“I already told you this was a colossal misunderstanding. I don’t know anything about Lady Ashel. I had no—” Kichirous words were cut short as an iron fist struck him across his face, with enough force to put him along with the chair he was on down to the ground. Fresh blood oozed from his battered face, staining the unforgiving stone floor.

Nier loomed over him, his expression eerily devoid of emotion, as if administering pain were just another mundane task for him. "Do you savor pain that much? You can end this torment now by telling me where she is."

Tears mingled with the blood as Kichirou's feeble voice quivered: “I don't know, I don't know.” The mind-numbing pain had eclipsed his ability to think clearly, the only thing he could do was plead for his life.

But those pleas fell on deaf ears as Nier knelt with his fists raised.

Niuh's intervention came as a merciful reprieve. "Stop, you fool!" Niuh's voice cut through the air, his urgency palpable. "You're going to kill him if you keep this up. Then we'll have nothing!"

Nier grunted dismissively as he and Niuh exited the makeshift torture chamber, the heavy doors slamming shut, leaving Kichirou to endure his agony in solitude.

As the pain gradually subsided, Kichirou's rational mind began to reassert itself, and the distant shouts from the other room echoed in his ears.

There was no way out of this one. The disappearance of Lady Ashel wasn’t something that could be explained. Someone must have taken the opportunity during that attack to carry out their plan. Kichirou and Swizze were at the wrong place and time, the perfect suspects to be used as scapegoats.

I have to lie.

The truth will only get him killed, but a lie would certainly buy him a little more time—time they would require to confirm the information could be enough for his friends to find and save him.

Pathetic, truly pathetic, utterly useless. Bound to die a fitting death for someone who can't manage to do anything on their own.

Could he tell a lie to save his life?

His knowledge of this world is limited, too little information and they won't buy it, but too much could reveal the cracks within his words.

He lay there and attempted to get his breathing under control as he contemplated his next words carefully, his life depended on it.

He thought about it again and again and only one person came to mind, it was all he knew, nothing else that was remotely believable came to mind. The best lies are the ones grounded in reality after all.

The door that led to this makeshift torture chamber slammed open and this time it was Niah.

He walked over and purposely stepped on Kichirou’s hand as he looked down with disgust.

"Are you ready to talk?" Niah's voice held a menacing undercurrent. "For your own sake, it's unwise to test our patience any further. If you provide us with the information we seek, you might yet see another day. If not..." He trailed off ominously, leaving the rest unsaid.

What kind of joke is that…

He was either going to be an innocent man who would soon be murdered or become a self-confessed kidnapper. He would probably be hung or executed regardless of what spills from his mouth.

He could hear the sound of Nier’s angry shouts coming from another room, but the shouts went quiet as another voice was heard.

A voice that was vaguely familiar for some reason.

The door swung open once more, and instead of Nier twas Tyjur who stood at the doorway staring down at him with a blank expression.

Panic gripped Kichirou as he muttered under his breath: "Oh, shit."

"Lord Tyjur!?" Niah stammered, his words tinged with anxiety. "We didn't anticipate your arrival so soon. We haven't had the chance to extract credible information yet. I'm certain we will obtain the information shortly. Please, wait in the other room for just a little while longer."

Tyjur waved his hands dismissively: “If you’re concerned about the issue of payment due to your lack of deliverables, don't. You shall receive your payment in full, I simply wish to speak to the man in question.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

"Now, leave us," Tyjur commanded, his authority leaving no room for dissent.

“But my lord he—”

“Leave,” Tyjur interjected.

“Yes, my lord.” Niuh’s frown was covered by a mask of smiles, but with a bow, he closed the door behind him.

“Where’s your accomplice? Did he run off when you were caught?”

Accomplice? He must be talking about Swizze. As if he would ever get caught by those buffoons.

To Kichirou’s astonishment, Tyjur picked him and his chair up off the floor and sat him up straight. Standing before him once more, Tyjur took out an old piece of leather parchment and revealed a symbol at its center.

The crest was some sort of avian creature with its head conspicuously absent. Kichirou found himself staring at it in confusion before he looked back to Tyjur.

