Chương 61: Captured Lamb

By the time Lio was finished eating, Ophila had mostly recovered from her fit of glee, though an occasional, stray giggle still escaped her. As she finally settled back down against her chair, she was pink-cheeked and breathless. Across from her, William was picking at a small clump of cheese, staring at his plate mindlessly. He was clearly disappointed with not being able to leave Trestfall today. Lio stood up, reaching for his coat and sliding it on.

"I'm going to go check on Senna," he announced. Ophila took a long breath, finally composing herself. The mirth faded from her eyes.

"Tell her to be careful," she said.

"Mhm." Lio headed for the door, throwing it open. Outside, the full damage to Trestfall was exposed in the unforgiving morning light. The usual bustle of the morning crowd was gone, the only people outside being a few residents and Delvers, mostly consisting of somber volunteer relief workers. Lio began to walk, his gaze sweeping over the various wreckages. The main street showed the most visible evidence of Lamb's gory murder spree.

Though the corpses had been retrieved, there were still overturned carts and the cobblestone grounds were a dull red, dried blood having seeped into their cracks. A group of residents were working together to clear the debris from one of the burned stalls, quiet and resolute, nobody really talking much. A guard post had been set up near the square's entrance, two exhausted looking guards leaning onto their spears, looking about ready to collapse.

Lio moved through the gloom, his ears listening carefully to the murmurs of conversation. From the pieces of talk he snatched from the air, it was clear that the settlement was swallowing his false story whole. His trick with Lamb had worked. The main consensus of the general public was that the serial killer's true target had been the Mayor all along. The previous murders had only been distractions, designed to keep the guards occupied while the murderer worked toward the real objective.

The attempt had failed due to a gas explosion of uncertain origin, and the killer was presumed dead. And although the case of the Dark Supreme Crow Thief of the Eighteen Nebulous Stars was whispered about, it took a backseat to the raw and horrible terror of the previous night's destruction. A ridiculous name and thievery could only hold the public's fascination for so long when there were literal charred bodies littering the ground of their town.

Lio turned north, passing through the residential streets toward the outer edge of the settlement, where the cultivated plots began. Or where they had been. As he'd expected, the Amberpulp fields were entirely gone. He looked out at what remained. The vine rows had been reduced to piles of ash and char, the fruit clusters now completely obliterated. The soil beneath, which had been so dark and rich when they'd arrived in Trestfall, was now grey and dead.

Lio looked over to where several farmers were standing at the field's edge. One of them, an older woman with her hands pressed over her mouth, stared at the destruction with tears running down her face, not making any sound at all. A man beside her was bawling his eyes out, slamming his hands onto the coarse dirt. Further along, a younger farmer had sat down on the scorched ground, his head resting in his hands. Lio glanced at them. But to be honest, he didn't feel very guilty.

Because Floor 3's soil was extraordinarily fertile, literally the most productive growing environment anywhere in the known world, and the mycelium and root network beneath the surface was largely undamaged, it would only take around three months, perhaps four, for the fields to come back. They would be fine. He persisted onwards, until he reached the crater from his fight with Lupin. It hadn't been repaired yet, remaining a ragged hole in the earth that dropped into the sewage tunnel below.

He'd expected at least two guards stationed here, but it was void of anyone. Lio guessed that every available guard was probably occupied with the rebuilding efforts. He walked on over, and dropped in. The sewage tunnel was exactly as he'd left it during the fight with Lupin, the walls slick with moisture, the air filled with the stench of feces and urine. He proceeded on quickly, his footsteps quiet against the stone floor, navigating by memory until he reached a small valve room.

It was a small space lined with the mechanisms that controlled the water flow through the settlement's drainage system. Three large valves sat in a row along the far wall, each one the size of a cartwheel, their bronze handless green with rust. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Lio looked over at the central pipe. There, tied to the rusted iron, was Lamb. His wrists had been forced behind his back and cinched tight with a jagged piece of wire. He was awake.

Barely, but awake. His swollen eyes were open into slits, watching Lio with a grim expression. His left arm was still horribly mangled, shards of broken bone creeping out from the cast of dried blood. The gash across his forehead had clotted into a dark crust above his eyes, the dried blood turning the upper half of his face completely brown-red. He was a terrible sight. But he was still alive, which was the point. Lio had dragged him here after the explosion, before Erygn's group had arrived at the street.

Walking over, he dragged over an old wooden maintenance stool, set it in front of Lamb, and sat down. Lamb watched him with dark eyes, the pupils still slightly blown out from the previous night's exertion. Lio smirked.

