Lone could guess why King Ele'hunda had brought him to this place. "Foru and Shan'len?" he asked without using his insulting nicknames for the two ex-elders and traitors of the world tree.
"Yes and no." Ele'hunda's reply was ambiguous.
Lone followed the King down the dark hallway and noticed that most of the cells were empty on the first level. The few that were actually being used held mostly Humans who seemed close to death. It would appear that they'd recently been tortured.
Lone reasoned that they had probably been powerful warriors of invasions considering that most of them were B-rankers or A-rankers and they were only alive because they hadn't confessed all of the information that the council wanted from them yet.
While somewhat used to this sight from his time in the Dungeon's of King Ralph's castle, Lone still felt a bit uncomfortable.
To distract himself, Lone spoke to King Ele'hunda. "What do you mean by 'yes and no'?"
"Elder Foru committed suicide. Normally we seal all prisoner's strength, mana organs, and their memories until we need them, but Elder Foru managed to consume a poisonous pill that was hiding in his teeth before he was completely restrained." King Ele'hunda's voice contained a mixture of sadness and frustration in it.
"I see. Well, I doubt he knew much. He was probably a pawn of one of the generals under Ythmagobla," Lone said logically.
King Ele'hunda nodded. "You are probably right, but learning whatever he knew could have been useful, even if only slightly."
"I suppose," Lone replied.
"Regardless, we have discovered a lot about the Talso Empire and their movements from Shan'len. However, he has yet to tell us anything substantial, even despite our torturing methods," Ele'hunda expressed with a sigh.
"I never pegged him as the strong-willed type," Lone nonchalantly commented.
"I agree with you, Lone," the King said. "However, for some reason, he seemed overly insistent on talking to you, and only you, about this matter. I had no choice but to find you to see if he'd be willing to confess in your presence."
"Oh really? That's interesting. I wonder why?" Lone said with some wonder in his voice.
"Indeed. I also have to wonder why. I suspect it might be in regards to him targeting you thus far, but at the same time, he tends to be like that towards all non-Elves," Ele'hunda said. It was clear that he held little belief in this particular theory of his.
"Maybe." Lone had his own ideas, but he didn't see any real reason to speculate at this point since the two of them were going to meet former-Elder Shan'len regardless.
They walked silently down the prison’s corridors before going down a flight of stairs. Lone took particular notice of something new on the second level: an abundance of prisoners.
On the first level of this place, most of the holding cells were empty save for the odd B or A-ranker. Lone had assumed that this was because the Elves didn't have the luxury to capture and keep the people that attack the tree, but perhaps he was wrong?
All of the inmates, whether young, old, male, female, healthy or disfigured, every single one silently glared at Lone. Many of them focused on his tails and ears. It was immediately clear to Lone that non-Elves who weren't prisoners were rare, even more so considering that he was being escorted by the infamous and undefeated King Ele'hunda.
"I've been wondering for a few minutes here," Lone said as he glanced around at the powerful men and woman whose freedom had been taken away from them, before he continued, "but who exactly are these people? For some reason, High Elves don't strike me as the type to hold onto ticking time bombs for fun."
The King observed Lone for a moment and there was a slight hint of praise in his eyes. "As expected of you to notice, Nine-tails. Most new prison guards can't even tell the difference between these inmates and the ones of the first level initially. Usually, we only detain war criminals in here for a few days before we silently execute them, but these ones... they're special."
"How so?" Lone asked. He wasn't the biggest fan of this system since he believed that everyone at least deserved one more chance to atone and live once safely captured, but he understood that this culture was not his and that he had no right to forcefully preach his beliefs here.
"These people were once the generals and leaders of their attack forces when they had designs on the world tree. Some are even kings and sovereigns of now fallen kingdoms, crushed by the red teams for daring to raise their fists at us." Ele'hunda laughed somewhat bitterly. Every time such an event happened, it deepened the divide between the world trees and the Human kingdoms, which made the King feel complicated.
"Even after many years of torture, they never gave any information on the forces behind themselves. We suspect Ythmagobla for most of them, but there are other great beings with their eyes on the world tree's spirit. The weak Humans would never attack us seriously on their own free will. At most, they kidnap a few of our Wood Elves." The King's explanation made sense to Lone.
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Sighing deeply, Ele'hunda concluded his reasoning, "Thus we have decided to simply keep them confined in this separate area of the prison." The King peered into a few of the cells, and immediately, the eyes that were locked onto Lone's Demihuman features shook and disappeared as if they were desperately trying to hide from Ele'hunda.
Lone did notice that every single one of the men and women who was imprisoned here, all at least possessed S-rank strength while most were SS-ranked and a few were even SSS-rankers.
This was more than enough to distinguish themselves in any regular Human kingdom as great heroes, so Lone had to wonder why they attacked the world tree that harboured two XXX-rankers. Outsider influence or not, it was basically a suicide mission.