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“What is that supposed to be?”

Tyjur reached out and tilted Kichirous's chin up, searching his neck then visibly sighing in disappointment.

“Tsk, you aren’t one of them.”

Huh? One of whom?

“You might not be one of them, but you must be working for them. So now tell me, who are you working for? Where did they take my sister!? What are they after?!!” Tyjur’s eye twitched with those words.

The calm and cocky demeanor that Tyjur exuded during their last encounter was nowhere to be found, and in its place was an overwhelming sense of unease that clearly had this man on edge.

The barrage of questions only revealed nothing but an ominous premonition.

“Not once, but twice you bastards are RUINING my life!”

Tyjur's voice grew more frenzied as he paced around the cramped space, his agitation palpable: “No, no, no, no you’re not going to take it all away from me so easily like this. Yes, you will tell me where to find her, and everything will be normal again, my life will return to me,” Tyjur rambled, as he paced around the tiny room before turning his attention back to Kichirou.

“Now tell me, WHERE IS SHE?!! I swear by all that is holy you will face a fate worse than death if you continue to hold your tongue.”

One after another, they all asked a question that Kichirou could not provide the answer to which they seak.

Might as well try the truth.

“I had nothing to do with the disappearance of Lady Ashel.”

Well… our little debacle did result in a thinning of their forces right before their enemies appeared. Kichirou admitted to himself.

"Ah, of course, two intruders arrived at my family’s property uninvited and then proceeded to assault me and my men right as those bastards invaded our town. All leading up to the disappearance of my beloved sister, and yet you dare to suggest that you are not involved? Let’s just see how much longer you would dare to take me as a fool," he said, a deviant smile creeping across his face.

This isn't going well, Kichirou thought, his heart sinking.

“Niuh, has that priest arrived yet?” Tyjur shouted.

Niuh once again entered the room and bowed. “Not yet Lord Tyjur, I’m sure he will arrive shortly.”

Why would they need a priest?

A truth detection spell would work wonders in proving his innocence—if, and the key word here is most certainly IF that is a spell, for if not.

Torture.

When the body breaks before the mind, what do you do? Heal them and do it again. Techniques meant to break only the mind aren't necessary if the body could be broken over and over again, the mind will follow sooner or later.

It was a good plan but made with one critically wrong assumption. They're blinded by their own confirmation bias, refusing to believe the truth I've given them. Torture will only yield a false confession.

Kichirou had read about this in the past, captured soldiers that sang like canaries after a rigorous session. Yet the intel that was provided turned out to be utter nonsense as the soldiers weren't even privy to the information in the first place. But what else could they do? Their only escape from the pain was to say whatever was necessary, whatever their captors wanted to hear to make it all stop.

"Zakin," Kichirou stammered.

“Pardon?”

“I was at the manor on his behalf, not for Lady Ashel but for his daughter Schnee. Zakin is in town and can verify my statement.”

Despite his reluctance, this was the only solution that came to mind. They do not appear to be on the best of terms, as the complications are completely shrouded in mystery, but the whole ordeal with Schnee and Lady Ashel appeared to have some connections to all their trouble so far.

"Zakin, you say?" Tyjur mumbled to himself as he paced around the room once more.

“After the attack on Mercini, it would make sense that he would have traveled to the capital. I did take notice of Schnee’s sudden arrival with my sister. Your story might hold some water after all. Where is my brother-in-law staying? Is it the Lucky Cat?”

“I do believe that was the name of the inn. How did you know where we were staying?’

“Do you really take me as someone who wouldn’t know anything about my brother-in-law?”

As fucked as the family dynamic would be for someone who married into the upper echelon of society, at the end of the day he was still family, and their child nevertheless maintained the direct lineage of their house.

At the end of the day, nothing is more important than family.

“Niuh.”

“Yes, milord?”

“Send one of the others to the Lucky Cat Inn and inquire for Zakin, do inform him that I sent you.”

“Of course.”

Kichirou's heart pounded as he asked, "So what now?"

