[The act of getting information out of a person or group,

Typically involves violence, but not always.]

“Why are you here?!” The bandit shouted as he stumbled forward to the front of the group, directing his question at Oroske. He was a young man, no older than twenty, with ratty blue hair.

Oroske looked the bandit up and down and thought to himself for a moment, before finally asking, “Do I know you?”

The bandit looked depressed by the question, but shook his head, “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to remember. It was a few years ago. You came to my village and ‘took care of’ a bunch of bandits that were harassing us.”

“Oh, right.” Oroske paused, “Gonna be honest, I don’t know for sure I remember you specifically. Around that time I was beating up a bunch of different groups, so they all blended together in my mind. Regardless, you say I saved your people from bandits, yet here you are as a bandit yourself?”

The man looked down in shame, “I didn’t really have a choice. A year later, my current camp came to my home village and preached about their campaign to gain ‘true freedom.’ We were free to choose if we went with them or not. We were promised the freedom to live free of laws and that we wouldn’t be harming people. Our village elders accepted, and the village became our new camp. Up until recently, that was the truth. Then that woman showed up, and made offers we couldn’t refuse.”

“Woman? You mean the person funding and supplying your camp?”

“Yes. I’ve never heard her name, but the chief sometimes refers to her as the ‘Demon Lord.’”

“Demon Lord, huh? Not the best taste, but at least it’s concise. What were these offers made?”

“The first ones, you already know about: money and supplies. We’re being given a consistent stream of venn that’s more than enough for us to keep our entire camp fed and happy. And on top of the supplies needed to perform the jobs she asks of us, she’s supplying us with clothing, raw materials, weapons, and any other supplies we may ask for.

“But the big one, the main reason we went along with her: she said that if we follow her and her companions, we would be given all the freedom we could ever ask for.”

“I see, I see.” Oroske said while thinking to himself. He turned to Meia, “Any new information yet?”

Meia shook her head, “That they are calling themselves ‘Demon Lord’ is news to me, but otherwise nothing.”

“I’ve told you pretty much everything I know. Most of it I only know from eavesdropping, whether intentional or by coincidence.”

“Gotcha.” Oroske leaned forward and got serious. “I’ll tell you what, I can cut you a deal. If you tell us where your camp is, we can help you cut ties with this ‘Demon Lord.’ It sounds like you don’t want to hurt people, and if your camp was founded with that as a core principle, I’m inclined to believe most of your people don’t want to either. We’d simply go in, beat people up, and interrogate your chief directly.”

“Will you kill anyone?”

“Not intentionally. We’ll do our best to only temporarily incapacitate, but I cannot promise everyone will come out of it alive.”

The man thought to himself for a moment, then looked to his companions. “What do you guys think?”

The first to answer was a slightly younger looking man with very short blonde hair, boldly saying, “I don’t know about you two, but I don’t like the direction things are going at home. I say we should take the offer.”

The younger girl, who was either my age or a little younger - maybe a little older, and just looks young - remained silent and just looked scared. I felt a little bad, I got the feeling she was just dragged into this mess.

“I feel the same,” the man said after a moment, “We’ll take it. What do we get in return?”

Oroske leaned onto the back of the couch with a smile. “Good choice. Not only will we gain the information we need to deal with this ‘Demon Lord,’ we will work to help you and yours reintegrate into regular society. We will do everything we can to assist in ensuring you retain your freedoms. All parties will probably have to be happy with some level of compromise.

“But I can promise you that your village will be granted ample opportunity to earn an honest living. Does that sound like a good enough offer?”

The oldest of the bandits took a moment to think before speaking, “I’d hate to make any sort of promises on behalf of our chief, but I think they’ll understand.” He bowed his head, “Please, help put my people back on the right path.”

“With pleasure. All I need from you now is the location of the camp.”

At his request, the woman accompanying Meia procured him a map of the Realm. Her two companions were eerie to witness. Dressed entirely in black, with everything but their figure hidden. No skin color, eye color, or hair color were visible. On top of that, aside from the one that spoke when they came into the conference chamber, I never heard any of them speak.

The man inspected the map closely, taking time to figure out the scaling of the map and where exactly along the road the camp was located. Eventually he asked “Would they be able to take this map with them? I think it’ll be easier if I write some directions and notes for them.” Meia approved and gave him a pen. He began drawing on the map, in the forest near Oru’ou. Once finished, he handed the map to Oroske, who inspected the notes closely.

“Not as detailed as I’d like, but it’ll do.” He sounded satisfied.

“It’s hard to get things exact when the landmarks I usually look for aren’t on the map,” the bandit explained.

“I get it. In truth this map is probably better than I could have made,” he said so earnestly. “I appreciate your cooperation with this matter. I’ll ensure you and yours are treated well, and are able to return home soon. And when you do return, it’ll be a home to be proud of.” Oroske then turned to Meia, “Get these kids some proper clothes and food. If you insist on it, I’ll pay for it all myself. We are to leave Ish’din tomorrow morning. I’ll discuss the plans of attack with the other Clans and Lords. Will that be alright with you?”

