Danmachi : Strongest Supporter

"Minister, there's something I need to ask of you."

"Oh? Whatever it is, Professor Noah, I'll do everything in my power!"

Minister Honest agreed outright, only asking the reason afterward out of curiosity.

Seeing how readily he agreed, Noah answered, "Then thank you. It's like this, i'd like to choose a few death-row prisoners from the Empire's prisons to assist with my research."

Noah wanted to improve the quality of the artificial souls, so he hoped Oranides and Focalor could devour the souls of warriors.

It was not as though he was some evil scientist who would casually grab people off the street for experiments.

Compared to innocent people, the Empire's prisons held countless convicts who had already been sentenced to death.

For those prisoners, every day before the moment of their execution was filled with inhuman torture.

To them, death could even be considered a blessing.

"Research, is it? Very well, I understand. If you wish, I can have someone take you there immediately. How about it?" The moment Minister Honest heard the word research, he began taking the matter even more seriously.

His lifespan was now several times longer than that of an ordinary person.

The average lifespan of an ordinary citizen of the Empire did not exceed fifty years, yet he possessed more than three times that, perhaps even close to four times the difference.

All of this was thanks to the "Grace Elixir" and that miraculous "pill" developed by the young man before him.

This research actually required death-row prisoners?

Minister Honest had no doubts about it.

In fact, he felt this was only natural.

The Enhancement Division plan alone had already produced close to four digits' worth of sacrifices.

If not for his approval, those soft-hearted hypocritical fools in the Empire would have stopped it long ago.

Mere death-row prisoners were nothing.

It would not matter even if they were all killed.

"When I think that those people who were going to die anyway can contribute to Professor Noah's research, I almost feel as if they've gotten quite the bargain. Hahahaha!"

Minister Honest squeezed his face into a grin and laughed loudly.

Noah smiled without saying a word.

Although he had never believed in the idea that evil people would naturally receive heaven's punishment, the Minister's ending had already been decided.

He would become a malformed monster and lose everything he was least willing to give up.

That would be his only ending.

...

Minister Honest handed a written order to Pegina.

Under Pegina's arrangements, Noah soon arrived at the Imperial Capital's Great Prison.

Although the Imperial Capital covered a vast area and had no shortage of facilities used to imprison ordinary people, there was only one place that could be called the Great Prison of the Imperial Capital.

In the Imperial Capital, only a small number of people were truly imprisoned in the Great Prison.

Whether merchants or nobles, as long as they had relatively high status, most of them possessed their own private cells, usually used to confine slaves or enemies.

The prisoners inside the Great Prison were all involved in major cases. Ordinary thieves and third-rate swindlers did not even have the opportunity to enter this place.

Arriving outside the Great Prison, Noah looked at the enormous fortress-like structure and acknowledged the sense of authority it gave off.

As a prison, its main body was surrounded by thick walls more than twenty meters high, with a sentry post on each corner of the octagonal wall.

There were no trees around the prison to provide cover, making it nearly impossible to infiltrate.

The walls were also equipped with military machinery for defensive fortifications.

Yet this strictly guarded facility respectfully opened its gates the moment it saw the Minister's written order.

In less than a minute, the prison warden came running out, flattering Pegina with endless compliments.

Pegina frowned and scolded, "Noisy."

He sounded as though he were the true master of this place.

After he briefly explained their purpose, the warden immediately led them into the interior of the prison.

Noah looked around as they walked, feeling that if this place had a little less of a gloomy atmosphere, it would actually make quite a decent military fortress.

The moment he entered the prison, Noah heard the prisoners' shrill screams.

At the same time, he could hear the sound of whips cracking.

Before long, they arrived outside an interrogation room and looked inside through the half-open door.

Just then, a sizzling sound rang out again.

After seeing what was happening inside, Pegina's face instantly paled a few shades, and his throat moved unconsciously.

Inside the interrogation room, a male prisoner who looked around forty had half of his face torn apart by whip strikes.

The left and right sides of his face no longer had anything to do with symmetry.

