Chương 32: Book 2 Chapter 13: Charlie bit my Finger!

Content warning: Torture, explicit violence -/- Jim once again stood angrily in front of the private detective's office, banging on the door. Only this time, the man did not appear randomly, causing Jim to eventually turn around and leave with a sullen look on his face. He'd come because he needed backup with Decorus the following day. Next time he had to establish a way to communicate with Harry more efficiently. It wasn't good if only he knew how to find Jim and not the other way around.

"He probably would have made a good meatshield," Jim muttered as he ducked into an alleyway on his way back to the academy in the industrial district. The walk had been a bust, but maybe there was still somebody at the academy he could drag alongside him? Not like Jim needed anyone's help in dealing with Decorus. He could take ten of the idiotic boy, no, the issue was that he needed someone to watch his back. Preferably someone who didn't run very fast, just in case.

It was as Jim was making his way towards the dorms that he suddenly froze in a relatively abandoned alleyway when he noticed that the exit he'd been aiming for was blocked by three oddly well-dressed ruffians with shiny teeth. A glance backwards revealed two more behind him. Three magic missiles spawned atop Jim, one on each shoulder and one above his head.

"This played out routine again?" Jim muttered as, just in time, Alice jumped off the roof to land behind him. Only difference was, she didn't make a move to attack him, simply staring at him with a dead look in her eyes.

"I'm going to need you to come with me," the girl said in a cold voice. Jim's pupils dilated at the change of tone and he blasted the shapeshifter with all three missiles, only for each to be detonated prematurely mid-air by glittering red beams. Alice stepped forward and a punch suddenly flew at his face, which he barely blocked by raising his arms, staggering back several steps from the impact.

He didn't see the fist that brutally buried itself inside his gut, although he did take a certain amount of pleasure in spewing the contents of his stomach onto Alice as his vision grew black and his arms fell limply to his side.

"Carry him off, he doesn't look like he'll need much persuasion to spill the beans… talking about beans, draw me a bath after he's tied up, this is disgusting." Was the last thing he heard before darkness took him. -/- Jim awoke, for once, not in the cabin of the ferry taking him to Sredina, but in a cold and damp room. One he recognised in fact.

Large and circular, it was the meeting space beneath the abandoned church where he'd attended that first assembly in what felt like years ago, but had realistically been less than one. A hand instinctively went up to push away the hair partially blocking his view of the barely lit space, but the sound of chains against stone stopped him cold, if the blockage in his hand hadn't already.

He looked down, saw the iron links clasped across his wrists, chain running behind and around the podium where Alice had once spoken.

"Finally awake?" a female voice asked, and he looked up again to see the red-clothed beauty squatting in front of him, about a dozen meters away.

"Wh-What do you want?" Jim asked, wondering if he should form a magic missile in his throat to avoid what was likely inevitable in this situation. He grasped at his mana, found it as willing as always, if a bit dulled.

"Pull," Alice said calmly, at which point Jim's arms were brutally ripped back, shoulders striking against the podium as someone wrenched the chains around his arms back. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Arrghh," Jim screamed, feeling almost as if his arms were about to get dislocated.

"No mana," Alice said calmly while Jim screamed.

"It's hard to interrogate a mage since it's impossible to really break the connection between them and their magic. We can only disrupt their concentration. Don't try it again or we'll have to see how many rusty knives you need driven between your toes to stay down."

"Why- why are you doing this?" Jim asked, deciding to use the opportunity, if anything, to gain as much information as possible. As for the patented throat explosion special, he'd keep that in case of a real emergency.

"I don't mind answering a few of your questions, after all, we might still end up helping each other out," Alice said with a charming smile, exiting her squat and simply sitting on the floor in an unlady-like lotus position, dirtying her red robes. She twirled a strand of black hair around her finger.

"The short of it is, we suddenly started getting investigated by a man claiming to be a private detective, but who used methods more in line with those of the Royal Secret Service. He knew about the tunnels, which is very odd since he was noted for primarily using pigeons as a method of reconnaissance. Not a day later, you show up at his door. Curious."

"I just needed help finding my stolen coin pouch," Jim lied expertly.

"Lie, pull." Jim's hands were dragged back again with explosive force, shoulders exploding in pain. Concerning cracks started sounding from places that shouldn't be making those sounds.

"Alright, alright!" he screamed in a pained voice while his head was forced up to stare at the dome-like ceiling of the hidden chamber. Alice raised a hand and the chains hit the floor again, losing their tension. Jim gasped in pain as dark spots grew in his eyes.

"I actually needed Harry as dumb muscle backup because I'm meeting an Ezengerdian spy tomorrow, we will be exchanging information about the headmaster and his faction," Jim was quick to admit, not hiding anything anymore. Alice stared at him blankly.

"What?" she asked in a deadpan voice.

"What?" Jim repeated the question back at her.. Alice tapped her chin.

"You're not lying, but you're not telling me what I want to know." Jim hung his head. How was she seeing through his poker face so easily?

