In a Civilized Manner

Five minutes later, Edris strolled out of the interrogation room.

The moment he stepped out, he found himself instantly surrounded by several mages at the back of the waiting space. They gazed at him with expectant, almost exasperated eyes. Among them, Faren Ablemore was the first to speak.

"Did it work out…?"

"Of course." Edris smiled harmlessly. "We've had a good talk. I believe my friend is ready for verbal consent."

After learning about Ace's mana deprivation, Edris had transferred some of his own mana through the Distributor. Since he was still recovering from the overconsumption himself, Edris only allocated enough for the white-haired man to regain his speaking abilities.

From there, he then kindly asked for Ace's cooperation towards whatever measures awaited him by throwing out the terms of their contract.

Naturally, Edris didn't tell him that the "measure" awaiting him was actually an interrogation. What he did do was warn him of the potential harm if he put up a resistance.

A casual warning, but still a warning. Whether Ace decided to heed his suggestion was another story, but now that Edris had notified him in advance, even if Ace resisted and became injured, he could avoid all responsibility.

After all, Edris still hadn't forgotten what the entity did during the royal banquet.

A stab to the stomach—he had to return the favour somehow, right?

Reeling in his thoughts, Edris watched as the mages released a wave of relieved sighs. Some even slumped onto the floor in alleviation. At their haggard states, Edris couldn't help but mentally offer his condolences.

At the Mage Faction, the interrogatory process followed a strangely self-contradictory system. Typically, interrogations that utilised the Dread Chamber were only implemented on dangerous figures whose crimes had already been confirmed.

As Toren Zacriya once stated, those who do evil cannot complain when condemned by evil itself.

However, the case with Ace was a bit different. Since he was only initially brought in as a witness (and later a participant) and did not perform any crimes, the mages were prohibited from forcibly proceeding with an interrogation.

Ironically, consent was also an esteemed value of the Zacriya Kingdom. So in other words, they couldn't implement the Dread Chamber without Ace's verbal agreement to cooperate.

What they didn't know was that Ace literally could not give consent due to his mana deprivation, which had led to his inability to speak.

Mages like Faren Ablemore needed to hold an official interrogation to fulfil their role but couldn't thanks to Ace's unresponsiveness. As a result, they've been under a constant state of stress for the past few days.

"I've collected the consent!" One of the mages bolted over from the interrogation room. Edris could have sworn he saw tears flying out of his eyes. "We can now proceed with the Dread Chamber!"

He had vaguely noticed it from Magnus Vyris's words of complaints, but Zacriya's factions followed a highly sophisticated operating structure, with rules implemented for almost every occasion. From the kingdom's meticulous management of high-levelled mages to their precisely assigned jurisdictions, there seemed to exist an obsession with control.

He could see where they were coming from.

Strict regulations led to order, and order led to peace.

As a kingdom with peace as its highest value, it would do anything to uphold this reputation.

Understandable, but not really.

Shortly after the mage's statement, the white-haired man walked out of the interrogation room, led by two more mages at his side. The one on the right had a mop hung over his shoulders, which caused Edris to blink twice.

With each step, Ace stared ahead with a cold yet unwavering gaze. His stoic eyes lingered on Edris for a short second as he passed by him, an action which the dark-haired man didn't reciprocate.

After Ace disappeared into the hallway, Edris followed the Crown Prince and Saire Harkness into the monitor room.

A one-sided window filled the entire front wall, revealing the situation inside the Dread Chamber. On the outside, it appeared no different than any other rooms they came across earlier.

White walls, white floor tiles, white everything. The entire room was glossed in a bleary glow. Even the floor lights stuck on the edge of the baseboard were white.

But the presence of an unfamiliar person broke off this uniformity. From afar, the figure looked like a blot of ink, a crack in this pristine environment.

Sprawled over the floor, the person's boney limbs twisted and turned in unnatural places, and a puddle of black ink pooled beneath him, bringing about a sense of eeriness to his appearance. His unkempt, coppery hair flopped over his face, hiding away his facial features.

The doors to the Dread Chamber slid open, and one of the mages entered the screen's view.

"You've been here long enough. It's time to leave."

The man laid unmoving for the longest time, his stiff shadow elongated by the floor lights on the wall edge.

Just as Edris began to wonder if he'd died from the interrogation, the man on the floor heaved a long breath. Black, bubbling liquid flowed out of his nostriles as he did so, adding to the pond beneath him.

"Okay."

The man rose to an upright position and, without hurry, snapped his limbs back into place, one after another. The entire room was silent except for the explicit popping of his joints.

It took some time, but the man managed to pull himself back to his feet. His hair, straggly from the apparent lack of nutrition, swung from one side to the other as he wobbled toward the front door. Through those thick strands of hair, he stared at the white-haired man by the entrance.

Ace stared back.

Three seconds passed in silence, and Edris finally thought that something was about to unfold between them, the ragged man withdrew his gaze.

