Chapter 311: Interrogation

Tristan brought his companion, Serene, Hererra, and even his new bodyguard Sterling along with the commander of Kingsblade's second group, Commander Cecilia the Starlight. Of course, his sister Layla tagged along with him.

"Brother, Commander Cecilia is my master, she has been teaching me a lot of things and taking care of me for a while now!" Layla brightly spoke.

"Is that so?" Hearing the words come out of his sister's own mouth, Tristan gave the beautiful blonde middle-aged woman another look and did his best to express his gratitude.

Commander Cecilia was taken aback by Tristan's sudden action, but she did not dare refuse it.

Tristan knew that he had always had a soft spot when it came to his sister Layla, which was why things like this come a long way.

Seeing Tristan's sudden change of behavior toward Commander Cecilia, Serene and Herera both quickly took mental notes to be nice toward this little sister. 

"So, I heard that we are actually going to interrogate the prisoners. If that's the case, why are we going to this place?" Commander Cecilia asked.

To the surprise of everyone following him, instead of going toward the Arcadian prison as they initially expected, Tristan brought the group to head toward O District's prison, the place where all the difficult outlanders were put.

This was all prepared by Tristan yesterday, and today, he was hoping to see the result.

When Tristan and his group finally arrived, Rayna of the Kingsblade was already there waiting for them.

"Everything has been prepared as you asked, my king," Rayna reported as soon as they were in front of each other.

"Good, thank you."

Before he led the group into the room, Tristan remembered something. He turned to look at his sister and said out of worry, "It's probably not a good idea for you to see this..."

"Hm?" Layla did not expect Tristan to suddenly say this. "Why, brother? Are you going to torture someone inside? I'm not afraid!"

Tristan only gave his sister a look before finally relenting, "All right then."

With that matter out of the way, Tristan led the group to walk into a room with only a table and a few chairs on its sides.

The room had huge glass plates with a view of another empty room. Through the glass plates, they could see that unlike this room, the other room appeared to be surrounded by steel walls.

Not long after, Siegfried also came in and brought a man to enter the room with them.

The man was none other than Jenkins, captain of the space knight cruiser.

"Have a seat, Captain." Tristan pointed to the seat opposite the one he was standing behind.

As he offered and the captain sat down, Tristan also followed suit and sat in front of him with Commander Cecilia next to him. As for the rest, they were standing at the back of the room.

"What do you want?" the captain vigilantly questioned.

"I'm sure you know what I want, Captain. I need detailed information about your empire's space knights. I already know most of them from Captain Siegfried here, but I still have a few unanswered questions, so I want you to fill them in for me."

Hearing Tristan's 'request', the captain seemed calm, but he sternly responded,

"No, I will not tell you anything!"

Seeing the captain's difficult response, Tristan could not help but sigh.

"Don't worry, Captain, I will waste neither your time nor mine. I have Cecilia here, and she will help me read your thoughts to get the answers we need. So whether you like it or not, you're going to give us some answers."

The captain could not believe what he just heard.

"Hahaha! I am trained for such things. Unless the one reading my mind is at the level higher of me, there's no chance for them to read my mind!"

Tristan looked at Cecilia for confirmation, and the girl nodded in response.

"He is telling the truth, my king. Unfortunately, although I am the best mind reader in Arcadia, I can only feel his thoughts and am unable to directly find a definite answer," Cecilia regrettably confirmed.

Even so, Tristan still smiled. Fortunately, he had prepared other things in case something like this happened. He grabbed a communication stone and activated it.

"All right, send the first one," he said to the communication stone.

Right after he said those words, one of the doors of the room behind the glass plates was opened, and from it came out a man with a few small implants sticking out all over his body.

The man was none other than one of Jenkins' space knights without his suit. And as expected, Jenkins quickly recognized the man as one of his.

Seeing the man's clueless look as he walked into the room annoyed the captain.

"What are you planning on doing!?"

Tristan grinned when he saw the look he expected on the captain's face.

"You must have been very bored being locked up all day. I came to give you some entertainment."

At that moment, another door opened, and this time, Jenkins could see a large orc with brownish skin walking into their room. It was Ghrall, Tristan's strongest orc; an Overlord.

