Torture as an interrogation tool, despite what many shows and stories from Esperanza’s previous world portrayed, was unreliable at best when it came to acquiring information. People were either trained too well to withstand them or simply reached the point where they would say anything that they thought might please their tormentor and thus lighten the torment. Neither situation resulted in reliable information worth a damn.
On the other hand, when one had direct access to a person’s very soul and could see what made them tick, it was surprisingly easy to tell when someone was lying or otherwise. Esperanza learned that firsthand as she used [Soul Manifestation] to materialize some of the souls of the Temple Guards and priests killed in their ambushes, both the ones in the dungeon and the ones from the valley and interrogate them for information.
It turned out that people were suddenly a lot more talkative when they realized that their souls were in your grasp and that you could do whatever you wanted to it. Organizations and nations regularly trained people to not fear death, but they rarely if ever trained them for what happened after death. Most labored under the conviction that their souls would depart to the promised afterlife and bask in the holy presence of their gods and all that.
To have that notion denied so strongly by what likely counted as a heretical abomination in their eyes was likely a great shock to them.
Of course, even with such an approach many remained stubborn, especially the older priests and guards, but Esperanza could feel how many of the younger ones were shocked to the core at their unexpected ending and “afterlife”. As such, she made a show of devouring one of the older, stubborn souls to fuel her other skills before the younger ones to shock them, and to show that their situation could get even worse if she had the mind to make it so.
She had plenty of old, stubborn souls to use up for such demonstrations anyway, and since she caught on to snippets of the enemy’s conversation during the fighting, she had a very educated guess on which of the old priests and guards were important ones. Those she kept safe in case they might prove useful one day, and the ones with less use, she turned into examples as needed.
After all, it was not like she needed great details about where these enemies came from, as they already had an inkling to that. What information they needed, like the more detailed background of the monastery’s activities and the path to take there, were readily available once some sufficiently intimidated souls of the younger guards and priests started talking.
And what Esperanza learned from those souls just hardened her resolve to burn the place to the ground.
On the surface, accepting orphans and other poor children who lacked support because they either had no parents or were unwanted by said parents were a good thing, charitable, even. The Monastery mostly recruited from the ranks of such unfortunate children, typically claiming only youths under the age of twelve as new members.
The problem was what they did to those youths after they joined the Monastery in question.
Esperanza had expected the indoctrinization. It would be strange if the sort of religion that the temple ran did not pull off that trick on their followers while they were still young and gullible. That was par for the course when it came to religions, pretty much. What she could neither accept nor tolerate was what they did to those kids beside that.
Other than being indoctrinated as expected, the children were also subjected to various grueling trials that stressed their physical and mental capabilities to the breaking point. The Monastery like the one where the forces Esperanza fought came from were the backbone of the militant arm of the temple, where they trained their elite zealots, and they accepted only the best into their ranks.
What that meant was that for every ten children taken in by such monasteries, only one to three – if the group happened to be fortunate – would survive to even be inducted to the temple guard elite order. Their trials and training were not just grueling, but also dangerous, and fatalities were commonplace, considered an “acceptable” price, even, by the trainers in question.
Needless to say, Esperanza vehemently disagreed with the temple’s stance on that particular matter, as the young, talkative priest she interrogated found out as his soul was nearly obliterated as a side effect of her emotional fluctuations.
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Incidentally, that young priest was an exception amongst the people from the monastery. He was brought there and enjoyed the benefits of elite training because he was the son of the Bishop. It was the other way to be part of the monastery, for the temple to directly send them there for further training, though in this case they would already be adults by the time they were sent over.
Of course, some of the temple’s higher-ups would send their own talented relatives there as a form of nepotism, often with the hopes of leaving the family another pillar of support for the next generation. While the members sent by the temple for further training usually got along swimmingly with those raised and trained in the monastery, those who were relatives of powerful people amongst the clergy tended to look down upon others, as they viewed themselves as higher than the rest.
After she heard what the captured souls had to say, all Esperanza wanted to do was to rush over to the monastery these temple guards and priests came from and flatten the place until there was no sign of it ever having existed.
Of course, given the distance – they were around a week away from the monastery’s location, by Esperanza’s best guess from the information she received – they would need to plan things out first, as it required a detour from their planned path. Fortunately the monastery itself was situated in a rather secluded spot, which eliminated the need for secrecy when dealing with the place.
