Chapter 166

Splash!

A bucket of cold water drenched the sleeping Fake Auten. Startled, Auten woke up and realized that he was tied to a chair. He shivered.

"Ooof."

In front of him, Alisa was filing her fingernails. The Seven-Colored Peacock agent, who splashed Auten, quickly bowed and exited the room.

As the agent closed the door, all light from the room was eliminated. Darkness filled the underground interrogation room, surrounding Fake Auten and Alisa.

"When I face fellas like you, I remember a past that I don't want to recall."

Ch-ch-ch-ch…

The sound of fingernails being filed was abnormally loud. As the knife flickered the little amount of light that was left in the room, Alisa's expressionless face occasionally came into view. 

In exchange for opposing Euria and Lathry's 'Resonance', she volunteered herself to conduct the interrogation. She was worried that Lathry might make a mistake while using Resonance and cause her daughter to witness the most horrid and treacherous events or villains. 

As of now, she was an able and bright leader of Tikan's Central Defense Force.

However, her past was filled with time spent in the Vermont Special Forces 2nd Division, the division mainly focused on protecting the Vermont Imperial Family. 'Protecting' had more roles than just being a bodyguard.

For example, finding out the subordinates of an assassin, or investigating those kinds of cases, and torturing if needed. Amongst the members of Jin's party, Alisa was most used to hearing screams. There probably weren't many people who were as used to screams of pain as she was.

"Shit, what is… Hoooo."

Stopping the file, Alisa lightly blew on her fingers.

"Let me… write a letter. If you are doing this for ransom, then I will contact the main base. Who are you? I can't believe Kidard Hall's apprentice attacked us. There must be some mistake."

"There was no mistake. The chair you are sitting in right now is your world as of now."

"Ha, you going to torture me or something? What do you want from me?"

"Information about the Dark Magic Association. Everything you know."

"It seems that Kidard Hall's apprentice doesn't know something, but there's nothing good about knowing more about us. Even Kidard Hall managed a distant relationship with us. If the main base finds out about torturing…"

"You are dying to find out what I can do with this nail file, aren't you? Hessum's serial killer, Mato Baker."

"How… do you know my name…?"

Fake Auten—Hessum's serial killer Mato Baker's eyes grew wide. 

During the four days he was unconscious from mana overflow, Alisa used the Seven-Colored Peacock to uncover some information about him.

They identified the time that the real Auten Melson—who was a vegetarian—disappeared and easily found out Fake Auten's identity through the intervals when he was disguised.

Since Mato was someone famous for enjoying murder, he was a pain in the ass for the Hessum Kingdom that was small and weak.

Ch-ch-ch-ch…

Alisa began to file her finger nails once more. 

"I'm the co-leader of the second division in the Vermont Special Forces. And the one who attacked you was not Kidard Hall's apprentice, but the Vermont Imperial Family's eighth prince."

"Wh-What…?"

"Hard to believe? Same here. I couldn't believe that some rotten old man could transform into a high-standing academy alumnus. Now, let's have some trust for each other."

"Th-The eighth… the eighth prince. No way… Ah… Wait, then the one that killed Kidard of Profusion…"

"Shhhh. If you want to end your life comfortably. That's beyond the scope of the topic right now."

"Aaaaaaaack!"

Mato Baker began to scream even before Alisa started anything.

He knew that there was no way for him to make it out of the room alive.

* * * 

Alisa walked out of the underground interrogation room an hour later.

"Good work, Miss Alisa."

"Young Master Jin, Enya."

The two had been waiting in the first floor guest room for her to return.

"Did you get anything out of him?"

"Of course. He unraveled some shocking stories. The main base's location and list of affiliated magicians of the Dark Magic Association was only a fraction. We also got some information about the Transformer."

"The Transformer?"

"Let us get into further detail upstairs, Young Master."

In only an hour, she came back with just what he wanted. Jin genuinely marveled at her skill while Enya's face lost all color, imagining the horrors that occurred during the interrogation. Alisa saw her expression and smiled.

"Please do not think of anything too scary, Miss Enya. Interrogation is just an environment to elicit the information. The intel came in naturally when I mentioned Young Master Jin being the eighth prince of Vermont and myself being in the Special Forces 2nd Division. Impersonating my past organization for the sake of interrogation felt a little weird."

"Oh, I merely thought that you would be tired because of that man…"

"Fufu, Mato Baker is scum that enjoys mass murder. Honestly, I felt a little bummed out when I went too easy. Looking at his past records in the Hessum Kingdom, he's done some horrendous things."

She dealt with the problem very easily—without torture.

Jin and Enya thought about whether that statement was the truth or not, yet they just shook their heads. If they had to choose the scariest person of them all within their group, they would choose Alisa without hesitation.

"Then what will happen to Mato now?"

"That is none of your business, haha."

