“I’ve been waiting for you, Professor. This underground lab is so creepy and cold, I nearly caught a cold. But I, Jonathan Kingfisher! With unwavering loyalty to Professor Winslet…”
“Was the prisoner kept secure?”
“Of course! For the past three days, I, Jonathan Kingfisher, have been guarding him with my eyes wide open.”
“What condition is he in?”
“By now, his spirit should be thoroughly broken. Just as you instructed, I haven’t given him a drop of water or even a crumb of bread for three days. Hehehe.”
“……”
I never told him to go that far.
The “prisoner” I referred to was the thief guild member we captured recently in Low Chapel.
At the time, he was on the verge of death after being stabbed by Josephine’s sword, so he wasn’t in any condition to be questioned.
So I decided to interrogate him later, stopped the bleeding just enough, and locked him up here.
“Three days in a solitary cell without light, sound, food, or water! What a cost-effective yet brutal method of torture. Truly worthy of Professor Winslet. I’ve learned a valuable lesson.”
“Your flattery has improved.”
“Thank you!”
That wasn’t a compliment.
Jonathan Kingfisher transferred the flame to a spare candlestick, handed it to me, and asked,
“By the way, I had no idea a place like this existed in the Academy. A prison beneath the animal quarters? Even I, the dean, didn’t know about it. How did you find out about this, Professor?”
“I’ve had a connection to this place.”
To be precise, it’s not a prison. It’s a laboratory.
An anatomical lab beneath the animal quarters.
The Academy’s animal quarters were originally used to house rare creatures for magical research, and up until just a decade or so ago, dissection of rare organisms and magical experiments on animals were actually part of the curriculum.
But after students began reporting psychological trauma, those subjects were abolished, and naturally, the role of the animal quarters diminished.
The number of animals kept there was drastically reduced. Now barely a tenth remains, and the facilities associated with that dark history were left neglected and forgotten.
The underground dissection lab was one such place.
The reason I know about this lab is because, in the original game, I came here as the player.
In the episode where you infiltrate the Academy under disguise to uncover Winter Winslet’s crimes, this very lab was where human experimentation was conducted by Winter Winslet.
Thankfully, at this point in the timeline, it seems the lab hasn’t been used for such things.
If I’d had to take responsibility for both the Caraphine production and this kind of crime, I might’ve gotten a little depressed.
Still, whether it’s fate’s cruel joke or not, the place has ended up being quite useful to me, Winter Winslet, even if it’s not for human experimentation.
The lab was equipped with heavy soundproofing wards, drainage for disposing of waste, iron cages, and restraining devices, making it functionally no different from an underground prison.
Perfect for getting dirty work done.
“But Professor. May I be so bold as to ask who it is that you’ve locked up in there?”
“No.”
After slamming the door shut on Jonathan’s curiosity, I walked into the dissection lab alone.
Creaaaak.
As I opened the heavy iron door and stepped inside, someone in the darkness let out a ragged groan.
“Ghhh…”
Only after I transferred the flame from my candlestick to the lantern hanging on the wall did the figure groaning in the dark come into view.
A filthy-looking man was chained up.
An assassin from the Thieves’ Guild.
Was his name Nogi?
Ever since he was brought here, he must’ve been waiting in the dark, hoping I would come. The moment he saw me, he shouted with unmistakable excitement.
“Y-You fu—!”
“You fu—?”
“You fucking lunatic!”
Guess he was so happy to see me again that his enthusiasm got the better of him.
***
“You bastard, born of a devil’s spawn! How the hell can you just lock someone up in a place like this with nothing and leave them for a week?!”
The prisoner from the Thieves’ Guild spat his rage.
I had no grudge against him, so I simply answered honestly.
“I forgot.”
“…What?”
“I was busy.”
[Warning]
[A death flag has been raised.]
He stared at me like I’d killed his parents.
That was the reaction I was expecting.
“And don’t be so dramatic. It wasn’t a week; it’s only been three days.”
“Only three days?!”
Having been locked up in a solitary cell with not a single ray of sunlight, it seemed his sense of time was completely warped.
Three days in darkness with no water, no food, no sunlight, and no one to talk to.
The effect was more than sufficient.
The assassin from the Thieves’ Guild, who likely wouldn’t have batted an eye at killing someone just a few days ago, had now become a polite young man who could even ask for small favors.
“Hey, give me something to drink. My throat feels like it’s been ripped open. If my arms and legs weren’t tied up, I would’ve drunk my own piss. Damn it, just give me some water!”
“Sure.”
Scattered across the prison floor were bowls. Ones that were probably used in the past to hold blood or organs from lab specimens.
I picked one up, flipped it over, and used magic.
