Chapter 89: Answer the question
The sheer brutality of the restraints—the coiling chains, the jagged iron collar, and the way her body was suspended like a piece of meat—hit him with the force of a physical blow.
It was a visceral, suffocating display of the guild’s ruthlessness that felt out of place in his mind, which was still trying to reconcile the life of a student with that of a high-ranking magus.
’She’s just a normal human now...’ Noah thought, his heart thudding against his ribs. ’There’s no need to chain her like that...’
Her mana channels were shattered, and the shadow affinity that had once fueled her terrifying abilities had been extinguished.
Seeing a powerless woman bound in such strong chains threat felt like an overkill that bordered on the grotesque.
He had never seen such a sight before, so it honestly weirded him out.
The smell of cold iron and the sight of the chains biting into her bruised skin made his stomach churn with a sudden, sharp discomfort.
However, he wasn’t too surprised though.
As he stood there, his mind began to process the context Yuan had provided earlier.
He took a deep breath, forcing the white haired boy’s empathy into the background and letting the "Mr White" persona take control once more.
Yuan had already given him a thorough run-down on the matter before they had descended into this dungeon, explaining the guild’s history with this particular assassin.
The guild had been searching for her for quite some time now, and her capture was a milestone they had thought impossible until Noah had intervened.
According to the guild master, this woman wasn’t just a petty criminal; she was a ghost that had haunted the guild’s most elite circles for years.
She had killed lots of adventurers, leaving a trail of bodies across the continent that had cost the guild millions in lost talent and failed contracts.
The most shocking detail Yuan had shared was that she had even successfully assassinated an Arch Magus within the guild—a feat that required a level of lethality and cunning that few possessed.
When Noah considered that, it was only natural they chained her this much.
The guild was acting out of a deep-seated, collective trauma. They were terrified of her, even in her weakened state.
To them, she wasn’t just a woman; she was a monster that had defied the laws of magic, and the excessive chains were a physical manifestation of their worry that she might somehow escape and cause even more trouble.
They didn’t care about her lack of mana; they cared about the fact that she was still breathing, and in their eyes, that was a threat that required absolute suppression.
At least she wasn’t naked, which provided a small, meager relief to Noah’s lingering sense of decency.
She was putting on a simple black shirt and shorts—standard prison garb that was tattered and stained from her time in the wasteland, but it provided enough coverage to keep the interrogation from becoming even more uncomfortable.
The dark fabric of her clothes blended with the shadows cast by the flickering candles, making the pale, bruised skin of her arms and legs stand out even more.
The woman looked up when she sensed their presence, her movements slow and agonizingly deliberate.
She was barely able to raise her head, her neck muscles straining against the weight of the black iron collar that pinned her to the floor.
Every inch she moved resulted in a dull, rhythmic clinking of the chains that echoed off the stone walls like a funeral knell.
That little motion of raising her neck up was all she could do while being chained up like this.
She looked like a bird with clipped wings, struggling just to perceive the people who had come to see her.
Her short brown hair was matted with sweat and dirt, clinging to her forehead as she finally managed to bring her gaze level with the bars.
When she saw Noah, a transformation took place. The dull, lifeless look in her eyes didn’t sharpen into the hatred he had seen earlier; instead, a slight smile appeared on her face.
It was a weak, trembling curve of the lips that held a strange, disturbing sense of reverence. It wasn’t the look of a prisoner facing her captor; it was the look of a believer seeing a miracle.
She parted her dry, cracked lips and muttered in a voice that was little more than a rasp, "Sir... White..."
Noah’s eyes narrowed behind the mask.
’That’s not the reaction I was... expecting,’ he thought.
It was similar to what happened when he first stripped away the shadow from her during their last fight.
In that moment, as the element had been torn from her skin and her mana channels had shattered, he had expected a scream of agony or a look of pure despair.
Instead of feeling sad or angry at having lost her power—the very thing that made her a feared Grandmaster—she had seemed happy instead.
It was a reaction that defied every logic of the magus world.
