[Tekoa Town]

It's been a few days since Rueben had been put into the position as captain of the town's brigade. Since then there had been new equipments funded by mayor Zoabi and even new members from the people chosen by mayor Zoabi himself. With the power over the security force of the town and even the power to enforce the laws, he is basically the de facto lawmaker of the town itself. Whatever he says was the law of the town.

It was the power and position he had dreamed of having aside from moving up the ranks as important officials within the towns politics. However despite all of this things at the palm of his hands, his deeds and reputation that he had made just to reach this spot can't he erased and ignored by people within mayor Zoabi's circle.

Basically since all his men are handpicked by the mayor himself, they all knew the underhanded means that Rueben had made just to reach his current power. Underhanded dealings with the special force, secret conversations with suspicious people, dirty deeds ordered by the mayor, abandoning his Captain at the crisis of danger, and even killing all his comrades in order to cover up his cowardice. With such deeds alone, he is literally one of the people who can be considered as dirty humans.

But due to his deeds his men who have gathered under his banner all are wary of him in the chance that he may backstab them or dispose of them when given a chance. In the eyes of his men, he is cruel, evil, and a person who can't be trusted at all.

Since he also has a track record of actually committing dirty deeds his own men held him accountable as they do as they please all over the town as they enforce their own hypocritical rule under the guise of his command. Due to this there were cases of the brigade doing extortion, destruction of property, lawlessness, and even sexual harassment, he can barely keep them under control. But whenever he tries to discipline them or even try to dispose of them due to insubordination, they will in turn turn over his dirty deeds to the townspeople which would destroy his reputation he had so hard to create, which would force mayor Zoabi to cut him off for the peace of the town.

Based on what he know of mayor Zoabi, he would not hesitate at all to cut anyone off if they gave him trouble.

He may have gotten all he ever wanted in his current situation, however due to his actions he had destroyed the town's order himself. Unlike the previous captain Ester, he can't seem to get his men's trust and support, and at this point in time, it was too late for him to try and get their trust due to the fact that his deeds were known.

If Captain Ester had established order due to his perseverance, he on the other hand destroyed order due to his selfishness. With that Rueben couldn't help but contemplate whether he did the right thing or not, in fact he even begun to feel guilt. If this was the result of his past actions, he want none of it.

What's more as if that wasn't enough for a problem, Mayor Zoabi who is known to be a sex maniac due to his high libido despite his age, has its sight on the previous captains wife. No matter what there is a limit to what he can tolerate, if mayor Zoabi wants him to dispose of some guys, he would do it, but if he ask to dispose of any women who has a child to take care off, he would literally hesitate to even follow such order.

After all before becoming independent the last person who tool care of him is his mother. Since he received all the love from her before she died, he somehow hesitant to even target any women who has a child since it always remind him of his mother who took care of him before he turned into this twisted monster. Due to his inability to force Ziv to accept mayor Zoabi's proposal, the person himself seemed disappointed in him and closed up on him for the time being.

With a heavy sigh, Rueben even wondered what to do in this situation and what would Ester do if by chance Mayor Zoabi desires his wife and boldly orders him the same order he had received.

On that moment while contemplating on this while waking in the dark road of the night, he then heard a bunch of men talking to each other while holding a child who seemed to be his previous captain's child.

"Sheesh! Mayor should had left us in there to spectate, why did he even ask us to leave.... what a turn off"

"Ah! Just leave it be! Mayor Zoabi just want to enjoy that womanall on his own, we'll get our chances"

"Then what should we do with my raging bones?"

"Your what? How did you get that?"

"I can't help man, that woman is too beautiful, have you seen her curves from behind, she is a top class I tell ya, just thinking about her want me to violate her hard all night"

"Well in that case... we still have this kid"

"Your serious? The hell man, it's just a kid"

"But it has a woman's parts, she can take it"

"The hell! Don't tell me your into kids"

"Na uh! I just heard that they were tight, I just want to experience it a little"

"Now that's tempting"

Hearing their conversation, Rueben couldn't help but describe it as disgusting, no matter what, their thoughts on what to do against the small child was sickening to the core, he may be a bad person but he was not that rotten to the core. With that little sense of guilt and attachments he had, he then walked out of the shadows and confronted the two guys.

"You should find a whole somewhere instead of the child"

"The hell who are you?"

"Don't you recognize me you little prick?"

The moment Rueben stepped into the light, the two guys who were holding unto Talia quickly recognized him as they were shocked at the same time quickly saluted towards Rueben who held a higher rank than them.

