"Where am I?"
Welaim muttered as soon as he regained consciousness.
He found himself outdoors, on the rooftop of a building.
As he struggled to move, he finally noticed the handcuffs tightly securing his wrists.
He tried to break free, but to no avail.
Raising his head, he noticed the figure standing before him.
The darkness of the night made it difficult to distinguish the stranger's features, but the silver of his eyes and hair immediately put Welaim on alert.
"Fuck, a Tower has screwed up our job…" he thought.
Seran approached the criminal with calm, measured steps until only a meter separated them.
He scrutinized Welaim with a stern gaze, without uttering a word.
"Tell me what the fuck you want, bastard!"
Welaim snarled, gritting his teeth as he tried to get back on his feet.
Seran stopped him with a kick to the calf.
"Stay down," the boy ordered.
Still silent, Seran drew his short sword.
At the sight of the blade, Welaim instinctively recoiled.
He swallowed, trying to understand just what kind of situation he had gotten himself into.
"Who do you work for?"
Seran began his interrogation, keeping the tip of his blade pointed at the unfortunate criminal.
"I work for myself. And who the fuck are you?"
Unfazed by the captive's bravado, Seran pressed his blade against the man's chest, applying just enough force to pierce the skin slightly and inflict the pain he needed.
"RAAGH…!"
Seran held the blade there for a couple of seconds before withdrawing it, his stern gaze never leaving Welaim.
As blood trickled down onto Welaim's clothes, a cruel, blood-red laugh resurfaced in the boy's mind.
"HAHAHAHA! I'll remain immortal in your mind!"
The sight of the warm blood slowly flowing from Welaim's wound brought back memories of that breaking point in Seran's life, a chapter that bore the name of RED.
Concealing his disgust behind an indifferent expression, Seran resumed speaking with the same calmness with which he had begun.
"Who do you work for?"
His voice hadn't changed by a single decibel. He had been hunting members of the Black Serpent for a week now, collecting the bounties placed on their capture while extracting information from those he apprehended.
Welaim realized that the person standing before him was someone who had already shed blood. Seeing no way out for the moment, he decided to answer.
"Just some criminal gang from the neighborhood,"
Welaim replied, drawing a breath. His gaze shifted from Seran's face to the bloodstained blade.
Unfortunately for him, the blade moved once again.
Seran brought it back against the open wound.
Before he could pull it away, Seran asked:
"Are you sure?"
Sweat began to trickle down Welaim's temples. His breathing quickened as he realized that the boy knew something. Just as Welaim was about to answer, Seran pressed the blade into the wound again, giving him no chance to avoid another wave of pain.
"FUUUCK! ARGH!" the captive screamed.
"You know… that tattoo on your wrist tells me otherwise,"
Seran calmly interrupted, pausing for a moment.
"And your friend Fyneas, or whatever his name is, was acting just as tough the other day."
At the mention of the name of one of the criminals Seran had previously arrested, Welaim realized that the boy standing before him was systematically hunting down the Black Serpent.
Many might think this was because of the bounty the AF had placed on them, but something in Seran's eyes suggested otherwise.
Why this interrogation?
Why waste so much time instead of handing him over to the authorities or simply killing him?
"Fine, fine! I work for the Black Serpent! I handle all their operations in Terso District! Happy now, you son of a bitch?!"
Seran gave no answer.
Meanwhile, Welaim's clothes were becoming increasingly stained with blood.
The air grew heavier with the metallic smell of blood.
"Igor… what can you tell me about him?" Seran asked.
"I don't know anything about him, I swear! Who's Igor…?"
Welaim's eyes widened in surprise. He answered far too quickly, as though he feared that name more than the boy interrogating him.
Seran sheathed his sword in his Mana Ring and crouched down until he was level with Welaim's eyes.
He raised the index finger of his right hand, and suddenly mana enveloped it.
Without uttering a word, Seran slowly drove his finger into the ground and began tracing letters until he had written the name Igor.
The criminal had no idea what the boy was doing, but he was nevertheless astonished by the strength with which a single finger carved through concrete as though it were butter.
"Perhaps I should write it on your skin. Maybe that'll jog your memory…"
"No, no! I don't know anything…!" Welaim recoiled as far as he could, the pallor of fear spreading across his face.
Seran rose to his feet and stepped toward him.
Welaim kept backing away until his back finally struck the rooftop parapet.
"Fuck, no, no…"
Meanwhile, Seran slowly brought his mana-coated finger closer to Welaim's face.
The thought of his face becoming a grotesque mosaic of flesh and blood sent a chill through the criminal's veins. Cornered, with nowhere left to run, Welaim finally burst into words.
"Okay, okay! Igor is the Viper in command of Nova Vitae! He's the one all the district leaders and Claws answer to…"
Seran's glowing finger came to a halt.
"See? That wasn't so difficult…"
A faint, mocking smile appeared on Seran's face. At last, after a week of captures, he had obtained some useful information.
He had started in the outskirts of the poorer districts, frequenting shady bars with his ears and senses constantly on alert. He had raided the ranks of Terso's small fry and spent hours watching the streets from the rooftops.
All that work had finally paid off.
Taking advantage of the momentum, Seran pressed on.
"How many Claws are there in Nova Vitae? How do I find them?"
Still frightened, Welaim didn't answer immediately. A snap of Seran's fingers, however, brought his attention back to the Tower's face.
Welaim lowered his gaze.
"I only know there are five. Each one is responsible for a specific aspect of the organization…" he replied, still trying to find a way to free himself from the handcuffs.
"And how do you communicate? Do you have a base you report to?"
"Orders come from above. We can only follow them… The only base I know of is outside the city, but I think there are others…"
Seran narrowed his eyes.
He already knew about a base outside the city, but he hadn't known there were possibly others.
"Answer the question… How are these orders delivered?"
Mana flared up again, this time enveloping Seran's hand.
Fear flashed in Welaim's eyes. He tried to get back on his feet, but somehow, something forced him back down.
"Please, let me go…"
Seran remained silent.
His hand slowly approached, moving like a snake.
"We receive messages through burner phones. That's the truth…"
But Seran's hand didn't stop. Before Welaim could understand what was happening, his vision went black.
At dawn, an Armed Forces operator standing guard outside the Terso operational station spotted a familiar figure approaching: a young man carrying a handcuffed man over his shoulder.
"Raider Lag, I see you've caught another one. That's fifteen 'Serpents' in a week. Impressive…" the operator said, walking up to Seran.
After handing the unconscious man over to the guard, Seran said only:
"Make sure his bounty is credited to my account."
With a slight nod, he turned and walked away.