Shadow of the Evil God

Intelligence Officer Canaday was a trusted confidant of the Count's, and he must have known his identity. "City security requires many strong soldiers. And you've captured quite a few, right?" Cesar said succinctly.

"Does this bother you in any way?"

He frowned. "I'm responsible for the war preparations, carrying the family mission given to me by Askrid. I don't have time to discuss details with you. If you have any problems, report them to that old man. I need people, the stronger the better. Do you understand?"

The man beneath the white mask studied Cesar for a moment, then glanced at the soldiers behind Cesar who were barely fit enough to fight. He then glanced at the mercenary captain, and finally at Fierce, who impressed the Earl's confidants. "Alright," Canaday said, "you and Fierce can come in. Everyone else wait in the courtyard."

"No, she has to follow." Cesar pointed at the mercenary captain.

"she?"

"No one is allowed to..."

"This is a mercenary who retired from the front lines of the Kasar Empire. She gets the biggest pay from me. She has to be the one to pick them out. Do you understand?"

Canaday considered it for a moment. "Yes," he said finally, "but she must stay behind you and not act on her own."

It was the first time Cesar had seen such a place. As soon as he entered the door and before he went down the stairs, he heard painful groans coming from the underground prison, like the sound of hell.

After descending the stone steps, both sides were filled with various interrogation facilities—people were tied to braziers and hung on the wall with iron shackles, unable to stand or sit, only half-kneeling, dying. The torturers used red-hot iron tongs to brand their shoulder blades and inserted red-hot needles into their fingernails, filling the corridor with a pungent, burnt aroma.

For others, the torturers tied their hands or feet with ropes, hung them up with fixed pulleys, and pulled down hard on the end of the rope, causing the prisoner to rise up at the other end. The ropes were tied tighter and tighter, until the prisoner's skin was torn and his joints creaked.

Canaday stood among his torturers, casually ordering which prisoners to be given more punishment, which to be given a temporary reprieve until they spoke. The so-called intelligence officers, in reality, were in the torture chambers, studying the art of torture and forcing confessions. From the scene below, it seemed they had been interrogating people about the riots in the downtown area and signs of espionage, lighting several braziers daily to torture the unfortunate prisoners.

The intelligence officer ignored Cesar's words and continued what he hadn't yet finished—his personal interrogation of one of the leaders of the insurrection. The man, already utterly dejected, could not speak, but endured silently. His body looked like a half-roasted animal, and a gaunt torturer was peeling the skin off his arm. But the man remained silent. When the intelligence officer arrived, he finally raised his eyes and stared intently at Canaday.

A mouthful of bloody phlegm came out of his mouth and landed on the intelligence officer's mask.

"Here's my confession! Beast! Lick this spit and see if it's a spy! I—"

Canaday picked up the branding iron and pressed the red-hot end against the man's mouth. A burning smell immediately rose, and the curse turned into a scream that was blocked in his mouth.

The defendant lost consciousness on the spot.

"Splash water on him to wake him up, wait for him to calm down, and then continue questioning." The interrogator ordered, first taking a cloth to wipe the mask clean, then leading Cesar and the others to continue walking inside. "Now you know why we wear masks." He said nonchalantly, "Sometimes this kind of thing is inevitable - you don't know if they are sick or what's in the spit they spit out."

"I hope you didn't dismantle everyone you just arrested, Mr. Canaday," Cesar said.

Although Phils clung to his arm, nervous and frightened, Cesar felt she was pretending. The way she looked around, she looked more like someone browsing an art gallery, her eyes always inadvertently showing an inappropriate curiosity, pushing aside the pretended fear.

"I'm not that hard on everyone," Canaday replied.

"Maybe it's just not enough time." Cesar glanced at the man behind him, "What's the situation with that person?"

"The leader of the porter gang, we suspect he was instigated by the spy and wanted to

He confessed. They whipped him, burned him, and then threw him out to freeze. They broke his ribs in the snow and ice, used pliers to pinch his frozen flesh, put him on a nail chair, and made him step on sharp wooden stakes with his bare feet. Later, most of his skin was ulcerated and he couldn't stand up, but he still refused to confess.

Confess, refuse to confess anything."

He looked miserable, but Canaday's account of him was even more miserable than he looked.

"What if he has nothing to confess?" asked Cesar.

"Even if he had to make something up, he would have made it up, but he just kept silent," Canaday said casually. "This silence actually shows that he has a serious problem."

This isn't entirely surprising, but it's still ridiculous.

"You say fabricated..." He raised his eyebrows. "Can you really trust the information you obtained through forced confessions? After so much time, has Noyen ever found even one spy?"

