The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 270: That Ring!

“Now, Once again, you said you were saved by… Describe what you saw…” the old sergeant asked a haggard female teenage player as he filled the document in front of him. He was trying hard to ignore the old man in a black robe who was sitting behind him, carefully inspecting the player and supervising the questioning process.

They were sitting in one of many tents that was built to debrief players privately.

“Ah… I saw this monster while I was hiding… It had long black horns and ominous eyes, he was chasing this evil man ….” the girl squinted her eyes trying to remember…. “Yes, the man said to the monster… 'NUTCRACKER, spare me!' but the monster didn’t care, he cut the man in half then crushed his… his crotch… He crushed it with his giant mace!” she said with a blush.

In another tent, another player was saying the same thing.

“Those men… I had to work with them. They forced me!…. Then it came…. It only had one sentence…. It didn't say it, but we heard it in our minds! HAIL THE NUTCRACKER… FEAR THE NUTCRACKER, it kept repeating. That’s when I remembered my grandma’s old saying that all men are cowards! So I ran…..” The man began to cry, if he wasn't a 7’ tall giant with puffed muscles the sergeant would have really felt sorry for him.

During this debriefing, similar stories were getting told again and again. Other than how those players got scammed into here, the NUTCRACKER kept getting mentioned all over the place.

“Some of those players are faking it… “ the sergeant said to the General as they walked between the tents.

“That’s why we separated them immediately and forbade them from talking to each other. We will cross-examine their statements later!” the general replied, looking at the clearing to the side where the players were sitting silently three feet apart.

“I just can’t believe things like cannibalism happened...“ the lieutenant said.

“If you managed to live long enough, you would see more…” The general replied. He didn’t take the stories about the nutcracker seriously, he considered that it was just a monster in the dungeon, and was probably eliminated!

“Are we going to let them go just like this? Some of those guys are worse than monsters!” the lieutenant said.

“Our job is just to file the reports… the council would make the call later…Just make sure to search for any storage pouches. Everything they got must be reported!” The general sighed and said,

“Isn’t this against the rules?”

“Council order, this was an S dungeon after all!” the general said. The council was really evil, using the pretense of conspiracy to investigate the player’s trophies. While nothing would be taken from them today, after a few days some of those players, who got the really nice stuff and had no background, would be visited by some nice macho men.

“This is life. Survival for the strongest!” he pondered to himself, “How many of the academy’s students survived?” the general asked suddenly.

“About 60%, thankfully the really important ones didn’t die…“

“This is to be expected. The top families always provide their heirs with protection treasures!” The general said as he looked toward the few other tents where similar debriefings were happening.

A soldier suddenly ran from a nearby tent toward the general.

"General… A girl is making trouble! She is refusing to cooperate!"

"Can't you even force a little girl!!" The general shouted, earning himself some strange looks from some of his soldiers who took his words out of context.

"She claimed to be the concubine of the Von Weise heir… she said she can only be interrogated with the approval of her young master!" the soldier replied awkwardly.

“True… The families have such rules… Let’s go see her!” the general sighed awkwardly then gestured to the soldier to lead the way.

Inside the tent, a burly sergeant was about to lose his mind arguing with the unreasonable girl who was sitting on the metal chair in a very seductive way. She had no shame in displaying her pretty long legs.

“I know the rules! You can only question someone from the families under their master’s supervision! And like I said, this ring contains sensitive materials concerning my duties! My young master had entrusted me with these!” she argued just as the general walked into the tent.

“Where is your young master?” the general asked immediately, realizing that this girl was not as dumb as she appears to be.

“In the other tent, probably flirting with some girl…” she said, puffing her rosy cheeks.

…

In the other tent, a young master was busy wrecking the nerves of a pretty female sergeant who was debriefing him.

“As I said, the Nutcracker pulled that guy's balls from his mouth!” Victor said as he moved his hands to visually demonstrate the disturbing action. “I couldn't even believe that such a thing was possible if I didn’t see it with my own eyes!”

“And why did it spare you?” the sergeant asked, glancing at the cloaked man in the back who was frowning, not sure if Victor was kidding or not.

“I….” Victor hesitated then lowered his voice, “Because of my handsome face! I think it was gay….”

“Shut up!” the sergeant pounded the table, “Take this seriously, or I swear I would leave you here all day!” she scolded, that’s the most she could do.

“Fine… but don’t tell anyone... I am only telling you this before you are pretty!” he said before looking around, making sure no one was listening, totally ignoring the cloaked man and the fact that his statement was getting recorded. “The truth is… I was so scared that I peed. No, forget that…. I meant that I had to grovel on the ground, call its name loudly and give it my storage ring! It accepted it before looking at me with admiration then leaving!“ he whispered while looking disturbed.

“So that’s why you don’t have any storage artifacts?” the sergeant asked writing some things on her paper.

“Yes!” he nodded, displaying his ‘empty’ finger. “I even had to beg my maids for some change, food, and a tent after that!” he explained, making the Sergeant not help but notice that he was truly wearing purple pants. Little did she know that these were Victor's own Lily-picked pants which he had to change into after spilling green goo on the other ones.

“I see ….” she said sarcastically. “So after facing the …. Monster… what happened?”

“It is called the Nutcracker!”

“Whatever, what happened next?”

“Give me a kiss and I will tell you….” he replied with a wink.

“Why don’t you go f*ck yourself?” she cursed angrily. Whatever good impression she had on this handsome guy when she met him had long evaporated.

