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"I'm starting to lose my patience. If this continues, I'm going to have to resort to more extreme methods. Why did you set fire to Saint Delia's Clinic? Who ordered you to do it?" I ask again, slowly crushing with my foot the hand of the most corpulent of the four criminals who tried to burn down Delia's clinic and who are now tied up.
[Ivan] [Assassin Lvl 27]
But the truth is that my words are a bluff, because I don't know what else I could do to make them confess.
"We already told you! Nobody ordered us to do it. We were just passing by and wanted to have some fun," says Ivan, his face beaded with sweat and tears in his eyes, while you can hear each of the bones in his hand crack as they break under the force of my leg, enhanced by my Strength profile.
The leader of the criminals, a burly man in his forties with blond hair and blue eyes, is in a deplorable state, but he remains steadfast in his determination not to confess.
And his companions are in no better health than he is, slowly bleeding from the countless wounds we have inflicted on them.
[Zack] [Assassin Lvl 22]
[Mauricio] [Assassin Lvl 23]
[Horatio] [Assassin Lvl 20]
However, they have not confessed either.
I thought they would break much faster when I started using the old torture tools of Beatrice, the assassin from whom I learned the whole story of Alessia's past, but it seems I was wrong.
And I get the impression that Irina will no longer be willing to help me in my task for much longer, as she has complained several times that she can't bear to see a human being subjected to this level of torture.
She and I are in the uninhabited meadow where I always come when I need to reflect or try something out.
However, this time I am using the place for much more violent activities.
The four human wastes we are treating tried to set Delia's clinic on fire, but they only managed to damage a small part of it before they had to flee, thanks to the quick action of the three annoying beauties and Arya.
However, not only did the criminals' plan fail in that regard, but because they exposed themselves too much in order to start the fires, Arya was able to track them while the three annoying beauties put out the flames.
Once the fire hazard was eliminated, the three annoying beauties reunited with Arya, after which the four women surrounded the criminals and captured them in their hideout.
The criminals' hideout was an ordinary dwelling, albeit with very little furniture and few documents, which leads me to believe that this place was actually a secondary emergency hideout.
This is probably why we have not been able to find any information in their lair that explains their real motivations.
What did become clear is that these people were the ones who had been stealing from the clinic all this time, as we were able to recover several items from their hideout that had been missing from the premises for weeks.
The curious thing is that they are not common criminals but Assassins of the type who handle crucial information and kill influential people.
I suppose that's why it was so difficult for us to catch them, as I know from personal experience that this class greatly increases people's stealth abilities.
A few days ago, I had begun to imagine that this was the case.
It is precisely for this reason that I wanted to leave Arya with the three annoying beauties while Alessia, Delia, and I spent the day in the No Man's Zone, since the elf's perception abilities are much greater than those of a normal person since she has the Eagle Eye skill.
When the elf told me that the criminals had been captured, I opened an illusory door to our house in the capital, from where we went to check the condition of the clinic.
There we could see how the facade of the building was completely blackened by soot, but upon entering we discovered that, fortunately, the structure of the building had not suffered significant damage.
However, the fire seriously injured several of the Believers and Priestesses who have been working as assistants to Delia for some time.
Therefore, Alessia and Delia chose to remain at the clinic to assist with the cleanup and care of the injured, while I went to meet the three annoying beauties and Arya.
Once I arrived, my initial intention was to send the four girls to Alessia and Delia while I squeezed the answers I needed out of the criminals' bodies, but Irina offered to help me, so I let her accompany me.
But, even though Irina and I spent hours and hours poking, amputating, tearing, dislocating, sawing, and crushing various parts of the criminals' bodies, we haven't gotten them to say what I'm looking for.
This seems extremely strange and worrying, because it means that, despite all the pain we have caused them, they are less afraid of us than they are of what will happen to them if they reveal who gave them the order to attack the clinic.
I know there must be someone else involved behind this whole affair, because it makes no sense for a group of assassins of their caliber to waste their time repeatedly attacking the same place.
Even more so when I consider that there are no valuables at Delia's clinic, because the only thing that gives the clinic value is Delia's presence.
'Could they be slaves? That would explain why they can't confess...
No...
It doesn't make sense...
I could see it with my interface.'
'Kiddo, are you out of ideas? Are you ready to leave this to a professional?'
'No. I can't use you, because I can't heal the cuts you make with potions, and I don't want to risk them bleeding to death by mistake.'
'Hahaha, amateurs! Who said anything about cuts? Not all torture has to do with physical pain. There are other forms of torture, much better ones. Want me to teach you?'
