Chapter 323: Lucky Break
The building the witness pointed out had already been searched top to bottom by soldiers, but apparently there was a hidden space. If we hadn’t caught anyone at officer level, I’d have been stuck with the hassle of searching the buildings one by one myself.
The Searcher Scouter can uncover hidden spaces, after all.
There was another door behind a wall, and the soldiers tore it off and stormed inside.
"Damn it, how did you find this place?!"
"S-Spare me! Aaargh!"
"You bastards won’t walk away from this either!"
The men hiding inside put up fierce resistance against the entering soldiers. But it wasn’t long before we arrested the boss and several of his officers. And among them was one man whose clothes were conspicuously fine.
Michael looked the man up and down.
"And what are you supposed to be? Slum nobility?"
"I-I’m a commoner! I have nothing to do with the slum!"
"I’d sooner believe a pig could be a priest. Who do you think you’re fooling? Take him away."
"It’s true! I’m just an errand boy! Aagh!"
Count Palatine Heinlein’s lackey went limp as the soldiers dragged him off. All the important prisoners were sent to the prison tower, where the interrogation (torture) would take place.
"Brother-in-law, it looks like that man from earlier is our client."
"Lucky break. So he never managed to slip out of the slum?"
It seems he had been waiting in the slum, planning to carry off Viola once she was kidnapped, but my cordon to prevent escapes had trapped him with nowhere to run. Striking first had been the right call after all.
By smashing the slum, we had achieved our initial objective.
We moved to the prison tower for the interrogation proper.
"Go to hell, Dreckskerl! Aagh!"
"Still got some fight left in you, I see."
Whack! Thwack! Thwack!
"Gyaaah! You bastards will pay for this!"
"Let’s see how long that tongue keeps flapping!"
The man who ruled Radensdorf’s underworld, known as the Bull, was fairly tenacious. He raved and spat curses at the soldiers, swearing he would have his revenge, which naturally didn’t make the slightest dent.
Most of the duchy soldiers hail from Breisburg. Threats of revenge only carry weight when you share the same turf. Not knowing his place, he resisted furiously and got beaten within an inch of his life before he finally quieted down.
They said he had reigned over the slum like a merciless king, but at the end of the day he was nothing but a criminal. Ruler of the underworld? Put him on a real battlefield and he’d piss himself and run. What a joke.
It is next to impossible for a criminal to resist well-trained soldiers. Even with knight-level skill, when five heavily armed soldiers pile on, you get carved up in seconds. That is the logic of combat.
Unless you’re someone of my caliber, the weight of numbers alone becomes lethal. The Bull had gone quiet, but even in a situation he couldn’t overcome on his own, he still seemed to be counting on his backers.
"You two should return to the palace now."
"We won’t get in your way, Baron, so pay us no mind."
"If this were a simple criminal interrogation, it wouldn’t matter, but sensitive testimony may come out here. His Royal Highness is one thing, but I cannot let His Imperial Highness witness it."
The curiosity tour ends here. At my firm refusal, the imperial crown prince looked disappointed, but he had no choice but to go back. The crown prince and the Austrian court marquis were relieved to finally be able to send him home.
The imperial crown prince meddling in another state’s affairs could open the door to accusations of interference in domestic matters, which could poison diplomacy. Michael was delighted to see the uninvited guests gone at last.
"Now we can interrogate them our way without anyone looking over our shoulders, right?"
Michael is a craftsman with real expertise in torture. He loved, more than anyone, to maximize the pain and draw out the suffering. Personally, I find that style of torture revolting, but for a piece of work like the Bull, it was fine.
"You take the Bull, brother-in-law. But under no circumstances is he to die."
"So anything goes as long as I don’t kill him? I do like a man with plenty of fight in him. You take the one playing at nobility. I’ll give you the room next door, as a special favor. It’ll be a great help."
Michael’s sly grin made him look like a genuine pervert at times like this.
The Judicial Minister was the same breed. Honestly, there isn’t a single normal person around me.
The prison tower was built for interrogation and torture, and it was here that my grandfather died. I never imagined I’d be the one interrogating prisoners here. What an ironic turn of events.
We put the lackey in the room directly next to the one Michael, the Bull, and the torture technicians had entered. The room’s selling point was that you could hear every sound from next door with perfect clarity. By torture chamber standards, that is indeed a selling point.
Because when the Bull’s torture began and his piercing screams rang out, the trembling lackey’s face turned deathly pale. Just as I thought, a weak-nerved fellow. And yet he’d waltzed right into a slum, of all places.
Anton, who had come in with us, wore a grave expression as well.
Torture was poison to Anton too, but it was something he would have to witness whether he liked it or not.
How long can we hold on to our noble ideals of chivalry and justice? Regrettably, I aspired to refined interrogation, but in this era, all interrogation went hand in hand with torture.
Torture is never refined. It was cruel and merciless, but the people of the Middle Ages believed it was the surest method. Which is why the methods for killing people advanced further than the methods for saving them.
AAAAARGH!
"Now, now. Bite down hard."
The lackey sitting before me went white as a sheet at the Bull’s screams pouring in from next door. Fortunately, there are no torture implements in this room. The lackey seemed to relax a little and was now watching for my reaction.
"What kind of man was the Bull in the slum?"
"A terrifying man who ruled the whole slum."
GYAAAAAH!
"And now?"
"L-Like a pig dragged to the slaughterhouse."
"Ruler of the slum? Before a noble, he’s nothing but a lowly criminal. That’s reality, friend."
The lackey swallowed hard. This man’s disposition is desire (evil). Unlike the ambitious, his type is satisfied so long as his desires are met. And his will to survive was strong, too.
"I’m nothing but an errand boy. I don’t know anything beyond that!"
"Awfully fine clothes for an errand boy. Where did you get them?"
"Heh heh, these came from Vienna."
A commoner, wearing clothes from the imperial capital? The lackey was apparently very proud of his outfit, and he started rattling on about how he had acquired these clothes in Vienna and about the latest fashions there.
Maybe the tension had drained out of him, or maybe he found me easier company than expected, but the lackey’s mindset had shifted to one of calculation. It seems he judged that he could make a deal with me. And of course, a deal is possible.
A one-sided deal, that is.
The lackey, still reading the room, got to the point.
"I may be just an errand boy, but I know quite a lot."
"You’d better produce information that lives up to my expectations."
"Send me to Bavaria. That’s my condition."
As his conditions for testifying, the lackey demanded passage across the Bavarian border, a horse to ride, and a bit of traveling money. Truly a man faithful to his desires. Listening to him, I was so dumbfounded that a laugh slipped out.
Grandiose demands for a prisoner.
This called for violence rather than refined interrogation.
"You heard him, Anton. What do you think we should do?"
"The gall of this insolent wretch! Leave him to me!"
Anton, purple with rage, flew into a fury at the lackey’s absurd demands. He grabbed the lackey’s face and slammed it straight into the table.
Bam!
"Aagh! Khack!"
Anton beat the lackey without mercy.
If I hadn’t stopped him, the lackey would probably have been beaten to death. We splashed water on the limp lackey’s face to bring him around. Now, at last, the lackey seemed to grasp his situation properly.