Unwillingly Recruited

"Is it too hard for you to understand? Maybe your brains has suffered some sequels I didn't expect?" Jack asked while gazing at the human girl with a dubious look on his face. During this time, Zoe was slowly processing everything which had happened to her and her confusion faded away to leave her alone with her fear and pain.

"Hello?" The immortal grunted while coming closer to her, wondering if she was fine. His movement woke her up and she hurriedly replied :

"Y-yes?"

"Are you related in any kind of way to the Church of Radiance?"

"Uh... Why are you asking this?" The mage woman asked before regretting her decision since Jack snapped her fingers after having heard her answer. She felt her blood flow out her stumps as the spell which stopped it has been cancelled and shuddered while the grip of death tightened itself around her throat.

"You should reply you know, at this rate you'll bleed out in a few minutes." The immortal announced while looking at the steady and pulsing vermilion flow. The smell reached the ghoul's predator's nose and made it salivate even harder. Yet, the iron grip of Jack's will rooted it in place and the poor undead simply hungrily gazed at the red liquid spreading on the rotten wooden floor.

His voice made Zoe snap out of her surprise and she hurriedly looked up to lock her eyes with the grey ones of her kidnapper. Surprisingly, there seemed to be a weird purple glow in his irises but she didn't focus on it. Instead, she tried her best to make the knot she had in her throat disappear and replied with a desperate tone :

"I-I'm not with the Church... P-please finish me painlessly..."

"Uh? Why would I? That's a good answer !" The immortal laughed before snapping his fingers again, stopping the hemorrhage like it was nothing to him. In reality, it had been quite taxing to him to maintain a Falsehood Sight and the Closed Wound together. Thus, he had decided to stress her out a little and it worked quite well. Furthermore, he had created the ghoul since it would give him a meat shield if the mage decided to fight back as his body was still painful and too slow to avoid thunder spells.

He had been putting up a tough front while in reality every movement and spell used made him grit his teethes. Yet, this was something that soldiers of his time dealt with on a daily rate and he had come to get used to as well. When you fought for your life, you gave it all even if it had to cripple you later. There, it was even harsher since they fought for their families. Incursions of monster or other civilizations had happened many times and the warriors on the front-lines held as long as they could to win the maximum of time for their families' evacuations or the reinforcements's arrival.

'I've done that too...' He thought while his gaze got lost in the blood puddle. It reminded him of the tortured landscape which was also one of his last memories. Bodies covered the ground and disappeared in the horizon's line while red rivers flowed in the deep cracks that the earth bore as scars after his fight.

"Uuh... W-What do you mean by good answer?" Zoe asked, breaking his nostalgic moment and making him realize that he must have seemed to be really weird as he stared at her blood slowly creep into the wood. In reality, the poor girl had simply struggled to calm her panicked breath and pressure drop so she hadn't stared at him either.

"Well, if you were a part of this pathetic cult I wouldn't want to loose more time on a lost cause. Oh by the way, don't try to lie I can smell it." Jack lied through his teethes as he had in fact disabled his spell since it gave him a terrible headache.

"What? Sme-" The mage first said then stopped herself as she remembered the fresh memories of the punishment she got when she ran her mouth without being authorized.

"Talk child, you passed the first test. I won't kill you for nothing since now you have some value."

"What...? Some value...?" Zoe muttered while looking at him. His words hadn't reassured her in the slightest and her gaze was similar to a wounded deer's one.

"Well, I won't kill you immediately if you prefer this explanation." Jack shrugged.

"Wh-why are you doing this then..? What are you...?" She asked as her face fell while tears streamed down her cheeks.

"Why am I doing this you say... I simply want to take everything from those who have stolen me first." The immortal said while atmosphere got even heavier than it was. "And for what I am... I'm simply an old man." He then chuckled, making all the pressure disappear in an instant.

"An old man wouldn't be able to cut both my arms..." Zoe sighed while feeling her sanity disappear quickly. She then tried to put up a tough front and laughed a little even if it sounded fake.

"Well I'm still fit enough to at least do that I guess." Jack laughed while the mage's fake smile crumbled apart.

"What do you want from me?" She asked after having taken a deep breath as she thought that it may be her last one.

"I want you to tell me why you were spying on us. Then, depending on your answer I'll end your life and your companions' one or I'll make you submit to me." He explained with a devilish grin on his face.

"I-I can't tell you that..." Zoe weakly said after having pondered her options for a few seconds.

"Well, that's a shame." Jack sighed before bending down, grabbing one of her severed arms before waving it at her. "I'll give you five seconds to answer. After that, I'll feed your... left..? Yes, left arm to this cute ghoul. It would be a shame to loose it definitely don't you think so?"

