Torture

The more Lucas walked outside, the more he was certain of the fact that he truly had gone back one day into the past.

However, if that was truly the case, what should he do about Roy?

Or rather, the person posing as him.

Lucas still remembered what Lisa told him over the phone before he died.

Someone had sent an assassin to kill him in hopes of getting a different student to participate in the Thousand Races Battleground.

And this assassin was a Magician capable of using a 7th class spell [Mind Control].

Though he had given up on his training, Lucas had never slacked off when it came to knowledge.

Every available book inside the library was memorized by using his Innate Skill-[Memory Film]

This allowed him to quickly retrieve information regarding the spell that the assassin used.

However, Lucas quickly found out that something wasn't right.

Comparing the spells he knew inside his mind, he noticed the spell that the assassin used wasn't [Mind Control], a 7th class spell, but rather a 5th class spell called [Thought Manipulation].

The assassin had lied to him, so that if Lucas survived the fall, he would give false information to the academy staff, letting the Assassin have another chance at completing his job.

Although weaker then [Mind Control] that lets you completely control your enemy, [Thought Manipulation] lets you slowly guide the thoughts of the target towards a certain objective without asking themselves why they are doing it in the first place.

Any doubts that the target may have about their actions would be erased by guiding the thoughts of the target in a different direction, to prevent them from finding out they are being manipulated.

In his example, by amplifying his already bad impression of the school, the assassin was able to make him think that this place was pure hell, and that it was better of dying.

At that point, all it took was simple thought manipulation to make Lucas stop thinking about his suspicious meeting with Roy three days ago, while also stopping him from contacting Lisa.

Of course, the spell had its downsides, such as the activation condition being physical contact with the target, and the stronger your target is, the less effect it will have on that person, becoming practically useless when one reaches the 5th class, hence the rank of the spell.

However...Lucas had no way of abusing these downsides since he had no idea an assassin was aiming for him back then, and even if he did, he was too weak to resist the power of the spell in the first place.

Hence, he needed to find the assassin before he got killed for the second time.

After all, what are the chances of him regressing again? He needed to ensure his own safety by Luring the assassin into the open.

For this, he devised a plan.

Before he regressed back, the spell [Thought Manipulation] that was affecting his mind got broken.

That means, the moment he woke up in his bed, the assassin would notice that his spell had been broken.

The assassin would surely try to find out what had happened, in fact, he might be watching him right now, somewhere in the crowd.

Abusing this knowledge, Lucas went straight towards his class, and, just like before, he followed the script that he and Alfred had devised for him to get sent into the infirmary.

Except this time, before fainting, he told Alfred to warn the instructors about the assassin that had come to murder him.

He would have liked to warn the instructors himself, but the assassin was probably watching him from somewhere, therefore he couldn't do that.

Usually, even if someone breaks free from [Thought Manipulation] they wouldn't completely escape its effects.

Therefore, the act of Lucas going to class and following the script to get him sent into the infirmary won't alarm the assassin, and would, instead, make him come out to finish the job under the disguise of one of his classmates Roy, just like he did yesterday.

The reason Lucas was so confident that he would come out today, despite being wary of the fact that his spell had been broken, was that the list of cadets participating in this years Thousand Races Battleground will be announced tomorrow!

So, unless Lucas was killed today, there was no way for the people behind the assassin to make someone else participate in the event in his place, once the list is out, there will be no changes made, those were the rules that the Council had set.

At that point, the instructors who were warned about the assassin would apprehend him, and Lucas's life would be saved.

It was a perfect plan, born from the fact that the assassin had no knowledge that he had gone back in time.

However, what Lucas saw when he woke up in the infirmary shook him to the core.

the assassin posing as Roy was sitting on a chair next to his bed with a smile on his face, as if he took great joy in seeing his dumbfounded expression.

Lucas couldn't understand, his plan should have been perfect, the plan was set in motion as soon as Alfred warned the instructors about the assassin.

However, Lucas suddenly thought of a ridiculous possibility, an outcome so impossible, that even the Council members themselves would never find out the truth, should they investigate.

It's not like he hadn't thought of this possibility, but rather, logic stated that it was fundamentally impossible to achieve.

This possibility was born from the idea that Alfred was the assassin from the very beginning.

However, this should be impossible as Alfred is a 4th class Aura user!

Of course, it wasn't forbidden to practice Aura and Mana circulation methods at the same time, however it was considered an idiotic thing to do since one's body can only support one Aura/Mana Sea at a time.

Once one reached the point of making their Aura/Mana sea, they would be forced to abandon one method and focus on the other, rendering all the effort one made in said area a complete waste of time.

Despite knowledge about the higher classes being classified, this one specific piece of information was known by every student in the academy, The Council did this in order to stop the talented geniuses from wasting their precious time on something that will one day become useless.

