Venting Frustration (2)
"How's his condition?"
Anies let out a small sigh as she saw Eunhyeon switch straight into serious work mode, then opened her mouth to speak.
"The shoulder wound was pretty bad, but your emergency treatment was decent enough, and I patched him up with my holy magic. I just repaired the physical damage. He was in such awful shape with dehydration and everything that he only woke up two hours before you got here. I didn't bother interrogating him since you said you'd handle it personally."
"Got it."
"Come find me after you're done, then."
"Weren't you planning to come in with me?"
"Do I really need to go in there too? I've given you plenty of lectures up till now, but looking at you lately—or that look on your face right now—I can pretty much guess how you're gonna handle that bastard in the interrogation room."
"……."
Anies smirked and turned away.
"Just don't kill him. I figure you know how to keep it in check, but I'm saying it just in case."
"Got it. Thanks."
"Sure thing~. Come share the intel when you're done?"
"Yeah."
As she turned and climbed the underground stairs, Anies waved back at Eunhyeon without looking.
Soon enough, Eunhyeon turned his head again and stared at the man bound to the chair beyond the underground interrogation room.
Clank.
As Eunhyeon entered the underground interrogation room and the heavy iron door shut behind him, a thick metallic thud filled the space.
Reacting to the sound, Ashton's body twitched slightly, and he raised his head.
"You… bastard…."
His eyes were unfocused, his face haggard and worn. Eunhyeon glanced at the wound on Ashton's shoulder to confirm, then muttered.
"Looks like he's gonna live."
"Sh… shut up!"
Eunhyeon summoned a dagger into his hand and approached Ashton, who glared at him with murderous intent.
Stab.
"Gaaahhh!"
Without hesitation, he plunged the dagger into Ashton's thigh, and a scream of agony echoed through the interrogation room.
In this barren space containing only Eunhyeon and Ashton, no one was there to hear his cries or come to his aid.
"Grgh!"
Ashton ground his teeth, his bloodshot eyes glaring at Eunhyeon, filled with hatred, vengefulness, humiliation—all the fires of rage.
Eunhyeon met his gaze head-on and let out an incredulous chuckle.
"Why the hell are you looking at me like that?"
"You think… you'll get away with this…?!"
"What're you gonna do about it?"
Stab.
"Gaaaaahhh!"
He summoned another dagger and drove it into Ashton's other thigh. Another scream ripped through the air.
With daggers buried deep in both thighs, his bound legs trembled violently, kicking at the floor in desperate protest against the pain.
His head thrown back, his scream tore at his vocal cords—a lonely, futile struggle that reached no one.
"Your life as a noble is over now. Wanna know why?"
"Gr… urgh…!"
"Your maternal Rubran Count family denied any connection to you in this mess. And your mother, Melissa Rubran, publicly disowned you."
"…Mom… Mom would never abandon me!"
Doubt began to flicker in Ashton's eyes, once burning with all those raging emotions.
"Believe it or not, that's up to you. But there's no one with the power, the justification, or anything else to get you out of here."
"No… way…."
"Pathetic, isn't it? Ending up like this. You brought it on yourself—pure self-inflicted karma."
"Shut… up…."
"What're you thinking right now? You've spent your life telling yourself you're better than everyone else, trampling the dignity of the weak without a second thought. And now that your parents have cut you loose, how's it feel to be stripped of status, power, and authority in an instant?"
"Shut up."
"What's the difference between you now and Elvin or Erin—the ones you looked down on so much? How's your current sorry state any different from the commoners you despised?"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!"
"Is that all you can say?"
Eunhyeon tilted his head, staring at Ashton as he kept prodding at his crumbling psyche.
"Officially, I'm here to interrogate you. But honestly? I have no intention of doing that."
"……?"
"This… is just me venting."
"What… did you say?"
Ashton, who had been snarling like he wanted to lunge at Eunhyeon, froze in confusion at the sudden confession.
"I don't need to interrogate you."
Eunhyeon had already evolved one of the goddesses' powers into the ability to read others' memories.
There was no need for him to waste energy torturing Ashton for information.
Dragging this out, toying with his mind instead of a proper interrogation—it was a waste of time and effort.
Yet here he was, squandering both on purpose. Why? To work through the regret, anger, and frustration that had built up over time.
Anies's lecture had driven the final nail in, solidifying his resolve after he'd already started to steady himself.
This was his first step.
"And the duke abandoned you too."
"……!"
"If it was the duke or Alex, they'd have come themselves. The fact that I'm here proves it. They've given up on you. Which means the authority to deal with you lies with me and the temple. Once we squeeze every bit of info out of you, the temple has no reason to keep you locked up—so what happens to you after that? That's up to me."
"Father…."
"Isn't it obvious? Why would he keep defending someone who's as good as betrayed the Armitas family? Truth is, his soft spot for blood ties got you this far."
"I didn't do anything wrong! It was all for the family! So how… how could Father do this to me…?!"
"……."
Eunhyeon was left speechless, his face blank, at how naturally Ashton shouted it.
'This fucker… is he serious…?'
The fact that Ashton genuinely believed it made it all the more ridiculous.
"You have no idea that suggesting ways to siphon kingdom funds to Lenion Hersha, dragging in a bunch of nobles for that massive embezzlement scheme, and undermining the royal authority—that's where it all started?"
"If you hadn't stuck your nose in, the royals never would've found out!"
"Idiot. This blew up because Elvin gathered evidence of his father Lenion's corruption and brought it straight to the Armitas duke. And what turned a containable issue between Elvin and Duke Abros into a disaster? Your paranoia making you betray Elvin first. Your foolish judgment is the root cause…."
