Chapter 183: 098. Third Imperial Prince’s Wish (Part One)
**
“Uwaaahk! Just kill me already! Kill me!”
Inside a location completely cut-off from the outside world.
It was a prison where even the members of the Order of the Crimson Cross had to cover their eyes and block their ears if they wanted to gain access to it.
And this was where the Second Imperial Prince, Ruppel Olfolse the Vampire, was currently being tortured.
His small body was placed on top of a torture device. A fountain nearby gushed out holy water and continued to burn his flesh, while silver stakes had impaled him to the device, making sure that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Can you hand me the scalpel?”
“Let’s use pincers to pull it out.”
While chatting among themselves, two Crimson Cross torturers busily moved their hands. And every time they did, the Second Imperial Prince roared out in anger and pain. “I already told you! I told you everything I know! I, I really don’t know anything else…!”
Ruppel continued to shriek tearfully, but the Crimson Cross members simply ignored him.
Instead, they actually increased the intensity of the torture,.
Noises far more gruesome and tragic than before rang out.
The torture continued on for quite some time, and at the end of it, one of the Crimson Cross members asked his colleague.
“Hey, let’s take a break.”
“Good idea. How about we eat something?”
They took off their blood-stained gloves and washed their hands clean. Hell, they even began sharing light-hearted banters while taking out lunch boxes.
The Second Imperial Prince bore witness to this spectacle and could only shiver. Even from the perspective of a Vampire, these humans had several screws loose in their heads.
How could they calmly consume their meal in a place where they had been inhumanely torturing a Vampire?!
Ruppel’s eyes shifted around urgently while he gritted his teeth. This chamber was surrounded by sturdy stone walls at all sides, yet even then, he could hear the screams of other Vampires and lycans coming from beyond them.
In other words, countless others besides Ruppel had been dragged into this place and were getting mercilessly tortured right now.
‘This place… it has to be hell!’
Only now did he understand why Count Timong was so afraid of the Imperial Family. Without a doubt, these humans were a bunch of lunatics. A group of fake holy men that loved torturing monsters for fun!
Didn’t matter whether you were a Vampire or a lycan, getting trapped in here meant you’d end up as neither alive or dead.
‘I… I need to escape from here!’
But how?
Second Imperial Prince Ruppel deeply pondered his options before glancing at the two Crimson Cross members enjoying their meal.
“H-hey, over here!”
The two torturers shifted their gazes over to Ruppel.
“D-don’t you two wish to live on forever?”
The two Crimson Cross members’ eyes beneath their masks opened wider.
Ruppel smiled at their reactions. “If you want it, I can grant it for you! An everlasting life and a physique that will never age! If you wish to acquire such a thing, then…”
Ruppel spoke with a voice overflowing with dignity.
However, the Crimson Cross members simply scratched their heads before leisurely getting up from their spots.
They pushed aside their lunch boxes and put their gloves back on.
“…Eh?”
The light in their eyes began gleaming ominously as they walked closer.
Ruppel became frightened by their demeanour. “H-hold on…!”
“I guess we’ll have to enjoy our meal a little later.”
“Where should we start this time?”
“Well, we can start from the head and slowly go lower.”
They reached out towards the many tools designed for torture.
Second Imperial Prince Ruppel’s complexion paled in fright at the unfolding scene and desperately screamed.
He had unwisely said something that got on the nerves of his torturers.
And so, yet another session of merciless torture commenced, and eventually, Ruppel declared his defeat.
“I get it! I get it! I’ll tell you anything you want! Anything! Just stop already!”
The Crimson Cross temporarily stayed their hands and looked down at Ruppel.
He opened his mouth while teardrops pooled around his eyes, “T-there is someone called Count Timong among the Vampires.”
“And?”
Ruppel swallowed back his dry saliva and responded, “W-what do you mean, and? And what?”
“…Slice him open.”
More blood splattered on the device.
Ruppel screamed some more, “I get it! I’ll tell you more! I don’t know the details, b-but…”
The Crimson Cross torturers narrowed their eyes.
“Count Timong… that eccentric blockhead was researching warp magic!”
“Warp magic?” The torturers tilted their heads in confusion. “And the reason is?”
“I don’t know.”
At those words, the tools of torture were set loose upon Ruppel once more and viciously stabbed into him.
He vomited out blood and cried out, “H-he said he will warp the Imperial Family away!”