That sizzling sound was actually coming from the interrogator pouring scalding hot oil onto the prisoner's face.

"Aaah! Aaaaaaah!"

The prisoner's ruined half-face was doused in boiling oil, and the man screamed with all his strength.

His limbs, locked by iron chains, twitched madly as he struggled violently.

However, after only a few seconds, the man fell silent.

Seeing this, the interrogator did not care. Or rather, he looked completely used to it.

He picked up a syringe from the table, flicked the needle, and stabbed it straight into the man's neck.

Noah Appraised it and found that it was actually a kind of hormone.

He was not unfamiliar with this hormone either, because it was also something produced by the Science Division.

It was often used when surgical subjects were beyond saving, relying on intense stimulation to forcibly awaken their consciousness.

Just as Noah expected, less than five seconds after the injection, the man began wailing again.

He wanted to touch his own face with his hand, but the instant he touched it, he felt unbearable pain, and tears poured out uncontrollably!

Pegina was stunned with fright.

This was also his first time coming to a place like the prison.

He had seen disobedient servants punished before, but this was the first time he had personally witnessed something so grotesque.

Seeing the miserable state of that man writhing in agony, he actually felt as though he could feel it himself for an instant.

That single thought sent a chill down his back, making his whole body tremble several times.

Seeing Pegina's reaction, the warden secretly sneered in disdain.

If he were not afraid of provoking Minister Honest, a lackey like this would never be someone he took seriously.

He would have chopped him up and eaten his flesh long ago!

However, when he looked at Noah, he froze slightly because of the coldness on Noah's face.

Sensing the gaze, Noah shifted his eyes toward the warden, and their gazes met.

The instant their eyes met, the warden inexplicably felt a chill.

Even he found it strange.

The prison was already gloomy enough, and he had stayed here for more than twenty years.

Why had he suddenly felt the same coldness today as he had on his first day in the job?

So many years had passed, and he had clearly gone numb long ago.

Why had a single glance from this young man stirred that feeling again?

His instincts told him that Noah was no kind soul, so he quickly put away the contempt in his heart and began seriously introducing the prison.

Just as he was getting into it, Noah cut him off, "Take us to see the death-row prisoners held here."

"Ah?" The warden froze.

Death-row prisoners?

After hesitating for a moment, he carefully said, "My lord, that request is somewhat dangerous. To be honest, none of the death-row prisoners locked inside this Great Prison are simple people. Merely being in the same environment as them is dangerous."

Seeing that the warden feared the death-row prisoners this much, Noah nodded in satisfaction.

If they did not reach at least this level, then even as feed, they would only be third-rate.

"Don't waste time. Take me there. The rest of you can wait outside."

"You want to go in alone?" The warden was terrified.

This was someone connected to the Minister.

Although he did not know Noah's specific identity, the fact that Noah had come with the Minister's written order and was personally accompanied by the Minister's butler already proved that he was absolutely not someone the warden could afford to offend.

If someone like this had an accident inside the prison, then by tomorrow, the warden would be locked up together with those monsters and demons.

And his subordinates would absolutely show him no mercy.

After all, that would be an excellent chance to prove their loyalty to the Minister.

When the time came, those people would definitely use every method they had on him.

Even ten lives would not be enough!

The warden frantically thought about how to dissuade Noah, while also fearing that the wrong wording might anger him.

Noah glanced at him and basically guessed what he was thinking.

He pressed a hand onto the warden's shoulder and opened his mouth.

The warden heard nothing. While he was still confused, he suddenly felt the world spin around him, then collapsed to the ground unconscious.

"How annoying." Noah said this with a frown, then walked into the depths of the prison.

...

Here were rows of empty cells.

Only after passing more than ten cells did he finally see a figure inside one of them.

[Bedno]

・Race: Human

・Origin: Empire

・Age: 45

・Former Imperial soldier

・Death-row prisoner of the Imperial Capital's Great Prison

・Time imprisoned: 177 days

・Status: Heavily injured, starving, malnourished, addiction symptoms, mental collapse

・Killed a local official out of a sense of justice and was identified as a Revolutionary Army spy. His family was implicated and executed by burning by the Empire's incineration unit. He himself was sentenced to death and imprisoned.