“I tried…. Although it sounds physically impossible…”

“Shut up!” The sergeant was about to lose her mind. How can a man be this shameless? Now she had an extra disturbing image in her mind to erase! The cloaked man in the back was suffering from the same problem.

“Sergeant… you have to make up your mind… I can’t shut up and answer your questions at the same time!” he stated the obvious.

The pretty sergeant was really considering taking out her gun and shooting this young master in the head when the general entered the tent. She quickly stood up and saluted.

“At ease!” the general said then looked at Victor. ”Young master Victor I presume?” he asked.

“The one and the only!” Victor said arrogantly as if he didn't just confess to wetting his pants.

"Are you finished here?"

"Mostly, but we have some things to clarify… " the Sergeant replied.

"We can do those later…" the general said before turning to Victor, “One of your…. concubines… is refusing to cooperate. Can you perhaps talk to her?” the general asked.

“Of course!” Victor said as he stood up then quickly followed the general into a nearby tent. Not forgetting to give the sergeant a wink on his way out.

…

“Young master!” Margret who was pouting quickly jumped into Victor's embrace and hugged him as soon as he entered the tent she was in.

“I thought I would never see you again!” she said as she groped his ass from the back making everyone frown… How can this girl be this shameless? Little did they know that her other hand which was sandwiched between hers and his body was busy drawing certain letters on his chest.

“I missed you too!” Victor said with a satisfied wretched smile. “Why are you giving those nice men some hard time?” he asked. If the female sergeant who was questioning him earlier was here, she would have shot him immediately.

“It’s not that…. They wanted me to show them what’s inside the storage ring….”

“Isn’t this against the rules?” Victor asked in surprise.

“Council orders!” the general coldly explained.

“Then we have no choice…” Victor told Margret apologetically.

“But young master it is THAT ring…”

“What ring?”

“The one you let me carry for my nightly duty…”

“Ahhhhhh!” Victor exclaimed then paused in shock before turning to face the general. “General… Can you make an exception?” he said with a troubled expression.

“No expectations!” it was not the general who replied, but the man in the black cloak. Victor had long noticed him.

“Sh*t... Not again!” Victor cursed as he had enough of this bad luck.

The man who monitored him in the tent previously didn’t have a lie detection skill, so victor wrongfully presumed that they would only use lower-ranked inquisitors.

The situation had become a lot more complicated.… Although He had long expected this interrogation after the dungeon changed into an S rank. He didn’t expect it to be this through!

He was not unprepared though, not only did he instruct the girls on what to say and how to say it. He also made sure that all of the valuables in the girls’ storage rings, except for Margret’s, had already been emptied beforehand just in case.

Thankfully Margret knew what to do without his instructions.

“I can make you see what is in the ring…. But you can’t take anything out! And you can’t tell anyone! This might affect my reputation!” Victor said after some hesitation as he quickly readjusted his plan.

“Fine by me…” the old man said. He will just write a report later exposing everything.

“Give him the ring!” Victor said….

“Butt….”

“Just do it, and wipe it first! Don’t think I don’t know where you usually keep it!” he scolded, making Margret blush as she wiped the innocent ring with her cuff, then ignoring the weird looks from the ‘audience’, she gave it to the old man.

The old man hesitated for a second before grabbing the ring. He closed his eyes, inspecting the things inside one by one, totally unaware that Victor was manipulating what he saw.

The old man’s face changed slowly from a stern expression to utter bewilderment… Aren't those torture tools? No, they are too fluffy for that? And what is that? He didn’t have to think for a lot to know the answer, but he wondered how it could be this big? Could this fit?

“Master Elton, is everything alright?” the general asked after five whole minutes causing the old man to wake up from his bewilderment and then throw the ring at Margret with disgust.

“Continue with the debriefing! What a waste of time!” he cursed as he sat back down. He would not be able to sleep tonight.

Margret, who caught the ring like catching a treasure, quickly put it on her finger and then slowly sat down.

“Now would you answer the questions?” the old sergeant asked.

“Can I?” Margret asked Victor who nodded before finding a seat to the side to relax on… The others didn’t notice but while the old man was inspecting the ring he had already secretly told her how to act. She was to only tell the truth as briefly as she can! And if she ever needed to lie, she would raise her foot a little so that he could intervene in time. Thankfully he didn’t need to do that.

“So… what happened?” the sergeant asked.

“I just found myself in a closed room and couldn’t get out! I spend the entire time being stuck eating shitty snacks,”

“Is that it?”

“... Yes…” she blushed, causing everyone to wonder what exactly she spent her time doing.

“Did you meet any other players?”

“No!”

“Was there anything strange in the dungeon? Or the room you were in?”

“No!” she frowned.

“Did anything out of the ordinary happen?”

“No!”

“...Did you find any treasures?”

“Not as far as I know….”

And like that Margaret's troublesome interrogation ended. The inquisitor never realized that she was lying because she was not.

Although Victor could disguise the investigator’s lie detection skill results using his upgraded disguise skill, this was a very delicate job that required a lot of concentration as he needed to know the lies beforehand. Especially with the inquisitor having that speech-reading skill, meaning that Victor would have also to match Margret’s lips precisely, which was a very annoying thing to do.

So he preferred to use another simpler method, he just changed the questions Margret was hearing.

“Do you like your young master?” “...Yes…”

“Are you a virgin?” “No!”

“Do you like your cousin?” “No!”

“Do you have any STDs?” “Not as far as I know….”