"How's the arm?" he asked, infusing a small taunt into his voice. Lamb didn't reply, only staring resolutely up at him.

"Right." Lio leaned back.

"Let's start simple. Why did you go dark on Job?" Lamb said nothing. He averted his gaze, staring right at the ground. He twisted his features into neutrality, forcing his expression to go flat and empty. He stared blankly into the distance. Lio recognized the technique. See, Kingmaker trained their operatives to treat interrogation like a siege, the primary objective being to outlast rather than resist. And so, their singular goal was total passivity. Job had taught him well.

"You know what I find interesting?" Lio frowned, stroking his chin. He wanted to see how Lamb would react to provocation.

"When I talked to Job, he seemed to expect complete obedience from you." He tilted his head, his smirk morphing into a nasty grin.

"Like a dog." Lamb gave no sign of reaction. Lio frowned. The guy was pretty good. However, Lio had a secret advantage. He knew everything about Lamb.

"I know how you were when Job found you," he said. He grinned, twirling his finger in the air.

"You were twelve, you'd been sleeping rough for about eight months, and the reason you left the orphanage in the second Ring wasn't because of the conditions. It was because of the boy in the bed next to yours." Lamb's nose flared. Bingo.

"Terry, right?" Lio chuckled.

"He used to wake you up in the middle of the night by choking you, didn't he? And used to stick pins into your arms." He sighed dramatically.

"You tried to report it, but… you only just got beat up even more. How sad. How pathetic."

"Stop," Lamb muttered.

"And so you left," Lio continued. He didn't offer any reaction that he'd heard Lamb's plea.

"And then Job appeared. And he gave you a purpose. Only the purpose was to be his dog. Or lamb, if you will."

"Shut up," Lamb croaked. His voice was becoming higher.

"You tried to call him 'father' once, didn't you?" Lio gave a theatrical clap.

"I mean, he didn't correct you, but he didn't respond to it either." He leaned forward, grinning.

"I personally think he hated it. For a dog to call their master 'father'… isn't that just an insult?" Lamb looked sharply at Lio, his eyes wide.

"How do you know that?" He demanded.

"I just know a lot of things," Lio remarked.

"No, nobody knows that," Lamb said.

"That was—" He stopped himself. Lio watched him as he quickly retreated back behind the training, rebuilding the wall of emotionless coldness. Kingmaker's resistance training was excellent. Lio had to give Job credit for that.

"So, why did you go dark?" Lio asked again, returning to the original question.

"Why did my fellow party member interest you? Nothing.

"Was it the feeling she gave off?" he tried.

"Or was she just pretty, and you wanted her for lust? Or was it something else?" Lamb grimaced.

"And Job even told you to stop," Lio continued.

"That's interesting. I really thought you were a dog. Why would you disobey him?" Lamb bit his lower lip.

"What did you know about her?" Lio pressed. Lamb shook his head.

"Tell me." There was no reply. Over the next thirty minutes, Lio tried multiple different approaches. He was methodical and unhurried, picking at Lamb's brain. He probed into his personal history to find maybe some sort of childhood trauma, though the fact that Lamb's whole childhood was basically trauma quickly backfired on him, and so shifted to operational details to catch a slip, and finally drifted into philosophical musings to see if Lamb's pride would prickle.

Each time, Lio circled back to Ophila, looking for a crack in the mental resistance. However, Lamb remained indifferent. After a while, Lio just stopped talking. He slouched against the chair, looking at Lamb, while Lamb looked back at him with his dark and exhausted eyes. They stayed like that for a healthy silence. Then Lio sighed tiredly, reaching up to rub his eyes. He'd gotten nothing out of all this. What a waste of time.

It had been a while since this sort of interrogation had produced absolutely zero useful information for him. Lamb's resistance was pretty exceptional, born from all that mental conditioning at a very young age. No, Lio would need a different approach. Still, he had a week left in Trestfall. Plenty of time to extort as much information from this serial killer. Lio reached into his pack and broke off a chunk of the dense dark bread he'd taken from the lodge that morning.

He crouched in front of Lamb, and pressed the food into his lips. Lamb turned his head away.

"You can refuse," Lio said, "but you'll only starve." Lamb scowled. Then he turned his head back and ate it, wincing as the dry bread sopped up the last remaining moisture in his mouth. Next, Lio uncapped a small tin of water, tipping it carefully against Lamb's mouth, letting him drink until it was empty. Then he stood up.

"I'll be back soon." He turned and walked back out into the sewers.