According to Lylphia's briefing before descending into the dungeons, the danger level of the 'things' encountered increased the further down you went.
Yu shuddered when he realized how dangerous things were under the building where he slept last night. Almost all the academy members slept here and there were monsters under their beds. From now on, whenever he fell asleep here, his mind would drift to this place.
Fortunately, they didn't need to go down to the deeper levels where the dangerous things were kept. Salery and Sony were on the first level because they were less dangerous criminals than the other things kept here.
Father and son were placed in opposite cells. There were knights waiting both inside and outside the two cells. These knights were not in the cells of the other prisoners, they had been brought specially for these two.
Such a measure was taken because Sony had repeatedly tried to commit suicide and it was thought that Salery would try to do the same. Sony would be sent to the capital in a few days and Salery could be sent to the capital after his own trial, depending on his confessions.
Yu looked at Sony, who had caused them so much trouble. He was tied to a red marble cross and his head was bowed down. A piece of cloth had been stuffed into his mouth to prevent him from committing suicide by biting his tongue.
"It's a tragic story..." he thought to himself. He had learned Sony's story yesterday.
Everything Sony did was because of love. One day he somehow stumbled upon the Nana Project and found a way to talk to Nana. Over time, Sony grew attached to Nana and whenever he would sneak up on her, they managed to develop strong feelings for each other, despite the insurmountable difference between them.
As Sony learned more about her, he also discovered why Nana was created and the fate that awaited her. Nana was made to be torn apart.
"A terrible fate..."
Nana's power was even superior to Rie's Virgo Blessing. The Virgo Blessing had a single use, allowing the user to start again, to undo death, for themselves or someone else.
The Phoenix Blessing created by the Nana Project was planned to have the same properties, but there were differences compared to the Virgo Blessing. It was not clear whether the person revived by the Phoenix Blessing was the deceased person or not, because the Virgo Blessing regenerated the body and put the same soul back into the body, while the Phoenix Blessing put a new soul into the body it found.
So there was a different soul with the same body, the same memories and the same emotions.
The reason for this difference was the principle of the Phoenix Blessing. Instead of trying to recapture the old soul, the Blessing created a new one. A puppet, statue, plush toy or any other object that the Phoenix Blessing deemed appropriate could be given a soul.
Those working on the project wanted to multiply this power and use it for themselves. What they planned to do was to combine the Phoenix Blessing with the puppet they called Nana, and once Nana was fully adapted to the Phoenix Blessing, they would dismantle it. Then each part of the puppet would serve as the Phoenix Blessing.
When Sony learned of the fate that awaited the puppet he had fallen in love with, he wasted no time in kidnapping Nana and together they fled to Rechapel.
There were two reasons why she chose the Redchapel as their escape destination. First, Nana's life core was in the Wizarding Academy and they couldn't get very far from there, the furthest they could go was the Redchapel forests.
The second was that William Berry, the so-called Redchapel Killer, and Sony von Bishory were childhood friends. They had been close friends for a long time.
Sony somehow found William, whom no one else could find, and hoped he could help him because he was living the life of a fugitive. When William agreed to help his friend Sony, they began to live in the forests on the run from society.
Sony helped William and took care of his food problems by going shopping where he could not go. Sony was also the one who told William about Sivina's presence on the day they arrived in Redchapel.
William would help them hide and if anyone came looking for them, he would secretly finish them off and dump their bodies in remote parts of the forest.
According to this testimony, William Berry had committed more murders than is known, and Sony was the instigator of those murders.
If the story told through Sony's eyes was true, Yu could empathize with him and felt sorry for him because of what had happened, but he had helped a murderer, so he was not going to defend his innocence.
He wanted Sony and Nana to have a good life, but that was not possible. So without looking at Sony, he turned his head to the knight standing guard outside the dungeon where Salery was.
"We are guests of Maron Martin, he gave us permission to interrogate Salery."
Besides Lylphia, there were two other people who came with Yu and Yurine, sent by Maron Martin.
One of them was the executioner, who wore a mask that hid his face and accompanied them to ensure Salery's honesty, and the other was the healer who was with them to close the wounds inflicted by the executioner.
The knight opened the dungeon door. In fact, tasks such as guarding the cells were not for knights, but the knights of the Wizarding Academy were different from other knights, they were multi-purpose employees.