"Why do you care?" Canaday asked, not accepting the question.

"Askelid asked me to check for spies in the city for you," Cesar said.

The interrogator paused for a moment on the steps leading down, as if considering the pros and cons of the matter.

"It means you will lead the troops to find the names I wrote down in the records," Canaday finally said. "Since the Earl has given you the authority, you can arrest people in places I can't go."

"Perhaps," Cesar said, "but I suspect that the confessions you get this way are mostly just scraps of unsubstantiated material. Rumors from the gutter, gossip from the alleys, the ravings of madmen, the whispered discussions of idiot old men and women gathered on street corners. You can't guarantee the existence of the people listed in your records."

"That's none of your business." Canaday stared at him through his mask.

"Great, then it's not your concern if I take out a group of strong men. I want people who have been trained. You have captured a lot of such people, right?" Cesar asked back.

"There are many people here who have not had time to be interrogated." said the interrogator.

"That's even better. I certainly hope that the conscripts I get are intact." Cesar replied.

The interrogator seemed to frown. "No, I need to pry something out of them first. I can't just let them go."

"That's the problem, Mr. Inquisitor." Cesar shrugged. "I'm going to take reliable conscripted soldiers to the quaestor to ask for weapons and armor. These men could be called up to defend the city the next day. Before that, I'm responsible for investigating spies in the city and quelling any riots in the lower city. And you want me to wait until you can interrogate them one by one, turning a group of intact soldiers into cripples fresh from the battlefield? I want to take my men away, and I want to leave now."

"You understand, kid, I can't even give you the names of the people you should arrest without interrogation."

"Don't you understand how dire the situation is right now? Is it more important to extract a few confessions through torture, or to organize a group of unharmed conscripted soldiers?"

"Once you let them out—"

"There's no question of letting go of the military camp's supervision," Cesar pointed out bluntly. "I have commanders with experience in the battlefields of the Kasas Empire, and mages who have served the old man as his assistant for many years. I can effectively control these people and detect suspicious signs using methods you can't even imagine. Furthermore, the temple can provide assistance. I can completely forcibly complete something you have no right to do, and then inform the old man himself."

Can this guy tell that he is bragging?

Canaday studied Cesar for a moment. "You've met quite a few remarkable people, all of them... How long has it been?"

It seemed the interrogator also knew something about the situation. Cesar still remembered Askrid saying the intelligence officer was of the same rank as him. This might not be entirely true, but it did at least indicate that Canaday had a foot in the Earl's castle.

They walked down the stairs and passed through a corridor. A woman holding a child was staring at them from the prison room on both sides of the room.

"Do you have anyone here who can hold a child?" Cesar asked him.

"This family was betrayed." Canaday glanced at Cesar.

"Aren't you arresting people too arbitrarily?"

Chapter 52 I Won’t Be Too Strict

"Collaborators will at least have their entire families exiled," Canaday said flatly. "This concerns Noyen's safety, so implicating only the entire family is already considered lenient. But I guess you don't think we're lenient."

Cesar frowned slightly. Even with flexible moral compasses, facing the real rules of the world still made it difficult to control his emotions. "I'm glad you didn't say you'd implicate the entire street," he said. "But you'd better not expect me to send any families over. It's troublesome enough to come to the prison to recruit soldiers. I don't want to be known as someone who handed over ignorant children to the inquisitors."

Canaday looked at him through his mask. "I'm more concerned about the safety of this city," he said.

Cesar frowned even deeper. "You're doing something extreme for the sake of the city's safety, sending anyone who betrays you to jail. Isn't that like throwing a pile of loaded muskets on the street? Anyone can pick them up and shoot someone. Whether it's settling old grudges or pursuing personal gain, you can do it all."

Completed. Spies do threaten the order of Noi'en, and your actions may also be a threat."

"We'll find out."

He shook his head in denial: "Before you could find out the truth, the person being interrogated had already lost a layer of skin."

"So what?"

"There's more to this than meets the eye," Cesar said.

Lower Neuen is a crowded quagmire, with too many people and too little land. The overcrowded living conditions mean that everyone has very little to offer, making life extremely difficult, and the moral decline is severe. It's full of people who have never had power and don't feel they can change their lives. If you launch such a large-scale arrest and throw the power of accusation into everyone's hands, many people will be tempted to try it.

Canaday thought about it for a moment. Perhaps it was because the intelligence officer knew Askrid and had heard the commander's evaluation of him, so he thought he was quite good.

"You think this will cause greater damage to the safety of the city," the intelligence officer said.

