The room dimmed, and the Dread Chamber interrogation commenced.
At first, there was a flicker. Then sparks of colour burst from the centre of the room, forming long streaks of light that weaved all over the white-haired man.
From the monitor room, Edris watched the glowing pigments spiral upwards, amalgamating with the ceiling auroras. These lights danced all around the room, illuminating the darkness.
Ace looked like a sculpture, unmoving yet ethereal, as he stood upright in the centre of the room. His eyes were unfocused as they trailed onto some invisible spectre, staring off into space.
Although the man appeared to be in a dazed state, he didn't seem to be in pain; this led Edris to believe that maybe Ace had actually taken his word to heart, allowing the Dread Chamber's intrusion into his mental space without resistance.
He found the thought baffling, considering the man's personality and how quick he was to disagree with everything Edris could possibly say.
Amidst his run-on thoughts, Edris noticed a flash of red turn towards him in his peripheral vision. Dolan was looking at him with a complicated expression, lips thinned into a straight line.
"Sorry about this."
Edris wasn't sure what prompted the Crown Prince's sudden apology, but he shook his head and told him not to worry about it. "It's the fastest and most effective way to prove his innocence, after all."
He veered his attention back to the interrogation process, only to realise the light surrounding Ace had dimmed; they flickered and waned, stripping away from his presence, inviting darkness's return. Edris watched as the white-haired man's silhouette become buried by the gloaming shadows.
As the final strand of light faded into oblivion, the glass window blurred. It took Edris a second to realise that what he thought was a one-sided window in the monitor room was actually also a full-length screen display.
Thick, glowing letters emerged on the glass screen.
> TARGET ANALYSIS COMPLETE. LOADING INSIGHTS NOW…
According to Saire Harkness’s words from earlier, this Dread Chamber was a replica of the original in the Risk Faction. Even though it lacked some features of the original, it was nonetheless sufficient for memory analysis.
This implied that Ace's entire lifetime, down to its most minuscule details, would be soon exposed to him.
Edris's head lifted, curiosity fully piqued as he leaned forward. His eyes locked on the screen, not unblinking but immersed as they intently awaited the reveal.
Long streaks of colour fluttered onto the screen in the shape of a narrow, rectangular strip. Looking closer, he could make out animated, smaller rectangles lined one after the other, seemingly extending without end.
Although blurred, each strip comprised a different combination of forms and colours as they flowed downward like wooden logs in a running stream.
One look at the moving figures gave away the identity of the strips on the screen—they were products of Ace's memories.
Elbows rested on the counter and hands clasped, Edris appeared just like an indifferent audience, retaining that calm countenance as he always did. It was his upturned lips that gave away his anticipation; a tilt so subtle but surely there, not quite smiling but tilting as they intend to.
Let's see who you really are, my ace card.
The accumulating suspense from the loading process made each passing second feel like hours. The flowing, rectangular strips on the screen endured everyone's gazes as they flickered and flowed, sorting out the input of memories for release.
Suddenly, the extending strip halted its course of movement, allowing one single rectangular scene to fill up the entire screen.
Ace's memories started off messy, full of incoherent scenes intermixed with one another; the rustling of trees, the closeup view of a fruit cart, the erupting voices of countless strangers—a rush of sensory details filled the screen, bringing about disorientation and hindering all logicality.
"Huh. This shouldn't be happening." Faren Ablemore studied the disconnected scenes with a frown. "Even though this Dread Chamber is incomplete, it never yielded such strange results."
"Broken?" Celio tilted his head.
"Wasn't 746 using it earlier? He didn't do anything to it, right?" Dolan blinked disorderly scenes compiling on top of one another.
Saire shook her head. "If there were a dysfunction, the Dread Chamber wouldn't be giving us half-assed results like this. It just wouldn't function at all."
Their remarks gave Edris an ominous feeling as he leaned by the counter, thinking. He'd already prepared himself to see Ace as a fetus in the womb, or something of similar imagery. Even if it wasn't something so vivid, Edris assumed at least some chronology or patterns in the output.
Not whatever was unfolding right now.
Was it because of Ace's amnesia? But even then, his memories still existed on an objective level. He just couldn't actively recall them back into his consciousness.
Or maybe something else was interfering with the Dread Chamber?