"Were sorry for our words captain Rueben, we didn't recognize you"

"At ease, I'll say this again, screw off if you dont want me putting a hole on your heads"

Hearing his threat, the two guys quickly saluted once more before hurrying out of sight from Rueben, after all he has a really bad reputation of disposing anyone who irritates him, since they don't want to die yet, they had no choice but to scramble away. With that, it then gave him space to talk to Talia.

"Hey there kid"

"Hey uncle! Who are you?"

"I'm Rueben! I'm your dad's subordinate"

"Really? Wow! By the way uncle, do you know when my dad's coming home? I kept asking mom but she won't answer me"

"... soon, he'll come back soon" hesitated by Rueben

"Thats great! I really miss him, you know I never got the chance to tell him how much I love him before he left, so I want to tell him the moment he returns home"

"I see, make sure to tell him when he comes back"

"I will"

"But what are you doing here? Where's your mom?"

"Mom? Oh she is with the old uncle inside the building alone, uncle said that he wants a private time with my mother"

Upon hearing that, a grim expression dawned on Rueben's face as he realized what had currently transpired in this place as he quickly looked at the building itself. If his hunch was right, Mayor Zoabi had taken things his hands. At last what he had feared had happened.

*********
[Outskirts of Tekoa Town]

At the forest just right outside Tekoa town, at that very exact time. While Asagi and the whole group were walking along the trail in the forest, she then suddenly felt a familiar but uneasy feeling, which gave her quite a goosebumps causing her to face the direction where she felt that uneasy feeling.

Unknown to her, she wasn't the only one who felt such uneasy energy. Azrael, Jophiel, Sato, Ban, and Asmaveth also felt what she felt, while at the same time facing the direction where they felt the uneasy feeling.

"What's in that direction?" Asked by Asagi pointing at the area beyond the trees on her right

"There? There's literally nothing there but more trees, what are you talking about?" Answered by Ester

"Are you sure?" Asked by Hero Sato while Asagi looked at him suspiciously.

"Yes I'm sure! I've been there a couple of times already, patrolled many times in that area, hunted countless times for food in that place, I know what's in there like an inside out, so I'm sure that it just has a bunch of trees" said by Ester quite confidently

In that moment while everyone became confused on how can that be, Asmaveth then shakily answered as he remembered what was in that area.

"Your lying... that's not true"

"Are you telling me that I'm a liar?" Retorted by Ester as he glared at Asmaveth

"I've been there, I know what's in there.... that's.... that's the place where they kept us, there... there is a ritual there.... a group of cultists... they killed everyone that was with me until one of us is alive... they were summoning something, and we were sacrifices"

"What the crap are you talking about this time? There's no ritual, there's no cult, there is no sacrifice... as I said, I've been there... if there was such a place I would've known about it first hand"

With that both Asmaveth and Ester argued on which one of them was telling the truth. Faced with such circumstances, Asagi and the rest were quite confused onwho was telling the truth or not, after all based on the tone on their voice and how they try to defend what they believe, it seems Like both of them were telling the truth. However that can't be the case at all since one of them has to be true.

As their heated argument begun to grow violent, Azrael quickly held back Asmaveth, while Zaheer pulled Ester away.

"This is going nowhere" said by Azrael

"Its either one of them is telling the truth or both of them are lying" said by Zaheer"

"It could also meant that both of them are stating the truth" suggested by Fujino which was further agreed by Ban and Hino

"This is troubling" commented by Sato

"I'm saying the truth, please believe me" begged by Asmaveth

"I'm putting my honor on the line, I know what I experiencedand there is literally nothing there" insisted by Ester while putting his reputation on the line

In such cases a logical and critical thinking would have been provided to answer such question. However by doing such a thing, she could ended up favoring the other, which would turn into bias based on another person's perspective. Such method would have been the logical choice if one is considered a leader. Unfortunately the term leader is something Asagi is not.

She may be a ruler and a queen, she may have led a kingdom to prosperity, but all of those were from creating connections and helping people based on her decisions which rely on her following her humanity. After all that's what she do best even before getting transferred into this world and what her original job in her old company. However in terms of making a decision which would scale one after the other, she was not that person at all. But despite all that, she always follow what she deems right when making her choices.

With that in her mind, she neither side with either of them and chose to believe what she see herself.

"Since we don't know which one of you is actually telling the truth, let's just see what's in that direction, after all to see is to believe... right?"

***ReadAtWebnovel***