Chapter 394 - The Hard Way 2

Quinn pulled out a few of his daggers from his spatial ring and began stabbing them into the enemy soldier's remaining appendages. He used the longer ones so he could pin the man into the ground.

With each stab of his daggers, the soldier howled out in pain and continued cursing at him. Quinn didn't pay it any mind as he pulled out a potion, stuffed its contents down the pinned down soldier's throat before he placed the empty vial into the man's mouth and...

"GAHH!" The soldiers cried out in pain.

Quinn had punched the man's mouth close, and with the empty vial still inside, it instantly shattered and the shards of glass injured the soldier's mouth, tongue, and throat when he accidentally swallowed some of it down.

"That ought to shut you up for a bit..." Quinn mumbled. He then waited for a bit for the potion to take effect.

"Nnghh...grhhh..."

It didn't take long for the potion's effects to kick in. When it did, the soldier who had been m.o.a.ning in agony from earlier realized that the pain had begun fading away. He couldn't even feel the pain coming from his appendages that were nailed into the ground.

He tried to struggle to get up, but the daggers were firmly stabbed into the ground and wouldn't budge. Seeing the futile effort, Quinn immediately scoffed and said, "Don't bother trying to struggle. I only gave you a potion that'll make your mind more susceptible to suggestion. See, if I give you a whiff of this scent—"

Quinn pulled out another vial from his spatial ring and opened the top, he gave the soldier on the ground a whiff of the contents and immediately—

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

The soldier began howling in pain and he even started struggling even more fiercely. However, this only caused his wounds to worsen and it brought him even more pain.

"PLEASE! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!"

Quinn let out a cold smile and said, "I can make it stop, but you'll have to tell me what I want..."

He took out a different vial and let the man smell its contents and immediately, he no longer felt any pain in his body. The soldier was pale and sweating coldly. The excruciating pain he felt from before was too much for him. Being relieved from it, he immediately let out a breath.

"Now, tell me. Who sent you?" Quinn asked from the side.

"Hehe...f.u.c.k you..."

Quinn only nodded and threw the entire contents of the earlier vial onto the soldier. When he got a whiff of its scent, the soldier began crying out in agony again. What the soldier didn't understand was that the potion that Quinn had fed him earlier didn't attack his body, but instead, it attacked his mind.

The pain he was feeling was coming directly from his mind, not his body. So in reality, his body was perfectly fine, except for when he started struggling and gouging out the wounds on his legs and arm.

His mind was being attacked and not his body. He was only hallucinating the pain due to Quinn's concoctions.

On the other hand, Quinn hadn't moved a single bit since earlier. The man was only hallucinating when he thought that Quinn had given him something that caused him to suddenly feel the pain before giving him something else that relieved him of the pain.

From Quinn's perspective, after he gave the man the potion, all he saw was him screaming and writhing in pain on the ground, just like a bug. It didn't take long before the man started saying something else other than the usual cursing.

"S-stop...p-please stop... I'll tell you...I'll tell you everything so please—AGGGGHHHHHH!!!"

The next time around, he was able to say more before he began hallucinating again.

"Th-the archduchy sent us! W-w-we were able to get here because there's man on the inside that's helping us! They've been providing us the intel of the enemy's plan of attack and—GRAAAHHHHH STOOOPPPP IT!!!"

Quinn was just indifferently listening to him whenever he was able to talk. He didn't anything about the potion nor did he want to. He already knew who sent this man and his squad. He also already deduced that there was a spy among his allies' rank, all he wanted to know was the name.

After another few minutes, the soldier began begging for mercy. He had been writhing in pain so much that his remaining arm and legs were gouged out so badly. Quinn was able to get everything he needed from the man and decided to just leave him there.

"So...it was her, huh... I'll let that girl know and have her clean this place up. It's a shame that we lost a few good men, but we did train some back up units just in case."

Quinn turned his head and noticed a group of soldiers quickly rushing up the cliff towards his location. When they got there, they pulled out their weapons and pointed it at him but immediately lowered them when they noticed that he was a friendly.

"Sir Quinn...what happened here?" The captain asked when he noticed the bloody sight just around the man.

"A few men from the enemy were able to sneak up here and they killed our primary cannon teams, but don't worry, I've already taken care of them."

"Y-yes, sir," The captain said. He then hesitantly asked, "Since it's safe, shall I escort the secondary cannon units to their positions?"

"Yes, but send back a messenger and have Katya send some troops over to this side to keep the cannon units safe. We don't know whether this is the last of them. I'll head over to the other cliff and see if there's anyone there as well."

"If there are more people, Sir Quinn, then that means the other team might have already engaged with them."

"Then I'd best hurry," Quinn replied before quickly dashing away.

As Quinn was heading down, from behind him, the previously inactive Storm Howlers immediately began firing down on the enemy sh.i.p.s in the bay.

He pulled out a handkerchief from his spatial ring and wiped the blood that had stuck onto his hands. When he got close to the other cliff side, he could hear the sounds of battle not far off.