The current mishmash of scenes prompted several speculations to surface in Edris's mind, and none was leaving a good taste in his mouth.
Ever since the crazy guy from Nest said Ace looked familiar, Edris knew that he was no ordinary amnesiac. Given the white-haired man's strange personality, his capabilities, and not to mention, his unexpected affiliations with organisations like Nest, Edris realised that the secrets surrounding Ace were perhaps heavier and more dangerous than he could imagine.
All the reason why he needed to find out about Ace's past, so he'd know what he might be getting himself into.
Few things could prompt his interest, and discovering Ace's hidden secrets had become one of them. But with his initial expectations let down, the situation's progression had left Edris in a nettled mood.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
It was at that moment.
The patternless, obscured scenes began jittering on the spot, slowly regaining their focus. The audio of the memory outputs remained muddled, bringing the emphase to the visuals of the screen.
Ace's first memory surfaced into view.
"Oh, wait. I think it's working!" Celio exclaimed.
Everyone unknowingly edged closer, eager to make sense of the first clear-cut, comprehensible scene.
However, with five pairs of eyes glued onto the big screen, everyone found themselves staring at a familiar, pale face.
The room dropped dead silent.
At the same time, a million question marks flooded Edris's brain as he just stood there, face blank and as stiff a statue. A whole ten seconds passed in the still room as the group studied Ace's first fully-pieced memory.
In Edris's constricted pupils, the afterimage of the screen ran on, flickering. It felt as though his brain had suffered from a massive collision: the impact of his own face plastered, high-definition, on the screen.
"…"
Oh, how he wished to unsee this.
Different from his usual countenance, the face on the screen bore a look of pure confundity, with eyes widened, mouth hung open and all.
What’s worse, Edris knew exactly when this scene occurred; it was during their investigation at the Sect, the exact moment when Ace materialised into his human form.
At the time, he'd been completely taken back by the entity’s transformation that his usually controlled expression flew out the window.
Witnessing this unprecedented arrangement of his own facial features gave Edris an emotional impact equivalent to if Ace ever wore a truffle skirt and dyed his hair pink—no, cotton candy pink.
He knew he'd been quite surprised at the time, but after seeing his actual expression delivered from Ace's perspective...
Edris abandoned the sight on the screen as he withdrew his gaze, entering a stage of denial.
Beside him, Celio bore a dumbfounded expression while Dolan remained static, still processing the scenes played before him. Faren's irises actively trembled while Saire tapped her chin, pensive about something.
Edris closed his eyes with a slow, careful inhale.
So this was what it meant to shoot oneself in the foot.
His emotive face was a start, but definitely not the end.
All memories that succeeded the first were also events that occurred at the Underground Prison Sect, played from Ace's perspective. As a result, the dark-haired man made many, many friendly appearances. His facial expressions, hand gestures, and body movements—all of these were thoroughly mercilessly exposed on the screen.
Forget about Edris himself, the people around him could only stare open-mouthed at the rolling memories.
The beast tamer—in particular—was utterly flabbergasted. Since the Wulin Tournament, he had been by Edris's side almost every day and never had he seen his Master wear such... vivid expressions on his face.
Different memories continued to play from the screen, and the fact they still couldn't hear anything other than muffled audio made the visuals on their own all the more awkward.
Another scene came into view, and the group watched as Ace and Edris were thrown behind the bars, taking in the sight of other cages lined around the underground chasm.
The Crown Prince's face ashened as he recognised the viscount standing before them.
The screen shifted, and another memory took over. In the dank, narrow cell, the dark-haired man calmly tended the injury on his wrist. The vivid gashes of red pierced through the screen with unsettling lucidity, and both Celio and Dolan turned to him with widened eyes.
Edris calmly averted their gaze.
More scenes ran through the screen; from sneaking into the second floor to fighting with the viscount and the hypnotist, each event at the Sect unfolded before its viewers.
After reaching the finale, where Ace and Edris teleported with over two hundred people, the screen blanked all together, leaving the room in its previous dimmed lighting.
From beginning to end, this Dread Chamber replica only managed to discern Ace's memories starting from his human form.
In other words, it only gave Edris a replay of the information he'd already knew.
He unclasped his hands and exhaled.
