sign of resistance.
To these soldiers, these Inquisitors were some of the most terrifying existences they had ever seen.
People just became unconscious in their mere presence!
Over the next five minutes, the younger Inquisitor's hand remained on the bald man's head, both their eyes closed.
The older Inquisitor kept watch while his younger colleague was doing his job.
Eventually, the younger Inquisitor opened his eyes and stood up.
"There is a barrier in his mind," he said.
"Follow protocol," the older Inquisitor said.
The younger one nodded and summoned several more chains, which he then put on every other unconscious person, including the superior and the officer.
In the end, eight people were attached to the chain.
"Anyone else?" the older Inquisitor asked, glancing at Shang.
"No," Shang said.
The older Inquisitor nodded. "The Grand Inquisitor has been informed. The Inquisition officially assumes command over the northeastern region. All soldiers are to be stationed inside their outposts and towns. Any soldiers leaving the confines of their outposts or towns will be killed or apprehended."
"Three Circles have been sent to isolate the nearest town. Nobody is allowed to leave or enter. Every other outpost will also be guarded by one Circle each. You all will comply with the orders of said Mages."
The Inquisitor looked at all the soldiers. "You will enter your outpost immediately."
The soldiers quickly saluted out of fear and ran to the outpost they had built just two months ago.
"You will come with us," the older Inquisitor ordered Shang.
Shang nodded.
After that, the two Inquisitors lightly stepped forward, but their speed was already quite impressive.
Shang charged after them in silence.
A couple of minutes later, they arrived at the nearest town.
Shang could already see several Mages stationed around the town in a big circle, and he could also see three corpses lying between the Mages and the town.
The Mages obviously weren't joking around.
The older Inquisitor looked at Shang. "I will be responsible for investigating this town. You will follow him back to the Storm Eagle Zone," the older Inquisitor said, gesturing to his younger colleague dragging the eight unconscious people.
"The Grand Inquisitor has ordered for your return. Your mission ends here."
"He also told me to tell you that your work has been exceptional and that you have been a great help to Greenwind County."
The older Inquisitor's voice didn't sound happy or excited. He only relayed the words with a robotic voice.
Shang only nodded.
Then, without saying anything, the older Inquisitor entered the town, and the people inside the town would learn to fear him.
"Follow me," the younger one said as he accelerated towards the south.
Shang didn't say anything and only wordlessly followed him.
Obviously, these Inquisitors weren't the talkative kind, which was why Shang didn't annoy them with questions.
As Shang traveled towards the south in silence, he had time to replay his two-month stay in the battlefield in his head.
By now, the plan of the traitors also became clear.
The superior had, over many years of hard work, managed to assume command over an entire region.
In order to steal all the resources and make the land useless, he slowly added more and more traitors into the ranks.
Two of these traitors had been the officer, Lance, and a masked man, One.
On the surface, their job was to build an outpost and to make the land habitable and rich in opportunities to earn money.
But, in truth, their job was to eliminate all the loyal soldiers and slowly fill the ranks with traitors.
If all the traitors had been sent to this place at the same time, some questions would have been brought up. After all, traitors often had an unknown history.
Filling an entire outpost with only people with unknown histories?
That would have been too suspicious.
Because of that, they had to do it slowly, one wave at a time.
The first innocent soldier they had killed had been one of the students that had accidentally attacked a Mid General Stage beast.
The officer had given the command with the reason of teaching the students a lesson, and One had enforced it by assuming command of the group and stopping them.
The second innocent soldier had been one of the Scumbags. He had reported something, and the officer had killed him. According to him, the Scumbag had lied.
Next, three soldiers died while delivering the goods to the town.
The group consisted of one traitor and three innocent people.
The person with the Space Ring had been the traitor, and he had stealthily put resources into the innocent soldiers' pockets.
The soldiers had no idea how these resources got there, but the guards of the town, which were probably also traitors, didn't care and killed them.
After that, it was time to deal with Zero and four other soldiers.
The traitorous leader of the Idealists picked four innocent soldiers to go with Zero to a place that would soon be attacked by Duke Mithril's hidden forces.
As insurance, One gave Zero a way to contact him. Like that, One would gain the trust of everyone around him. After all, he had done more to save his comrades than necessary.
The lower timeframe with the new signal wasn't actually important. The chances of this bit of time making a difference in the outcome were minuscule, and the additional payoff was worth the added risk.
The reason why Shang had suspected the leader of the Idealists of being a traitor was that four loyal soldiers had been sent with him.
If the leader were innocent, he wouldn't know who was and who wasn't a traitor, and with the number of traitors, the chances were high of at least one person betraying Zero during the attack.
But all four soldiers had resisted.
When the officer and One noticed that everyone had returned, they realized that they couldn't be as subtle anymore.
Several people were already suspecting the officer, and if one traitor fell, everyone could fall.
So, they concocted a scheme to deal with Zero and Two, two of the most powerful loyal soldiers.
After dealing with those two, the officer and One could slowly whittle down the remainder.
Sure, the officer would have been sent somewhere else to keep up appearances, but that didn't matter.
The superior would have simply given someone a temporary leadership role.
And which two people would everyone want as their new superior?
One or the leader of the Idealists.
Both were good choices.
Everyone else would believe that all the traitors were gone. After all, so many had already died, right?
On top of that, they now had a leader everyone trusted. They voted them into the position themselves, after all.
And like that, the outpost would have been slowly overtaken by the traitors.
Sadly, Shang had ruined their plan by luring every traitor into a trap.
All of them had gathered, and the most crucial and important person, the superior, had shown in front of the eyes of the Inquisitor that he was a traitor.
How?
Duke Whirlwind's Emblem.
Shang had thrown it to him.
Someone of the superior's standing could tell the difference between a real and fake one.
If he said it was real, he couldn't get rid of all the witnesses. If he said it was real and killed Shang, everyone would have scattered, fleeing for their lives, and if only one of them survived, everything could potentially crumble around the traitors.
This was a huge risk.
So, of course, the superior said it was fake. He would execute Shang, let the officer heal himself, and lastly, they would all kill the surrounding soldiers.
With all of them working together, nobody would be able to escape.
Then, they would simply frame everything to look like they had died to some random Late General Stage beast that found its way here.
The superior had been called to deal with it, but when he arrived, over half the soldiers had already died.
How tragic.
But, in the end, Shang had outsmarted them.
It wasn't easy, and there had been a lot of unknown factors, but Shang had managed to get the best result possible.
All traitors survived, and they all were in the Inquisitors' custody.
Shang hadn't killed even a single traitor.
He had only done his job.
Find the traitors and report them to the relevant authorities.
That was it.
