novelraw Chapter 69: Interrogation.
Chapter 69: Interrogation.
"Wait! Ash! WAIT!"
The scream echoed off the damp stone walls, bouncing down the corridor of the third dungeon level. It was a desperate, primal sound—the sound of a man realizing that his reality was about to be forcibly rewritten.
Ash stopped.
His hand hovered over the heavy iron handle of the cell door. He didn’t turn around immediately. He simply stood there, his black coat still, contrasting against the grey gloom of the dungeon.
Behind him, inside the cell, Lucas was hyperventilating. The young Paladin pulled at his anti-magic chains until his wrists bled, his eyes darting frantically between Ash’s back and the floating, giggling form of Echidna.
"You... you can’t do this," Lucas stammered, his voice losing its righteous thunder, replaced by the trembling whimper of a child. "To rewrite a man’s mind... that is a sin against the Gods! It is forbidden magic!"
Ash slowly turned his head. His expression wasn’t angry. It was bored.
"The Gods aren’t here, Lucas," Ash said softly. "And as for sins... well, look around you."
He gestured to the room. To the Witch of Sloth floating in the air. To the Witch of Pride standing by the door. To himself, the Monarch of Sins.
"We are the Definition of Sin."
Ash walked back into the center of the room. The guards at the door stiffened, but Ash waved them off. He wanted to oversee this personally.
He stopped inches from Lucas’s face. He could smell the sweat, the copper scent of blood, and the acrid tang of fear.
"I gave you a choice, Lucas. You could have accepted the role. You could have chosen to be my spy willingly. We could have made a deal. But you clung to your pride."
"It’s not pride!" Lucas yelled, tears mixing with the grime on his face. "It’s loyalty! I swore an oath to the Church! To the Light!"
"Loyalty," Ash repeated, tasting the word like it was spoiled milk. "Let me tell you about loyalty."
Ash leaned in, his violet eyes boring into Lucas’s good eye.
"When Isaac kicked me out of the party, I was loyal. I carried his bags. I cooked his food. I took the hits he didn’t want to take. And in return? He threw me into a dungeon to die. He laughed while he did it."
Ash’s voice dropped to a whisper, terrifyingly calm.
"Where was the Church then? Where was the Light? Did they save me? No. I saved me. They saved me."
He pointed to the Witches.
"Loyalty isn’t given, Lucas. It is purchased. With power. With fear. With results."
Ash straightened up, his demeanor shifting from personal grievance back to cold calculation.
"And right now, you are too expensive. Your loyalty to the Church is a liability. So, I’m going to remove it."
Ash nodded to Echidna.
"Do it."
"Yay!" Echidna chirped.
The Witch of Sloth didn’t cast a spell in the traditional sense. She didn’t chant. She didn’t use a magic circle. She simply drifted forward, her body defying gravity, until she was hovering directly in front of the suspended Paladin.
She reached out with both hands. Her fingers were long, pale, and tipped with nails that looked like obsidian glass.
She placed her hands on Lucas’s temples.
"No... no, get away!" Lucas thrashed, kicking out with his legs, but Raphael merely flicked a finger, and a wave of gravity pinned his lower body against the wall.
"Shhh," Echidna whispered, her voice sounding like it was coming from inside Lucas’s own head. "Sleep now. Thinking is too hard. Remembering is too painful. Let me take the heavy things away."
Purple sparks jumped from her fingertips into Lucas’s skull.
Lucas’s body went rigid. His back arched, his jaw locked open in a silent scream. His eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible, veins bulging in his neck.
[System Notification]
[Skill Active: Mind Breach (Assisted by Echidna)]
[Target: Lucas (Level 38)]
[Resistance Check: Failed.]
[Erosion: 1%...]
Ash watched the percentage tick up. It was slow. The Paladin’s mental defenses were high, fortified by years of religious indoctrination and mental resistance training.
"He’s fighting it," Raphael noted, standing beside Ash with her arms crossed. "His will is commendable, for a human."