Without another word, he trudged past Ace, leaving a trail of black behind every step as he disappeared into the hallway. One of two mages escorted him along the way.

"Who was that?" Edris asked.

Eyes lingering at the empty front door, he then glanced at the remaining puddle of black. It was being wiped clean by the mage who'd brought a mop with him, as though he'd expected this to happen.

"A black magic user," Faren said. "He doesn't have a name, so we call him by his case number, 746. He's supposed to be at the Healing Faction, but due to research purposes, we had him transported here."

Then as if suddenly struck by a thought, he added, "Oh, but worry not. It is research done with consent. The subject has agreed to participate in our data collection, on the condition that we allow him to use the Dread Chamber."

"What?" Celio gaped, looking down at the white room. "Why? Isn't the Dread Chamber used for interrogations? He's asking to be interrogated?"

"Not exactly," Saire said. The archmage seemed to have something on her mind as she stared sidelong at the stained floor. "Since this is a replica of the Dread Chamber, it only retained the original's memory reading feature. 746 is not here for the results, but the process."

Perhaps it was the pure confusion that'd climbed onto the young beast tamer's face, but she decided to be a kind soul and elaborate. "You're probably aware of this, but black mana users are rejected by the world. Their existence itself denies the natural mana cycle."

Providing a visual to her explanation, the archmage cupped her hands together, forming a smooth, circular curve from top to bottom.

"Whereas mana normally circulates and replenishes within an individual, only filling to the size of their channel, those with an affinity to black mana are forced to endure its entire presence filling their body until they explode."

Under the beast tamer's attentive gaze, she pulled her hands away from each other, little by little, only to abruptly squeeze them into tight fists.

"Then the puddle on the floor…" Celio gulped.

"It's the surplus amount of black mana extruding from their body," Saire affirmed his unspoken thoughts. "Unlike normal mana, black mana knows no control. Humans with affinity to them are rare in the first place, so when a bond occurs, black mana uses the human as a medium, a vessel that must be exhausted to the last crevice."

"That must be really painful."

"It is. It's unbearably painful." This time, Dolan was the one to speak. "So much that suicide is the most common ending for black mana users."

"For people like 746, the Dread Chamber is an escape." Saire lowered her gaze. "When it peeks into a person's lifetime, the oversaturation of mana in the chamber completely blocks out their senses. Your mind enters a state of dormancy without being aware of it, which is how we're able to dig out a lifetime's worth of memories without the person themselves noticing."

"It's because their senses are overwhelmed to the point where they can no longer distinguish between pain and numbness, dream and reality, life and death," Edris stated calmly. "How depressing."

He glanced sidelong at the Dread Chamber. In the duration of their talk, the mage had completely removed the outspread mana puddle, reverting the floor to its previously immaculate state.

The cleaning was done, which meant the next operation of the Dread Chamber was ready to be on its way.

The mage straightened his back, wiped his forehead, and held out the mop in front of him. The cleaning tool had soaked up all the black mana, taking on a jet-black look from top to bottom. It took the mage three rounds to extract all the mana into a container. By the time he was done, his face was flushed with fatigue.

Hugging the large container with both hands, the mage wobbled to the end of the room. Before heading out, he shifted his attention to the white-haired man still waiting by the entrance.

"I gotta take care of this. As for you…See that spotlight at the centre?" He gestured to Ace with a slant of the chin. "All you have to do is stand beneath it, then leave the rest to Serenity's Will."

With that, the mage hurried off, leaving the white-haired man alone at the edge of the chamber.

As if responding to the single presence remaining, the Dread Chamber's snow-like walls twinkled and, one by one, shifted into a hue of blue. Above his head, a congregation of colourful threads gathered, forming aurora lights that intertwined like woven threads.

Ace stood at the very rear of the mystical space. He seemed to take no notice of his transforming surroundings as he stepped into the Dread Chamber.

Like an outside observer, he stood still and silent, regarding the centre of the room, toward the only patch of white remaining. He slowly closed his eyes.

"Quite a pretty friend you have there," Saire commented, chin rested on her palm as she scrutinised the man behind the glass screen.

Edris followed the direction of her eyes and peered at the corner of the screen. Almost simultaneously, Ace acted as if he'd detected his gaze as he lifted his head, eyes darting straight toward his direction.

...Scary.

Even though he knew Ace couldn't see him due to the one-sided window, Edris still found himself shuddering at his perceptiveness.

Being mana-deprived for so long had dulled Ace's senses considerably. Edris couldn't help but be thankful that white-haired man wasn't in his best condition, otherwise he'd probably recognise the Dread Chamber at first glance.

The next second, Ace retracted his gaze and began walking. Every step he took seemed to brighten the room by a little. His long strides carried him to the centre one step after another, illuminating the space around him like a cascading ripple.

However, the moment he took his final step into the spotlight, everything clouded over at once, and complete darkness engulfed the room. The abrupt surge of tension caused everyone to hold their breaths. No light, no sound, just waiting.

The interrogation was about to begin.