And yet, even if we take a thousand steps back, and say that Alfred truly did practice both Aura and Mana at the same time, just what kind of monster could cultivate to become a 4th class aura user, and a 5th class Mage at the young age of eighteen?

It was because of this that his brain automatically discarded the small possibility that Alfred could be the assassin, and he directly asked him for help to notify the instructors about the assassin.

It was absolutely ridiculous, so ridiculous that nobody would ever find out unless he told them.

"It seems that you figured it out yourself, that's great, it saves me from explaining some things."

Seeing his enlightened expression, Roy, or rather Alfred, who until now did nothing except sit quietly in his chair, not interrupting Lucas's thinking session, started talking slowly in a low voice.

"Now, lets make deal, shall we?"

"What kind of deal?"

Lucas subconsciously asked Alfred, he knew fully well that his life was in the hands of this man, therefore he didn't understand what kind of deal he wanted to make with him.

"Its a very simple deal, you will tell me how you broke free from the spell l placed on you, and then you will tell me how you knew an assassin was after you, l know for a fact that the information was leaked only a couple hours ago."

"If you do both of these things, l will give you a quick death. It is important to note that the employer didn't specify the cause of death, therefore, if you refuse to cooperate, l will stop being nice as well."

"This...I am afraid that even if l tell you, you won't believe me."

Lucas was stuck in dilemma, even if he told this man in front of him about his regression, there was no way he would believe him.

Now he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On one side, if he told the truth, the man would definitely torture him for lying, and if he refused to cooperate, the man would still torture him to get information out of him before being killed.

Lucas wasn't afraid of dying, but no one could smile confidently when faced with this scenario.

"It doesn't matter if l believe you or not, all you have to do is tell me, otherwise...[Fireball]"

"Aghhhhhhhh!"

There was simply no way for Lucas to react in time to the spell being cast.

From the moment he saw the flames, to the point of the flames burning his thigh, only a second had passed, and now excruciating pain was being transmitted from his leg.

In his pain, Lucas subconsciously compared the different sensations of having his entire body smashed after falling from a building, and having his leg deep fried by a fireball.

Despite the former resulting in his immediate death, the latter was significantly more painful, to the point that death seemed quite nice.

The thing that Lucas couldn't understand the most was how Alfred managed to get past the Gigantic Formation that checked the cadets health at all times.

"Do you get it now? As long as you cooperate, this type of pain won't be inflicted on you."

Unfortunately, Lucas had already passed out from the pain of having his leg burned, so he wasn't able to hear Alfred speaking.

"How troublesome....hmmm, [Waterball], and lets spice things up with [Lightning Shock].

Of course, Alfred wouldn't be so nice as to wait for Lucas to wake up, instead he cast a 4th class Waterball spell, followed by [Lightning Shock] of the same rank.

Alone, these two spells wouldn't do much, but when paired together, they become a terrifying combo that could completely immobilize the target.

In this case, it was used as a torture device to make Lucas suffer as much as possible.

Every time he fainted, Alfred would use this spell to wake him up.

When he was awake, Alfred would first ask him the same questions as before, and when he refused to answer, Alfred would continue to torture him in different ways until he fainted, repeating the process indefinitely.

Lucas thought that he had been tortured for hours on end, and he was certain that Alfred would be forced to kill him once curfew was up, therefore he was confident that soon, this pain would come to an end.

01:43am

With this hope in mind, Lucas looked at his watch when Alfred was preparing one of his spells, only to find out in horror that there was still more than four hours until curfew was up.

Perhaps this revelation was too much for Lucas, or perhaps the pain he was receiving was too much for him to bear, but eventually he collapsed.

He started telling Alfred about his experience, how he regressed, and all about his plan to capture him by luring him out into the open.

And, just as Lucas had expected, Alfred only coldly snorted at his pitiful attempt at a 'Lie' and continued to torture him.

Lucas remembered that in the books he read, torture was always described as painful at first, but after that, the only feeling one felt was numbness to everything.

That was clearly a lie.

From start to finish, Lucas only felt endless pain, not a single moment of rest was given to him, even when he fainted, he was forcefully woken up by opposite party's [Lightning Shock].

Burning and Freezing his flesh, Inserting half-melted Needles he found in the infirmary into his nails, Drowning him with water spells until he fainted, then Shocking his body with lightning spells until he woke up.

And, at the end of that entire cycle, Alfred cast:

[Healing]

That's right, after pushing Lucas's body to the limit, Alfred cast [Healing] a fifth class spell onto his body, allowing him to take more torture.

Once, twice, thrice...a thousand times, he lost count of how many times the cycle was repeated, all he knew was that with each passing cycle, the pain only got worse.

Eventually though, seeing that Lucas had no intentions of changing his answer, despite being tortured for hours, Alfred decided to finish him off.

Casting one last [Fireball] Alfred burned Lucas to death, just ten minutes before curfew ended.