"It’s not will," Ash corrected. "It’s fear. He’s afraid of what he’ll be without the Church. It’s his entire identity."
Ash stepped closer to the thrashing man.
"Echidna, target the childhood memories first. The orphanage. The induction ceremony. The face of the High Priest."
"Okay, Master!" Echidna sang.
The purple light intensified.
Inside Lucas’s mind, a library was burning.
He was standing in the great hall of the Holy Cathedral, kneeling before the High Priest. He could feel the cold stone on his knees. He could smell the incense. He felt the pride of being chosen.
"Rise, Sir Lucas. You are a shield of the Light."
Then, a black fog rolled in.
The face of the High Priest blurred. The voice became distorted, deep and demonic.
"Rise... Slave."
"NO!" Lucas screamed in the real world. "That’s not... I don’t... who was he? Who said that?"
"Good," Ash muttered. "Keep going. The academy. His friends."
Echidna hummed a lullaby.
Lucas saw his friends. He saw Elias teaching him how to block magic. He saw Mina healing his scraped knee.
The black fog consumed them. Their faces melted away, replaced by blank static. The warmth of the memory turned to ice.
"I... I can’t see them," Lucas sobbed, his body going limp in the chains. "Why can’t I see them?"
[Erosion: 45%...]
"He’s breaking," Raphael whispered. "The anchor is gone."
Ash stepped forward again. Now came the hardest part. The implantation.
You couldn’t just leave a mind empty. A hollow mind was useless; it was a vegetable. You had to fill the void with something else. Something stronger.
Ash activated his own skill.
[Slave Contract].
Dark mana flowed from Ash’s hand, swirling around Lucas’s head, mixing with Echidna’s purple energy.
"Lucas," Ash said, his voice amplified by the system, echoing like thunder in the small cell.
Lucas’s head lolled forward. He looked up, his eyes unfocused, swimming with tears and confusion.
"Who am I?" Ash asked.
Lucas blinked. His brain grasped for a reference point. He looked for the High Priest, but the memory was gone. He looked for his captain, but the face was blank.
In the vast, terrifying darkness of his mind, there was only one light left. A violet light.
"You are..." Lucas’s voice was a croak. "You are..."
"I am the one who spared you," Ash said. "I am the one who gave you purpose when the Light abandoned you."
Ash reached out and grabbed Lucas’s chin, forcing him to look up.
"I am your King."
[Erosion: 85%...]
[New Core Memory Implanted: ’Ash is Absolute’.]
[New Core Directive Implanted: ’Protect the King’s Secrets’.]
Lucas’s body trembled one last time, a final spasm of his old self dying. Then, he went still.
The tension left his muscles. The frantic energy dissipated.
He hung in the chains, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his nose onto the floor.
Echidna pulled her hands back, shaking them as if they were wet. She looked tired, her usual floaty demeanor weighed down.
"He was heavy," she complained, drifting back to lean against the wall. "Too much guilt. Too much prayer. Yuck."
"You did well," Ash said.
He waited.
Slowly, Lucas lifted his head.
The fear was gone from his eyes. The defiance was gone. But so was the glaze of the mind-wipe. His eyes were clear, sharp, and focused.
He looked at Ash.
There was a moment of silence.
Then, despite the chains, despite the pain, Lucas tried to kneel. Since he was suspended, he could only curl his legs up, lowering his head in a gesture of absolute submission.
"My King," Lucas whispered. The words came out smooth, natural, as if he had been saying them his entire life.
Ash felt the connection snap into place in his soul. A new thread in the web of the [Slave Contract].
[Bond Established.]
[Subject: Lucas (Hero Party Tank).]
[Loyalty: 100% (Artificial/Imprinted)]
[Current Status: Spy.]
Ash let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. It worked.
"Release him," Ash commanded.
The guards rushed forward, unlocking the mana-cuffs.