Using maps they took from the dead temple guards, Esperanza asked the scouts of the group to plot out a course that would allow them to avoid any human settlements along the way, which given the relatively remote regions, were fortunately few and far between. The task had not taken them long, and after a quick calculation, the route they would need to take, even with the extra detours to avoid inhabited areas, would only take an extra day or so compared to the route that the temple guards had followed.
None of the group even tried to dissuade Esperanza from what she had in mind. For them, followers of the usurper new gods were the enemy, and if it was within their power to hurt said enemy without unnecessarily risking their own well-being, they would only be too happy to do so. The relationship between Oldies and the new gods were irreconcilable, after all.
Esperanza wondered for a moment if her action would affect Alissa and her group’s situation, but decided that since they already took care of so many third and fourth tiers, they might as well carry on. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that, and besides she was quite confident that if Alissa was to find out what the monastery did to the children they took in, the girl would likely want to burn the place down herself.
As for who to blame for the attack, some of the group’s old equipment which they replaced with better things from their dead enemies were similar to what the demons typically used, and thus could be broken and discarded, left behind as “evidence” of a battle against demons having taken place. It would hopefully throw off anyone looking for the perpetrators from Esperanza’s group, though she had no plans to stick around the region for too long anyway.
From the souls she managed to interrogate, Esperanza knew that the monastery originally housed over three hundred people, so even with those they already killed removed from the equation, they would still need to deal with around two hundred and fifty more people once they reached the location. Fortunately, there were a couple of extenuating circumstances for them
For one, the monastery had neither civilian staff nor unrelated people, with all the tasks and chores that needed to be done dealt with by the people that lived there. Of course, it was always those with lower ranks who had to deal with such chores, like the newly inducted children for example. That meant that Esperanza’s group would have no need to hold back due to civilians being around.
Another fortunate thing was that the monastery usually only took in children in groups every ten years or so, and the next planned intake was for the following year, which meant that there were no innocent children left in the present monastery, only indoctrinated zealots. Esperanza doubted that she could have directly made a move on young, innocent children, even if her end goal was to end the world, so she was glad that such a scenario was not even present in this case.
Last but not least, Esperanza and her group had already dealt with the strongest members of the monastery. According to what the people she interrogated knew, there should be no more than one fourth tier combatant left in the monastery, an old training officer well past their prime who was already growing weaker due to age.
Other than that, while everyone in the monastery had combat-related classes, the remaining ones were only in their early to mid third tiers, with some of the younger ones even still in their second tiers. They basically stood no chance whatsoever against Esperanza’s group of mostly fourth tiers, to the point that Esperanza considered ransacking and slaughtering the place while having those who were still in their third tiers – a couple of Ani’s people and the youths from Zikeal – to do the fighting since they could get the most experience out of it.
Of course, they wouldn’t let them do it all on their own, and the rest of the group would be there as well to keep them safe while taking care of the fourth tier and any late third tier enemies that happened to be left behind. When told of the planned arrangement, Ani’s people replied enthusiastically, while those from Zikeal were noticeably more nervous.
Kurt, Leo, and Tiara had some experience with hunting, and fought a little to support the rest of the group during the ambush, on top of their experience in the dungeon. They had yet to fight an opponent head-on to date, however, and it was understandable that the three were nervous about it. Of course, the knowledge that they would have fourth tier people watching over them and keeping them safe helped, but they remained somewhat nervous all the same.
Just to be safe, Esperanza also asked the others to help train the three with the use of their weapons while they were on the way south. The group made their way towards their destination at a rather leisurely pace because of that, traveling only between sunrise and sunset, while they helped the three Zikealian youths train during the evening before they slept.
Nearly two weeks flew by just like that as the group continued their travel at the leisurely pace before their destination appeared in their sight. The monastery they were after was built on the side of a small mountain, and they had to circle around the mountain to see the steep staircase carved into the stone that lead towards the austere building set roughly mid-mountain.
The group’s scouts along with Ilavakide had gone ahead and climbed the mountain ahead of the rest as they positioned themselves around the monastery, where they kept watch for runners and escapees. Meanwhile, the rest of the group went up the stairs openly, without even the slightest intention to hide their nature or intent.