'Haa... Okay, but if any of them die by mistake because of you, I'm sending you to my inventory.'
'I just want to help, you ungrateful brat.'
'You're right... Sorry. I'm just really frustrated with this situation. What do you want me to do?'
'Very little, really. Just get me out of this hellish sheath and I'll take care of the rest.'
As soon as I draw the sword from his sheath, the stormy cloud of Dementia Mist begins to spread from his blade towards the four men.
Surprisingly, 15 seconds after Zariche started using his skill, the four men began, one by one, to beg to confess, as long as we stopped whatever it was that the sword was making them perceive.
'How did you do that? What did you show them with your skill?'
'That's a professional secret.'
'Hmt... Never mind... Thanks for the help; you can deactivate the skill now.'
'There's no need to thank me. I really enjoyed the process.'
"Who gave you the order?" I asked, hoping this would be the last time I had to ask them the question.
"It was a man named Benicio. He's a member of the Solus Temple, but we don't know exactly what position he holds within the temple, as he's not the kind of person the temple can show to the public," says Ivan, the leader of the criminals, with a look full of contempt and hatred.
"What we do know is his reputation in our line of work. No one who has disobeyed or betrayed him has lived much longer than a few weeks," says Zack, a skinny, orange-haired man in his thirties, refusing to look me directly in the face and clearly afraid.
"But that's not the worst thing about disobeying him... the bastard also punishes all the family and friends of the person who offends or disobeys him," says Mauricio, a slightly overweight man with brown hair and eyes who is also in his thirties, his voice defeated.
'So it really was true that this was also the temple's doing,' I think angrily, partly at the temple and partly at myself for not having been able to do anything to prevent this kind of situation.
'Could these men be lying?...
No...
What would they gain from doing so?...
Besides, it fits perfectly with what I already imagined the temple had done so far.'
As the criminals have begun to confess in turn, I look in the direction of Horatio, the only one who has not yet said anything, but the middle-aged man with black hair streaked with gray has a vacant stare, as if he were an empty shell.
"Well? What did this Benicio guy ask you to do?" I ask when a few seconds pass without the criminals saying anything else.
"At first, he hired us to repeatedly rob the place we burned down today. That was the initial plan to get the owners of the place, that is, you and your women, to leave the city. Since that plan didn't work... He asked us to resort to more violent measures..." Ivan says, looking at me with revulsion as he speaks, as if he regrets every word he says as soon as he says it.
"... If only I had known from the beginning that the owner of that place was someone like you, I would never have accepted the job."
"Don't be silly. We couldn't have refused," says Mauricio sadly.
"Yeah... You may be right..." says Ivan, looking at his partner with irritation.
"... What a shitty situation! Ha! It's funny to think we've been weeks preparing an attack on this monster's house. What a lovely suicide attack that would have been!"
Emir: !!!
"What did you say...?" I say, and now the rage really starts to burn in my chest.
Until now, I had been managing to control my fury so as not to exceed the damage I was doing to the four men, as I didn't want any of them to die before I got the information I was looking for, but this last piece of information was the last straw.
"...Explain yourself, you piece of shit. Does the Solus Temple know where we live?"
"Of course they know where you live. Who do you think provided us the information? Did you really think the walls of the residential neighborhood where you live would stop the assassins?..." says Ivan sarcastically, looking down at the ground with a resigned expression.
"...It's true that they're a problem, but eventually we would have been able to sneak in during the night."
'Agh....
Damn wretches from the Solus Temple...
I would kill every single one of them if I didn't know that doing so would risk driving Delia away from me...
I'm sick of them...
Couldn't they just leave us alone?...
But there's something I still don't understand...
If it was the Solus Temple itself that hired these men...
Wouldn't it have been much better for the temple to use slaves for the task?...
That way they could have ensured their anonymity...
I never would have thought they would expose themselves in such a stupid way.'
'You don't need to overthink it, kiddo. The answer is simple: they're not afraid to expose themselves because they don't think you can do anything about it... See, that's why I warned you several times that you should have attacked them directly when you started suspecting them... Everyone will take advantage of you if you let them. You can't show weakness.'
'Well, this time I agree with you...
Knowing what I know, I can't leave things as they are...
If I keep letting them do whatever they want, it's only a matter of time before some of their idiotic plans succeed...
I think it's time to pay a visit to another of the Solus Temple buildings...
It appears that the first time the message wasn't clear to them...
Although...
Come to think of it...
That time, I didn't leave anyone alive to pass on the message...
This time, I'm going to make sure the message gets across properly.'