Chapter 82: Wait for Me, Rossweisse ( Part 1 )
At midnight, Leon and his daughters were discussing how to obtain information in an abandoned wine cellar.
Leon rubbed his wrist, his knuckles stained with traces of blood. “Torture isn’t going to work anymore. If they were going to talk, they would’ve after the first punch; if not, no matter how much more I beat them, they won’t.”
“Come on, Dad, can you compare your punch to a normal person’s?” Aurora seemed to realize something. “No way, I need to check if those two are still alive.”
Leon held his youngest daughter back. “Relax, I controlled my strength. I’ve done interrogations before, back when I was leading soldiers in war, though I didn’t do it much.”
Noa raised an eyebrow. “During wartime, intel is crucial, isn’t it? If you didn’t interrogate prisoners often, where did your information come from?”
The old father shrugged. “We just bulldozed our way through, no need for intel.”
Noa rolled her eyes in disbelief.
“Well, that’s… simple and brutal, exactly what I’d expect from you, Dad,” Aurora concluded with a serious tone.
“But this time, we can’t bulldoze through. We’re outnumbered, and there are too many unknowns. If we want to find the Heartguard Dragon Scale’s exact location, we have to get it out of those two,” Noa said.
Leon thought for a moment before asking, “Your mom used to use a spell to read prisoners’ memories. Do any of you know how to do that?”
The three sisters exchanged glances, then shook their heads in unison.
“You didn’t learn such a useful spell?”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t either. Haha… oh, crap!”
Noa elbowed her father in the ribs.
Ah, the good old days, bantering with those dragons…
“So, what now? Torture’s useless, none of us know how to read minds, are we just going to wait here?” Aurora asked.
“The Three Daggers team went to the manor but didn’t find Nacho. They’ll probably inform the Empire to launch a search soon. We don’t have much time, we need to hurry.” Noa added.
However, despite the urgency, no immediate solution to make the two captives talk came to mind.
After a moment of thought, Leon suddenly spoke, “Do you know about… the Prisoner’s Dilemma?”
…
Leon opened the door to the storage room, where only Nacho remained. He was bound hand and foot, unable to move. Upon seeing Leon, Nacho snorted.
“You monster… why couldn’t you just stay in that tube? Twenty years, and you still come back to cause trouble?”
At this point, Nacho had regained his composure. Whatever the reason, whether Leon had risen from the dead or something else, it was clear that he had come for Nacho.
But Nacho hadn’t lived through the last twenty years for nothing. He eyed Leon slowly, speaking with deliberate calmness, “Ah… whatever the case, I’ve fallen into your hands. But… even so, the current situation must be quite troublesome for you, right?”
Leon stood in front of him, staring into his eyes, saying nothing.
“You were in such a hurry to capture me, trying to get information about the Heartguard Dragon Scale, so that thing must be important to you, correct? But you don’t have much time, otherwise, you wouldn’t have risked provoking the royal family.”
“If you can’t get the information you want from me, then even if you kill me, your plan won’t progress, and you’ll attract the Empire’s attention.”
“The Silver Dragons have been disbanded, Casmode. You have no backup. If you fail, your fate will be far worse than mine, am I right?”
Nacho’s twenty years of experience in politics had taught him a thing or two about negotiations. If both sides held bargaining chips, there was no need to concede immediately.
He looked at Leon with satisfaction, as if flaunting his current position to the unkillable man before him.
“Yes, you’re right,” Leon replied.
Nacho was stunned. He hadn’t expected Leon to admit it so readily.
Nacho pursed his lips, preparing to further analyze the situation, laying out all the disadvantages Leon faced to exert more pressure on him. He enjoyed that feeling—when others despised him but couldn’t eliminate him.
Until Leon pulled out a dinner knife from his pocket, one he’d just used from the dining room.
Nacho panicked and instinctively swallowed. “W-what are you going to do? You can’t kill me. You wouldn’t dare. I’m part of the royal family, and I have the information you need. If you kill me, you’ll never find out where the Heartguard Dragon Scale is!”
“And, and!—Afterwards, you won’t succeed in capturing anyone else who knows this information. The Empire will be on high alert at the slightest disturbance.”
“No matter how strong you are, you can’t catch a royal in such a well-guarded net!”
Leon impatiently rubbed his brow. “Are you done?”
“……”
“Your adjutant, Scott, just told me where the Heartguard Dragon Scale is. So…”
Leon shrugged, feigning regret. “You’re useless to me now.”
He waved the knife in front of Nacho, its cold gleam reflecting in his eyes.
“No, no way, Leon, you’re bluffing.”
Nacho tried to suppress his fear and rage. “Scott would never betray the Empire.”
“I don’t know if he’d betray the Empire, but ten minutes ago, he sure as hell betrayed you. My men knocked him out and sent him away. By the time he wakes up, we’ll be out of the Empire. As for you…” Leon tapped Nacho’s face with the knife.
“Think about it, if you die, who’ll take your place?”
That line was like a spark, igniting all the emotions Nacho had been suppressing. He struggled violently, but his bonds held him tight.
Leon smirked inwardly. As expected, this old man is too attached to his position of power to give it up.
His master had been right—these officials were all the same.
“Alright, calm down. The more you struggle, the less accurate my cuts will be, and I’ll feel guilty if you end up suffering too much.” Leon drawled, his face practically broadcasting fake concern.
