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Chapter 77: Welcome to the Kingdom: Hell

Ripley, however, never got to know how that ambush went. Because the Demon decided that she and her squad-mate Asmo needed to be punished for their ‘insubordination’. How one could even be insubordinate to a foreigner she had no clue, but the Demon clearly had enough power to throw around that he got his way.

And Ripley had been lucky enough to be assigned a week of torture.

A week.

The Koinkar Kingdom had refined their methods of torture to a science. In their many conflicts over the past few hundred years, they captured many enemies and successfully extracted valuable intel from a sizable percentage of them. A percentage that had only risen over the course of those years. And the reason for that constantly-increasing success rate was because of the absolute agony they were capable of inflicting.

The method involved three decent-Leveled Classers. Two Wizards, and one Cleric. First, the two Wizards would each use a special Spell named Telekinesis. This Spell allowed its user to move things with their mind. It was clunky and imprecise at first – and could only move objects of a certain weight – but with some practice and Spell Ranks, it could get much more powerful.

One of the Wizards would push with pinpoint accuracy along one of the victim’s limbs – say, for example, the victim’s left arm. The Wizard would make cuts perforating a circle around the desired target. They would dig into the flesh with the force-emitting Spell, splitting skin and muscle alike, until they finally got into the bone. They would dig into the bone and weaken it, tunneling through and making holes all across, leaking the marrow from inside.

And then, while the first Wizard destroyed the victim’s arm, the other Wizard would use their own copy of Telekinesis to pull. Weak, first, but then stronger. Stronger, stronger, stronger, all while the targeted limb got weaker and weaker. Until, finally, it ripped.

Once they’d successfully torn the victim’s limb from their body, the Cleric would step in with that Class’s signature Spell: Healing Hands. It would have to be at least Rank 10, which wasn’t easy, but at that point, the Spell would gain an Upgrade that allowed it to reattach dismembered parts of the body, as long as they were taken off recently.

So, with the Spell helping along, they would put the limb back and fix the wounds, setting everything as though the entire process had never happened.

And then they’d start again.

Ripley Tenet had always been tangentially aware of this process of torture, but never took the time to appreciate the intricacies of the process. For example, she never knew that – due to the extreme restorative effects of Healing Hands, the internal mind would never become so damaged as to allow the victim to lose consciousness from the pain. Of course, the psychological effects still remained, but because the Spell restored the body, the physical brain would never become used to the effects of the pain. Every time felt like the first.

She’d had much time to appreciate these simple but effective enhancements to the method. She’d had thirteen hours to appreciate them, in fact. Tears and sweat pooled beneath her heavily-breathing body, lying on the sterile stone floor of the cell she’d been thrown into so she could sleep. Healing Hands wouldn’t eliminate that need from a person, and they evidently didn’t want her passing out and missing out on the next six days they had planned out for her, so they had to give her at least a few hours.

It was around hour two of her planned four-hour rest that the door was flung open. Ripley raised her head, hair matted across her face and eyes, partially obscuring her vision, to see two figures standing at the door. One of them threw the other into the cell, and the haggard-looking person collapsed to the ground.

Ripley blinked and brushed the hair from her face to get a better look at her new companion.

It was Asmo.

Slowly, Ripley crawled her way over to her half-conscious squad-mate.

“Asmo,” she groaned, her throat raw from the screaming she’d done before. “Are you okay?”

The body shifted, and Asmo’s blonde hair shimmered from the dim torchlight. A rough groan escaped her throat.

“Please,” Ripley whispered, glancing over at the figure that’d thrown her into the cell.

He was still watching, hand on the metal cell door. His helmet obscured his face.

“You won’t really do what that Demon said, right?” Ripley begged, her expression turning to one of pleading as she looked at him. “You just did it the once to trick him, and you’ll let us out soon?”

He was just staring at her. Or maybe he wasn’t – she couldn’t tell what he was looking at, with the helmet covering his eyes.

“If you put us back there, I’ll find out who you are,” she threatened in a shaky voice. “I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll find out where you live. I will.”

“...”

“Please, please give us another hour to rest. Half an hour, even. I can’t go back to that.” Ripley gestured over to the still-motionless body of Asmo. “She can’t either. Nobody will know if you just give us a few extra minutes.”

“You know I can’t do that,” A quiet voice echoed from the helmet. “If they find out… I have a family. The Demons, they’ll– I’m sorry.”

The soldier turned away from the bars, and began to walk away.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ripley sobbed after him. “I shouldn’t have threatened you. I’m sorry! I don’t want to go back! Please!”

But he was out of the room. The only two people left in the stone-walled cellar were Ripley and Asmo.