“We wait here for Zakin. If anything he would still be of help to locate those cultists, he must have looked into it after that incident. ”

Kichirou let out an audible sigh of relief.

There was still a glaring issue in need of clarity though, what was that incident? Why would Schnee’s mother hire a bunch of men to kidnap her own daughter? That's one hell of a messed-up family dynamic. Then again for a mother to lose custody of her child would require something extreme, or perhaps the custody laws of this world were rather different than what Kichirou has come to know.

This was also a good opportunity to gain more information on their family, there were simply too many unknowns.

“They seem to have a custody issue, have they separated?”

He purposely kept his question clear of whatever the incident might have been, asking a question too directly would most likely yield poor results. Inferences can still be made with this line of questioning.

“Separated? Could I even call it that? No, they would never have, when she finally returned home she changed,” as he paused on that word his expression soured, those memories must have been overtly unpleasant. “Changed… That would be putting it lightly. She couldn't even be considered the same person anymore. She had to be monitored at all times, and we couldn’t leave Schnee in her care after that. She chose to be with her father rather than staying at the family estate with some caretaker.”

Changed.

“Was it like a change in personality?”

Did her personality shift after the kidnapping? It's certainly possible. Kichirou has read somewhere that in some extreme cases. the kidnapped person might take on the personality of their kidnapper, or perhaps the trauma caused her to suffer from multiple personality disorders. A heavy case of PTSD? Could magic not cure such illnesses?

“No not even close, it was..”

“Not another word Tyjur,” Another man that Kichirou had never seen before entered the room cutting Tyjur's sentence short.

“I always knew you were a fool unworthy of your family’s name, spilling family matters of such importance to an outsider, who might as well be a spy of the family’s enemy.”

“Roso!? What are you doing here?”

Right as he was found to be innocent, another party gets involved, that's exactly what he needed, trouble.

Roso, with a shit-eating grin, fashioned medium-length hair that was some shade of red. His face was rather unremarkable but was one that Kichirou instantly disliked for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on.

“I’m here to take that man into custody. I shall relay the fact that you were of some help, young Lord. Take him away.”

Two men approached, but their steps halted when Tyjur drew his sword.

“This man is in my purview, don't you dare lay a hand on him.”

“Tyjur, why do you insist on doing things the hard way?” the man shrugged despite the open malice that filled every word.

“I've always had my suspicions about your involvement that day. You were supposed to guard my sister, but you were nowhere to be found when they took her. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that you were somehow involved now, would it?”

“Shut your mouth boy, before I tear it off for you.”

Roso's gaze briefly dropped to the floor, and when he looked up, his face contorted with anger. The veins on his face were visibly bulging, transforming him into an entirely different person.

What the hell is going on here? With each step they took in this new world, they somehow found themselves entangled in situations beyond their understanding. Like passengers in a car, inadvertently killed by an accident caused by a reckless driver.

“Quick to anger aren’t you? Got something to hide?”

“Stand back boys, this one is all mine. I never did like you, a worthless man born into a prestigious family, to have the right to stand by her side as an equal… Unworthy, unbecoming, a crime punishable by death.”

The shit-eating grin on Roso’s face grew even more detestable as if reality bent and broke before the might of that abhorrent smile.

Roso drew his sword and lunged towards Tyjur, but before their blades made contact—

“CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

A deafening, monstrous cry reverberated across the capital. In an instant, the clear sky darkened and the very foundation of the building shook under their feet.

A massive fur-covered claw tore through the wall, collapsing an entire side of the house. Both Tyjur and Roso instinctively leaped back, and as the dust settled after a few seconds, a monstrous creature emerged, standing on all fours between them.

This beast easily exceeded three meters in height, dwarfing the men with its colossal size and menacing presence. The body resembled that of a feline except for the fact that it was covered entirely in what appeared to be a deep matted feather. Beneath those feathers, its build was so massive and surreal that the only comparison Kichirou could conjure was that of a double-muscled cow.

Yet, the most terrifying aspect was the creature's petrifying silver eyes, fixed upon the humans – no, the prey it had discovered.

“What the hell is that?”