Chương 211: Mental Anguish–My Favourite

Apparently, the effects of 'Embodiment Of Negativity', whether it is used by me directly or by my lovely little sisters, can be overcome using a rather common enhancement spell that takes effect on the brain area. Those who can cast this spell can sort of refresh their mind, which is quite effective in ridding themselves of the negative emotions that were artificially planted within them.

Of course, it is harder if 'Embodiment Of Negativity' was used in unison with an existing emotion within the target, and the stronger the attack, the harder it is to just get away by casting a spell… But generally, those who actually cast the spell do it thanks to their willpower or sheer reflexes. … Speaking of willpower, that is perhaps the main component that goes against this ability of mine.

With enough willpower, someone could theoretically cleanse themselves of my influence in the blink of an eye, and as such, willpower and the spell I mentioned brought together make for an annoying duo. My prisoner made a good show of that inside the Purging Station. His will was strong enough to push him to use an abundance of mana, allowing him to break free of the intense fear that had settled within him as a result of being struck by Annie's empowered infliction of fear.

As such, I was already well aware that this fellow was in possession of a strong mind and wouldn't easily give in… However, now a captive, he could no longer rely on his spells or mana in any way. He would have to use that willpower constantly to endure the effects of being infested with negative emotions.

Amongst my cute troop of ghosts, everyone had different abilities–Poppy leaned toward developing all kinds of abilities that would be expected of a spirit, Annie's ability to inflict fear specialised to merge with love for running, Gigi instead developed abilities that suited her mischievous playfulness, Nessa acquired abilities that didn't require her to actually show herself to others, Elowen's desire to be a knightess led her to specialising in becoming tangible, and Ophelie was currently still in the midst of getting her footing in this domain.

Out of the six, however, Gigi and Nessa were the only ones with the power to inflict another emotion besides fear. Gigi's stare could cause unsettlement, while Nessa could produce strangling sounds that caused paranoia. Those two brought together made for a nasty duo against the restrained captive.

After being subjected to several days of brutal torture at the hands of Mari, he was left in the dark with only a faint glow near him, which allowed him to just barely make out the blue demoness's silhouette as she stared directly at him. Normally, he would probably be capable of completely nullifying the effect with his mana, but without it, he was soon overwhelmed with a deep sense of unsettlement.

This only made him more vulnerable when he began hearing the sound of someone being strangled directly behind his back–So close that it felt he should be able to feel their presence through sheer proximity. The paranoia caused by Nessa was definitely the worst part. He couldn't defend against it, so his mind went wild with possibilities–I wasn't in his head, but I bet he was horrified, believing that we might be able to extract information directly from his brain.

That we had already found out everything about him and his lord. That his failure would lead to the fall of his master… The unsettlement and paranoia gave rise to fear, horror, terror, and panic. This would go on for hours upon hours every day. The only respite he got was when I would come into the room with Mari, and he would instead be physically tortured. Unfortunately for him, he had been designated as a punching bag for everyone already… A literal one in Elowen's case.

He could definitely handle punches and kicks better than the usual torture, but striking flesh and bones was good training for my adorable tomboy. The poor fool would come out of it battered every single time, his body badly bruised, and usually with at least a few cracked bones–All of which would eventually be healed up. Poppy got to test something new on him.

Before, she had the basic fear infliction ability, which she wasn't very prone to using, and had then developed the ability to force people to exhale, and then to make them cough up blood. The latter wasn't nearly as dangerous as it sounded, but it was a great tool to distract and cause targets to panic. Now, she has developed a new, more general ability for a spirit such as herself–Telekinesis.

It was underdeveloped at the moment, but with enough time and focus, she could take control of rather heavy items, and as she decided to show… She could also physically strangle people from a distance now. I could already imagine the sort of panic Poppy would be able to send people by first showing that she could choke them, and then emptying their lungs. I am sure it would be very effective to send people into panic attacks. Annie really only had one method of attack.

The secondary abilities she had developed were made for movement instead of attack. Nonetheless, she was having a lot of fun using them to lunge at our dear captive from unexpected angles. Running onto the ceiling to take him by surprise, or swiftly phasing through the wall behind to get him without even being seen or heard beforehand. Annie had actually figured out on her own that diving like she was leaping into a body of water allowed her to phase through solid objects even faster than she already could.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The swimming lessons I gave her were proving useful–Especially when she decided to literally dive into the ground by jumping from the very top of Leou's tower and phasing through the ground and trying to land directly onto the prisoner. It took her more than fifty tries, but when she did… I honestly thought the guy was going to die from a heart attack.

