Red Dragon Emperor

"Nonsense!"

On the side, the jackal police officer said disdainfully: "A thief who steals, where can he have light in his heart!"

The kobold wasn't annoyed, and didn't say much, just focused on looking at the grimace pattern, trying to find more clues.

A group of people continued to discuss.

However, no results were discussed.

Officer Cook pondered for a moment: "Well, if we keep discussing, there will be no results. Why don't you all go out and visit the surrounding residents around the crime scene to see if you can find some clues."

Kobold - Xingge raised his hand and said, "Master Sheriff, I have an idea."

"what idea?"

All the police officers focused their attention on the kobold.

Xingge continued: "This thief is most likely an outsider, why don't some people go to the gate of the town and check the records of the professional thieves who entered the town."

Hearing this, Sergeant Cook's eyes lit up: "Good idea!"

After a pause, he continued, "Since you came up with the idea, then you can take the two of you there."

"yes!"

A minute later, Xingge set off with two police officers, one was a jackal and the other was a harpies.

Walking on the streets of Vic Town, Vic observed the pedestrians along the way.

Most of the pedestrians on the street are residents of the Forsey Kingdom, wild boars, jackals, kobolds, and occasionally a huge ogre.

In addition to the local residents, the foreign population is obviously more than usual.

Due to the Imperial Ceremony, Orka City was full of people, and many people diverted to the satellite city of Orka City—Vic Town.

In Vic Town at this time, you can see all kinds of religions and streams from all over the mainland.

A barbarian in leather armor, a handsome nobleman from the southern country, a halfling who is taller than a dwarf with a loud voice, Xingxing even saw a few forest elves walking together.

Along the street, three police officers walked towards the town gate of Vic Town.

In the Kingdom of Fussey, and even the entire Tydanor, most towns have protective walls around them,

The number of exports depends on the size of the town.

There are two exits in Vic Town, one is on the west, the west exit leads to Oka City, which is the main entrance, and the back entrance is on the east.

All the way without incident, a group of people came to the gate of the town.

At this time, there is a long queue at the gate of the town, and among the queuers are local monster residents, as well as outsiders such as humans and elves.

Everyone in the queue holds their ID in their hands, waiting for the guard's inspection.

The main means of transportation in Taidanol is horses. Most of the wilderness still maintains its original appearance. Extraordinary beasts, monsters, and robbers live in the wilderness. Most of them have never left the 30 kilometers around their hometown.

Population mobility is a very troublesome thing. The citizens have a certificate of citizenship, free people have a certificate of citizenship, and nobles have a noble document. Every town has a guard inspection certificate. If you can’t show a legal identity certificate, you will be driven away by the town guard. , In sensitive areas, they may even be directly arrested as robbers or spies.

The kingdom of Forsyth is powerful, and the kingdom's officials have absolute power to control the situation. They are not so harsh on outsiders, but they still need to be registered.

The Gnoll guard at the gate of the town looked up at the green-haired elf in front of him: "Name?"

"Udith Lanfeng."

"Where are you from?"

"Mist Forest."

"Well, there is no agreement on the exchange of citizens between the Forsey Kingdom and the Misty Forest. You need to provide additional identification."

"It's okay, I have an adventurer certificate," said the elf, and took out a small brown book from his pocket.

The adventurer certificate is the identity certificate issued by the adventurer union. In most places in the world, the adventurer certificate can be used as a proof of passage. After all, adventurers can solve many problems that ordinary people cannot solve, such as extraordinary beasts and monsters.

The jackal guard took the certificate, and after using magic props to identify the authenticity of the magic imprint on the certificate, he handed the certificate to the fat wild boar registrar beside him.

The wild boar registrar stared at the adventurer's certificate, holding a pen in one hand, and scribbled on the booklet on the table.

After writing, return the certificate to the queuing person.

While the registrar was writing, the Gnoll guard collected a copper coin as the city entry tax from the elf, stuffed the copper coin into the tax box, and a complete town entry procedure was completed.

"Next!"

Of course, this process is only for outsiders. If you are a resident of your own country, you don’t need to register, just show your citizenship certificate and pay the city entry tax.

