There were ten cloaked warriors in total, sprinting with haste towards me. It would certainly be an impressive scene to the bystanders. I took a look around and was greeted by faces filled with shock at the blatant attack on an inspector of god. Some looked on with admiration, and others with disgust. Everyone has their own opinions on these kinds of things, and that’s understandable, but whether their opinions are right is for the church to decide.

The cloaked warriors were only a small distance away from me now. The crowd had taken the initiative to clear the way and began to watch from the side-lines of the yard, so as to avoid any threat of injury in the crossfire. Of the 10 men, 3 would be about the level of a B rank adventurer and the other 7 around C rank. Not too shabby, but certainly not enough. Shouldn’t they have come more prepared? Inspectors of god are all at least around B rank. Perhaps it was more of a rash decision born from fury. In that case, this interruption may not have been calculated, and these fellows may simply be a patrolling group who came across the event.

The first of the group finally reached me. It was the old fellow who had spoken out, ridiculing myself and interrupting the occasion. Can’t let him off too easy. As he lashed out with a horizontal swing with his short sword, I ducked beneath the blade and gave a rap to both his kneecaps with my knuckles as I slid past the fellow. Of course, with now shattered knee caps, the old man could only fall to the floor in agony. Can’t walk too well without kneecaps in the end.

My actions managed to cause some hesitation before the next few launched an attack. They approached the situation more cautiously the second time around, attacking in small groups. Of course, these heretics weren’t really a match for me. If they were mostly B rank with a few A ranks, then they could give me a bit of trouble. Perhaps the organisation does have such forces. After all, from the frenzied swipes of the warriors it was quite clear that the fools had acted without any clear strategy or orders. I mean, who goes about just rushing at their enemy and hoping to get away with it? That’s just irresponsible.

I casually swayed out of the way of their strikes, occasionally parrying a blade when I had to; I mean I’m not flexible enough to dodge four attacks at once. Their style of fighting reminded me of somewhat of how many mercenary bands operate, but it also felt reminiscent to the teamwork displayed by soldiers. Are they deserters per chance? What dastardly fiends, abandoning their duty in the righteous war against whoever-we-had-decided-was-the-most-heretical-country-this-year, and preying upon these poor city people who just want to live their lives in peace under the guidance of Sol. They’re obviously doing their best to brainwash these poor folk and have them form some sort of large scale cult devoted to unholy things, like equality and what not.

In my anger I finally struck out at one of the warriors, piercing his heart with a swift and clean lunge. I didn’t need them all alive after all; I’ll just keep the B rank fellows alive for now. With that said, I became blur of lunges, swipes and kicks to the crotch. It was rather amusing when that fellow died from the crotch kick, although granted, it did shatter his spine if the deformed back is anything to go by. Next thing you know there were the two still standing B rankers surrounded by the corpses of their comrades. I personally would have liked to send them all off to Sol, but keeping them around and captured just for that would’ve required a bit more effort than I would have liked.

The two remaining heretics looked around, stunned by what met their eyes. Well that’s what you get when you rush out unprepared to fight an opponent you’ve clearly underestimated. How happy go lucky can these fellows be? My blade had gotten quite drenched in heretic blood by this point, so I took the moment of reprieve to wipe it down a little. In contrast to the blade, my uniform hadn’t gotten a single speck of blood. You tend to see stains on white after all, so surprisingly enough back in inspector school one of the classes was to learn how to avoid dirtying your clothes in combat. We all learned relatively fast considering what would be staining us was actually quite the strong acid. I remember that was the day that we nicknamed that one kid Burny (his name was Bernard), hehehe. He didn’t find it very funny though; he even started breaking down after the incident. Hehehe, you don’t need a face to be an inspector, never did figure out why he was so upset.

Where was I? Oh yes, the heretics. I looked over, depositing my handkerchief back into my pocket, and saw the two of them standing there, one bristling with rage and the other absolutely terrified. Quite the contrast between the two, huh. The crowd had been silent for the duration of the fight, most likely looking on with awe at the skilled display that very few would ever be able to see in their lifetime. I mean, how many high-levelled battles do you see in the streets these days? I started to slowly walk over to where the two were standing, amidst the efficiently executed heretics. I made sure that my steps avoided the pooling blood that leaked from the bodies, making it look like a rather unnatural swaying walk as I approached them.

Surprisingly the awkward trip resulted in an extremely pale heretic, and even Mr angry over there started to look creeped out. I skipped over the next large puddle of blood, and the two began to turn tail. No, you don’t do that in a fight. They started this confrontation, so isn’t it only honourable for them to stay for the entire duration? I gave lazy wave of my hand, manipulating some of my magical energy as I did so and bound them in place with chains constructed of light.

They were quite panicked now. It must be quite terrifying to have a masked man walking towards you amidst the corpses of your friends. The fight wasn’t especially challenging in the end. It was rather dull, not that I don’t enjoy slaughtering heretics, don’t get me wrong; it just felt rather anticlimactic. Hopefully the activities that come after will be more entertaining. When I got to the two, they put a bit of a struggle but a few light blows to the head and they were out for the count. My physical strength really has improved. At least I probably won’t be having too much trouble with any human or demi-human enemies in the future, as long as they’re not some super famous and skilled warrior or something like that.

No true tension ever entered the fight; if you’d watched from the side lines you would’ve known how it was going to end from the beginning. They hadn’t a chance in the world. I looked back at the now dead heretic elf, her corpse rather crispy from the flames now. It was a shame that the event was interrupted in the end. I felt a bit depressed at the entire sequence of events. Sure I’d found a new way to make use of my time, but this was supposed to be perfect. Things rarely go to plan. People have different interests and always end up interfering with others. Isn’t it all so selfish? Damn heretics always causing so much trouble. This is why they get hunted down! I mean, why do they need to worship a different religion, or rebel against the worship of Sol? It doesn’t make any sense. If they don’t resist then there’s no conflict. But wait… if there’s no conflict and no heretics, I’d be out of a job… I guess the world does need heretics.

