TSSAH 38

Chapter 38

‘Did I maybe make a mistake?!’

That couldn’t be. He knew well how terrible the exam drug was, having experienced it himself. But apart from its atrocious effects, it wasn’t a difficult drug to make. And this wasn’t even the first time.

‘I definitely blended it so that eating just one cookie would put him to sleep immediately, with the other effects gradually taking hold…’

Yet Rookie was now showing symptoms that could appear from an overdose of the exam drug.

However, he couldn’t intervene just because the test subject looked like he was suffering. That was the crow’s final gate. Whether one couldn’t endure the exam drug, or couldn’t keep secrets—the only result of failure was death.

While Noah Benton clutched his sleeve and watched the situation nervously, the exam was progressively escalating in intensity.

“Answer properly!”

Dimarq Schuren drove a sharp wooden awl into Rookie’s shoulder and snarled menacingly. On the surface, it looked like mere torment that drew a little blood, but the pain must have been beyond imagination. It was because of the exam drug, which confused the senses while maximizing pain perception. Perhaps it was like the agony of a blade carving between the shoulder blades, shredding nerves piece by piece. Just imagining it made Noah Benton flinch.

“Ughk!”

Blue veins bulged on Rookie’s neck where the shoulder had been pierced, and blood trickled from his tightly clenched lips. It was the result of a defense mechanism kicking in—creating another pain to forget the extreme one.

“I told you, didn’t I. You picked the wrong person, krgh!”

Runnelk Ains’s personality, way of thinking, and even his secret tastes. The exam, which had begun by digging up the bottom of his unconscious, was now gradually racing toward its final phase. It was the stage of testing whether he was someone who could keep the secrets of the crows and the nest. And it was also the section where the majority of crow candidates failed.

“I already told you that kind of excuse won’t work. Have we been going too easy on you all this time?”

Gisela Loth clicked her tongue as she picked up a thicker, sharper wooden awl. Then she slowly rubbed the tip of the awl against Rookie’s eyebrow and threatened ominously.

“From now on, every time you give a wrong answer, I’ll ruin one spot. Starting here, with your left eye. This will be on a completely different level from what you’ve felt so far, you know?”

“Crazy bastards…”

Even as he spat the curse, Rookie’s eyelashes trembled faintly. It was from the fear of the pain soon to come, and the terror of possibly losing one eye.

Since the exam began, Rookie had never broken under the pain the drug maximized—but now he’d shown his first opening, and Gisela Loth persistently dug into it.

“Think carefully, Runnelk Ains. We already know about Knox’s secret organization.”

“…Are you deaf? How many times do I have to say I don’t know, haah. I, I’m just an action member…”

“Shh. If you spout more nonsense and piss me off, I might just stab you?”

“Ugh…”

When she grabbed his jaw tightly with one hand, Rookie’s face contorted all over. Just her grip alone brought pain intense enough to make his vision swim. And if something actually gouged into his eyeball…

‘Is this where he breaks?’

Dimarq Schuren coldly observed Rookie’s now-trembling reactions. The fear of permanent disability. It was the hurdle many test subjects ultimately couldn’t overcome.

“So you just need to tell us their names and the location of their headquarters. Then it’s all over, isn’t it?”

Gisela Loth whispered coaxingly.

“If it’s hard to say it in detail, how about just nodding your head? I’ll say the places, and when the location comes up, you just nod. That’s not hard, is it?”

“How can I say anything when I don’t know, hnn.”

He was still denying it, but Rookie’s voice had far less strength than before. It was proof he was wavering. Gisela Loth had given him an escape route—now it was Dimarq Schuren’s turn to step in.

“I understand your loyalty to the organization well enough. But think carefully, Runnelk Ains. Is it really worth it?”

“Ughk! Kkh!”

The wooden awl in his hand moved as if stirring the wound in the shoulder.

“The wounds you’ve received so far will give you some trouble for a while, but they won’t leave aftereffects. I’m something of a specialist in that area, you see.”

Dimarq Schuren chuckled like a villain. Since he was a veteran of the Execution Department, it wasn’t entirely a lie.

“But eyes are different. One eye? Sure, you could probably live without it. Then how about both eyes?”

“Eyes…”

“By the way, after the eyes comes the ears. I’ll shove one of these into each ear canal.”

“I’ll save the teeth for last, though. It’s hard to pronounce without teeth, isn’t it? There are also the tendons in both legs—plenty of places to ruin.”

Gisela Loth laughed once more as if chiming in with Dimarq’s cruel joke, but her eyes were utterly dry. A crow crippled by torture. To Gisela Loth, it was a wound that had not yet healed into a scar.

Seeing his junior’s darkened gaze, Dimarq Schuren judged it was time to finish the exam.

“Hey, Runnelk Ains.”

The most lethal and cruel question remained.

“Would that organization still want you, when you can no longer see, hear, or walk?”

Rookie’s shoulder flinched. The reward of loyalty was, in the end, a sense of belonging. The efficacy and pride of knowing that they needed him as much as he sacrificed for them.

“Even if you keep the secret and luckily return, your place will already be gone—you’ll be a wreck. In the end, they’ll forget you. And they’ll move on. Leaving behind only you, a cripple no longer useful to the organization.”

It had been barely a week since he set foot in the nest. It was a question that shook the foundations of a new candidate still drunk on the sweet intoxication of becoming part of something important and vast as a crow.

“Even so, will you keep your mouth shut? While feeling your eyeballs gouged and your tendons cut? For what on earth?”

“Hnn…”

At last, a low groan escaped Rookie’s lips. His lips, a mess of dried blood, trembled finely. His breathing pattern, once fast but regular, had turned uneven. All signs of collapse.

‘Is this another failure, then.’

A faint disappointment flickered in the watching crows’ eyes. Regardless, the exam had to be seen through to the end, so Gisela Loth moved.

“Just nod, Runnelk Ains.”

She subtly moved the awl below Rookie’s eye. So that it prodded and poked the tender flesh. Watching the blurry blue eyes, unable to focus because of the drug, waver with fear of imminent pain, she asked.

“Where is the secret organization’s headquarters? Knox’s main building?”

Pressing the tip of the awl hard enough to dent the flesh, Gisela Loth waited. For Runnelk Ains’s head to nod up and down.

But after a moment of hesitation, he opened his mouth.

“If you’re going to stab, then stab quickly, you idiots.”

“…What?”

“What you’re, hnn, saying… I don’t understand any of it.”

Rookie glared straight at Gisela Loth with scrunched eyes and said,

“Is it fun, haah, dragging in some innocent person and tormenting them?”

A sneer was mixed between his ragged breaths.

“Secret organization this, that—hnn, you delusional bastards. Stab me, go on, stab me.”

Instead of avoiding it, he actually thrust his head forward, and Gisela Loth hurriedly pulled the awl back. She’d nearly actually stabbed his eye. Unable to know her reaction due to his distorted vision, Rookie kept mocking.

“If you’re going to pick, pick properly. Hnn, picking an orphan like me who has nothing to lose. I was, huk, tired of living anyway, so this works out. What are you doing? Hurry up and kill me…”

“Enough.”

Dimarq Schuren said in a low voice as he removed his mask. His face, revealed under the dim lighting of the underground prison, was contorted menacingly.

“It’s done now, so you can stop.”