When the door echoed shut behind the helmeted man, Asmo stirred again, and this time she sat up, leaning her head against the wall. Her eyes were dead.

They sat in silence for some time. The only sound filling the room was Asmo's heavy breaths.

“What limb did they pick?” Ripley eventually asked.

For a moment, there was silence. Then, Asmo finally responded. “Left leg.”

Ripley nodded. “Left arm. How many times?”

“Forty-two.”

“Forty-one for me. One of the Wizards had to shit. It was a nice break.”

Asmo just nodded at that. A few more minutes passed.

“I hear some of the torturers like to pick a different limb each time,” Ripley said. “It takes longer to switch so much, so you get fewer procedures in total, but they say it hurts more each time. I think I’d still want that, though. ‘Least you don’t have to go through it as much. What about you? You’d want it the same, or different?”

“...Same.”

Ripley nodded.

A few more minutes passed in silence between the two.

Eventually, Asmo spoke up this time. “Lanney Strom fled the kingdom.”

Ripley blinked. “Fuck. Really?”

“Yes. I heard a pair of soldiers speaking about it on my way here.”

“Highest-Level Classer in the whole kingdom, running off…” Ripley muttered. “What about–”

“The rest of his squad fled, as well. In addition to a few other squads. As well as many high-Leveled adventurers.”

“What the fuck… why?”

“Koinkar showed weakness. He does not have a plan. He allowed himself to be pushed around and bullied by the Demons. Nobody would side with someone like that. And when some left, the others took it as a sign to leave, too. That is my guess.”

“But, if they’re leaving, who’s gonna fight off these Demons? I mean, we can’t just let them run around and do what they want, right?”

“I do not believe–”

“Asmo, I can’t keep doing this,” Ripley didn’t wait for a response. Her muscled hands dug her fingers into her scalp, pulling her short hair. “I can’t. This can’t– someone has to come and break us out. Or kill those Demons. Get rid of them. Get us out. If they’re all leaving, what– when will we leave?”

“Six days.”

Ripley just shook her head. “That’s– no. No. Please.”

“The Barinruth Empire has cut diplomatic ties with us, too,” Asmo continued. “As have the Qarn Kingdom and their vassals. Trade has ceased between us and the rest of the world.”

Ripley buried her face in her arms, eventually breaking out into sobs of despair. “Why couldn’t Koinkar just fight the Demons?”

Asmo stayed silent.

For a few more moments, the only sound that filled the room was Ripley’s cries of despair.

After some time of Ripley falling deeper and deeper into depression, Asmo spoke again. “...It is possible that King Koinkar may be secretly trading with the other countries.”

“W-what?” Ripley raised her head.

“Perhaps Barinruth and Qarn only pretended to cut off diplomatic ties. To trick the Demons. The reason so many high-Level Classers fled was because Koinkar sold them to those countries. So that he could gather funds to hire one last massive army to push the Demons away.”

Ripley’s eyes brightened slightly at that. Yes, she thought. That could be it. She couldn’t lose hope yet. Help was just around the corner. Give it some time, and reinforcements would arrive. A massive army to kill all the Demons and save everyone.

Just a bit more time.

Asmo sat on the floor in a cold, dark room. It’d been approximately one hour since the guards had come and taken Ripley for her next session. This one would be twenty hours long. Asmo’s session would start in an hour, too.

She still felt guilty about pushing Ripley into despair with what she’d told her about the soldiers fleeing and the other countries cutting off trade with Koinkar. She hadn’t meant to make things worse, just to try and get Ripley’s mind off of what was to come.

She hoped what she’d said at the end helped Ripley out a bit. It was false, of course. There was no reason to believe anyone was coming for them. By helping the Demons, Koinkar had shown himself to be completely powerless. Nobody would ever want to help the kingdom after that. Why would they, if they knew the kingdom was too weak to offer anything in return? It was all risk, no reward.

But if Asmo could at least make this time a bit better for Ripley, the lie would be worth it.

For now, though, she just needed to relax her mind and try to get some sleep before her own next session. Her hope had already been broken. She just needed to survive this hell and pass the time until this was over.

It was no use fighting the Demons here. She knew it, the kingdom knew it, and the neighboring countries knew it, too. Sure, it may be possible, but it was easier to just let them do what they needed to do so they’d fuck off and never come back.

There was only one thing she could do to give her and Ripley the peaceful life they deserved. One that never involved this torture again. All they could do was give the Demons what they wanted.

And once she was out of this, she’d do it. She gripped her hand against the cold stone floor, already able to feel the sensation of the hard wooden bow in her hand as she loosed the string and the arrow flew straight through the man who started this all. And the only man who could stop it. She would stop this invasion. She would kill Arlan Nota.