Lucas fell to the floor. He didn’t try to run. He didn’t try to fight. He immediately shifted onto his knees, pressing his forehead against the cold stone at Ash’s feet.
"Forgive me," Lucas said, his voice trembling with shame. "I was lost. I did not see the truth. I... I raised my sword against you."
Ash looked down at the top of the Hero’s head. It was terrifying, really. Ten minutes ago, this man would have died to kill Ash. Now, he was apologizing for it.
The power of the System combined with the Witches was truly god-like.
"Stand up, Lucas," Ash said.
Lucas stood, albeit shakily. He winced as his weight settled on his injured leg, but he stood at attention.
"Raphael," Ash said.
"Yes, Master?"
"Heal him. But leave the scars. Leave the signs of a struggle."
Raphael stepped forward, placing a hand on Lucas’s shoulder. Golden light, corrupted with a tinge of crimson, flowed into the Paladin. The swelling in his eye went down. The deep cuts knitted together, leaving angry red welts.
"Lucas," Ash addressed his new pawn.
"Command me," Lucas responded instantly.
"Do you remember your mission?"
Lucas’s eyes glazed over for a split second as he accessed the new memories, then sharpened.
"Yes. I am to return to the Holy Capital. I am to report that the investigation was successful."
"And what did you find?"
"I found the site of a Dungeon Break," Lucas recited, his voice steady. "A Rank-A Beast horde overwhelmed the city of Galdor. The Hero Isaac and the rest of the party fought bravely, but they were overwhelmed. I found Isaac’s body... or what was left of it. I barely escaped with my life."
"And the city?"
"Ruins," Lucas said. "Nothing but rubble and monsters. No survivors. No threat to the Church. Just a tragedy."
Ash smiled. It was perfect.
"And what about me?" Ash asked.
Lucas looked confused. "You? You are the King. You are the Shadow in the dark. You are..."
He paused.
"Wait. The Church records say... there was a porter. Named Ash."
"Yes," Ash said.
"He died," Lucas said confidently. "The porter died in the forest months ago. Isaac told me himself. A bear ate him. He is irrelevant."
Ash laughed. It was a cold, sharp sound that echoed in the cell.
"Perfect."
Ash turned and walked toward the door. The heavy iron hinges creaked as the guards pulled it open for him.
"Get him a horse," Ash ordered Raphael over his shoulder. "And get him some torn clothes. Make sure he looks like he crawled through hell to get back home."
"It will be done."
Ash stepped out into the corridor. The air here was still stale, but compared to the oppressive mana density of the cell, it felt fresh.
He walked toward the stairs, his mind already racing to the next step.
With Lucas inside the Hero Party, Ash would have access to the Church’s movements. He would know when the crusades were planned. He would know where the supply lines were.
He wasn’t just hiding anymore. He was hunting.
He reached the top of the spiral staircase and pushed open the door to the courtyard.
Kelvin was waiting for him there. The former slave, now Ash’s chief administrator, looked nervous. He was holding a ledger, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"M-Master Ash!" Kelvin stammered when he saw the King emerge from the dungeon.
"Kelvin," Ash said, adjusting his cuffs. "What is it?"
"It’s the supply caravan from the Beast Lands, sir. They arrived early. They brought the... uh... the materials you asked for."
"The Mana Steel?"
"Yes, sir. Tons of it. Satanachia is already inspecting it, but she’s... well, she’s scaring the merchants."
Ash sighed. "I’ll handle it."
He glanced back at the dungeon entrance one last time.
Down there, a Hero was being dressed in rags, prepared to lie to the most powerful organization in the world.
Ash looked at his hands. He could still feel the residual tingle of the [Slave Contract] skill.
He was becoming something else. He knew it. The old Ash, the programmer from Earth, would have been horrified by what he just did. Brainwashing? Torture?
But the Monarch of Sins?
He felt... satisfied.
"Let’s go, Kelvin," Ash said, striding forward, his cape billowing behind him. "We have an empire to build."