Mid-sentence, Eunhyeon felt a twinge of inconsistency and trailed off.
'Is this guy really the mastermind?'
Ashton's actions didn't match the cunning orchestration of the embezzlement plot.
Betraying Elvin out of fear he'd flip first.
Kidnapping Erin because her rising fame might expose his dirt and shame him.
And finally, that idiotic mutual destruction play to drag down the entire duke family.
'This narcissistic anxiety-ridden moron orchestrated pulling in major noble factions, making them all accomplices to scale up the embezzlement so elaborately?'
Eunhyeon narrowed his eyes at Ashton writhing in pain from the daggers in his thighs, deep in thought.
He soon pressed his index finger to Ashton's forehead and activated the goddess's power.
Eunhyeon Exclusive: Memory Reading
Using the ability to peer into others' memories, he traced back from the most recent ones all the way to the first embezzlement scheme, riding them upstream like a cascading waterfall.
Having read through Ashton's memories of conversations with that one man, Eunhyeon naturally frowned.
The conclusion from peering into his memories was clear.
'This wasn't a one-time thing.'
The true mastermind behind the embezzlement rotting this kingdom from within.
The one who unleashed the 'hunting dogs' for Elenoa's kidnapping, and tried to frame the entire Armitas family as the ringleaders to bring them down.
All the same person. And connected to Bark, possibly to Harkan too.
If so, the top priority was obvious.
'Lindebalt Barony.'
The incident where Harkan branded the Lindebalt baron's family and all its people as heretics, turning the territory into a wasteland.
With questions arising from investigating Harkan's past after his dismissal—and Anies already re-investigating—it was highly likely this figure was behind the Lindebalt purge too.
Committing it to memory to tell Anies, Eunhyeon yanked the two daggers from Ashton's thighs.
"Gaaahk!"
"Don't worry. I'm not gonna kill you."
"Grgh…!"
"Deciding whether you live or die isn't my call. I told you—this is just venting…."
"What… what bullshit!"
"Kidnapping Erin and trying to get her classmates to rape her."
"……!"
"Then doing the exact same to Elenoa. How's it feel, pulling the same boring pattern?"
Eunhyeon slammed a dagger down onto the back of Ashton's hand with a blank expression.
Crunch.
"Gaaaaah!"
"I've wanted to kill you more times than I can count. I held back the urge to vent my personal rage over you touching Erin and Elenoa—suppressed it over and over. Killing you would've just made things messier in various situations. Same now. So I won't. But…."
Crunch.
"Grraaaaaah!"
The other hand met the same fate.
Ashton glared at Eunhyeon again with bloodshot eyes.
"That doesn't mean I have to forgive everything you've done."
So this was just simple venting.
Conveniently detained at the temple, with means to heal his body, Anies's permission as acting head, and even her pushing him to go wild.
No divine restraint from the goddesses to hold back his impulses.
So Eunhyeon no longer held back.
"I'll kill you… I'll fucking kill you…! Even if I die, I'll curse you and drag you to hell with me!"
Ashton's body was a mangled wreck, his reason shattered by unimaginable agony.
Blood from wounds in both thighs and hands soaked the iron chair binding him.
The grotesque sight might make anyone else grimace and look away.
"You can't drag me to hell. My soul's already in someone else's hands."
Even if Eunhyeon explained, Ashton wouldn't get it.
"Your fate's for Erin and Elenoa to decide far in the future. At least Erin's goal is to hear you apologize directly. So for that girl who's charging ahead toward it, you need to stay alive as her target."
"You think… I'll apologize to that bitch?!"
Even in this state, he wouldn't come to his senses—Eunhyeon was beyond exasperated, too tired to explain further.
"Nah, I don't. Not to Erin or Elenoa. You're still a lunatic who doesn't think he did anything wrong."
"Damn right! This is all bullshit! Who the hell are you to judge me?!"
"Honestly, I don't care if you apologize or not. When the time comes, Erin will decide for herself. I'll just guide her till then."
Elenoa seemed done with Ashton entirely, but Erin's goal hadn't wavered since she set it.
"That bitch… can never be accepted in this kingdom."
"In the current situation, yeah."
The environment around Erin wasn't ideal, that much was true.
Even with Riod's Olivion marquis family and Abros's Armitas duke family showing favor toward her through Eunhyeon, her status as a commoner born from filth hadn't changed.
Clearing her infamous black mage brother's name wasn't something a powerless girl could handle alone—Eunhyeon knew that well.
But it wasn't impossible.
"Still, I'll make it happen. Noble or whatever, I'll clear every obstacle in Erin's path and force this kingdom to recognize her."
That was Eunhyeon's first goal now that he'd chosen to prioritize emotions and his people.
Erin was the hero seed he'd found under the goddesses' guidance and nurtured—friend, little sister, daughter to him.
As one human to another, he wanted to support the girl walking her chosen thorny path.
"No more hesitation."
This time, the dagger plunged into Ashton's forearm.
"Gaaaaahk!"
"Wait quietly here in this empty place where you can't even die. Someday, another hero I'll raise will come for you—and deliver your punishment personally."
"Back?"
Anies grimaced as she spotted Eunhyeon entering the archbishop's office.
Blood splattered his clothes, the stench of blood and iron wafting from him.
"Went all out, huh? Didn't kill him, right?"
"Yeah."
"So, what'd you get?"
"Lindebalt. Looks like the same bastard's behind it."
Understanding the implication, Anies scowled and let out a heavy sigh.
"…Fuck, why does my gut always hit the mark? Every damn time."