Snowfield Defense Battle - 1
In this world, there were no dedicated torture technicians.
Assassins handled interrogation and torture themselves.
Not every assassin was skilled at it, but calling Kizen and Rena specialists wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Every time they went out on a mission, they brought back fresh intel.
“My b-brain... it's melting away!”
I knew the source of that information was someone's blood and agony.
I also knew it wasn't exactly a pleasant spectacle.
Still, watching an enemy utterly unworthy of mercy writhe in pain brought me a faint thrill of satisfaction.
This is kinda fun, actually.
Especially since the torture tools were homemade dishes—it was almost enough to make me burst out laughing.
“That's weird. Poisons have no effect, but why does Maribel's cooking work?”
Rena, her pride wounded, injected some of her own homemade poison into Krag's body.
But none of it showed any satisfying results.
In fact, it seemed to have the reverse effect, improving his condition.
Yet whenever he ate Maribel's cooking, he thrashed around like he'd downed a barrel of rotgut.
I remembered her food tasting awful, but it hadn't caused physical pain.
[It might be reacting based on malice.]
What the hell does that mean?
[That barbarian has mutated into a minion empowered by the evil dragon. An elf-made poison might be seen as malice intended to kill, triggering recovery regardless of its actual effects.]
That's a pretty credible theory.
Maribel's homemade cooking contained no malice.
If anything, it was infused with sincere hope that others would enjoy it.
Too bad the taste was so horrific that it acted like deadly poison on Krag.
As his pain reached its limit, his pupils began to dilate.
His brain must have been fried—drool leaked from the corners of his mouth.
“If you break him this much, won't we have trouble extracting info from inside?”
“This half-conscious state is actually ideal for prying out information.”
“But will he even understand us...?”
“Don't worry about that. Now, time to eat.”
“Uwaaaah! No more food! Don't shove it in!”
Krag's speech was slurring, his intelligence visibly declining.
Every time the word “food” came up, he shuddered and shook his head violently.
It was a genuine reaction.
Kizen nodded as he handed over a spoon filled with soupy slop.
The signal that now was the time to ask questions.
I shoved the spoon toward Krag and fired off a few queries.
“Do you know who gave you that power?”
“D-don't knooow! Wrapped head to toe in black cloth—couldn't see their face!”
“What did they demand in exchange for the power?”
“Said to become great chief! And drive out the foreigners from the north...!”
The Nidhog cult was unhappy about me taking Lunaria, just as I'd suspected.
They'd lured Krag by telling him not to let outsiders set up house in their hideout.
I barely suppressed a sneer that nearly escaped my lips, clamping my hand over my mouth.
Keep using sneaky tactics like that, and it just makes me more determined.
My desire to claim Lunaria burned hotter; I clenched my fist tight.
I'd remodel it to my exact tastes and blast them with upstairs noise.
As I smirked into my palm, I heard a voice stripping the grin from my face.
“A-and they asked about the way to the Dungde Plain!”
“Dungde Plain?”
Even for a veteran like me, it wasn't a super familiar name.
It was infamous for having more monsters than snow.
You could call it a prime experience farm spot, but it wasn't.
A top-tier predator lived there.
“Isn't Dungde Plain where that lazy lizard lives?”
“Cress, you know it?”
“For the grand spirit of the snow mountains, it'd be weirder if I didn't know the dragon living in the plains.”
“Fair point.”
One dragon lived in Dungde Plain.
Nozdormu. An incredibly lazy one who loved sleep more than anything.
Slept 360 days a year, spending the other five replenishing nutrients from nearby monsters—a miraculous routine.
She took sleep deadly seriously, so mindless hunting there would wake her due to the racket from all the monsters.
I'd die on the spot...
With an evil dragon-worshipping group as the masterminds, this world's dragons weren't pushovers.
If they got serious, even a mighty empire would vanish from the map in a day.
The upside? Dragons were laid-back or stayed in their territories, keeping the world at peace.
Nozdormu of Dungde Plain was the same. Innately lazy and thus harmless, but still top of the food chain.
Earn her ire even once, and survival was impossible.
That was why I'd never set foot there, despite the overflowing experience points.
“If they went to that lizard, no need to worry. They're walking to their deaths.”
“True, but...”
Even the Nidhog cult was powerless before a dragon.
No method could corrupt or control one.
They had to know that—so why seek out Nozdormu?
It nagged at me; I kept rubbing my chin.
“What happens if that robed figure pisses off the dragon you mentioned?”
“That lizard hates moving more than anything, so she won't slaughter half us barbarians like you did. But the monsters around her will panic and trigger a mass migration, right?”
“...I see what they're after.”
A phenomenon I'd seen before: a monster wave.
The term for when hordes of monsters rampaged en masse.
Dungde Plain had been a monster paradise, protected by the dragon from human encroachment.
But if the dragon flew into a rage?
The monsters would flee to avoid getting caught in her fury.
And to claim new homes, they'd smash the settlements humans had built.
“They planned this with the chance of Krag failing to become great chief in mind.”
If the contact got caught by me, things would get messy.
So they prepared to sacrifice him and screw me over in the process.
If this was provocation, it worked. My molars ground together.
“Nidhog cult, you fucking bastards...!”
They were damn good at pissing people off.
I'd planned to head back to Altesia, but now they'd tied my feet down.
If I left like this, I'd return to the north later to find countless warrior graves.
As the king meant to unite the barbarians, I couldn't allow that future.
If you want to torment me that badly, I'll gladly play along.
The imperial knights dispatched to escort the envoy had delivered their sealed orders and left.
Only my group and the barbarians remained.
The other chiefs, excluding the two tribe leaders, had pissed off Cress and were frozen stiff.
Facing endless monster hordes looked tricky.
But giving up now wouldn't make me a veteran.
The torture session was over.
Squeezing out more wouldn't yield useful info.
I severed Krag's head with a single stroke.
I stabbed my sword into the rolling head and hoisted it high.
Then I stepped out of the tent and showed it to the waiting barbarians.
“This head belongs to Krag, chief of the Iron Wolf tribe! As you can see, he barely looks human anymore. He defiled the blood of glorious warriors and pledged loyalty to the enemy—a traitor!”
The barbarians reacted fiercely to the word “traitor.”
They snapped spear shafts, roared, and vented their rage.
Simple enough to be swayed by emotion, but that meant tight-knit solidarity.
I fed them one lie.
“Worse, he enraged the sacred dragon of the north, sending the monsters around it straight for our homes. Soon, countless beasts will swarm here and destroy our precious settlements.”
“Unforgivable!”
“We gotta crush their bones with our teeth and shred their muscles!”
“Everyone's brimming with resolve. Good—then let me make a proposal to the warriors gathered here!”
I drew a deep breath and scanned the barbarians.
Warriors suppressing their fury, waiting for my next words.
I uttered the one phrase no northern warrior could refuse.