"Who are the prisoners?" Anton arrived at a provisional base, looking at Alexander, who had come as his reinforcement due to the special request he had made.
"Frank and Aitor are both the voices of those who performed the rituals in this place, but they seem to be related to an organization called Black Cover," Alexander replied briefly as he watched Anton approach the room.
"Who brought them here?"
"A good captain named Erick; he might soon become the captain of an elite team."
...
Five months ago.
At the training base of the Light Association.
"So, you only have nine seconds to decide whether to believe anyone beside you. It doesn't matter if it's true or not; you only have nine seconds to know."
"What if we don't come to a concrete result?" A man raised his hand among the crowd and asked.
"Cadet Erick, you have the best deduction skills among the cadets of this battalion... I'll be brief with my answer. If you have a man who is an enemy of our organization and you need to interrogate him, you'll have to ask him questions and only have nine seconds to believe him or not."
"Listen, if you don't believe him, you have to ask the same question again... You must be sure that the person answering you is telling the truth and only the truth. If you are not sure, that man or woman will have deceived you."
Erick remained silent; talking about torture and interrogation was something very extreme that he had never thought about. Would it be necessary to resort to such situations when active as an agent of the light?
"And for this, there is an effective method. If there are two people, it will work; if not, you won't be able to use this method. This method is called the two questions. Tie the two people face-to-face and ask them the same question, but the answer must be written. Once one gives you the answer, you have to ask the other, and if the answers match, they are telling the truth."
"And if they don't match, they're lying." Erick murmured in a low voice, and shortly after, those same words were spoken by the chief instructor.
...
"What is this, Frank?" Aitor asked while blood filled his throat, making it hard to breathe.
Frank, who had remained silent, watched the huge rat move through Aitor's stomach, so he decided to observe the surroundings to see where he was.
Erick, standing next to Alexander, was motionless, never imagining that this kind of torture could be inflicted on these people. But seeing the indifferent expressions of Anton and Akira, Erick kept his distance.
"I want you to write the answers to the following questions! Where is your sect, and how many people are in it?" Anton signaled to the agents, and they untied one of Frank's hands.
Anton looked at Frank, one of those who had killed his agents, and warned him: "Listen, I want you to know that it's up to you to make sure your answer is correct because your friend's life is in our hands!"
When Frank heard these words, he frowned and tried to make eye contact with Aitor to see if this man had answered truthfully. They had never been in this situation before, but being part of the Black Cover organization, they always had a way out, and Frank immediately thought about what Aitor had written.
"While you think, I want to tell you a story."
After saying these words, Anton lit a torch that was on a metal table, and the strong flame slightly illuminated his face. "The world, both in the past and now, is incredibly crazy, full of deaths, incidents that will be remembered in history, and unnecessary wars. But if being agents of the light has taught us anything, it's to be cruel and experienced."
"Learn from your mistakes and never be so stupid as to make them in the future! If you think playing with the unknown gives you authority in the world I have decided to protect, you are very wrong."
Anton put down the pliers on the table where Aitor was lying and said, "Today I will tell you about the rat torment torture, originally used by the Chinese, put into practice by the Holy Inquisition and the Dutch Revolution... This torment involved placing the condemned man face up and completely immobilizing him.
As Anton spoke these words, he held tightly to the ropes that immobilized Aitor on the table. "A cage with a rat inside was placed on top of that man. For this to work, it had to be open at the bottom and secured with chains to the victim's abdomen. Oh, look, just like your friend."
"You damn son of a bitch!"
Anton ignored Frank's insulting words and continued: "Those people would light the top of the cage, causing the rodent to go crazy in search of an escape. And tell me, boy of evil, how do you escape from a cage where the only way out is through a man's body?"
When these last words reached everyone's ears, Anton snapped his fingers and said, "Exactly, through the abdomen! Driven mad by the flames, the rat would bite its way through a man's abdomen, tearing through his intestines and sometimes even exiting from the side of the body."
"Like a hungry werewolf, the rodent couldn't stop devouring soft tissues to find a way out. I think everyone in this room can imagine such pain. The rat would bite and bite, damaging vital organs along the way and bleeding the victim, who would inevitably die."
As Anton told the story, he walked towards Aitor and said, "Write the answer; you only have three seconds."
While Anton said this, the flame of the torch lowered, and little by little, the cage began to heat up. Frank was motionless, his body drenched in cold sweat, preventing him from reacting in time. When he heard Aitor's screams of fear, he finally reacted.
"Alright, I'll do it!" Anxiously, Frank wrote the answers with difficulty. As each word was written on the paper he was given, Anton began to see the rat scratching Aitor's stomach.
By the time Frank finished writing the answer, Alexander handed the paper to Anton, whose face showed only tension. When Anton read the content of the paper, the answers matched, but the number of people differed.
"What a pity..."
"What?" Frank immediately asked.
"The location was correct; congratulations, but the number of people was written very poorly... From 300 to 500 people? How is it that you don't know how many people are in your sect, Aitor? Another wrote from 600 to 900 people. Whom should I believe?"
Anton dropped the paper to the ground, and at that moment, a voice came from the radio: "Zz... The drones identified a strange report near our location. What are your orders?"
"Everyone, prepare. Once we visit this place, we will have to eliminate everyone." Anton gave the order, then looked at Erick and said, "You go and make a report on the finding."
"Yes..."
"Understood, sir..."
"Ahhhhh!" But at that moment, a roar of pain echoed, and Aitor, with severe wounds in his stomach, was shaking aggressively. However, Anton remained indifferent and instead intensified the flame.
"Tell me, Frank! How many people are in your sect?"
Frank was speechless, watching a simple rat burrow through his subordinate's stomach. Each bite was fierce and aggressive; the rat desperately sought a way out, feeling the fire burning its body.
But Anton did not plan to stop; he wanted to leave a traumatic mark on Frank's aggressive mentality. He wanted to make clear the punishment for his actions; everyone had to know the consequences of killing his soldiers.
"You damn bastard, you killed my believers! Did you really think you would get out of this place alive? This is just a small part of my fury for trying to do something against my people."
Anton looked at Alexander and said, "Alexander, you decide: his hand or his head!"
"Yes!" Alexander took a machete and walked towards Frank step by step.
"No, please!"
Anton wasn't interested in the number of people in the sect; he only needed to know the location, and he had obtained it. If the situation became unsustainable, he would kill everyone, but he knew there was always a way out.
"No, have mercy!"
"Ahhhhhh!"
"Rrrrr!"
"Kill me, please, take my life!"
"Ahhh!"
The agonizing screams were heard one after another, and then there was nothing but silence. Alexander left the room, cleaning his machete, while Anton wiped the blood from his face.
Bang, bang!
A few seconds later, two gunshots were heard, and the two agents left the room, dragging two corpses. One had a large hole in his stomach, and the other had no head.
All the prisoners had been eliminated.