And so, I arrived at the cell holding the leader of the “bandits.”
“Hey. You’re still looking pretty good.”
“Hmph. What do you want, ‘Black Wolf’?” The leader glared at me, hands and feet bound with chains. It looked like his spirit hadn’t broken, but face-wise he wasn’t looking good, not after a few days without food or drink.
Now is the right time to approach him.
“Oh, I came to give our pitiful prisoner a final kindness.”
“What? What are you plotting?”
Instead of answering, I signaled to the knight behind me, who took the lid off of the silver pot in his hands. The moment he did, the appetizing scent of the soup within began wafting through the cell.
“You knew we were nobility when you attacked, which means you’ll all be hanged sometime soon. I figured I’d give you something good to eat before you go.”
“Are you seriously trying to butter me up with a stupid method like that?”
No way I’d do something that soft, I thought as I scooped up a spoonful of soup. The man tried to close his mouth tight when he saw that, but I ordered the knight to grab his chin and force it back open.
“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned. It’s normal, easy-on-the-stomach delicious soup,” I said, stuffing the spoon inside of his mouth. The moment I pulled it back out, the knight forced the man’s mouth shut again.
He struggled for a moment but stopped immediately after, looking a bit surprised. I saw his throat move as he swallowed.
“I-It really was normal soup...?”
“Yep, perfectly normal soup.”
“Oh... Okay?” He nodded back, looking confused before a growl rang out. It was his stomach, and he grimaced in shame when he realized what it was.
“It’s understandable that your stomach is growling right now.” I nodded, an understanding look on my face.
But that was it.
“Hey,” he started.
“What?” I asked back, feigning ignorance.
“No... Huh?”
The man was confused, but he didn’t say anything else. But I knew what was going through his mind.
“We’re done here.”
“What?!”
With those three words from me, the man understood what I was saying.
Yes, I gave him one spoonful of yummy soup that was easy on the stomach. The soup was also made with herbs that would invigorate a stomach that hadn’t eaten in a few days.
Humans were surprisingly good at restricting themselves from things they were never given. A common method of escape during capture was to slowly waste away with your mouth clamped shut. I mean, it wasn’t a real escape, but more of an emotional one.
Given all that, what would happen, then, if you were given just a taste of what you needed? Simple: Your body, which had been on the verge of giving up, would start to desire sustenance all over again.
“If you tell us what we want to hear, I could probably let you have a bit more.”
“Wh—you bastard!”
Despite the man’s resentful screeching, I stayed totally unruffled. I definitely couldn’t let Nia see me doing something like this.
And I probably didn’t even need to say this, but it was His Highness Prince Alphonse who devised this torture method—I mean, this interrogation technique. I was pretty sure he was actually the devil.
“Ahh, soup’s getting cold. Guess I’ll send it back...”
“Wha, whaaaaa?!”
And here I was, one of the devil’s lackeys, putting the technique to use. When I died, I was definitely going to hell.
I thought all that while I put this man through the cognitive wringer, and I eventually got him to tell me quite a few things I wanted to hear.