[Casting Water Ball Spell.]
Following my gesture, crystal-clear water began to form in midair, coalescing into a sphere.
I poured it into the bowl and slid it toward him with my foot.
Chained up, the man dropped to the ground like a beast and drank desperately.
“You lap it up like a dog. Then again, you are a son of a bitch.”
“You bastard, I’ll fry you in sewage one day! You’ll regret this, I swear!”
“Regret? Looks to me like you’re the one regretting things right now.”
And with that, I took the bowl away from him. Right in front of his face.
His expression, no exaggeration, looked like he was about to cry.
He tried to stab me in the back, though he failed thanks to Josephine’s help.
I had no intention of treating him like a human being.
After staring at the bastard’s ugly face for a while, I opened my mouth as if I’d lost interest.
“Now that I’ve seen you’re doing well, I’ll be going.”
As I reached to turn off the lantern, he shouted urgently.
“Wait! What do you mean, you’re leaving? Do you think I’m some kind of cactus or something? You’re just gonna give me a few sips of water and leave again?”
“I have dinner plans. I invited my fiancée over tonight. Be grateful I took time out of my busy schedule to come here at all.”
“You lunatic! You’re saying some dinner appointment matters more than a person’s life? If this is how it’s going to be, why didn’t you just kill me instead of locking me up?”
“Well… because it’s fun.”
“What?”
“What, do I seem crazy to you?”
He started foaming at the mouth.
Rambling incoherently in a frenzy.
But maybe he was out of strength; he quieted down soon enough, then gritted his teeth and said,
“Healer… call a healer. Damn it, the wound I got from that knife is festering. You’re not seriously planning to let a prisoner die, are you?”
“Prisoner? Seems like you still don’t get your situation. You think I’d bat an eye if you died?”
He started chuckling.
“Who do you take me for, an idiot? If you were planning to kill me, you would’ve done it right after my ambush failed. The only reason I’m still alive is because there’s something you want to get out of me, right?”
“Interesting. Keep talking.”
“I’m tight-lipped. Very tight-lipped. So if you want to interrogate me and learn anything, it’s gonna take a long time. Which means, if you want to keep me alive that long, you’d better patch me up first!”
What a load of crap.
But it was crap that made some sense. I reached into my coat and pulled out an elixir bottle.
It was an empty one left over from when I drank in the slums.
I poured water into the bottle to dilute the elixir residue, then poured it over his wound.
He let out a piercing scream.
Even diluted at a 100-to-1 ratio, an elixir was still an elixir and its effects were powerful.
White steam rose from the wound, and the festering area began to heal.
The bastard started grinning with satisfaction.
“Keuhehe… Yeah, that’s more like it. This is how it should be. Now, let’s have a proper, professional conversation. Why don’t we start by laying out what we each want? If you meet my demands, I’ll give you something in return. It’s a much easier and faster way to get what you want than torturing me. What do you say?”
The bastard had a tongue like a snake.
I raised a single finger in front of his face.
“One day.”
“What?”
“From now on, every time you give me an answer I don’t want, I’ll keep you tied up here for one more day.”
“You’re joking, right? Come on.”
I raised two more fingers.
Three in total.
“I’ll be back in three days. Hopefully, you’ll still be alive by then.”
With that, I turned off the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the underground prison in an instant.
Taking the only remaining light, the candleholder, I headed toward the exit.
And from behind me came a scream, more like a shriek.
“You son of a biiitch!”
The screaming slowly shifted into curses, then into persuasion, and finally into pleading.
“Hey, calm down! We can help each other, alright? Maybe I got a little cocky. If so, I apologize! So come back! Come back, damn it! Goddamn it! Just tell me what you want already!”
Clunk.
As the door closed, the soundproofing barrier activated, and the underground lab fell silent. As if everything had been a lie.
***
After finishing the prisoner interrogation and returning home, I heard lively chatter coming from the living room.
It was Josephine and Dahlia’s voices.
From the cheerful atmosphere, it seemed the two had already hit it off.
I used wind magic to blow away the musty stench clinging to me from the underground prison, then headed to the living room.
Dahlia jumped to her feet the moment she saw me.
“Ah, Master!”
But something felt off.
Dahlia looked visibly uneasy.
Without any warning, she bowed her head and apologized.
“I’m sorry. I made a mistake, and because of that, Miss Josephine…”
Josephine did what now?
“She’s drunk!”
“……?”
At Dahlia’s words, I turned to look at Josephine.
And right then, she lunged at Dahlia, pulling her into a tight embrace.
Then she looked straight at me and shouted,
“I’m taking this girl with me! So don’t stop me, okay? Okay?”
“…….”
What is this, a divorce hearing or something?
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