Chapter 32: Torrent city [3].

Captain Lark Volden was a slightly above average heighted man with blonde hair and green eyes. His oval shaped head and chiseled jaw line made him as, if not more, handsome than most other nobles.

Like any other magic Knight, Lark wore grey coloured shirt that had the symbol of the magic knights embedded onto the top right corner of the chest as well as the back. He wore plain white trousers, and black leather boots that went up beyond his ankles. The regalia fit his firm muscles and slender frame like a glove.

He wore a sash across his chest and a rapier was strapped to his black belt. On his left shoulder was a badge which distinguished him from the rest as a captain, it was good to note that he actually wore said badge very proudly.

"It is an honor to meet the count." Lark said with a short bow but Raymond just stared at the man with cold eyes, not responding to his greetings or introductions.

'how foolish. To calls other count's name when introducing your self to one is tantamount to a threat. It like telling them that I got an equally large backer behind me and you can't touch me or else there will be consequences.' Alvin thought. He was right.

Such statements were an insult to the count's honour. From the abject incompetence displayed in blindly rushing into combat and letting the enemy group escape to indirectly threatening him, it hadn't even been a minute since the two met yet Raymond already had a less than favourable impression of the squad captain. He was so stupid it was almost suspicious.

"Where is he?" Raymond asked with cold eyes. He was holding himself back from attacking Lark right there and then. After all, he still had his pride as a man and did not appreciate such a blatant threat.

"Excuse me?" Lark unknowingly uttered. He was expecting a greeting in return as per the minimum courtesy, but the count was not such a person. The sudden and unexpected question only added to momentary confusion.

"Are you so dumb that you can't even comprehend such a simple question. I ask for the suspect that was apprehended." Raymond said.

"Che..." Lark clicked his tongue at the insult. He wasn't a very smart person so he totally failed in coming up with an appropriate retort. Even though his brother was a count, he was not so concieted to outrightly insult Raymond in his face, especially not ithe latter's own territory.

He had no choice but to just suck it up, and swallow the insult. As a B-rank mage, Raymond was not his opponent, and he also couldn't match the count in terms of authority.

He gestured towards the Knight that was responsible for holding the gagged man and he brought him forward. From a single glance, it was very apparent that he was the apprehended suspect.

The gagged man looked muscular and had a firm build. His face had quite a lot of scars, proof that he had been to a fair share of fights, and his eyes shone with an unwavering determination. There was no way by which normal interrogation methods would ever work on a person like this.

After a short moment spent on sizing up the chained man, Raymond walked up to him and squated right and before him.

"We bound his arms with magical restraints, meaning that he can't call upon internal Mana. The chains are also made of very strong material which he can not break out of. Even I myself couldn't destroy those chains with raw physical strength." He boasted, if you could call that a boast.

"Remove the gag." Raymond said to the Knight that stood beside the suspect, the magic Knight obeyed.

"I must warn you though, the reason why we gaged him was because he has a very foul mouth." Lark imputed, but the count could not care less about his words. To him, Lark's words held little, if not any value at all.

After a few moments of fumbling with the strap, the magic Knight finally succeeded in undoing the gag. As the ball like object left the criminal's mouth, a thin thread of saliva could be noticed.

"Aaaahh. Finally, my mouth was getting sore from all that." The man said while performing some jaw exercises.

Raymond had no intentions of entertaining a prisoner and decided to just get straight to the point. He focused his piercing gaze of the man's eyeballs and opened his mouth to say, "From now on, only speak when I tell you to, got it?"

It was a tested and proven method of interrogation which involved setting a clear boundary between the suspects and interrogator, while exerting a generous amount of dominance. But the man didn't answer back, he just gazed defiantly at Raymond. His face didn't show an ounce of fear, his eyes burned with contempt.

'hmm, something feels off. There is no way in hell that those guys expected to get anything out of this person with normal interrogation. Even normal torture methods wouldn't work on this guy.' Raymond thought, glancing from the criminal, to Lark and then back.

He decided to go along with it and follow the normal interrogation process.

"Tell me where your friends are, and I'll think about letting you go." Raymond said. It was an obvious lie as there was absolutely no way in hell that Raymond would actually do such a thing.

"...." The man didn't respond again. But unlike before, he seemed to be doing something inside his mouth.

Raymond opened his mouth, in an attempt to say some more words to the criminal when the unthinkable happened.

"Ptoo." The criminal spat in Raymond's face.

The single drop of saliva soared through the air and in an instant, it landed on the count's cheeks with a 'splat'.

At this juncture, the entire place had fallen into a deafening silence as every single person present in the underground basement had their jaw slacked and mouths open in pure shock. They were all making the most stupified expression of their lives.

What the hell...did that idiot just do?!

They couldn't be blamed though. The prisoner didn't know this, but the single action had all but sealed his fate. There was no more room for a negotiation, no sort of miracle could help him now, he had officially finalized his appointment with the grim reaper.

His gutsiness was deserving of respect though.

"Did I spit on you? Oh I'm so sorry..not! All of you damn noble bastards think that you are so much better than everyone else just because you were born into a better position than most others!" The man, who Raymond did not know his name, yapped on. Little did he know that Raymond already began constructing the blueprint for his death.

Raymond dipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved an immaculate white napkin, which he used to wipe the spittle off of his face. During the entire thing, Raymond remained silent and expressionless.

It would seem that he didn't care about it on the outside, but everyone except the prisoner knew that count Raymond was not the type of person to let such an insult slide. His death was now inevitable. 