If it is a local resident who is familiar with the guards, it will be even easier. You only need to stuff a copper coin into the box, say hello, and you can go in.

"Hey! Cousin Waza!"

Hearing the greeting from behind, the Wolfman guard turned around and saw three police officers, and the Wolfman among the three policemen was his cousin.

"Hey, Cousin Bra, something has brought you here."

"We are investigating a criminal case and want to check the register of outsiders in recent days."

"Okay," the wolf man guard pointed to the hut beside the town gate. The hut at the town gate was connected to the city wall. Behind the town gate, the purpose of building the hut was to serve as a rest room for the guards and store some documents at the same time.

"The register is stored inside, you can check it yourself, I'm busy, so I won't accompany you."

The wild boar registrar added: "Be careful, don't mess up the order of the register."

"Okay, we'll keep an eye out."

Regardless of the busy registrar, the three police officers walked into the hut and saw the scene inside the hut at the gate of the town. There was a table, a few benches, and some wooden shelves against the wall. document.

Gnoll—Bula is obviously a frequent visitor here. He walked straight to the wooden shelf in the corner, picked up a booklet on the wooden shelf, and flipped through it: "I found it, this is the entry record of the outsiders we are looking for." .”

Xingge and the Gnoll carried the record book to the table and called the Harpy to read it together.

"The first theft occurred three days ago. You don't need to check the records of the past two days. You can just check the records from three days ago. Focus on professional thieves, especially high-level and above. The level of thieves is very high, so it must be High level, even master level."

After finishing speaking, the kobold opened the first page of the booklet, and saw that there were dense numbers of people entering the town recorded on the form.

The information consists of eight elements: registration time, name, race, gender, age, place of origin, occupation, and type of entry certificate.

"Well, Joyce, human, male, forty-eight years old, a viscount noble from the Pompeii Empire, with a noble certificate, he is not the person we are looking for."

"Babbite, elf, female, two hundred and twenty-one years old, from the foggy forest, a senior hunter, with an adventurer certificate, she is not the person we are looking for."

"..."

Due to the recent surge in the number of people entering the town, the three police officers checked the records for three hours before they finished checking them.

The outsiders who can come to Fusai Kingdom are either big merchants and nobles with guards, or professionals with their own strength.

As for high-level professionals, no matter which country or force they are in, they are all professional talents worth wooing, one in a hundred.

Therefore, among the outsiders recorded in dozens of books and thousands of books, there are only 60 people above the high-level powerhouse level, half of them are fighters, and even fewer are thieves. There are only five people in total.

Xingge first ruled out the female elf wanderer in the misty forest, because this female elf is the guard of an elf nobleman, and there is a high probability that the guards of the elf nobleman will not do such things as theft.

Another master thief who had been active in the Triangle Plain for many years was excluded, and there were only three remaining, all of whom were high-level thieves.

Three police officers recorded the suspected thieves information.

"Duisi, human, female, 28 years old, from the Kingdom of Raiden in the middle of the mainland, a high-level thief, using an adventurer certificate."

"Harris, a halfling, male, fifty-four years old, from the fertile plains in the southeast of the mainland, a high-level thief, with an adventurer's certificate."

"Aiden, human, male, nineteen years old, from the Pompeii Empire, a high-level thief, with an adventurer certificate."

Kobold - Xingge looked at the three people's information, and stayed on the halfling's information for a second longer: "These three people are very suspicious, emmmmm..., Duis is slightly less suspicious, I know this person, she is from the south Member of a band of thieves."

Gnoll——Bula analyzed: "Among Harris and Aiden, I am more inclined to commit crimes by halflings. Most halflings are in the camp of lawful and good, and occasionally there will be a funny comparison. Of course, it is not ruled out." This nineteen-year-old human boy is young and frivolous, looking for excitement when he has nothing to do."

"Anyway, let's talk about it after checking the register at the back door."

The three police officers set off again and came to the back gate of Vic Town.

Compared with the front door of Unicom Oka City, the back door is much deserted, and there are much fewer registered outsiders.

