The Hypocritical Holy Knight 117 Part 1

The next day, they interrogated the beastman chieftain.

Of course, since He Yan had already secretly agreed with Ambrose last night to keep the Light Divine Artifact, in order to prevent this beastman chieftain with a negative IQ from revealing the existence of the artifact fragments in front of all the holy knights and bishops, this interrogation was conducted in secret, presided over only by the Holy Son of Light and the Holy Knight Commander.

The main purpose of this interrogation was to force the beastman chieftain to reveal the whereabouts of his other companions.

——According to Ambrose's judgment, this beastman chieftain must have other companions.

It's just that the fighting last night was too chaotic, and the heavy beastman scent of blood covered all other traces, making it impossible for him to find the whereabouts of the other beastmen based on their scent.

At first, the beastman chieftain was very stubborn, but cunning as Ambrose was, he had ways to torture him to the point of wishing for death, yet on the surface, not a single abnormality could be seen.

In the middle, the beastman chieftain, who knows what he was thinking, would occasionally look in He Yan's direction with those beastly eyes filled with anger and greed.

However, every time his gaze fell on the Holy Son of Light, the force of Ambrose's hand would increase by a point. In the end, this chieftain learned to be smart and only glared at the Holy Knight Commander who was constantly torturing him, not daring to look at He Yan again.

In the end, the beastman chieftain only held out for less than half an hour. Under the torture that even He Yan felt chilling to the bone, he still opened his tightly closed mouth. However, it could be seen that he still wanted to struggle a bit and tried to lie.

However, perhaps due to the beastman race's IQ boost, his lying skills were too crude. In the end, he was tortured by Ambrose again, forced to take a vow that he could only tell the truth, and he then reluctantly confessed.

The beastman chieftain bared his teeth at them, the muscles on his face twisted due to the continuous pain in his body, his expression extremely hideous, but he couldn't control the words from his mouth: "They went deep into the forest."

Ambrose tapped the tip of his shoe on the ground, expressionlessly asking: "What about their tracking stones?"

Every race has its own set of methods to connect with their tribesmen. For example, the elves rely on their ability to communicate with small birds and some special plants to transmit messages.

The beastman race has limited intelligence. When they are close, they can still determine the location of their companions through smell. But when they are far away, beyond the range that their sense of smell can perceive, they are helpless.

So they simply borrowed the practice of humans and exchanged a large amount of materials and humans for a kind of stone containing a faint magical power - tracking stones, to confirm the location of their companions.

Tracking stones are a kind of one-time low-level magic product. Dripping the blood of a certain creature on it can track the aura of this creature based on the blood for a short period of time.

According to the amount of blood and the power contained in it, the duration of the tracking stone's effect also varies. However, after this low-level magic stone is activated, the effect can last for a maximum of ten days. It is an extremely uneconomical consumable.

The price of this kind of magic stone in the human market is not high, and only the beastman race, who are foolish and have a lot of money, will purchase them in large quantities at high prices.

Yesterday, Ambrose had already searched this beastman chieftain from head to toe, and it was obvious that he did not carry the tracking stones of his companions with him.

But thinking about it, it makes sense. The nature of beastmen to switch to beast form and fight at the drop of a hat determines that they simply cannot properly keep the items they carry with them.

Although spatial magic tools can solve this problem, the entire beastman race has no magical talent. They have to buy low-level magic like tracking stones at a high price from humans, let alone higher-level spatial magic items, which are precious items that can only be obtained from humans by luck.

Hearing Ambrose's blunt questioning, the beastman chieftain's expression became even more hideous, his beastly eyes filled with blood, almost dripping blood, and the words almost jumped out of his mouth one by one: "...In the nearest mercenary hut."

The mercenary hut is a simple small house built by the Mercenary Guild in the Eternal Night Forest for mercenaries to stay in. They had passed by there when they came.

However, when did the beastman race get involved with mercenaries?

Thinking of the mercenary team he had a brief encounter with on the first day of arriving at the Eternal Night Forest, Ambrose slightly raised his eyebrows.

It seems that beastmen are not as he thought, completely devoid of thinking ability. At least - they still know how to disguise themselves.

After obtaining the information he wanted, the Holy Knight Commander decisively put a silencing spell on the beastman chieftain again, and mercilessly kicked him into the corner with the tip of his shoe, then walked towards the Holy Son of Light who had watched the entire interrogation process from the side.

Ambrose looked at the Holy Son of Light, whose face was as calm as ever, kissed his forehead, and invited him in a low voice, "My Lord Cecil, are you willing to go check with me?"

He had not concealed his methods at all just now.

As far as he knew, the Pope had always intended to cultivate the Holy Son of Light in the direction of ignorance and naivety. Cecil should not have seen such cruel interrogation methods before.

Although the Holy Son of Light always has countless little thoughts and little secrets, at most it can only prove that he is a cunning little fellow.

He really wanted to know what reaction this little mouse would have to everything he had just seen.

However, the Holy Son of Light did not react with any surprise or fear as he had imagined. He only looked at him with those black eyes that seemed unable to contain even a trace of impurity for a while, and lightly nodded, accepting his invitation: "Of course, this was my duty to begin with."

Ambrose was pleased by his reaction. Perhaps out of a mentality of showing off in front of a competitor, he suddenly lowered his head and kissed the Holy Son of Light's soft lips.

Originally, considering the beastman chieftain on the side, He Yan was slightly resistant, but thinking that the beastman chieftain was doomed to die sooner or later, he slowly relaxed his body.

