Egon placed the candle beside the inquisitor, then stepped back into the blackness so that he could not be seen.

"If you answer all our questions honestly and promise to forget what happened, we'll let you go."

"Aren't you afraid that when you let me go, I'll tell the inquisitors all about you?" He smiled.

"I'll count on mutual trust."

"It's a bluff to calm me down before I die, isn't it? God has already absolved me of my sins, and I am ready to accept the inevitable."

"Very well," Guillotine said, "in that case, could you lay down on the floor like a star so that I can quickly dismember you? I'm going to get a knife in the kitchen right now, ten seconds, one foot there, one foot here."

"W-w-wait, what?"

"What you heard. Come on, lie down, you fucking bitch. I'll cut off two of your arms, legs, and head. Then we'll pack everything in bags and throw you out into the channel piece by piece."

"Wait, wait! Let's talk instead."

Egon grinned and smiled.

"That's good. You would have done it right away. What's your name?"

"Jerome."

"Just like the sanctimonious in the Holy Book," Guillotine said.

"Yes, exactly," the Inquisitor replied.

"You're not related, are you?"

"To whom?"

"One of them."

"One of them might be a relative. I have a big family."

"Children?"

"Two sons."

"What are their names?"

"Jerome and Jerome."

"What the fuck? Jerome, why did you do this to them?"

"Everyone in my family has the same names."

"And the wife is also named Jerome?"

"No. On the male side, I mean."

"You're fucking ridiculous."

"It's not nice to mock family traditions."

"If they're idiotic, then why can't they be mocked?"

"Is that all you want to know?"

"All right, Guillotine, stop it. Jerome, do you know anything about the stolen crystals?"

"Of course, I know. That's why I tried to catch you. That was my assignment."

"But we don't have your crystals."

"But you had a stagecoach full of money from top to bottom. And the crystals are exactly what they cost."

"Stop. How much do they cost?"

"About three or four thousand gold pieces each on the black market, so we're told."

"All right, let's leave this."

"Fuck! I'll kill that old fart."

"Calm the fuck down!"

"So, you sold them…"

"None of your business."

"So, also on the cheap…"

"Do you know who killed the coachman, the goblin, the two inquisitors, Rufus the guard on the wall, and who hung the rich-boy from the tree? You should have been briefed."

"These people are not connected between each other."

"Explain."

"We killed the coachman and the goblin because they didn't complete the mission. The Inquisitors were killed by the enemy metentises, and Thomas killed them, but he didn't find any crystals on them. Accordingly, we concluded that the crystals are in someone else's possession."

"Go ahead."

"Rufus led one of the many rebel movements. They are negligible in Agernox, so we often kill the leader and the movement itself ceases to exist, everyone is afraid to die, death is a great motivator."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Did Rufus lead a rebel movement?"

"According to my information, yes."

"You said he was a metentis."

The Inquisitor chuckled and said nothing.

"Jerome, I would not be silent, being in such a precarious position."

"He may have been a metentis, I have no clue, honestly. I didn't even participate in that mission. A friend told me about it later."

"Well then. What do you know about the rich-boy?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Do you know who killed him?"

"No! I've already told you that I-know-nothing-about-him."

"And you haven't heard the rumors."

"No!"

"Then who killed him?" Ofir asked "Maybe one of your thugs?"

Guillotine, seeing only the blackness and the Inquisitor in the dim light, turned to the voice and asked:

"Are you speaking to me?"

"Yes."

"I don't have any thugs on my payroll. And even if there were, why would I hide the fact that I'd fixed our problem?"

"That makes sense."

"Jerome, what are the numbers on your shoulder?"

"Four and two."

"What do they mean?"

"Element and rank."

"What element does the number four represent?"

"I won't tell you the secrets of the Inquisition. Better dismember me."

"Then I go for the knife?"

The Inquisitor said nothing and whispered something softly.

"So, all the members of the Inquisition are metentises, right?"

"Who knows."

"You know. And so it is."

The Inquisitor raised his head and looked into the darkness around him, chuckled slightly, and said:

"I didn't tell you that."

"Damn it. What is happening in this country?"

"Who are the Gennox?"

"This is the first time I've heard of it."

"He's fucking shitting into your ears! Look at his sly face!"

"This is the first time I've heard of it!"

"Have you heard anything about the experiments twenty-five years ago?"

"Metyr was working on them, ask him."

"Metyr was captured by your friends and killed. Tell me, what were those experiments?"

"How should I know? I don't have that level of access. I'm just an inquisitor of the lowest rank!"

"Do you know the man everyone calls «Grandfather»?"

"I've heard of him; he helped the Inquisition put down the revolution about twenty-five years ago."

"Was he somehow involved in the experiments?"