Some people say that ignorance is bliss...they were right, because if the criminal knew what was going on in Raymond's head right now, he would have long since began licking Raymond's boots and begging for forgiveness.

But the unfortunate fact was that he didn't. The criminal kept on ranting.

"You see everyone below you as mere bugs, insects that can be disposed of at any time, well we are not. Even we commoners are humans too!" 

Raymond was a perfect example of a neutral ruler. He performed all of his duties as a count without any bias. He took no joy in torturing the commoners or anything like that, he also only got himself involved in the bare minimum of politics that a noble like himself was allowed and focused the remainder of his time on his family....or at least, those whom he considered family.

"You bastard nobles are-". The criminal spoke, but was cut off by the count.

"You talk too damn much." The count said followed by a sudden release of his aura. The criminal was about to once again insult noble, but sudden burst of powerful magical energy made him choke his own words down his throat and his jaw snapped shut so hard that his teeth started wobbling.

A bright and powerful white light surged from Raymond's body and it's oppressive weight dropped down on the criminal like a freaking war hammer. He felt a powerful force press down against him so much that it was squeezing the air out of his lungs. 

He started choking due to the lack of air. He held his neck tightly and heaved like a mad man. His eyes turned bloodshot as veins appeared appeared on his neck and fore head. He was obviously in tremendous pain.

"You know, I did give you an opportunity, but what did you do with it?" Raymond asked a rhetorical question. No one answered and the entire room was in a long drop silence, even Lark was surprised by Raymond's power.

"Koff.koff...heave".

"You threw it away. If you had simply complied and ratted out your accomplices, then all of this wouldn't have happened. You had a chance, but instead you began accusing me of crimes which I have not committed!" Raymond yelled. As the tone of his voice became louder, one could feel the Mana intertwining itself with his voice to create a loud boom of power and authority.

His Mana grew stronger with each word that came out of his mouth, it was an aura which was truly befitting of the esteemed title of S-rank. His eyes had went from cold to fierce.

"You even spat on my face! Do you even realize who I am? I am count Raymond Swordhearth! S-class mage and sword saint. I am one of the most respected nobles in this country, a representative of royalty!!" Raymond roared. The temperature in the area began increasing dramatically as small sparks of fire appeared all over the count.

"You spat in the face of royalty, and that is a crime punishable by death!" Raymond said like an unfeeling judge and stretched out his hand. A circle of fire suddenly appeared, enclosing both the count and the unfortunate criminal in a blazing hot inferno.

When a mage reached a certain level of mastery, they no longer required chants for any of the lower tiered spells. Circle of flames was a 3rd tier spell, it was still classified as a low level fire manipulation spell and as such Raymond didn't require a chant to cast it.

The flames danced and burned wildly, the scorching heat which emanated from them assaulted the already chocking criminal, drying up the saliva in his throat and subjecting him to even greater pain.

"Heave...heave.." He was not even allowed the luxury of screaming as all the moisture in his body slowly dissipated. His agitated bowels emptied themselves, but the moisture was quickly dried up by the ferocious flames.

The heat of the flames burned him, turning his outer skin to burnt charcoal and even the tears that tried to escape his eyes evaporated almost immediately as they surfaced..

Lark and all the other magical knights watched on in fear as they had never witnessed such a horrific scene in their lives, some had already wet themselves.

"Will you talk?" Raymond asked, he wanted a definite answer.

"I..koff..koff..i-i..wheeze". The criminal tried to squeeze out a response, but his voice was failing him.

"WILL. YOU. TALK?" Raymond asked, more resolutely this time. He didn't care about the pain his victim was passing through. He had an objective, and he was hell bent on achieving it.

"I-i...koff...w-w-will....." He said in a low voice. Raymond could hear it, but he was not going to stop there.

"I can't hear you? Do you want to die so much?!" Raymond yelled, increasing his output and placing the already suffering criminal under even more pressure.

At that moment, the criminal gathered all of his remaining strength and willpower to scream at the top of his voice,"I will talk!! Please!"

As the words left his mouth, Raymond deactivated all of his spells. The circle of fire disappeared and the temperature slowly returned to normal. The criminal was still dryly coughing out blood though.

"Alvin." Raymond called.

"Sir?" Alvin promptly responded.

"Get all the answers you can from this guy and take effective action. I put you incharge of all of this." Raymond said while walking away. His sudden words snapped everyone out of their stupor.

"Y-yes sir." Alvin answered and ran to catch up with Raymond.

"Also, I want you to get a Mana room reservation for me. What is the highest level they can offer?" Raymond asked.

"The highest they offer for reservations are level 5, sir." Alvin promptly answered.

"Then get it for me." 

"At once sir." Alvin responded with a curt bow.

"Oh, and one more thing...."

"Sir?"

"...tell your men to not bother me unless you have found the exact position of the rogue group." Raymond said as he ascended the stairs.

"Uh, sir?" It was Alvin's turn to call out now.

Raymond stopped walking and glanced at the blue haired man from the corner of his eyes.

"What do I do with him after the questioning." Alvin asked, gesturing to the man who still lay there spitting out blood.

Raymond stopped for what seemed like a few moments to examine the individual, after which he gave his orders.

"Dispose of him." Raymond responded and turned away once again.

"Of course sir". Alvin responded respectfully and immediately got to work as Raymond disappeared through the door.

He left the retched building and entered his private carriage. He was headed straight for the Blue rose guest house.

A/N:

Special thanks to my loyal supporters once more; halis_eren_balaban and Epic_Buddie123. Thanks guys.