The knight who had been waiting inside the cell to prevent Salery from committing suicide moved a little away from Salery as Yu and Yurine entered the cell, Yu and Yurine in front and the others behind him. Salery was tied to a cross like his son.
The way they chose to keep those two prisoners was to prevent them from casting spells. The crosses here had enchantments that made it difficult to cast spells. That's why all prisoners who could use magic were tied to such crosses.
Salery looked up when he realized what was coming.
"Did you plan all this?"
Before Yu could answer Salery, the executioner stepped forward and punched Salery in the face. The punch was so hard that Salery broke a few tooth.
"Prisoners are not allowed to ask questions here."
At first Yu wondered if such a harsh reaction was necessary, but then he remembered that the he had sent Rie to his death.
Salery hadn't confessed yet, but the evidence was against him and Yu felt he couldn't be wrong. So he saw no need to be kind to someone who had caused someone's death.
As the executioner stepped back, Yu asked his first question.
"Do you admit your part in Rie's death?"
Salery looked at the executioner out of the corner of his eye before answering. The executioner was taking out instruments of torture from the bag he had brought with him.
The first tools he produced were small in size and would be used to damage the fingers or sensitive areas of the head.
Small tools were followed by bigger ones. Saws to cut bone, pincers to shred meat, thick skewers and a specially crafted trapezoidal scissors for castration.
Salery bit her lip, swallowed and looked into Yu's eyes, trying to make sure if he would let him be tortured. When they locked eyes, Yu knew he was scared.
"N-no."
"LIAR!" Yurine shouted. "You gave her the map!"
"Ask it again after that," said the executioner. He took a knife with a curved blade in one hand and a pair of pliers in the other and moved in front of Yu, aiming for the fingers of Salery's left hand.
"Lylphia, take Yurine and go outside," Yu said when he realized the torture was about to begin. He didn't want Yurine to be subjected to it.
Yurine at first refused to come out, holding Yu's hand, but when she locked eyes with Yu, she agreed to come out and she and Lylphia left the cell and went to the ground floor of the West Tower.
When they left, there was no reason for the executioner to not torture him.
Salery let out his first scream as blood began to drip on the floor. Yu tried to watch the torture without averting his eyes, at the same time trying to hide the horror on his face. He turned his head to Sony, curious about her reaction.
Sony was oblivious, not even bothering to look up as his father was tortured in front of him.
"Do you admit you had a part in Rie's death?"
"No!"
Hearing the negative answer, the executioner continued the torture and ten minutes later the index finger of Salery's left hand fell to the ground, shattered.
The healer picked up the pieces of the severed finger, cleaned it with water from the bottle he had brought with him, and put it back on using a healing spell.
"Do you admit that you had a part in Rie's death?" Yu asked again.
"No..."
His last answer was still a refusal, even if his voice was weak. The executioner continued his torture.
Yu didn't like what he saw and watching someone being tortured made his blood run cold, but the look of horror on his face gradually gave way to disgust and hatred.
"And there were maniacs in the world who enjoyed it..."
If the internet legends Yu had heard were true, there were people in remote corners of the internet who paid to watch torture videos. Right now he felt like one of them.
"It is not unexpected to find lies in interrogations. In such situations you sometimes have to apply pressure to weed out the lies and get to the pure truth. Through this pressure we reach the breaking point, and behind the breaking point there is only the truth."
While the executioner was busy torturing Salery, the healer started a conversation with Yu.
"What if he makes a false confession to end the torture?"
"It's not uncommon, but we have no other way of getting at the facts."
"What if he's not lying?"
"Well... We'll figure it out eventually."
Yu continued to watch the torture, even though he believed that this method was not the right one. If there was another way to get the truth, they would have used it. To get anything out of Salery, either his son or he would have to be tortured.
Whenever Salery's fingers were severed, the doctor put them back on and the torture continued. After the fingers, it was the ears, nose and teeth. Salery kept crying and screaming throughout the torture and Yu just kept repeating the same question.
"Do you admit your part in Rie's death?"
"Do you admit your part in Rie's death?"
"Do you admit your part in Rie's death?"
After two hours of asking the same question, the only answer he got was no, but when it finally came to the castration device, they reached Salery's breaking point.
"YES! YES! I HAD A PART IN RIE'S DEATH!"