Summoned and Unwanted

It appeared a large barracks was connected with the gate’s location for immediate soldier deployment. Furthermore, it seemed the interrogation room was connected to a building extending from the inner wall.

When entering inside, Vincent, Ester, Lupa, and Kazumi became surprised silly. The inside of the corridor wasn’t like a path to a dungeon or prison. Instead, the passage was clean without a speck of dust, had a fresh flowery scent, and the lighting wasn’t from torches, so no smell of smoke assaulted their nose.

A small nail-sized shining stone was embedded on the ceiling every few meters. Light came from this small stone as if a tiny bulb was embedded inside.

Vincent and Kazumi could feel the magical fantasy vibe in a medieval setting radiating from the scene before their eyes. It gave the vibe similar to a castle of an amusement park rather than a real castle.

The stone corridor didn’t feel the real deal. In the movies, stories, and histories from Earth, such corridors would usually be dirty and unappealing, primarily focusing on being used rather than being as clean as a house.

Kazumi also guessed the approximate stone wall thickness to be a little bit longer than that of a limousine. The walls could be impenetrable on Earth, but in this world, people like Feng Mengli exist. The wall might be thin by this world’s standards.

.....

Ester was stunned. She never thought going to the interrogation room would be this pleasant after contemplating interrogation with torture. Ester is quite imaginative.

On the other hand, Lupa was the opposite. She smiled when smelling the flowery scent and walked without getting nervous. Lupa felt like being in the wilds instead of an enclosed and seemingly never-ending stone corridor.

Tula walked with Ben hand in hand. She was scared by the multiple gazes falling on her whenever a soldier passes by. However, Ben said a few reassuring words from time to time and kept Tula calm.

After a few minutes of walking, the soldier escorting them stopped. Beside them were a few doors. But they were different than the other doors that inhibited the corridor. These doors were made of metal. It gave the impression it was an important room or to lock someone inside.

Vincent felt chills as the thought of getting imprisoned or tortured flashed through his mind. He hoped it was going to be as pleasant as the pleasantly clean corridor they are in.

The escort soldier knocked on the four metal doors. Inside each room were soldiers who were urgently asked to interrogate a group of four people that arrived from Aero Forest.

Even though the army had reports of the Broodmother Queen Ant’s death, a few ants still roamed, similar to the mortally injured Royal Guard Ant that Vincent was lucky to kill without a scratch because of his acid mitigation mutation trait.

Each soldier inside received instructions to keep the interrogation brief. Furthermore, they were instructed not to cause discomfort to the four people who suffered and later were about to be detained instead of welcomed.

After the four knocks, a black-caped vice captain exited from each of the rooms. The four black-caped vice captains stared with a puzzled expression as to why they had to interrogate four ordinary-looking people personally instead of their subordinates. Moreover, to do an almost VIP-like interrogation similar to a high-ranked noble.

“Please, only one person can enter a room. Follow the interrogator inside.” The escort soldier said.

Then he turned his gaze at Ben and continued, “Grade ten vice captain City Guard Ben. You may proceed with soldier Tula, the daughter of grade ten vice captain, Soldier Instructor Koss. A healer will be provided by the army to heal the injured soldier.”

[Does that mean they might be able to heal Tula?]

-That would be great, but... I will miss the current Tula.-

[Same here. I also hope Tula will still be on our side if her memories return.]

Vincent turned his head and gave Ester and Lupa a reassuring nod. He also whispered for Lupa to secretly hear with her heightened hearing, “Stay with the plan and don’t try to show aggression. Be calm and stall if you can’t answer. I will finish as quickly as possible and try to get you out.”

Vincent didn’t want Lupa to make the situation worse if she heard a soldier say a mocking comment because she isn’t a human. As he saw at the entrance of the city, non-humans didn’t look too accepted in the city.

Vincent entered the interrogation room. Inside was a large table at the center of the room with two chairs at opposite ends.

A small table and a person occupying it at the corner of the room entered his sight. The table had a few papers, books, and stationery items.

The person sitting in the corner of the room was a female soldier. She wore a uniform instead of metal armor, and she seemed to be a minute taker.

However, the minute taker wasn’t the only female soldier in the room. Two more were inside.

One was a female soldier wearing an easy-to-move soldier outfit. She was cleaning the table with a wet flowery scented rag. The reason as to why the corridor was clean became known. The army apparently has dedicated cleaners.

The other female soldier stood next to the door like a guard. Unlike the other two, she wore a set of light metal armor, a buckler for a shield, and a small short sword.