“…?” The two Crimson Cross members furrowed their brows under the masks. “What are you talking about?”
“He said he wants to warp that m-monster Holy Emperor Kelt and the rest of the Imperial Family away. Send them away to another dimension, maybe to another world altogether!”
The Crimson Cross members opened their eyes wider. They glared at Ruppel and urged on, “We need more details.”
Ruppel barely managed to reply with a tearful voice, “The spirit realm, referred to as the world of fantasy, the titan realm where the titans had been imprisoned by the fearful gods, and the purgatory where the dead go to, plus lots of other dimensions besides those three…!”
His shouting voice became hoarse.
“Timong said he’d seal away the whole Imperial Family somewhere in one of those!”
The Crimson Cross members diligently jotted down everything Ruppel said on a parchment. Once the Vampire infant began talking, a proverbial floodgate had opened and he held back nothing.
“Timong is planning to send the Imperial Family to another dimension through warp magic and seal them there. That blockhead count said that once he succeeds, we will have nothing to fear from. The Vampire King thinks it’s all some time-wasting nonsense, but Count Timong said he’s really close to perfecting the spell…!”
“…Warp magic, to another world…”
Since these Order of the Crimson Cross members knew the theory behind the warp magic spell, they thought that what Rupple confessed to just now was absolutely impossible.
However, there was someone, a Vampire Count at that, who said such a feat was indeed feasible.
“What should we do? What are the odds of this being false information?”
One of the Crimson Cross members reached out and checked Ruppel’s pulse and replied to his colleague, “Minimal. The Vampire had no time to manipulate its body, so its pulse couldn’t have been falsified.”
“Are you sure it’s the truth?”
“Not necessarily, but even then, we need to report this in.”
The two Crimson Cross torturers nodded in unison and temporarily halted the fountain of holy water attached to the torture device.
Once the fountain stopped spewing that damnable holy water, Ruppel was able to catch his breath. Relieved by the fact that the seemingly-unending pain had come to an end, albeit temporarily, he began making bizarre sobbing noises.
“This is the reward for your answers. We shall permit you a temporary respite.”
The Crimson Cross members said that and then moved outside the chamber.
They now had a duty to report back to the Holy Emperor regarding what Ruppel had told them.
**
Harmon was walking down the corridor of the imperial palace at the moment.
It had been a month since the commotion that shook the entire palace. The work to repair the destroyed portions had been completed by now, and the secret underground passage utilised by the Golden Cross had its layout altered as well.
Archbishop Raphael had been safely rescued from the cathedral and was installed as the new cardinal, while all the top executives of the Church of Caiolium were sent to the gallows.
As for the remaining, surviving believers, they were dispatched to the region of Ronia for three years of hard labour.
Everything seemed to be returning to normal at a glance.
‘…That is, as long as I exclude the upcoming invasion of the Vampires and the Second Crown Princess Consort incident.’
Harman groaned under his breath.
Indeed, those two things were big problems on their own, but on top of that, even the execution of Third Imperial Prince Ruppel had been announced as well.
He was now feeling rather lost on how he should break this news to the Seventh Imperial Prince.
His steps finally took him to the quarters of the boy prince. Charlotte, who was standing guard, performed a light nod of her head as a greeting.
Just before Harman could knock on the door, he caught a faint whiff of burning human flesh.
He couldn’t help but tilt his head in confusion, and Charlotte next to him smiled awkwardly while explaining what was going on, “His highness is currently with Mister Hans. He told me that they were going to research the Aztal rune together…”
Harman’s emotions became even more complicated at that revelation. Still, he knocked and opened the door. “Your highness?”
The sight greeting him through the open doorway was a boy with his shirt off, and another man currently engraving tattoos on the boy’s back and arms.
Several documents with various rune letters jotted down on them were strewn about messily in the room, while pieces of Eltera, often referred to as the metal blessed by the spirits, as well as magic stones of various sizes, were rolling around unclaimed on the floor as well.
The boy, the Seventh Imperial Prince, deeply furrowed his brows at the bouts of stinging pain, but he still waved his hand at Harman as soon as he spotted the latter entering his room. “Oh! Harman. Nice timing.”
Harman smiled wryly at how energetic the Seventh Imperial Prince was.
Indeed, the boy seemed positively overflowing with life, almost to the point of making the Paladin think that his worries were ultimately for nothing.