"I wouldn't be too categorical," Cesar replied, "but you've certainly seen people who didn't have power and suddenly gained it."

"Those gang leaders who came from shitholes."

This example was indeed extreme, but Cesar wasn't there to lecture, so there was no need to correct the details. Canaday had thought about it on his own and made his own judgment, which saved him the trouble of guiding the other person's thinking.

Cesar emphasized his tone, using his words to pressure Canaday into thinking: "Anyone who fears being harmed will use it as a shield; anyone who wants to gain benefits will find a target to report and take the reward from you; anyone who is jealous or hates others will use it as a knife and stab with all their might; even if it seems that there is no grudge between you, you can use this method to send your competitor to jail. Even if they don't die, you can take advantage of their arrest to do something. No matter who it is, good or evil, as long as they have the power you have given them, why not use it?"

"Even so—"

Cesar took a step forward, moving closer to Canaday, and lowered his voice even more.

"Once these seemingly scattered incidents gradually grow in scale, they will affect the stability and public security of the entire region," he said. "If you take things to this extent, spies will become an illusion, an omnipresent shadow that is both terrifying and tempting. Anyone with the skills to fabricate a charge can exploit it through accusation. They don't even need to make a real accusation; simply threatening others with the mere act of accusation will achieve their goal. Do you really know how many people in Lower Neuen want to improve their situation, and how many want to strike down their enemies?"

"Have I affected the stability of Noyen?" Canaday asked. Even through the white mask, he could tell the man's mood was worsening, and his tone was filled with his usual intimidation.

"There are many reasons for panic and riots," Cesar shrugged, adopting a soothing tone. "I won't be too definitive, Your Excellency, Intelligence Officer. Perhaps the panic a few days ago was indeed caused by spies, but I think the most important thing is to suppress the subsequent impact of the panic. It's best not to exaggerate the impact of the spy incident and push the already unstable public sentiment to the brink."

Canaday looked unhappy, but he admitted that Cesar's statement sounded plausible. The intelligence officer rested his chin on his hand, looking around at the tortured people, and fell silent.

At that moment, two torturers approached, escorting a burly man. The man's hands and feet were shackled, he limped, his back hunched, and he seemed half-conscious. The woman holding the child in the cell tried to call out to him, but the masked torturers glanced at her and she dared not speak.

"This man is an apprentice to the city's blacksmith, but I think he is ready to become a master." Ceshia suddenly spoke.

"It means that he can forge iron and maintain weapons and armor." Cesar understood and continued at the right time.

Their teacher-student relationship has not been long, but they have already cooperated with each other quite skillfully and tacitly.

"You're going to intervene and take away the suspect we're about to question?" Canaday reacted immediately. "I admit that you have a point, but this person—"

"I can't be reasonable about this," Cesar interrupted. "Except for a few men in the prison yard, all I have are old, weak, and sick. I need people who know how to repair weapons and maintain armor. Do you know why? Because the city's blacksmiths are either drafted or fully occupied with military supply orders, so it's not my turn to intervene. I must take away those who know how to forge iron so that I can negotiate better terms with the treasurer. Right now, give me as many as you can."

"And you chose to negotiate with me first," Canaday said.

"Yes," he said, "because I heard that the people from the Xiel Temple have been arguing with the treasurer for over a month and haven't finished their work yet."

"You know the reason behind this." The intelligence officer glanced at him.

Cesar ignored the remark. "Give me the blacksmith, and let me assign his family to the conscripted troops to take care of logistics," he said. "That way, I can have someone keep a close eye on them. Even if you can send a few spies here to keep an eye on them—torture is a way to catch spies, so isn't pretending to release someone and then keeping an eye on them the same?"

"The latter method is much more troublesome. I'm afraid I don't have enough people or patience."

"It's much more troublesome, but I'm the one taking over this matter. You just have to wait for the results."

Canaday thought for a moment.

"He said, waving to the torturer who was about to take the blacksmith's apprentice away, "Bring him here."

"You can also list the key targets among the conscripts you're going to hand over to me. I hope not everyone is a big suspect." Cesar

Er added.

"I'll transfer my loyal subordinates over with a new look," Canaday agreed. "You can discuss the details later."

The blacksmith's apprentice was finally pushed forward by the torturer, stumbling with each step. Although Cesar longed to ask Ceshia whether this man's ability to become an apprentice was genuine, he had no choice. He truly needed someone to do the work, and the city's smithies were all occupied by military supplies, leaving him no room. Weapons and armor required maintenance; he couldn't wait until a real battle broke out only to find himself equipping his soldiers with only scraps.

