"Do you know who Adohorn is?" asked Kaizen in a harsh voice as she stepped on his head.
Even though he felt this crushing pressure on his head and neck, the mercenary mage laughed briefly. "I would never tell you about this, even if you killed me."
Kaizen grinned maliciously, then stuck the Næġling Falske into the ground right next to the mercenary's head, sending a shiver down his spine. "I will not kill you as you imagine. Do you know the blade of that sword you are staring at? It has the power to make a user bleed endlessly, no matter if you try to heal yourself with bandages or magic, nothing will stop the bleeding, and if I make even a measly cut on your neck, you will start bleeding and it won't stop. That cut will torture you for hours or days." He was bluffing, the Næġling Falske could cause bleeding, but there were also ways to heal it.
The mage gritted his teeth as he listened, and gradually he seemed a little more tempted to speak, only for Kaizen to continue.
"With the incessant blood loss, you will first feel tired like you have never felt before, a dizziness will afflict your mind and even leave you standing. This will be a sign that your heart is beating fast and weak at the same time. This will speed up your breathing, and then you will feel very thirsty, but nothing will quench it until you vomit your own blood, looking for a way to die faster."
Now the look on the face of the man at Psyker's feet was one of pure terror. He felt agony just imagining what it would be like to go through such a thing.
"All right! I'll tell you whatever you want to know! Just please don't kill me!" The mercenary shouted.
Kaizen smiled vehemently, stomped harder on the man's head, and spoke:
"Now answer me directly: who is Adohorn?"
"Ouch! Okay, I'll do the talking! Adohorn is the man who now runs 'The Den'. They say that he is the one who killed all the bosses who used to fight to run this place, and now that he has become a kind of king of crime, he is organizing the underworld of this city bit by bit, bribing the nobles and politicians, getting contacts and influence. He tells everyone that the best thing we can do in the City of Tears is to unite. He says that if we continue to think selfishly, we will die like rats in the sewers, and that is exactly what the elders of the Wizards' Citadel want. Some of the people who actively frequent this place have bought into this ideal of his and now idolize him out there."
"Hmm. It seems he has an impressive lip."
"But there's no denying that his way works. It really is. This place has never been as organized as it is now, everyone either respects him or fears him."
"It doesn't matter to me. I will destroy this whole place if I have to to find him. Where does he usually stay?"
"I-I don't know! He's someone who operates in the shadows most of the time, I've only seen him in person once, and that was before he killed the four bosses. He's a really scary man, I didn't have the courage to look at him, the most I do in this place is protect the stall creature stock, that's all!"
Kaizen had heard enough comments about Adohorn to be stressed about the subject, so he pressed even harder on the mercenary's head and neck to get him to say what was stuck.
"Oh, man! I'm telling the truth! No one knows where it is!"
"I bet your memory will be fresher with your skull open. Speak up!"
"Okay, fine, I'll talk!" The mercenary shouted, causing Kaizen to relax a bit. "Huf... Soon, on the second floor, there will be a battle between the two greatest mages here at the moment, the 'Puppet Hands' and the 'Iron Giant'. They were born and raised here in 'The Cave', so they know this place like no other, and so there was a rumor that Adohorn himself would attend this fight to recruit the winner for his personal team... Huh! And that's all I know, man!"
Kaizen pondered for a moment, considering the information provided by the mercenary.
The second floor of 'The Den' seemed like the obvious place to go now to continue the route of this mission, and the fight between the two mages could be the perfect opportunity to find the Adohorn, except that Kaizen had a bad feeling about it. Still, he kept his word and removed his foot from the mercenary's head, picking up the Næġling Falske from the ground before walking away a bit.
"Finally, tell me where the second floor is." Kaizen ordered.
"It is not difficult, we are near one of the staircases. Follow this straight corridor to the end, you will find an open space with several entrances as you turn right, and the third of those entrances on the right will be a staircase to the second floor, you can't go wrong."
"Thanks for the information," Kaizen said, motioning for the mercenary to get up.
The man, still trembling with fear, rose quickly and took off without looking back.
Kaizen looked around the dirty alley for a few seconds, then followed the path the mercenary had pointed out. As he descended the stairs, he passed through dark and dimly lit corridors full of locked bars. He finally reached the second floor, which had a completely different atmosphere than the first, and the noise of the crowd also explained why the end of the second floor seemed so empty.
The underground arena where the fight would take place was located in the heart of the sewers of the City of Tears, a dark and surprisingly warm place. The entrance was a rusty iron door with signs of violence and dried blood, and this door was open for anyone to pass through that night.
As they passed through the door, Kaizen felt the strong smell of sewage fill her nostrils. The floor was damp and slippery, and the walls were coated with a green, sticky substance.
The arena surrounded by the crowd appeared to be wide and circular, about thirty meters in diameter.
The audience was made up of people of various races, but all mages, gathered around the arena to watch the fight. They were not arranged in grandstands, but simply huddled together, trying to watch the fight over each other's shoulders, lit by torches on the ceiling.
The crowd was ecstatic, shouting and cheering for their favorite fighters, but Kaizen noticed that there were people in the crowd wearing very long black robes with symbols on their backs. These people Kaizen had seen before, and they were exactly the ones he was afraid of meeting, because he couldn't see the stats of any of them with his <Analyzer Eye>, which meant that they were at least 50 levels higher than him.
...
Edited by: DrHitsuji
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