Turns out that when phasing like this in a falling motion, instead of being slightly slowed down by the phasing, she instead accelerated further than normal. The bastard was hit by the strongest infliction of fear anyone in the family had ever inflicted. I had to reanimate him because his heart stopped beating, but the healing provided by the equipment was of great help in getting things started again. … I had to tell Annie not to do it again since it was too powerful. Well, not do it again on him, anyhow.

Ophelie couldn't inflict fear or any negative emotion, so she spent most of her time just sitting on a chair inside the room, inspecting the mask intently. She couldn't interact with physical items for long like Elowen, though. So the mask would often fall to the ground as she was in the midst of staring at it like it would give her the answers she was looking for. The youngest of the sisters seemed to be slowly catching onto something, however… And also, her stake came in handy after a while.

By stabbing it into our captive, the dread of the Gigi and Nessa duo became far worse.

"... I… My name is… My name is Gilepre!" He broke and ended up answering my questions after nearly a month of torture.

"A. Fitting. Name""You. Work. For. Lunovis Boorizar. Don't. You. Question mark" I was getting a bit better at speaking using the words contained inside the 'Voice Box Recorder', I could associate some words together without marking a noticeable pause in between. The agent hesitated to answer this question, but noticing Gigi peeking from behind my cloak seemed to convince him.

"Y-Yes! I work for him! He is my lord… I… I was sent to the Purging Station to sabotage an important piece of equipment there. The goal was to cause the waste to rise out of the sewers across the entire city! The whole point of the operation was to hurt Leou Palf's reputation, and… And since it would be obvious to her who was behind it, to prompt her to commit a mistake""Mistake. To. Incriminate. Her.

Question mark""My lord is deeply convinced that she has something to do with the death of the young master and is willing to use underhanded tactics to collect even a smudge of evidence!"

"Right" I slowly moved my fingers as I stayed silent, thinking for a few moments. Just as I expected, this guy was sent here by Lunovis. It was a rather… Grotesque plan, all things considered. Not what I would expect from a high noble like him, but I guess he had to get somewhat creative since he was dealing with Leou, who, while not a noble in title, held the same importance as one inside of Heldinot.

He couldn't be direct with his attacks on her, as being found out could actually mean consequences–Something I am certain a noble like him was wholly unfamiliar with, but feared to his deepest core. Speaking of which, the Heldinotian king had just agreed to meet with Leou about what Lunovis had done when he had paid a visit last time. This might just cause the annoying owl some trouble… I tried to ask Gilepre some more questions, but as a disposable agent, he didn't actually know much at all.

He could only tell me about previous missions he had done and some meaningless facts. Unfortunately, until now, Gilepre had actually been participating in lawful missions. There wasn't anything there that could be used against Lunovis. At first, I had thought to keep him alive and have him testify against his lord in front of the king, but Leou was rather worried that pulling a stunt like that would only prompt the Boorizar to lose his composure and not hold back at all on the next occasion. …

I had almost forgotten, but due to the Boorizar's position as the eyes and ears of the crown, and Lunovis's own high position within the family, even if proof was brought, it wasn't like he would be imprisoned or executed for his behaviour. At the very least, he would be sent into exile, and he would still be able to retaliate–This time with much less incentive to be peaceful about it. Aah… How annoying it is. If he were a less important Boorizar, he probably could have been hit by a harder punishment, but alas…

This only reinforced my idea that he should be assassinated instead. There was no real way to deal with him properly in the daylight, at least in my eyes. The fluffy snow leopard didn't believe that he could be assassinated, and much preferred not to resort to violence in this case. Her arguments were sound.

Lunovis indeed didn't actually know for certain if she had something to do with Hulil's death, and she was planning on playing on this to make him doubt himself and eventually give up due to lack of concrete evidence. Of course, for a matter of realism, she still needed to try to seek punishment for his brazen attempt at threatening her. After all, if she was going to play the role of the innocent, fluffy gal, then she had to be offended about being hit with a threat out of thin air.

This, however, did not bode too well for Gilepre. I decided to let him live a little bit longer, since I wasn't certain whether to just make him disappear by devouring his corpse, or not kill him, and instead use his cadaver as a way to send a message to Lunovis. I would need to see how things go to decide what was the best course of action–So until then, the ugly agent would get to keep on breathing–And also be a punching bag for my darlings. The latter of which was obviously the higher privilege of the two.

Anyway… I'll need to look extra classy to accompany Leou at the royal castle–It's actually hard to believe that I am going to be meeting a second king in person. What does he even look like? I don't think I ever bothered to learn about this…