Chapter 142

RMSBS – Episode 142 . Tracing the Attack (6)

Desir’s party had gathered in a hotel room .

The windows were covered with black cloth, allowing no sunlight to enter, and soundproofing magic had been deployed to prevent the sound of the interior from leaking out . The furniture had also been pushed against the walls already .

Desir sat in a chair and watched the Fifth-Circle wizard from the lab, Totlina .

She was tied up tightly to the chair by rope and glared at Desir with a venomous look .

She had already abandoned all further attempts at resistance against them .

After coming back to her senses, she originally made a few attempts . She had even attempted to use magic, but every time she tried to, Desir just inverted her spell . A wizard unable to invoke magic was simply helpless, so she couldn’t do anything else to resist . The spells inversions also served the purpose of breaking her spirit .

“There’s a lot I’d like to ask you . ”

Desir spoke softly .

“If you want to live, you’d better answer the questions without a hitch . ”

Totlina still had a cynical look on her face .

“What if I don’t want to answer?”

“Then I’ll have no choice but to resort to torture . ”

“Do you really think you can open my mouth using such a crude method like torture?”

“That’s something you’ll have to see for yourself . ”

“Why don’t you just kill me? You won’t get any information from me, boy . ”

The thought of confessing due to ordinary torture didn’t even cross her mind . She was an army figure . From the onset of their career, once they demonstrated a certain amount of ability, defense against torture had been drilled into them .

“Then, I can’t help it . ”

Desir strolled around Totlina stopping behind her without any further words . He then tightly re-bound the rope that was restraining her . She would not be able to shake even the slightest in the chair now .

Totlina spoke after laughing maniacally .

“You know what? You’ve touched a force you shouldn’t have touched . You’ve made a very big mistake . ”

Instead of responding to her words, Desir put his hand on her back, after putting a gag in her mouth . These actions were performed swiftly and accurately, almost professionally .

“I’ve experienced this situation hundreds of times . They were all like you at first . ”

Desir had experienced this situation hundreds of times . The Shadow Labyrinth was different from the Shadow Worlds that humanity had started to get a good grip on, and the information regarding it was very scarce .

In an environment where intelligence gathering is of paramount importance, the act of interrogating prisoners soon became a routine .

To survive in the Shadow Labyrinth, to protect one’s companions, there was no room for mercy on the enemy . So the interrogation techniques developed over a decade in the hell of the Shadow Labyrinth were incomparable to those available in modern times .

Through Desir’s hand resting on her back, Totlina’s mana circle began to resonate with his mana . Totlina felt her mana move uncontrollably . Her mana circle trembled little by little .

The fine tremor began to grow little by little before eventually raging beyond containment . Her mana rotated like mad, threatening to cause her body to blow up .

“… Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Screams came from Totlina’s mouth . She had noticed what was happening to her .

The moment she realized it, her eyes turned bloodshot .

Circle Break .

A phenomenon in which a mana circle fails to overcome the excessive use of mana and is destroyed .

Desir was controlling the mana circle of Totlina, forcing the phenomenon to be induced .

Blood flowed out of her mouth as she screamed . An unimaginable burst of rage consumed Totlina .

She cried out .

Everything she had accumulated in her lifetime was being destroyed right now . Desir spoke, as if knowing how she felt .

“Don’t worry . You won’t feel the pain properly if I destroy it right now . ”

Her mana circles were resonating and causing tremors at the maximum frequency, just short of where they would explode . Desir kept her mana circle under tight control . The pain of the process was similar to one’s heart being torn apart .

“… Argh… !”

“This is probably the most pain you’ll experience in your entire life . Right now, one of your mana circles is about to blow up . ”

Unable to overcome the pain, Totlina’s eyes rolled up . But Desir would just leave it at just this much .

[Awaken]

Totlina’s mind snapped back into clarity .

[Concentration]

Her sense had been reactivated and heightened . Tortlina struggled, but her body was tightly bound to the chair . In the face of such physical pain, no matter how much the mind of a wizard was trained to withstand it, this was a pain she had never experienced an equivalent to in her life .

Desir removed his hand off her back and loosened the rope a bit . He then posed a question to her .

“Who led the study on Homunculus?”

“… It… It’s… ”

Totlina hesitated .

Desir, however, did not hesitate in the slightest . He immediately gagged her again and began manipulating her mana circles again .

“No… !”

The screams resounded again . Desir looked down at her dryly . It was a very businesslike look with no emotion at all .

It seemed to show that if he put his mind to it, he could repeat this forever . He eventually stopped the torture after a little while . While the actual time he could spend bringing her mana circle to a frenzy without having them explode was not too long, it felt like an eternity to her .