Peaceful thoughts, Edris. Peace...
Another wave of silence ensued.
Luckily, this one didn't last long as the archmage from the Harkness family opened her mouth. "So…What kind of relationship do you have with your friend?"
"…"
Faren's eyes bulged at her question while Dolan attempted to cover up his surprise with a cough. Celio's round eyes darted from side to side, obviously perplexed.
"Lady Harkness, you just said it—friends."
"Indeed." Edris nodded agreeably. Every part of his face was pieced into a gentle countenance, without a trace of his internal humiliation. "But if you want a more precise relationship, I'd say contract-bound companions?"
He smiled shamelessly. "After all, Ace is my spirling."
From the corner of his eye, he saw the young beast tamer's mouth drop open.
With things having developed to their current state, Edris was done for the day. Through the Dread Chamber, he thought he'd get somewhat of an omniscient point of view, or even just a simple, clear exposition of Ace's past.
Unfortunately, the world seemed never to follow his wishes.
Instead of benefits that would allow him to better take advantage of the entity, all he received in return was a recount of their trip to the Sect from a first-person perspective, as well as a lifetime's worth of embarrassment from his face featured on the big screen.
Great.
Simply wonderful.
The archmage seemed to take his lie with no particular reaction as she retained a thoughtful expression. "Is that so…"
"It is." Edris then turned toward Faren Ablemore. "As I've mentioned before, does this clear things up for the faction now?"
It took the mage a few seconds to process his words, and a prompt nod came from his head when he did.
"Yes. Yes, it did. Thank you, Prophet Edris." He gestured to the mages outside. "The witness is cleared of suspicions. He is free for release."
The next moment, the Dread Chamber regained its initial brightness, returning to the appearance of a standard interrogation room. The screen barrier between the monitor room and the chamber disintegrated, clearing the view from both sides.
In the centre of the room stood the white-haired man. Upon hearing the commotion, he turned his head sideways and met Edris's eyes. Even though the wall between them had faded and they stood only a few meters away, neither took the step forward, and the stares prolonged.
The white-haired man looked pensive, a little preoccupied, as though he had something to say. However, he remained silent, only continuing to stare at Edris sternly until his eyes grew bleary.
Edris watched as the white-haired man stumbled forward, collapsing onto a wheeled bed that had been timely pushed in front of him.
The mage from earlier, the one with the magical mop, calmly meddled with the man's limbs until they were in a comfortable position, laying nicely on the bed. The movement were performed in a ceaseless stream, as if coming straight from muscle memories.
Noticing Edris's incoming gaze, the mage gave him a polite nod.
"This is a normal reaction from everyone who undergoes the Dread Chamber," Saire said, coming up beside him. "Since your friend didn't seem to have resisted the interrogation, the after-effects shouldn't be too severe. He'll wake up soon."
Edris politely thanked the archmage for her explanation and strolled over to the bed, the beast tamer trickling after him. Gaze briefly skimming past the unconscious Ace, he rested his hand on the handles and turned towards the rest of the group.
"If you'll excuse us, we will be on our way."
Now that Ace was proven innocent and there was nothing more he could gain from the interrogation, Edris saw no point in further wasting his time.
All he wanted to do right now was head back to Mosky Inn and down an entire cup of sweet, creamy milk into his stomach. After that, he'd relax in a nice, warm bath. Although unable to physically feel the heat, he needed the mental comfort for everything he'd been through today.
Edris silently affirmed his plans with a nod.
***
Three minutes later, Edris found his plans drained into the void as he stared blankly at the unfamiliar woman in front of him.
The moment he stepped out of the monitor room, he’d noticed something was off.
A new group of people sat by the round table in the fourth-floor lobby space, turning simultaneously at his appearance. Among them, a woman instantly shot up and strode towards him. The loose bun on her head bobbed up and down, and her armours clattered with every step.
Even though the woman was barely at Edris's shoulders, the aura emanating from her was enough to paint a menacing presence upon everyone in the room. As her eyes set on the dark-haired man, Edris immediately stepped back with a sense of foreboding.
Behind him, Dolan Zacriya stepped out to the side. A crease formed on his forehead as he noticed the unexpected visitor.
"Commander Poet?" He blinked. "What brings you here?"