It took only an hour for the three police officers to check the records. Surprisingly, there was also a halfling thief named Harris in the registration records at the back door. The time difference between the two entering Vic Town was only half Hours.

"There's something wrong with this Harris!"

Xingge looked solemn, and turned to Harpy: "Go and report what we found to Sheriff Cook!"

"Okay," the Harpy flapped her wings and flew away.

The kobold turned to the jackal at the side: "Bula, let's look for this halfling named Harris first, let's start from the tavern in Vic Town, most outsiders stay in hotels and pubs, and halflings like to be lively." And good wine, the probability of living in a tavern is higher, and according to the halfling's bragging personality, he should not be difficult to find."

The Gnoll agreed.

The two walked along the street to the nearest tavern.

As Xingge said, bragging halflings are not hard to find.

In the second tavern, they found their target, a halfling whose cheeks were flushed from drinking.

Although Harris drank a lot of alcohol, he was not drunk. He was very conscious and calm: "You said, I was involved in a serial theft case?"

"My friend, today is not April Fool's Day."

Xingge stared into the halfling's eyes solemnly: "Do you think we are joking with you! Please answer my question seriously, three nights ago, two nights ago, last night, where were you? "

The halfling also sensed something was wrong, and frowned, "Three days ago, I just arrived in Vic Town. After a long journey, I ate at the tavern, then went to take a shower and went to bed."

"In the past two days, I have been wandering around the town during the day, and at night I have been drinking, bragging, and sleeping in the tavern."

Xingge kept observing the expression of the halfling, and felt that he didn't seem to be lying, so he moved his mouth to the wolf man's ear and whispered a few words.

The jackal nodded, then stood up and left, walked to the tavern counter and chatted with the boss.

Not long after, the jackal fetched a pen and paper, and nodded at the kobold.

Xingge took the pen and paper, and sent the pen and paper to the halfling thief: "Come on, draw something casually."

The halfling didn't know why, but he did it anyway. After thinking about it, he picked up a pen and drew on the paper his favorite apple.

Xingge picked up the apple drawn by the halfling, and frowned slightly. The style revealed in the handwriting of the apple was completely different from the grimace pattern left by the thief.

Of course, this doesn't completely remove the halfling's suspicion.

Thief is a skilled profession, and the ability to control the details of muscles is the crown of all professions. Many people can forge different styles of text.

Xingge asked the halfling thief a lot of questions, and the halfling thief answered fluently, and the results of the jackal's verification with the tavern owner and drinkers were also completely consistent.

"Let me ask you another question, have you ever lost your adventurer certificate?"

The halfling frowned slightly: "What do you mean?"

"I found another halfling named Harris at the back door of Vic Town. He is also a high-level thief like you. I suspect that this person has stolen your identity."

"Officer, I remember!"

The halfling patted the table: "A week ago, my adventurer certificate was inexplicably lost once, but it came back later. I always thought it was a prank, and I didn't take it to heart. My relationship stole my identity..."

"etc!"

Xingge was keenly aware of the problem: "You mean, after your adventurer certificate was lost, it came back?"

"That's right."

The halfling—Harris looked at the wooden beams at the top of the tavern, and recalled: "It was seven days ago, when I was still in the Triangle Plain, I stayed at the Arrow and Cat tavern on Saint Casey Street, that night , I drank some wine, but I dare to swear, I am not drunk!"

"Officer, you know, in our thieves' business, the most important thing is to keep a clear head at all times, otherwise you don't know what happens or how you die."

"So, although I like good wine, I will never get drunk."

Xingge nodded: "Well, then?"

"Then my adventurer certificate disappeared! My God! I thought I was hallucinating! I am a high-level thief! Someone can steal my personal adventurer certificate right under my nose!"

"Officer, you have to keep this matter a secret for me, my famous name!"

"Don't worry, we have been professionally trained, no matter how funny it is, ahem," the kobold coughed twice: "No, we will definitely keep the victim's secret, and then, how did the adventurer certificate come back?"

The halfling thief's face was as black as the bottom of a pot: "I was also puzzled. The next day, the adventurer's certificate appeared in my pocket again."