“Who led the study on Homunculus?”

“I’ll tell you… I’ll tell you, so please… stop… stop . ”

Desir gave her a moment to recollect herself .

Totlina was eventually able to pull herself together . When she was barely able to speak normally, she opened her mouth .

It was as if she was in a hurry to speak and not be involved anymore .

“It’s the King’s orders . The production of Homunculus is under the order of the King . The army just carries out the King’s orders . ”

“There’s no way he suddenly ordered the production of Homunculus without being given motivation to do so . ”

“The beginning of the plan came from a man that arrived from abroad . ”

Totlina began recollecting the series of events . A man from a foreign country arrived carrying a large fortune . He offered the King of the Magic Kingdom a promise at eternal life and asked for a private audience to discuss the finer details of the plan .

In the private meeting, the man became a faithful vassal of the King and proposed a plan to manufacture Homunculus .

“The creation of complete life . At first, no one believed the crazy story, but he showed us all the research he’d done so far . This proved the possibility of his work succeeding as well as its potential . The problem was that it was damn difficult to get the materials . ”

“That’s how the Homunculus manufacturing plan was implemented . Of course, experimenting with human life isn’t exactly ethical, so we carried out our research in secret… ”

“As a result, only a small number of people in the military know of the exact information . ”

[You have significant information behind the homunculus manufacturing plan . ]

Hearing the quest alarm sound served as confirmation that what he heard was true . The truth of the information had been understood to some extent . The mysterious man had already reached the very core of power in this kingdom .

Unfortunately, it seemed that he already had full control over the Magic Kingdom, ruling it from the shadows .

Knowing this much, Desir had one question remaining that had been bothering him for so long now .

‘How is such an important figure not known to the world?’

He has never heard of such a person in his previous life . It was hard to know exactly what happened when the leadership of a country was seized within a short period of time, and the existence of such a huge leader in the plan had not been publicly revealed at all .

“Tell me everything you know about that person . ”

“The prophet . He made others refer to him as that . And he is excessively rich . He’s also very unpleasant to look at, at a glance . I don’t know any other information besides that . ”

He asked for various other things, but she didn’t know anything else important about the Homunculus . The only things she learned while running a research institute were related to the daily operation of the lab and things she had learnt through her own research while reaching the Fifth-Circle .

“How did the Homunculus gain the power to ignore causality?”

Totlina opened her eyes wide .

“… You already know that much?”

“Answer my questions . ”

“I don’t know the exact reason . It requires cooperation between an alchemist and wizard to make a Homunculus . The power to ignore causality stems from the alchemy side . ”

Ruling out possibilities one by one, a sudden thought cropped up in Desir’s head .

“What does Kei Hazmaryun have to do with the manufacturing of Homunculus?”

“Kei Hazmaryun? Do you mean that sword-wielding jerk? Why are you curious about him?”

“… ”

“No, wait a minute! Don’t put your hands on my back! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you!”

She shouted, her body shaking as if she were having a fit, as Desir removed his hand . After a moment she gulped before answering .

“Kei Hazmaryun is a courier that delivers us material . They leave on expeditions to find rare material under the King’s command . He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for . ”

“He’s looking for materials without knowing what to look for… ”

“By the King’s order . ”

Desir recalled the conversation he heard upon landing in Altea…

* * *

“Commander Darren Aleph, we successfully obtained ingredients, so you don’t have to visit us like this . ”

“Well done for completing this mission with such a body that is utterly devoid of magic . ”

* * *

Only then did Desir understand what the conversation between Kei and Colonel Darren signified .

He was relieved . If he were the enemy, he would certainly have been the worst and the strongest foe they could likely encounter .

“Was the original main quest to carry the research materials of Homunculus? I guess this means both main quests revolved around the same issue after all . ”

While Desir was organizing his thoughts for a moment, Totlina spoke again .

“I told you everything I could . Stop asking me questions now . ”

“No, I still have one more thing to ask . ”

Desir, who had organized all of the information he had heard, spoke to Tortlina one again .

“The information you’ve been sharing so far, let’s go through it again from the beginning . ”

Desir asked Totlina again to confirm everything he had heard so far . Asking his questions again to determine the truth of the information, by ensuring that it was consistent with the previous answers .

As a result, slight differences emerged in parts of Totlina’s previous answers .

“I knew it . ”

“No, wait! It’s… It’s a… !”

Desir tortured her again whenever such a discrepancy appeared between her current answer and the first one .

—-

Chapter brought to you by CP .

???: …

ED2: Purplemen101

TLC: N/A (this could be you!)

QC: Dr Lock