While it was true that the world tree possessed many S-rankers and SS-rankers of its own, it was also a fact that most Demihuman species who had such great innate potential were unable to reproduce often, which was why most of the continent was populated by Human countries, and the Demihumans like the Elves were concentrated groups of powerful individuals, but could never match to the incomparable numbers of the Humans.
"Interesting," Lone said as he continued to contemplate over the differences between the Humans and Demihumans.
Both he and the King continued to delve deeper and further into the prison. It was only after they had descended at least three more flights of stairs, that they had reached the depths of the dungeon, the fifth level.
Waiting for them at that level's entrance was the Prison Warden who apparently never left the prison of Hal'ral.
Lone glanced at the Warden and noticed that she looked very ordinary for a High Elf. The slightly tall woman wasn't particularly beautiful like most others of her kind, and she didn't seem very imposing, however, she did give Lone a clear feeling of danger. It was almost as if she could see right through him with her shining red eyes.
'This woman... She seems like an SS-ranker, but she's far stronger, isn't she? It's been a long time since I met someone that hid their true rank. Was the last one Eolande? How funny,' Lone internally commented.
The Warden took her eyes off of Lone before she spoke, "I greet Your Majesty and the Nine-tails," the Prison Warden politely said as she bowed her head.
"Warden, it is good to see you, has there been any progress since your last report?" The King held little expectations but he felt that it was necessary to ask, as was customary.
The Warden shook her head and said wryly, "Unfortunately, Your Majesty, he refuses to speak even now. It is good that you brought the Nine-tails. I was fearing that we were not going to make any progress before the Empire's invasion."
Once more, the Warden laid her eyes on Lone and smiled somewhat condescendingly. "I have heard the stories, but is it true that he alone managed to somehow reveal the traitorous nature of both the elders as well make progress towards healing this dying tree of ours? I can't picture either of those things being possible. He's too weak, no?" the Warden asked.
'What a bitch. I'm right here you know? You could have asked that same question a million other ways,' Lone snapped in thought.
"Indeed. I too did not trust his strength at first, however, he has proven himself on more than one occasion." Ele'hunda's eyes sharpened and he unleashed some of his power to pressure the Warden.
"So I would appreciate it if you were to treat him as if you were treating myself or Great Elder Lipsilk." The King had a very serious tone to his voice and he wouldn't accept no for an answer. This just went to show how much he respected Lone, and it told the Warden the gravity of her words. She had offended the King.
Sweat dripped down her ordinary face as she tried to stay calm in the wake of Ele'hunda's immense power. "As you wish, Your Majesty," the Warden said as she slowly bowed her entire body.
The Warden then raised her head and gestured further into the prison. "Please, Your Majesty, Nine-tails, come this way. I'll take you to the prisoner."
The king nodded. Both he and Lone quickly followed after the Warden. It wasn't long before the group of three had reached the final cell in the prison's bottom floor.
From in between the metal bars, in a darkly lit room, Lone could see the visage of what looked to be a person, however, something was off.
With his keen senses as an A-ranker, even despite how dim the area seemed to be, Lone was able to make out the person's features. They were missing both eyes and had nothing but bloody sockets in their places, and their ears were entirely absent. If Lone looked carefully, he could see that almost every single bone in this person's body had been completely shattered
The person's dry and cracked lips spread apart and a hopeless voice filled the air. "... Is that you... Nine-tails?"
"Shan'len?" Lone was genuinely shocked.
He had expected the Elf to be tortured, but this wasn't torture. No, this was plain and clear brutality. There were better ways to get information out a person than bringing their body to the brink of collapse.
"So it is you..." Shan'len's voice sounded happy. "I'm glad that I could meet you... before I died..."
"Open the door," Lone said in a commanding tone to the Warden.
She turned and looked at him strangely. "You do not have the right to give me orders, Nine-tails."
"Ele'hunda, order her to open the door," Lone said seriously.
The King looked torn. It was a few moments before he nodded his head and chose a side. "Do as he wishes, Warden."
The Warden looked surprised, but she didn't disobey His Majesty's command. "Very interesting..." she muttered to herself.
Lone stepped into the cell and immediately healed all of Shan'len's wounds. Almost all of his mana points were consumed to recreate the Elf's body, but Lone didn't care.
He was sound of the opinion that you should kill those that adamantly obstructed your way of life. This had been tempered into him back in Milindo, but Shan'len had been nothing more than a nuisance to him, a fly on his windshield, so to speak. Such unfair and cruel treatment made Lone feel sick.
"Nine-tails..." Shan'len was shocked. Why had he been healed? More importantly, how had he been healed?
It was true that Shan'len had seen Lone restoring his own wounds, and he had heard the sounds when Lone ejected the Mind Eater Bug from Tal'hat'mata's brain, however, being the target of the healing was another matter entirely.
"So he was a Saint-ranked healer... Very interesting indeed." Lone heard the Warden's whispers, but he cared very little about her right now.
Taking a gourd of water out from his dimensional storage, Lone gave it to Shan'len. After the shaken Elf had drunk enough to look refreshed, Lone asked him, "Shan'len, why did you want to see me?"