"Answer a few of my questions, and I will tell you everything. You have a method of knowing if I'm telling the truth, right? A forbidden magic meant to counteract charismatic master manipulators like me," Jim said with a grim frown, receiving another blank stare.

"Sure, let's go with that," Alice muttered, before shrugging.

"What do you want to know?" Jim went to the core issue, wanting to find out as much as he could before he exited this experience.

"Why breach the city, why open a gate?" he asked, at which his interrogator went very still.

"You…" She started with furrowed brows, before sighing and bringing up her right hand to massage at her temple.

"You're not human, I get that, but what does that have to do with killing humans?" Jim asked. Alice suddenly stood up, ran three steps towards him and violently planted the bottom of her boot in his face.

"What the fuck do you know?" she shouted angrily as she pushed the back of his now assuredly cracked head against the stone podium.

"I kno-" Jim started, looking up the woman's robe, at the shorts she was wearing underneath, before the foot left his face and planted itself in his stomach, stealing his breath and interrupting his speech. For an entire minute, his world became pain as blows rained down on him, hitting his face, his stomach, his kidneys and most importantly, his dignity. Alice didn't speak during the brutal beating, didn't stop even for a second, simply methodically beat him into a bruised pulp of a human.

"That's the contradiction," she eventually said, not seeming out of breath at all.

"The contradiction at the heart of it all," she muttered. Jim, for his part, could only groan.

"You know what I am, don't you?" she asked. Jim spat out a blob of blood from his cut mouth.

"Shapeshifter," he managed to croak out.

"Oboroten," Alice replied.

"But it doesn't matter, does it? I'm just a monster."

"You… eat… humans," Jim managed to force out between gasps for breath.

"Oboroten used to eat humans back when you were just upright walking monkeys throwing around sticks and starting fires in the forest," Alice snarled.

"Then you turned the tables and started hunting us for our skin. High quality leather, best when removed from a living subject! I wonder which aristocrat is wearing my parents right now? They're probably in this city somewhere…"

"You… worship… the… calamity…" Jim gasped.

"Don't be an idiot like the rest of them," Alice said derogatorily.

"The calamity isn't a thing to be worshipped, it's simply a tool for destruction. It kills monsters and humans alike when it spills out of those filthy mountains. I'm just making sure it reached its intended target, after all, it's your digging that caused it to emerge." Jim looked up at the monster with hateful eyes, and saw the cold disdainful look. He turned his gaze downwards.

"Don't ask me why," Alice suddenly said more softly.

"I kill you so humans take revenge by killing my family, then I take revenge in turn by killing theirs. It's just how the world works." She paused.

"Ask me why again, and I'll dispose of you immediately."

"How did you gain access to the depths of those caves, why hasn't the kingdom found the spawning point?" Jim asked urgently.

"I explored those mountains for dozens of years, was there when the consciousness of the calamity emerged once again," Alice said.

"We struck a deal, me and it. It and me. But enough, it's your turn to talk. How did you know about me, the gate, the tunnels?"

"I have nothing to say to you," Jim said slowly, proudly. It was a matter of principle. Even if telling Alice everything wouldn't matter in the long-term, he couldn't betray humanity like that. Alice suddenly knelt down next to him, put her soft pale hands on his cheeks and forced him to look her in the eyes. Blue on green. One hand travelled down his body, reached his abused arm, went to his hand and raised it up so it hovered in the air between their two faces.

Alice opened her mouth to place his ring finger inside. It was sensual, almost. Then she bit down with her perfect teeth and severed the finger at the joint with her blunt human instruments. She forced his eyes open with her fingers so he could watch as she chewed, and swallowed, her pale throat bulging gracefully as if she'd just eaten an amuse bouche at a fancy restaurant. She leaned forward, mouth to his tear, extended her tongue to lick and nibble at it. She whispered softly then.

"It took them three hours to finish skinning my parents alive back then. Right then and there, in our home, while I hid in the floorboards. Don't think for a second that I. Won't. Eat. You. Alive." Jim gasped from the pain of the suddenly missing finger, reeled back as if struck.

"It all started on the day I was born in the most prestigious hospital facility in Riche to the Savant family by a woman named Eleanor, who I would soon learn to call my mother. I grew up receiving the proper type of education while being groomed to become the defender of our mercantile empire due to my prodigious talent with mana manipulation which became evident already at a young age.

I accrued many accomplishments while growing up, first and foremost the fact that I managed to learn a basic spell before even becoming a teenage-" A hissing sound suddenly came from the tunnel leading up to the chamber causing both Jim and Alice to whip their heads to the side to see a tall figure in a trench coat raising a staff which was releasing the sound. A smaller brown-cloaked figure stood next to the staff-wielding one.

Alice for her part didn't bother asking for identities or anything, she simply raised a hand towards the intruders and shot out six red beams which split apart in the air and approached the interlopers from different directions. It was too late however, as the staff of the taller figure suddenly struck the stone ground with a loud crack, creating a spark. That spark quickly grew, until the chamber suddenly became an inferno.

Jim could only watch in horror, grasping for his shield, before the flame engulfed him and Alice. Everything became fire.