"You're trying to get something out of me again that I said I didn't know about. I'm telling you again, since you didn’t understand the first time, I don't know a fucking shit about the experiments twenty-five years ago, okay? It is a classified mission, and if anyone knows about it, it's either Thomas, Alba, or Atilla. But you will never capture them."

"Why is that?"

"Because they are the most powerful metentises, because they rule many countries, keeping its rulers at bay, because the world has become a business from which part of the income goes to them personally. They are military strategists who have seen many battles. And you are a nobody, just consumers, little boys who want to make a change. What you guys don't realize is that the progress machine will run over you and leave you crushed in the ground. This, not to mention the fact that they are simply immortal, I don't know how they do it, but it's a fact."

"Immortal?"

"I'm surprised you never thought about it. This trinity should be depicted on the icons that your great-grandmothers used to pray for. And they haven't changed a bit since then."

"I remember something like that," Homer said. "My grandmother used to pray to them, but I never paid any attention to it."

"And we, being orphans, could hardly have seen such a thing..." Egon said.

Guillotine stared at the inquisitor's grin, which had been on his face for several minutes already.

"Why are you telling us everything so easily?" he asked.

The Inquisitor burst out laughing like a volcano.

"You're such fools. You captured an inquisitor during a mission and you think no one will look for you? You'll all be killed. No one will ever know about this conversation."

"We'll see about that..." Guillotine began, and heard the inquisitor whisper, «Merging with the dark (rank 2)»

Egon heard the ropes fall to the floor, and the Inquisitor disappeared.

"He's trying to escape, get out of here and turn on the lights everywhere."

The four of them ran into the living room, they just lit a few candles, when the figure of the inquisitor appeared in a dark corner.

"Gravity wave (rank 4)."

Everyone felt as if they were being pulled towards the inquisitor first, and then pushed away with such force that the ground shook. Homer hit his head against the wall and was about to lose consciousness. The small and weak body of Guillotine was carried to the ceiling, he hit his back, losing his breath, then he fell to the floor and could not stand up, paralyzed by what was happening. Ofir flew through the door and at the last moment was able to jump to the right to avoid the sofa flying at him. Egon was thrown into the far corner of the room, and at the same moment a leg of broken chair hit him in the knee, and he screamed in pain.

The Inquisitor stood in the center of the room, looked at the immobilized enemies, and said that from now on, he would kill one by one. He held out his hand, said, "Immobilization (rank 2)" Ofir floated in place, his body bound by magical gusts of wind and carried straight to Jerome. He grabbed the guy by the neck and started choking him. Egon drew his automatic crossbow and aimed it directly at the enemy's head. Guillotine pulled several throwing knives from a special pocket in his belt.

"Kill him, and you can be sure we won't let you out of here alive," Egon said.

At the sound of the battle, Roderick came running, opened the door to the living room and saw the inquisitor in the very center of the room, who was strangling Ofir.

"Fuck!" Roderick shouted.

He was about to close the door behind him and run away, when the inquisitor threw the old man's flimsy body under his feet with a gust of wind and said: "Say goodbye to life." Jerome pulled the Morning star out of Ofir's hand and then hit Roderick on the head with all his strength, turning it into a bloody mess. Taking advantage of the moment, Homer pulled out his one-handed sword, and tried to kill the enemy from behind. But the inquisitor heard his footsteps, turned around, and used the "Attack of Shadows (rank 2)", which broke out from the surface of the floor and with their sharp needles, managed to hit Homer, and one needle pierced his shoulder through. Homer screamed in pain. Egon shot the inquisitor in the head from a meter away, but the encrusted VV crystal in his necklace (which until then had been hidden from view) deflected the attack and redirected the arrow back. Egon dodged it in a roll. Guillotine went around to the other side of Jerome, threw the first dagger and hit him in the hand. The Inquisitor swore and released Ofir's weakened body. He fell to the floor, trying to catch his breath. Jerome threw Guillotine with a powerful gust of wind into the wall, he hit and could no longer get up. Egon screamed and ran head-on at the enemy, trying to sacrifice himself and safe his friends.

"Say goodbye to your life," the Inquisitor said, and used the «Shadow Circle of Death (Rank 2)»

Shadow knights with spears appeared around Egon and simultaneously pierced his stomach from all sides. There was silence. Everyone was looking at Egon and at his frightened eyes. Homer and Guillotine caught their breath. Ofir shook as he tried to get up and save his friend, but his body refused to obey.

Egon looked down at his stomach, the spears passing through his body without making a single wound. It was as if he was part of those shadows. Without understanding what exactly happened, he leaped towards the inquisitor, snatched the Morning star from his hands, and hit Jerome on the head with a metal ball with spikes. He fell and died. The shadows of the spearmen were gone.