"U-Understood."

They walked to Kashimir's office, where everyone had already gathered.

"Alright, since everyone's here, let's sort things out. Young Master Jin brought such a valuable person back. The Dark Magic Association's main base is surprisingly in Oterium."

"Oterium?"

"Oterium… Isn't that Vankella's old capital?"

Murakan and Quikantel responded simultaneously, and Alisa nodded.

"Correct. It is the old capital of Vankella, located in the southwest side of the eastern region. The war was about five hundred years ago, so Miss Quikantel would've seen it herself."

It was when Murakan was in his slumber. However, just as Alisa said, Quikantel exactly remembered the Vankella that was on the verge of anarchy.

"I wasn't there at the location, but I remember it clearly since I was around back then."

About five hundred years ago, the Holy Kingdom of Vankella was raided by monsters to recover their sacred item known as 'Jito's Eye'. At the time, the Runcandels and Zipfels cooperated to help the neutral kingdom—Vankella—and dispatched knights and magicians.

One of the only wars where the two strongest powers cooperated, the victory of the 'Defense of the Holy Kingdom' went to Vankella, but there was no way of saving the devastated lands.

As a result, Vankella moved most of its main city to a new location and rebuilt the kingdom from there. The old capital remained as an unsupervised area, becoming a breeding ground for the surviving monsters.

Murakan yawned as Quikantel summarized this story.

Jin had to conceal his perplexed feelings.

"Liol Zipfel's inheritance, the Ring of Erupting Flames Massacre Final Form's magic tome, is there in Oterium… Why the hell are those bastards residing there?"

The Dark Magic Association most likely didn't claim that land unintentionally. They were eradicated in the past by Liol Zipfel.

At first, he planned to defeat some bad guys, but the more he learned, more unexpected problems kept spilling out. 

"How long have they been in that location?"

"About fifty years. Anyway, if it's as Young Master Jin says, the Dark Magic Association is no longer just the remnants. As expected, Rolt Joe's brother, Cold Joe is also affiliated with the group. There's more where he came from."

Alisa continued to read off some names affiliated with the Dark Magic Association. Everyone in the room let out a sigh.

"Three 9-stars were identified; Vermont Academy's great elder, Huejiron Hensirk; Lilistar's ruler, Susan Lilistar; Anz's grand magician, Chukon Tolderer. The rest were beyond Mato's knowledge."

"...Before I killed Rolt Joe, he said that within the Dark Magic Association, he fell into at most the top ten. I guess he was the tenth. What are they? If they're that strong, I guess Kinzelo is even stronger."

Jin, too, could only be surprised. He couldn't have imagined that so many powerful and important people gathered in an evil organization. 

'Even in my past life, I hadn't heard about the Dark Magic Association and the Kinzelo Group growing that strong. I just found out, but I'm sure the main house and Zipfels already knew.'

They probably did.

The organization was filled to the brim with all kinds of people, so there was no way the Runcandels, Zipfels, and Vermont Imperial Family didn't bat an eye.

Yet why?

It was a problem to start uncovering, but one wrong move and there'd be too many people to deal with.

'The main house, Zipfels, and Vermont Imperial Family probably have a reason to ignore this issue. Either they have something to recover from them or they know they shouldn't mess with the Dark Magic Association. All of the world powers…'

Remembering that the world powers didn't intervene with Kinzelo's business, Jin grew more certain of the reasons.

"And there's some more shocking information. It seems that the Kinzelo Group has Bouvard Gaston the Transformer in their hands, and Mato Baker's transformation into Auten Melson was his doing."

Alisa unpacked the rest of the information, and Kashimir's eyes widened.

It was the information that Jin had been waiting for.

"Wait, Bouvard Gaston… That's the name that came out when we investigated Vishukel Yvliano's name!"

—Although I am not sure, it is possible that Vishukel is part of the Kinzelo Group. Once a week, he visits the Curano Dukedom, and he always goes to this one fragment workshop.

—The owner of the strangely titled fragment workshop, 'Artistic Explosion', is a man named Bouvard Gaston. According to what we found, Bouvard is an executive of the Kinzelo Group. And Vishukel visits him every week, which raises suspicion.

Kashimir looked astonished while recalling his old conversation with Jin. The dragons focused on the word 'transformation'.

"How the hell does that human transform? And he can transform other people? Not just give them a disguise?"

"That's something I'm hearing for the first time as well. Transformation is a blessing just between us dragons…"

"Hm, Mato didn't know the method for his transformation either. He said he swallowed a sleeping pill, and when he woke up, Bouvard had already transformed him."

"I have met transformed assassins prior to Mato. When I left the Storm Castle, Zipfel pursuers transformed as guardian knights went for my head."

When Jin mentioned his story, all eyes were on him.

"...And I almost killed Bouvard at the banquet. I will go meet him. Personally."