"Wait ! Do... Do you have a healer able to reattach them?" She asked with interest as she knew how hard it would be to practice magic without them. Regenerating limbs was mainly something that you would read in fairy tales but stories of cut arms sewed back together and healed with magic appeared in history books instead. She also knew that her life would probably end in a few hours if she didn't answer so the temptation slowly took over her determination and will to protect her friends.

"No I don't." Seeing Zoe's face crumble appart, he laughed and explained : "But I'm here. Come on girl, I've beaten you up, stopped your bleeding with magic and raised a lesser undead. Why don't you believe that I would be able to heal your arms?"

A long silence then took over the room as the woman studied her interlocutor while he simply waited for her to take a decision. Then, he felt that it was starting to take too much time and started to count :

"Five." His cold and quiet voice remembered her of the last night and their fight.

"Four."

"Three."

"Two."

"I'll speak !" Zoe nearly screamed while crying as her internal conflict destroyed her.

"Oh?" Jack smiled while his ghoul managed to form a sad expression on its tortured face.

"B-But I have a condition..." She then explained while lowering her gaze.

"You're not in a position where you can ask for such things... But you know what, I'm a benevolent man. I'll hear what you have to say." He sneered before crouching to reach her gaze's level.

"If... If my answer don't satisfy you, please don't kill me. I'll become your slave instead... Or your weapon...." She murmured while lowering her eyes even further.

"Are you really this afraid of dying?" Jack laughed while having troubles to understand her.

"N-no... I want you to let the others live if I do this willingly." She replied while finally locking her brown eyes in his ashen ones. She only found an abyss of hate and contempt inside of those and shuddered when he laughed. His voice was cold and devoid of mirth.

"Kid, you'll follow me anyway don't worry. I'll just kill you if you are useless. The same rule goes for your two companions. Now, speak. It's the last time I repeat myself." He announced while sighing.

'I've lost so much time in here... Maybe I'm curious for nothing...'

"Fine. I had been sent to talk to you guys in order to organize a training session..." She gave up and said with a broken voice.

"Training session for what? This doesn't explain the spying at all." Jack grunted.

"We... We wanted to see how strong you guys were before the quest..." She continued before her voice broke again. Inside of her, an internal war was still raging. The immortal didn't interrupt her and simply waited for her to organize her thoughts a little before continuing. After that, she explained their plan but didn't mention Richard to him. He knew that there was something fishy with the family part but decided to play along since he had learnt something way more interesting : He would have allies against the holy knights.

He had said nothing during her explanations and his silence stressed her out even more as he stood there motionless after she ended her speech. 'Did... Did he notice that I lied about my family being Richy's one..? Am I going to die here?' Sweat and tears started to form themselves on her face before Jack finally spoke :

"Welcome to the family, child. You passed."

"R-really?" She muttered while tears flowed down her cheeks.

"Yes, relax yourself as much as you can. It will take some time to heal your arms." He said in a voice she discovered. There was warmth and gentleness inside of it. Yet, his thoughts were as dark as usual :

'I'll also need to create a Curse weak enough for me to cast but strong enough to protect my secrets if she decide to throw it all away... Well, I'll need some time to think about it.'

Thus, they discussed during some time and even if the thoughts of attacking him crossed Zoe's mind once he healed her arms she still decided to stay quiet for the time being. After all, the magical knowledge and expertise he showed her proved that he would have been able to kill her instead of capturing her if he wanted to. Furthermore, he had also teased her about the "real magic" and other information which would have made her crazy about him if he hadn't abducted her after having cut her arms.

-

On the other side of the town...

"Where is she goddamit !" Andrew angrily said while kicking an empty bottle on the ground, sending it explode on a wall.

"We have to admit it... She has literally disappeared and we have no idea of where she could be." Moringar sighed while leaning on the wall of the small alley where they were. They had asked everywhere, even at the Church if she was there out of desperation. Yet, no one told them that they had seen her and some replied that it was this stupid rumor which was the cause. At first, they dismissed it as a child's joke but now they started to believe it.

"Yes... Well let's go back, the sun is setting... Maybe it was a bad dream and we'll wake up with her tomorrow..." The knight joked while they both walked the head down in the dawning light. Bystanders made way for them unconsciously as they seemed to be frustrated enough to kill the first guy daring to stand against them and they quickly reached their inn. They opened the door slowly, fearing to look behind it and thus first heard her joyful voice :

"Hey guys, you are finally there ! What have you been doing?"