The orc's entry shocked the captain. It seemed that he had seen such an orc before, for him to recognize it.

"Proceed!" Tristan ordered to the communication stone.

With this command, Ghrall slowly approached the space knight. The well-trained space knight was able to dodge the orc's first charge, but Ghrall easily grabbed the man afterward.

With the orc's two large arms, the man was unable to resist at all. The orc then easily twisted the space knight's arm and pulled it apart from his body. 

Blood splattered as the knight screamed in agony.

At that moment, Ghrall wrapped the man under his arm, silently waiting for Tristan's next orders.

It was at this time that Tristan calmly turned to the captain who was trying his best to remain calm. Jenkins' expression remained solemn, but his whole arm was trembling.

"Captain Jenkins, my first question is, who is the man that was under the fleeing spaceship, the one you referred to as Major?"

Jenkins held out his anger as he persisted, "No… I will not answer your question!"

Tristan only smiled in response. Of course it would not be that easy.

"That's too bad!" he said before speaking to the communication stone once again, "Do it!"

"Wait!! You don't have to do this!! Wait!!" Jenkins' voice was filled with urgency. He wanted to plead for mercy, but the large orc had received the message.

"Ghrallll!!!" the orc screamed as he split the man's neck from his body.

The space knight's body instantly dropped lifelessly to the floor, his eyes wide open.

He was dead.

Seeing one of his men die so tragically in front of him filled him with rage. 

"You!! You bastard!! I will not answer your questions!!!"

However, unlike what he expected, Tristan simply replied in a laid-back tone, 

"Haha, that's fine. This is just the beginning, Captain. I hope you'll be entertained."

Tristan grabbed the communication stone once again and commanded, "Send the next one."

The one entering the room was also another space knight, but this time, it was one of the squad leaders. The man had a similar tattoo on his neck, showing his rank among the space knights.

Those who had been a private, a sergeant, or a lieutenant long enough would receive their own personal ship to command, and in turn, they would also receive the captain status.

The one Ghrall was going to face next was a squad leader, which meant that the man was a space knight who was at least a lieutenant in rank.

The man had dark skin with a build slightly larger than normal, and compared to  he had more implants as well as tattoo markings. The man was supposedly at the same level as Siegfried, and Tristan could see it from the calmness he had while facing the orc. The quality of his demeanor was clearly different from the previous knight.

Seeing the dead space knight on the floor, he merely showed an expression of disgust.

Tristan did not want to waste any time. With the communication stone in hand, he quickly commanded Ghrall to start fighting.

The orc warlord charged at the man, and the man swiftly dodged. He even managed to cast a low-tier spell on himself.

[Windwalk.] 

It was a low-tier wind magic that gave extra speed to the caster. With this, he managed to dodge a few more of Ghrall's attacks.

"Interesting," Tristan muttered with an intrigued smile.

Unlike how laid-back Tristan was, Jenkins could not maintain his calm when he saw Tristan muttering to himself. "What are you trying to achieve!?"

Tristan, however, completely ignored the captain and continued enjoying the fight in front of him.

Bammm!!!

The king was able to hit Ghrall's stomach, pushing the orc overlord a step back.

It seemed that even without the admired power, the squad leader still had a strength rivaling that of an orc champion.

Seeing the scene unfold in front of him, Tristan became curious. Glancing at Sterling who was standing behind him, he asked,

"What do you think? Can you defeat that space knight, Sterling?"

The old commander was a man with the title of guardian, which was a title given to Arcadia's strongest non-magic fighter.

The old commander honestly replied, "I can see that his physique is not yet at the level of unbreakable like mine, but those things all over his body, they must be the things that boost his strength. It would not be easy for me to win if I were to fight that man."

"I see. Interesting."

After five minutes, the man finally got caught, and Ghrall quickly grabbed his leg and broke it so that he would no longer be able to run.

Seeing that the fight was over, Tristan looked toward Jenkins.

"Your great space knight lost! Now, make your choice. Do you want to answer my question or do you want the man to die?"

As Tristan said those words, his mouth formed a wicked smile.