"You are still under suspicion, but we have a guest here who needs to recruit soldiers," Canaday said, turning to Cesar, "tell him your request."

"I'm Cesare Borgia." Cesare coughed and cleared his throat. "The situation is urgent. I urgently need people to maintain weapons and armor. Can you take on the responsibilities of blacksmithing alone?"

"I, I can..." The man's voice was hoarse and he was exhausted, but he still stood up straight, showing off his well-developed and strong muscles. "I can do blacksmith work, sir. As long as I have something to work with, I can do it well."

"Okay, tell me your name. Also, do you know anyone here who's good at blacksmithing?"

"Alec." The man dragged the rattling shackles around, pointing at the woman holding the child in the cell as they watched. "She can help me with the ironwork. She's strong, and she can cooperate with my work." Alec seemed to be trying to lower his voice and make his tone steady. "No one can cooperate with me better than her."

Cesar studied Alec for a moment. He'd originally planned to shove this man's wife into the logistics department to do odd jobs, but since he'd brought it up himself, he could have a few more words to get to the bottom of the situation. "It's fine to have her help you, but are you also going to tell me that the child she's carrying can also help you?" he asked nonchalantly.

Alec's expression suddenly tensed, his face flushing crimson, yet he was speechless, his voice utterly shattered by panic. Before Cesar could finish his sentence, Cecia placed a hand on his shoulder. "As professional mercenaries, we're used to pregnant women and children in our logistics team. This is easy to handle." Her voice was unusually gentle and graceful, but her grip was so strong that it hurt his shoulder and twitched his brow. "Don't ask too many questions here, dear sir. I'll tell you what to do later."

It was common for mercenaries to impregnate support personnel on the battlefield. Some even married during battle, becoming fathers while on the march. The child was born surrounded by the troops and marched with them. Seshia said this was easy to handle, and it wasn't out of place. As for what to do if someone died in battle, well, there was nothing else to do. It wasn't difficult to seduce someone's widow while on the march.

Cesar smiled, managing to suppress his expression. "If you have nothing else to do, Alec, take your wife and children out and wait in the yard," he said.

"I-I have nothing else to do, sir!"

Canaday waved his hand, looking impatient: "Take them out."

Chapter 53: Puppies Don’t Bite People

They descended along the central stairwell, deep into the lower dungeons that stretched in all directions. The corridors were deep and dark, illuminated only by oil lamps, and felt like a maze of black bricks and stones. Unlike the interrogation room filled with the smell of blood, the cells here were simple, dry, and quite clean. Each one was equipped with a narrow stone bed, firmly fixed to the ground.

Ceshia observed the prisoners outside the cell doors, occasionally asking the torturers for details. He first found the porters at the time, and then went to find the miners who were relatively stronger.

Cesar didn't recognize the porters, and there was no need to remember them specifically. Only the severely burned man stood out. His cheeks looked like melted and solidified wax, and the large, hideous scar tissue running from the right side of his face down to his neck was a vivid memory. He was mute, his only means of sound being a rapid, hoarse sound from his damaged throat.

Cesar wasn't interested in hearing the changes in his hoarse voice. He just watched as the torturers led the shackled prisoner out and took him to the prison yard. At this point, the matter actually had nothing to do with him. The rest was up to the mercenary captain to select the men, after all, he didn't understand this either.

Just when he was about to remain silent, Canaday became interested in talking.

"What else do you think about the riots in Lower Neuen?" asked the intelligence officer.

"I have said everything I can, Mr. Canaday," Cesar replied, but it seemed that his answer was not enough to satisfy Canaday. Even Fields looked at him with some curiosity.

"What can't be said?" Canaday asked. He didn't just ask; he waved his hand, urging the accompanying torturers to assist the mercenary captain. Now, they were the only three people nearby: a stranger who had drifted from the outer realms, a young sorcerer who had been practicing evil god sacrifices his entire life, and a middle-aged nobleman who had apparently been practicing evil god sacrifices for years.

Cesar thought for a moment about how to respond. "Who are you asking this question?" he asked.

"Does it matter? You've offended me enough times."

"Let me put it this way," Cesar said, choosing his words carefully. "Is it more serious to offend the gods in front of the believers, or to offend them themselves?"

Canaday paused.

, peering towards the temple of Upper Noien through his white mask. "You mean those poets in the north who offended the court?"

"I've heard her mention some new ideas, right?" Cesar put his hands on Fils's shoulders and pushed her around a narrow corner. "Unlike those poets, I live cautiously and know how to judge the situation. Before I speak, I always consider the consequences. Are you the one who would be offended, Mr. Canaday?"