Soon the guards arrived on the scene. They were a bit late in the end weren’t they? Luckily they managed to redeem themselves by helping me carry the 3 captives to the local barracks where they’d be put into cells. Once we manage to reach our destinations, we’ll be having a friendly chat.

We reached the barracks, a boring, grey, old building with no distinct or noteworthy architectural features. It was almost too plain. Well, whatever. Before long I entered the first prisoner’s cell. The old man. I’d removed my mask by this point. It would be rude to interrogate the fellow with a mask on, and so I also took the liberty of removing his scarf, and was greeted by an old, grizzled sod. Scars ran down his face and his eyes drooped as they unwaveringly gazed at my face. His wrinkles weren’t those of a smiling man; he may never have smiled in his entire life, how sad. He just gave off that kind of vibe; an old, depressed man trying to do something with his life before it came to an end. I started off the meeting with a large smile and a warm greeting.

“It’s nice to properly make your acquaintance old fellow. We’ll be getting know one another for the next few hours, so make yourself comfortable before we begin! Those chains may be uncomfortable, but remember they’re for your own safety. Wouldn’t want you flailing around and hurting yourself too badly after we get started.”

The old man gave me a rebellious gaze, not a single word leaving his mouth. His lips were tightly pressed shut. My smile began to widen into a grin and I proceeded to take out my tool kit. Where to begin with this fellow? I randomly picked out the chisel from the set of tools. This’ll do.

I approached him and tried to get a hold of his hands which were chained in front of him, but unfortunately the guy wasn’t being very cooperative, so in the end I had to use more force than I liked to, to restrain him while I went about the deed. These guards should invest in a full body restraint table. Those things are great! They just make life so convenient.

I had the chisel nicely lined up underneath one of his fingernails. The old man’s eyes started to widen in panic, but despite his struggling, his lips remained sealed. I then reached over to the tool kit and got the small hammer that usually accompanied the chisel. I gave my lips a lick before continuing. I lined up the hammer with the chisel and gave it a light tap. The old man grunted in pain, holding back any screams. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be too painful yet. The chisel had only gone under about of a third of the nail.

Another light rap. Two thirds of the way there! Blood started to seep from under his nail, and the old man’s face turned slightly pale as he saw I had one more strike before that digit was done.

Final strike and off comes the nail. Well, almost. It sort of broke a bit and was hanging on by a small piece of flesh. Of course, I couldn’t leave any nail behind, so I just got some tweezers and started to yank out the fragments, merrily humming as the old man’s grunts started to become more and more exaggerated.

Like this I continued. Nail by nail. 3 light raps of the hammer and off they come. The old man was getting paler and paler, before long the grunts turned into yelps of pain. He did his best to hold himself back. What a fine effort. Unfortunately everyone has a tolerance level. It doesn’t really matter how much pain I inflict, as long as it’s inflicted for long enough. After hours or even days, that same, once tolerable pain will become the bane of your existence. You slowly come to focus more and more on the pain, until eventually it becomes your whole world. That’s when the begging begins. The begging for mercy, to stop the pain. They were always messes at that point; snivelling, sobbing, etc.

The old man didn’t really seem like the type to just give up after experiencing some short lasting, but excruciating pain. No doubt from his wounds, he’d been tortured before. Probably captured by enemy forces; it was pretty much guaranteed that he was a deserter. He had been whipped, the skin off his back flayed. They had driven nails into his joints. They had branded him. He had suffered through a lot, and wasn’t a broken man. Strange. So of course, I’d take a different approach.

No matter how many hours or days, I’ll keep the pain barely within his tolerance level, until his life becomes pain. He’ll start to lose his sanity shortly afterwards. This wasn’t the brutal method that had left chuckles in shambles, but the slow and methodical chipping away at an old man’s sanity. Soon hours passed. I’d heal and regrow the fingernails and toenails, only to slowly peel them off again, and again. Some may think the work would’ve been boring, but I could never lose my fascination with this kind of stuff. It’s part of who I am.

As time passed, the old man’s reactions to the same pain over and over became more and more exaggerated. I think I’d also inflicted a bit of psychological damage with endless happy tunes I would hum as I took each nail off, slowly and carefully. Simply mutilating the fellow isn’t what I need to do now; he needs to be worn down for the information I need.

I never asked a single question, just waiting for the old man with bloodstained fingers to come forward and tell me what I need to know. This type of torture always put me in such a calm frame of mind. I truly struggled to be as jovial as I normally was when doing this kind of long-term torture.

After an entire 24 hours the old man broke. I was expecting him to last longer to be honest. He was rather disappointing in the end. It was clear when his yelps had turned into agonised wails and tears started flowing down his face, that the old man had reached the breaking point.

“P-please stop. N-no more, I can’t take any more. Please. I don’t know much; my only contact is the weapons dealer from the ‘sword and shield’ store.” Said the old man, his voice quivering as he gave me all that he knew. That was quite a bit of effort for such a vague lead. Perhaps the others would have more for me…

The heretic looked rather ashamed of himself. His expression told a tale of some sort of internal conflict. Probably telling himself that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with what information he had. Lying to yourself is no good. Inspectors are rather good at following leads you know. Even if your buddies weren’t nearby, I’d still track all of you down.

I simply smiled at him and stopped the repetitive motions I had been making for the past few hours. The heretic sighed with relief, his tensed muscle finally relaxing. The relief didn’t last for long though; the heretic gasped with pain when he saw my scalpel digging deeply into his guts. Business was done, so time for some fun!