"Hmph, more pests..."

Quinn hastened his speed and soon arrived at the battle field on the cliff. There was the same number of enemy soldiers on this side of the cliff just like there was on the other side. Quinn finally understood why the previous dead group of soldiers had been talking so smugly.

The small group here was able to push back and kill a few of the allied soldiers despite them having fewer numbers. Quinn clicked his tongue and quickly dashed into the fray. It didn't take him long to cleanly dispatch all of the enemy soldiers.

They were strong, but compared to the training that Cecil had put him through and the constant near-death sparring that he had to endure with his Master and 2 Madams as his opponents, these people were small-fries.

"Hurry and get to your positions. Also, send back a messenger and station more people here!"

Quinn left behind that order and quickly rushed to the harbor. When he got there, he quickly found Katya and informed her of the information he was able to torture out of the enemy soldier's mouth.

"N-No way...why would... but she..."

"She has every reason, no? I was able to find out a few thing about your family, and apparently, your ancestors sure loved to butt heads with one another..."

"..."

"At this rate, you'll take the matriarch spot of the family. She, and many others, probably wouldn't like that. However, it appears that she's the only one that made a move. The others were a little more sensible and placed the survival of the family ahead of their personal gains."

"...She's my sister..."

"Your cousin—"

"We grew up together and we're basically sisters! Even when everyone pushed me away, she stayed by my side. I...I can't accept it!"

"The evidence is there, whether you choose to believe it or not—"

"What happens if the enemy only said that to cause confu—"

"I tortured the information out of the soldier I captured," Quinn immediately replied.

"!"

When Katya heard this, she was immediately stunned. She bit her lip and clenched her fists tightly.

"Sometimes, you should look into a person's character first before you befriend them. I thought you were supposed to be the next Goldenia heir, but you're surprisingly gullible."

Quinn turned to leave. He immediately left for the frontlines to begin fighting again. Katya was left behind with her men inside of the tent that they had used to observe the battle situation from the frontlines.

They all had heard the information that Quinn was able to get from an enemy soldier that had ambushed their cannon teams. Her sister, Emilie, was the inside collaborator along with a few other people, who had sold the Faustus Archduchy their plans and battle formations.

The information about the cannons were also fed to them and Emilie and her conspirators had even provided the enemy forces a path up the cliff side so that they could ambush the unsuspecting cannon units when they got up there.

The number of people weren't too much, but the hidden path had to be taken care of or else the enemy commander could just send more people up the cliffside.

Katya reeled in her emotions and quickly dispatched some people over to the cliffs to defend the cannon teams and to find the secret path and destroy it if possible. She also gathered up a few of her subordinates and went back towards her family's mansion.

When she got there, Katya and her soldiers immediately rushed down towards the cellar and they bumped into Emilie...and the Faustus Archduchy's Young Lord.

"S-sister! W-what are you doing here?"

"...And what are you doing, Emi?"

"I...I just thought that it was better to secure the prisoner just in case. Bring him to a more secure area."

"Is that so..."

"Yes, well, I wouldn't want him escaping due to the chaos of the war, right?"

"...Liar..."

"Huh?"

"Men, arrest Emilie and take back the prisoner to the cellar. Actually, no—" Katya raised a hand and chanted.

"Glacies Catente."

The water from the nearby plants started gathering around Emilie and Bastille's arms and legs. Once they wove around them, the water immediately froze and chained them together.

"K-Kat! What's this about?!"

"Em... I didn't want to believe it, but now that I've seen this...you really are colluding with the enemy..."

Emilie widened his eyes a little when she heard Katya's words. She didn't say anything back but only coldly glared back at her.

Katya flinched when she saw her sister's change in demeanor.

"Heh, so you finally found out...took you long enough, bitch..."

"S-sis?!"

"Tch, stop calling me that, I really hate it when you call me that."

"W-why?!"

"You're really asking me that? After your father killed my parents? Hah, the nerve. Did you honestly think I was staying by your side because I liked you? Please, I was just doing it so that I could get close to you and that bastard who killed my parents, just so that I could screw with you bastards!"

The soldiers that Katya brought with her immediately rushed over and pinned the two people down.

"U-Unhand me! Do you think I'll let you get away with this, Katya?! You treat me, a Prince, like some kind of ani—mmnnngg, nhnnggghh!"

Katya immediately ordered for the soldiers to gag him and take the two people away. She felt hurt that the one person she trusted and stayed with her all throughout her bad times had turned out to be a fraud and a traitor.

There was no remorse in Emilie's eyes when she glared back at her earlier when as she was being taken away.

"Miss... should we head back to the frontline?"

"Have some men keep watch over here. I don't want any of Emilie's collaborators to come and try to rescue her and Bastille. Keep a tight watch on them. I'll head back to the frontlines. Hopefully, we can push back the Faustus Archduchy's forces soon."