The appearance showed how her position required agility instead of protection. Her equipment appeared to be for self-defense only and then run away.

[Good thing you got used to interacting with women. Vincent of Earth would surely get flustered to death.]

-No comment.-

The female soldier stationed next to the door pointed at a chair for Vincent to sit on. Trying to act friendly, Vincent followed her order and sat on the chair with a calm and confident poker face, but inside, his heart was racing from nervousness.

A similar thing happened in the other three rooms.

Ester acted similarly to Vincent, but her nervous face couldn’t stay hidden. She sat on the chair and clutched her hands together while thinking, ‘I hope this vice captain is not arrogant, but... why is the chest of these three women also large?’

Lupa sat on the chair while doing her best to listen to the vice captain’s orders and quickly leave. She could feel strange gazes from the four people in the room, but she ignored them and tried to stay calm as Vincent asked.

In the fourth occupied room were Tula and Ben. Tula sat on the chair while Ben stood beside her. Unlike the others, they had to wait for an army healer to arrive and confirm her condition.

“Greetings, sir. I’m a City Defence vice captain, as shown by my black-colored cape. My name is Plavin. What’s yours?” Plavin removed his helmet and placed it on the table. He seemed wary of Vincent’s unknown background.

On a second glance, the vice captain had an engraving at his chest armor’s side similar to Koss and Kass. It was a half red sun instead of a golden lion’s head.

“I’m Vincent Agius. ” Vincent was so used replying in this manner that he made a slip of the tongue. Only nobles had surnames in this world. As if surnames could only be inherited instead of created out of the blue.

[Have you forgotten surnames are only reserved for nobles? Well, I hope it might make the questioning a bit easier.]

Plavin frowned after hearing the surname. He didn’t know what front he should display as Vincent was potentially a noble. Then he quickly snapped his fingers. If a noble or a liar stood before him had to be confirmed.

The cleaning soldier received an object from the woman at the small table. Then she placed a fist-sized red rock with multiple engravings in front of Vincent. The red rock looked quite mysterious and enchanting, yet it was almost similar to the inspecting gemstone.

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[Name] Blood Runed Stone

[Condition] Undamaged

[Description] A gemstone crafted by Gran Vonaterros. A bloodstone refined from the heart of a stone leech and then runed with multiple enchantments.

[Effect]

*Repair a small crack with every drop of blood (Stackable)

*Increase additional uses with every drop of blood (Stackable)

*Vision Screen

*Blood Detection

.

The cleaning soldier then placed what looked like a toothpick on the table. Vincent instinctively picked this small wooden stick and noticed that it wasn’t as he thought.

It resembled more a pointy wooden needle than a toothpick. The thin piece of wood was as flexible as plastic but sturdy as metal.

“Ahem. Could you poke your finger with the disposable needle and drop or smear blood on the Blood Runed Gemstone.” Plavin cleared his throat and said before Vincent was about to use Inspection. He wanted to obtain Vincent’s attention and use the wooden needle post haste.

-I’m a bit afraid of the result. What do you think?-

[Well, if you remember, the inspection gemstone showed that you are a human. Also, only when you use Overheat will your race change as the message window states on every use.]

[Go for it with a relaxed mind, I say. But there is nothing to do except doing as instructed., so it’s useless to delay the inevitable.]

Vincent unwrapped one of his fingers to poke for blood. As Vincent was doing this, the three women in the room suddenly got an upset stomach. They felt uncomfortable at the thoughts of such horrible scars covering the entirety of his body.

A single poke, a single bead of blood formed. The droplet of blood dropped on the Bloodstone and quickly disappeared as if it never existed.

The Bloodstone absorbed Vincent’s blood. The intricately carved runes began shining red, and soon, a small hologram window similar to Vincent’s system window appeared a few inches above the Bloodstone.

More accurately, a display window similar to what the inspection gemstone showed, but with a red background instead of blue.

On the other hand, Vincent’s system background is sometimes green or black, depending on if it’s a system message or inspection result.

.

[Connecting to the blood information bank...]

[Connection successful.]

[Brodcast starts in 3,2,1.]

[The Bloodstone has begun transmitting and receiving information from the primary Bloodstone host.]

[The test will assess the absorbed blood...]

.

The window closed, and a new one took its place. The hologram enlarged to that of a seventeen-inch screen and displayed the blood test result.

It seemed the Bloodstone was similar to the modern computers since it received, sent, and saved information from another location.