For a magus, losing one’s mana core was usually considered a fate worse than death, a total stripping of identity and agency.
Yet, it was as if a heavy, suffocating shroud had been lifted from her soul, leaving her lighter despite the literal weight of the iron coiling around her limbs.
Yuan, who was standing by his side, frowned deeply, his eyes darting between the prisoner and the masked man.
The guild master’s patience was clearly wearing thin; he had spent hours in this damp, dark cellar attempting to extract even a single grain of information, only to be met with a wall of silence that not even the threat of the iron collar could break.
"She hasn’t said anything despite how much we’ve tried," Yuan said, his voice filled with frustration. He adjusted his robes, the fabric rustling in the quiet room. "No matter the pressure, no matter the offer... she says... she’ll only speak to you."
Noah’s eyes narrowed behind the mask, and he thought to himself, ’Only speak to... me?’
He couldn’t help but feel a bit uneased.
He was supposed to be the one who had ruined her life, the one who had rendered her a "normal" human in a world that favored the strong. Why would she fixate on him as her only confidant?
He felt the weight of the guild’s expectations pressing on his shoulders, and he realized that the mystery of this woman was far deeper than a simple assassination plot.
He stepped forward, until he was inches away from the anti-magic bars.
The candles flickered, casting long, skeletal shadows across his white hair. He looked at her matted hair and the way the chains pulled at her wrists.
"Don’t you feel sad at having lost your element... and your mana channels?" Noah asked,. He truly wanted to understand.
The woman smiled wryly, the cracked corners of her lips twitching upward in a way that looked both exhausted and relieved.
She didn’t look like a woman who had lost everything; she looked like a prisoner who had finally been set free from a different kind of cage.
"Why will I be sad...?" she whispered, her voice a dry rasp that barely carried across the divide. She looked at her hands, which were trembling slightly within the thick black fetters.
"Being a shadow body was never something I wanted. It was a curse... a cold, hollow void that ate away at everything I was. You didn’t destroy me, Sir White. You saved me from the darkness that was consuming me."
Yuan stepped forward suddenly, his professional mask slipping as he latched onto her words. The guild master’s eyes were sharp, his mind already spinning with the tactical implications of what she had just revealed.
This was the first real break in the case—the first hint that the "Shadow Woman" wasn’t a natural occurrence, but a creation.
"Does that mean... someone turned you into that?" Yuan demanded, his voice echoing with authority. He leaned toward the bars, his face squeezing into a frown.
"Who’s that? Tell me, which organization do they belong to? If there’s someone out there capable of forcing a shadow body onto a magus, the guild needs to know immediately!"
The woman only glanced at him for a fleeting second, her eyes devoid of any interest or respect.
She looked at the guild master as if he were nothing more than a buzzing insect, a distraction from the only person in the room who mattered.
Without a word, she ignored him completely, turning her head back to Noah, staring at him as if Yuan hadn’t just asked a question.
Yuan gnashed his teeth at this, his face flushing a deep, angry red.
He was the guildmaster of this guild, yet he was being treated like a ghost in his own prison.
He clenched his fists in annoyance, the leather of his gloves creaking under the strain. He was a man of action and results, and being sidelined in an interrogation was a blow to his ego that he struggled to swallow.
, ’Mr. White is still an outsider at the end of the day... I can’t believe we have to rely on him to get more information about whatever is going on.’ he thought.
It galled him that the guild’s intelligence network had failed where a single masked newcomer had succeeded.
He felt a surge of resentment toward the situation, yet he knew he couldn’t interfere.
If Noah was the only key to her voice, then he had to stand back and let the "outsider" take the lead, even if it meant watching his own authority be ignored.
Noah smiled awkwardly within the mask, though no one could see the expression.
He felt the thick, heavy tension between the guild master’s pride and the prisoner’s stubbornness.
He knew he had to keep the momentum going before the silence settled back into the room. He didn’t care about the guild’s politics, but he needed the same answers Yuan did.
"Answer the question," Noah said, his voice steadying and becoming even colder, asserting his dominance over the conversation. "Who turned you into that?"