Moreover, although Ambrose was extremely insecure, he was after all a rational decision-maker and would not disregard the overall situation and let their relationship spread at this time.

The beastman chieftain, thrown into the corner with his mouth sealed, watched this scene and couldn't help but wriggle in anger, his body rubbing against the cold ground, making some faint noises.

However, neither of the other two people in the room paid any attention to the little noises he made. After finishing a brief kiss, they left without looking back.

They immediately took people to the mercenary hut.

The Eternal Night Forest in winter is the most dangerous. Once the heavy snow falls, the forest, dressed in a layer of silver, becomes even more perilous.

Few people would choose to venture into the Eternal Night Forest at this time. After that team of beastmen disguised as mercenaries left, there were no more figures in the mercenary hut.

Without much effort, they found three tracking stones that were simply hidden in one of the rooms.

He Yan took a glance through the tracking stones. The indicated direction was indeed towards the Eternal Night Forest, but the connection shown on the tracking stones was faint. Those three beastmen should have already entered quite deep.

He Yan put away the tracking stones and returned to the garrison with the Holy Knights.

As for whether to risk going deep into the Eternal Night Forest, and if so, who to send, they would have to wait until they returned to discuss these issues in detail.

On the way back, fine white particles floated down from the sky.

The sun was still hanging high in the sky, and the light, thin sunlight fell on everyone. The originally tiny white particles had already grown larger and larger, becoming a fluttering snowfall of goose feather-sized flakes, quickly covering the soil with a thin layer of white.

It was then destroyed by the neat footsteps of the knights.

This was the first snowfall of the winter season on the Delan Continent.

The temperature changes on the Delan Continent are always particularly abrupt. With the falling of the snowflakes, the temperature had already dropped by more than a dozen degrees in just ten minutes or so.

He Yan stretched out his hand in the cold wind, catching a falling six-petaled snowflake.

The fluffy white snowflake landed on his palm and melted into a small puddle of water in less than a second.

A tall figure came closer to him, followed by a coat with a cold mint fragrance, draped over his shoulders, blocking out a portion of the surging cold for him.

He Yan glanced to the side. After his contract knight took off his knight's coat and gave it to him, he was left with only a thin inner shirt, vaguely revealing the muscular contours of the Holy Knight's upper body.

Although the physical fitness of every Holy Knight in the Holy Knights is superb, and even the most ordinary Holy Knight would not frown at this level of cold, He Yan still felt very uncomfortable seeing his contract knight dressed so thinly in the heavy snow.

But faced with the Holy Knight's unrelenting gaze, he still gave up the idea of childishly "arguing" with his contract knight over a coat under the watchful eyes of countless Holy Knights.

Then he secretly cast a low-level Light Spell on his contract knight to keep him warm.

Because his Light Spell level was the highest among everyone present, except for the Holy Knight's captain himself, no one discovered his little move.

From beginning to end, no one suspected their relationship due to the Holy Knight's intimate caring actions towards the Holy Son.

After all, it was a well-known fact that the Holy Son was in poor health, and as a qualified knight, what one must do is not only offer one's loyalty to the liege, but also, when necessary, put the liege's position before one's own.

Although this winter snow came unexpectedly, they were not caught off guard because they had made full preparations for this situation before setting out.

The first thing everyone did after returning to the garrison was to change into the winter clothes that had been prepared long ago, and then hold an emergency meeting to discuss how to deal with the three beastmen who had escaped into the Eternal Night Forest.

Because this time He Yan was not "unwell", he also participated in this discussion.

The scale of this meeting was small, with only the Holy Son, the Holy Knight's captain, three Iron Riders, and two bishops.

Before He Yan and Ambrose made a decision, the Iron Riders and bishops all expressed their opinions in turn.

They unanimously believed that the Eternal Night Forest with fallen snow was far too dangerous, and they should not risk going too deep into it.

"Those three beastmen will most likely perish in the Eternal Night Forest within a few days, after all, the demon beasts in the forest will not treat them as their own kind just because they have a similar beastly nature."

The last Iron Rider stated bluntly, "Now the most important beastman chieftain is in our hands. I think perhaps we should not risk it for three beastmen that may not be important."

After hearing him finish, Ambrose shook his head slightly and refuted with reason, "The beastman chieftain is imprisoned, yet the other three beastmen took the opportunity to escape. This is not normal. Although the beastman race is foolish, their loyalty to their leader is unquestionable, so there must be other value in those three beastmen."

In fact, both He Yan and Ambrose knew very well that there was no so-called "other reason". Those three beastmen escaped when their chieftain was captured, simply to go back and report to the beastman race.

This time, the beastman chieftain's exchange of the Light Divine Artifact fragment for the Holy Son was actually secretly agreed upon by that chieftain with the Pope, behind the back of the tribe - after all, it goes without saying that even if the beastman race is stupid, they would never agree to the chieftain giving such an important Light Divine Artifact fragment to the Pope for his own selfish desires.

When he left the tribe with a few companions, he used the excuse of going to the human black market to exchange for supplies. The other beastmen did not know the true purpose of his trip.

So if no one goes back to explain the situation, then the Light Divine Artifact fragment and the beastman chieftain can only fall into the other party's hands without a sound.

-- If you can't beat them, of course you have to go back and get reinforcements.

The logic of the beastman race is just that straightforward.

However, the Iron Riders and Cardinals did not know this. After Ambrose gave this seemingly flawless and highly persuasive reason, they pondered for a while and still chose to believe the judgment of the Holy Knight's captain, sending people to chase after the three beastmen in the Eternal Night Forest.