“That will be fine.” Meia responded flatly.

“How are you feeling about things, Raen?”

“The fact there is even a singular person trying to adopt the moniker of ‘Demon Lord’ is a tad worrying. This matter could very well be much larger than we thought,” Raen said, “As such, I am more than willing to take this detour on our way back home. I’m sure my men will follow along with it as well. It’s the other Lords and Clans I’m worried about, I fear it may just be our two groups.”

Oroske and Kared seemed to be in agreement with his conclusion. With plans arranged, we left the palace. The bandits were kept in that room by Meia and her crew, and we were uninvolved with anything else that happened to them.

“I will say, my initial impressions of your family have been proven wrong again and again,” Raen said as we exited the building. “I had assumed you would have violently interrogated them to get as much information as possible.”

Oroske laughed, and Kared responded “Depending on the situation and person in question, it very well could have gotten violent.”

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, ending as usual with us back at the hotel.

—

Or rather, it should have been uneventful. A few hours after we had gone to bed, when everyone was deep asleep, I was suddenly woken up by a loud bang, followed by searing pain in my stomach. It took me a moment to regain my bearings, and once I had I realized I was brought into a different room. The lights were all turned off, and I was only able to see because of the moonlight pouring in through the window. I put my hand to my stomach to inspect the pain, and was horrified to feel a hole in my shirt, with blood oozing out of my body from the same spot. I felt dizzy. Someone, who I assumed was the one who gave me the wound, walked in front of the window. Seeing their silhouette, a tall figure with long, rabbit-like ears, terrified me. My fears were confirmed when I heard her voice.

“Sorry, Kuro. It’s nothing personal, just doing my job.” Kared’s voice was quiet and ice-cold. The small, cylindrical weapon in her hand disappeared and was quickly replaced by a long, slightly curved sword.

I summoned my own sword, and prepared to defend myself. I was nearly too slow, only just making it to block her first blow, which involved her launching herself at me with incredible speed. While I would say I managed to block it, I still got nicked in my right shoulder as I only really blocked my left side and chest.

She absolutely had the strength advantage, and her weapon was significantly longer than my own. The warning she gave me in the City of Towers echoed in my mind. If I don’t fight seriously, I’ll definitely die here. Hell, I might die even if I fight at full strength.

I had been passively training myself to use acceleration whenever I had the opportunity, and had used it a couple times in sparring matches, so that was my first thought. As soon as Kared bounced off from my block, I Accelerated to my limit. Admittedly, it wasn’t very much, but I needed any edge I could, and as much time I could get to think. Why is she attacking me? She said it was for ‘her job,’ but I doubt Danfis would have her kill another member of the Clan. So it has to be from the Crimson Twilight, right? My mind ran at an incredible speed, but I couldn’t come up with a good answer.

I took a step forward to begin my counterattack. I sent concentrated selr into my sword’s blade, and augmented the speed of the slash further with a blast of sentem. She blocked my strike with little to no effort, holding her sword from above my head, blade traveling down vertically.. I had commanded the selr on my weapon to follow through with the swing after being blocked, but it either didn’t faze her, or she was able to neutralize it somehow. In the span of that split second she had reacted, and matched my level of acceleration.

She carried her sword upward, transitioning from blocking to parrying my strike. The length of her blade allowed for the tip to cut into my chest, and the blade got a good distance into my right arm. I tried to recover as quickly as I could from the parry, but before I could regain my footing, she delivered a sharp punch to my ribs, right where she’d cut a moment before. It felt like she broke them.

I fell to my knees, putting my right hand on my chest in a feeble, futile attempt to stop the pain. “This ends now.” Kared kicked my face, causing me to fall on my back. She flipped her sword around so she held it in a back-hand grip. The door to the room swung open as she plunged the blade into my stomach, as my vision blurred.

I heard Oroske yelling, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then I blacked out.

—

When I came to, I had been moved onto a bed, and the lights were on. My head was pounding and my chest, arms, and face were incredibly sore. I felt like I was on the verge of passing out again. I heard Oroske and Kared talking. It took a second for any of the conversation to actually register in my mind.

“...-ilight. It was part of the conditions for our deal with that fat nobleman. All they wanted me to do was identify and kill the Tsumi’s Chosen One.” Kared’s statements were the first I could make out.

“And why would they want you to do that?” Oroske questioned angrily.

Kared hesitated, “You’ll know when it’s time to know. Just know it’s likely not what you think.”

While I couldn’t see, I could hear Oroske’s annoyance in the sounds he made and his voice. “Well, fine. Either way, you know as well as I do it can’t be Kuro. Not only do we know who it actually is, we know it quite literally can not be him.”

“But-”

“No ‘buts.’ Just because you can’t bring yourself to kill Jarou doesn’t give you any sort of excuse to kill someone else.”

“I was careful! I made sure we would be able to revive him!” Kared sounded like she was angered by Oroske’s accusation.

“Yeah, and you’re lucky I was here. Otherwise you would have been stuck hauling his body, on foot, all the way back to Tsumi’din.”

I couldn’t make out anymore of the conversation, and blacked out again shortly after.