・Skilled in martial arts. Experienced 9 battlefield fights, 32 close-quarters blade fights, 4 instances of fighting multiple enemies and surviving, 1 successful counterattack from a desperate situation resulting in the enemy's death, 20 hunts of large Danger Beasts...

Noah's eyes moved slightly.

The first target he saw after entering this place was already quite good.

He came to the front of the cell and crouched down to examine the condition of the man named Bedno.

Unfortunately, even at such a close distance, Bedno showed no reaction at all.

Aside from the faint trace of life Noah could sense, he was like a piece of wood in nature, with both his aura and presence extremely thin.

This man was about to die.

"Hello, I'm Noah. Next, I will take your soul. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with whether you are willing or not. However, if you have any wish you want fulfilled, you can tell me. If I get the chance, I will help you fulfill it."

Noah spoke to him, but the contents were not the key point.

He simply wanted to see whether Bedno would respond.

In Noah's eyes, the man's soul was a sheet of grayish white.

Sure enough, after waiting more than ten seconds, Bedno showed no response whatsoever. Even from such a close distance, Noah could not feel him breathing.

Noah waited no longer.

He directly took a pouch from his pocket and poured a small colored bead out of it.

This was an item he had created through alchemy, capable of containing a soul.

More than half the pouch was filled with these little beads.

Each bead was about the same diameter as an ordinary bottle cap, and there were roughly a dozen in total.

A faint light appeared in Noah's eyes.

Using Weaver's ability to manipulate souls, he extracted Bedno's soul from his body and stored it inside the small bead.

"I originally didn't think of a name, but from now on, I'll call these things Soul Jades." Noah murmured this to himself, then put the bead containing Bedno's soul back into the pouch.

He found many people like Bedno here.

Apart from them, there were also people guilty of countless evils.

As long as they met his requirements, their souls would be placed into the beads and stored in the pouch.

At that moment, an aged voice came from a cell behind Noah.

The old man asked, "Who are you? What did you do to those people just now?"

This was the first time anyone had spoken to Noah after he entered.

He turned around and looked at the old man inside the cell.

"What do you mean by that question?"

The old man suddenly became somewhat agitated.

"Don't play dumb! You killed them, didn't you?"

His voice rose a little, but the consequence was that the moment he finished speaking, he began coughing violently.

"Cough, cough!"

The old man could not catch his breath until he finally forced out a large mouthful of black blood.

Mixed into the black blood were some fragments. It was unclear what kind of tissue they were.

He began panting, but his eyes were still very bright.

Seeing the old man stare at him without looking away, Noah also developed a little interest in him.

Because he could actually tell.

That's right.

Because Noah had extracted those people's souls, if they had not been biologically dead before, then now, without a doubt, they were completely dead.

Seeing that Noah did not answer his question, the old man waited until his breathing had steadied somewhat before asking again, "Are you... perhaps the god of death? Have you come to take our souls?"

This time, Noah answered.

"No. I am not the god of death."

Hearing him speak, the old man froze slightly, then a little smile actually appeared on his face.

"Ha... hahaha. Hmph, and here I thought the god of death from the stories had appeared."

Noah examined the old man's soul.

Vulgarity, elegance, flirtation, devotion, foolishness, wisdom, madness, and reason.

'What a rotten soul.'

"Old man... no, Sophist. I said these words to those people earlier. Now I'll say them to you as well."

"Next, I will take your soul. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with whether you are willing or not. However, if you have any wish you want fulfilled, you can tell me. If I get the chance, I will help you fulfill it."

The old man, who had been staring into Noah's eyes, was somewhat horrified when he saw those eyes turn blue.

Yet after hearing what Noah said, his entire person suddenly revealed an enlightened look, and the corners of his mouth split into a smile.

"What's this? I thought you were the god of death collecting souls. Hahaha... I didn't expect you to be a devil from hell, trading in souls instead..."

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