Capítulo 39: Getting Information

Shin walked out with Arachne; she looked at him as she shifted back into her humanoid form, "We'll deal with those fools later. I saw Char's memories, so you have this spider already tamed."

Shin nodded, "Does that mean you're tamed as well?" Taming is usually a magic that links to the soul through the body, which means that if Char's body was already acting as a taming link, Arachne would've been tamed the moment she manifested.

"You're right. But I had the option to break the bond as usual. Didn't touch it and I'm tamed now, to an extent." A grin crossed her face.

"With your powers, I doubt I could've tamed you in my current state." Taming relies on the difference in power between the tamed and tamer, their relationship, emotional state, magic contracts, and many other things. Arachne is just too strong and willful to be tamed with ease like Char.

As they reached the dining room, Mary had already fried some potato with eggs and had filled a large platter, "This is all that I found." She turned toward Ase, "You can eat it, right?"

"What do you think I'm? Of course, I can." Ase replied as she sat down beside Shin.

"A cat, that's what I think you are." Mary sat down and everyone began eating, they were starving. Arachne looked at them and spoke, "Flies taste better…" That was Char speaking, "Give me a cockroach or a juicy worm."

"Go did in the trash pin then." Mary pointed with her fork.

"Come on Char." Arachne smiled, "This isn't half bad, but I must say demons taste better, they are a bit more…" She thought for a second and Shin was the one to speak. "Spicy, give her something for that."

"Spice? I'm sure I saw a dragon's breath somewhere." Mary stood and looked around the kitchen, finding a small pot in the window with peppers growing in it. "So this is where I saw it!" She brought one for Arachne to try and she seemed to like it.

"This is far better…It hurt.." Char growled beneath her voice.

Ase looked at Shin, "How do you know they are spicy, did you eat one?"

Shin smiled, "Where I'm from there is this place called the underworld, it's filled with powerful devils and horrifying demons. Devils are like humans, demons are like animals. In long expeditions that last from months to years, all we could eat was demons and the local flora."

Arachne looked at Shin with a smile, "Want to tell them about the milk year?"

"Don't remind me…that was the worst year of my life…" Shin looked depressed.

"What is it?" Mary asked with a puzzled face and Shin shook his head, "You better not know."

"Me, him, and his wife ended up falling into a massive abyss in the underworld and were stuck there with no water or food for a whole year. I was fine since I can survive for decades on a single meal, but he and his wife almost died." She giggled and Shin growled at her. "Enough…"

"You can't survive for a year without eating or drinking anything." Ase nodded, "Did you eat the dirt or something?"

"She said something about milk." Mary noted.

"He and his wife had to survive on my breast milk for the whole year. His wife opposed at first, but since it was her fault that we fell into the trap, and when hunger started kicking it after the first week she gave up." Arachne giggled, and the shocked Mary and Ase stared at her. "Wait, spiders don't have breasts."

"I've got them right here. Natural biology doesn't hold that well when you evolve a bit too many times into a unique creature like me." Arachne was one of her kind, a powerful being beyond natural life and its rules.

"I told you to cut it off. My head hurts just remembering that." He sighed, and she giggled, "Embarrassed about the sucking my breast part?"

"No, about the part where it tastes like sour milk. And there were no sucking, we had you milk yourself like a cow." Shin and Arachne were about to start arguing, but Mary stopped, "Let's leave it at that, eat before it gets too cold."

After eating, Mary stood up and took all the dishes to wash, she in the meantime asked Shin to unlead the massage equipment the guards gave them. He went in and dragged the large bag down to the basement where the two prisoners were waiting.

They saw him enter with Ase and Arachne and dump the contents of the large bag on the ground. Hooks, cleavers, nails, a large saw, belts, strange devices, and potions labeled with {Pain potion}

"YOU!" the man cried and Shin ignored him as he lifted one of the strange devices. "What is this?" He showed it to Ase.

"I don't know, but it's quite thick, I bet it could fit a finger." Hearing her words Shin realized what the device was. "Ahhh! I see, you put it like this around a finger and then you screw this nail beneath the fingernail. If you opened it like this when attacked it'll rip the nail off."

"That will hurt a lot." Arachne smiled and Shin turned toward the two prisoners, "Cool, who wants to test it?"

The two started screaming. Ase looked at some of the tools and sighed, "They are a bit dull, want to sharpen them up?" She looked at the grindstone in the corner.

"No, being a bit dull means cutting flesh and bone won't be easy, more jagged and painful." He turned toward the two prisoners, "Beside fingers, both of you have things that can be cut, right?"

This wasn't just a show, Shin had a faint hope at the back of his head. Showing those two off the torture devices might scare them into speaking without the need for any torture. He would rather have less work than have to deal with them anyway.

At that moment Mary walked into the basement and looked at the two prisoners with a smile, "I know you aren't bandits. Countless villagers died, women kidnapped and kids orphaned thanks to your assault. I'm not even mentioning the burned houses." She approached them and grabbed the man by the hair, glaring into his eyes, "I need something to show off to the families, so spill everything you know. Starting by where did your friends take the kidnapped women?"

The prisoner spat at her face, "Fuck off! Like I care what happens to you filth."

Mary stood and sighed, "I expected this, so probably to the imperial army. I can already guess why would they want some ladies." She reached to the table and pulled out a dart-like object.

"What's that?" Shin asked and she smiled, "A needle used to administer potion straight into the blood. I doubt this idiot would swallow one." She pulled several potions.

"First a high-grade healing potion so you won't die. Second is a pain amplifier, and the third is an anti-lie potion, try to lie and you'll feel a deathly headache." After injecting the prisoner with all the tree potions, the torture began.

After an hour she managed to get several things. Those two indeed came from the imperial army, they belonged to the scout team. It wasn't the empire that ordered them to raid villages, but the soldiers themselves did it to get food and some women to have fun with. They thought they could just hop over the border and rob a village or two.

The kidnapped women and stolen money and rations should be heading toward the hidden base inside Blackwood Forest, a well-hidden encampment hidden in a cave amidst the thick oak trees.

"Now we know where to look. I'll tip the guards about this." Mary stood.

"You'll tell them? Then why do we get through the trouble of bringing those two here?" Shin asked with a puzzled face.

"Time. It'll take the army days to start interrogating them if we went through official means by handing them to the guards. And even if they found out, the higher management would probably ignore the situation. They won't risk starting a war to save twenty women, it's not worth the risk. What more is that they'll keep their eyes open to make sure none of the guards sneaks out to help and do something stupid."

"So…what would it matter to tell them now? They won't help anyway." Shin still didn't understand her point.

"All soldiers act out of order when they want to. Like those fools here. I know the captain here, he'll gather a battalion and take them out saying it's a scouting mission, it's just training. And then sneak up with them to save the women. If the higher-up learned of it, he'll just say they crossed them by accident." She giggled, "Since we're the ones who got the information by secret and handed it to him secretly, they would believe his lie."