Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

“...”

The light-brown-haired boy clenched his fists and closed his eyes. While taking deep breaths to calm himself down, he wondered about a certain thing.

‘He didn’t answer any questions?’

Why? Why not?

Why wouldn’t he answer their questions and get tortured instead? He knew what Kairen wanted to do and was aware that he intended to make them forgive Aaron... Why would he make things harder for himself?

Also...

‘Why is he here now?’

Was the preparations that the commander was talking about... this? To bring Aaron to this place?

.....

“Now, let’s start, shall we?”

Kairen turned to the commander. He could see the man sitting behind the black table and gesturing to Kairen to sit on the opposite chair. Reyan and team leader Dains were both sitting on the chairs behind the divider, silently listening to the commander.

“...”

But Kairen just stood there, beside the glass wall. The chair that the commander sat in faced the glass wall, so if Kairen sat on the other empty chair, his back would be facing Aaron and he wouldn’t be able to see what is going on on the other side of the wall. That was... a little bit scary.

“Mr. Steyton!”

The commander’s cold voice made Kairen flinch, but he still didn’t budge from his spot.

“Haaaaaa!”

Heaving a deep sigh, the commander closed his eyes and lowered his aching head.

“Kairen Steyton.”

He mumbled.

“If you don’t obey whatever I say here it this place...”

Shhhh

A faint blue aura burst out of the man’s body.

“That man over there will be in even more pain.”

“Ugh...”

As soon as the commander finished his words, a muffled groan could be heard from Aaron on the other side of the wall.

“Mmm... Argh-”

While Kairen was frozen in his place, the groans got more pained and he could even see Aaron’s body trembling slightly.

“W-wait! Stop! Alright alright!”

Panicked, Kairen ran and almost threw himself on the chair. As soon as he sat down, the groanings stopped and the room went silent once again.

“That’s how it should be!”

The commander smiled, satisfied. He then leaned a little bit forward, putting his arms on the table and locking his fingers to create a firm spot to place his chin on.

“Let’s start.”

“...Yes.”

Kairen weakly nodded his head and waited for the man to start asking his questions.

“Do you know that man?”

Kairen nodded his head.

“Yes.”

The commander raised an eyebrow.

“Your answer is different from the last time.”

“A lot of things have happened since then.”

“That’s right.”

The commander nodded his head.

“Mind introducing that dear friend of yours to us?”

“...”

Kairen looked away from the commander’s face, which was scary despite being calm, and stared at the table.

“But you would’ve known who he is if you just removed his hood.”

The thing that Kairen didn’t understand the most in this situation was the fact that Aaron’s face was still covered by his hood although he himself was tortured and interrogated.

“We would’ve long done that if we could!”

Hearing the man’s scuff, Kairen raised his head and looked at the commander with a confused face.

“You can’t?”

“Is there any reason for me to lie here?”

There wasn’t.

“But I’ll show it to you if you are so curious. We need to get serious anyway.”

The commander shrugged his shoulders before looking behind his back.

“Fidel!”

“Yes, sir.”

Team leader Dains stood up from his chair at that call and walked out of the room. A few seconds later, he appeared in the room again, but this time, on the other side of the glass wall. He walked towards the man tied to the chair with slow and steady steps while pulling up the sleeve of his shirt.

‘Wha-‘

Not knowing what was going on around him, Kairen moved his body to stand up from his chair.

“Uh?”

But he then realized that he couldn’t bodge even a single inch from his seat. It was as if he was glued to the chair. No matter how much he struggled, his body didn’t move more than enough for him to barely see that glass wall behind his back.

“This-”

Kairen looked at the person in front of him. The man’s whole body was giving off a blue hue and the blue shade was surrounding him, Kairen, and Aaron. It was his power that was swirling around the room like dust in the wind. If it was a normal situation and not an interrogation room, Kairen would say that it looked beautiful, but now it was only scary.

The commander only smiled at Kairen’s wide-open eyes that were staring at him and shifted his gaze to the other side of the wall. Following his gaze, Kairen moved his body as much as he was allowed and also looked at Aaron and team leader Dains on the other side.

The team leader Dains nodded his head as soon as he noticed the commander’s gaze on himself and moved towards Aaron. He reached out his arm and grabbed his collar. The man’s limp body was easily lifted by that grip. The team leader then moved his hand up and grabbed the hood and pulled it down.

Or he tried to pull it down.

ZZZZZZZ

ZZZZZ

ZAAAAPPPP

As soon as he attempted to pull down the hood, sparks flashed in the air. The white stone on the hood shone and vibrated, cracks emerged in the air, the sound of electric currents was heard, and a slight tremor in the air was sensed before a huge impact pushed on the body of the team leader, sending him back and slamming him on the glass wall.

QUACK

“Ack!”

Team leader Dains slid down the wall and fell on his knees, gasping while grabbing his arm, but he didn’t seem to be surprised despite steam rising from his arm.

“...What...”

What just happened?

Did the stone react when they wanted to take off the hood? Was that why they couldn’t see his face until now? Kairen remembered Aaron touching that stone before when he wanted to take off his hood but... He didn’t know what that was for.

But Kairen couldn’t think much about the stone. It was because of the reaction that happened after team leader Dains touched the stone. They didn’t end after knocking back the team leader, but the sparks were still dancing in the air.

The spars, the cracks, they moved in the air, spread around, and touched the glass wall. The stone continued to shake and sparkle. Aaron’s body twitched and he groaned, lifting his head a little bit for the first time in the day.

“Huh...”

Kairen heard the commender’s surprised gasp and then the noise of a chair being pulled, but he didn’t look back at him. He was only staring at the sparks that passed the glass wall without damaging it and were all moving towards him while jumping in the air.

ZAAAAAP

.....

ZZZZZZ

The sparks jumped towards Kairen all at once. He closed his eyes from the surprise, and at the same time fear. This kind of thing was never nice. Anything related to cracks, sparks, and surprise things was always troublesome... and painful.

Kairen closed his eyes as soon as he saw the sparks even pass through the commander’s law and jump on him. Expecting to experience some pain, he pressed his eyelids on each other.

‘Huh...’

But no matter how much he waited, he didn’t feel any pain. He was sure that the sparks had touched him as he could feel a tinkling feeling on his arms and shoulders, but there was no pain?

Kairen slightly opened his eyes and peeked around.

“....”

He could see a frozen commander that seemed to have stopped rushing to him midway through the table, Reyan, who was also in a similar position to the commander, and a team leader Dains that was... grabbing Aaron’s shoulders to stop him from running?

‘Huh? He woke up?’

Kairen then looked at himself.

Zzzz

ZZZ

The sparks were... moving around on his body?

Purple-red electric sparks were jumping around on his arms and shoulders as if they were just some small butterflies while they were slowly fading at the same time.

“....”

Kairen, as well as the other people in the room, watched as the sparks that had burned the team leader’s arm played around and vanished from sight with blank faces. Just in a few seconds, all of them were gone and the room was back to how it was before.

“What was that?”

Well, not completely.

“Such a thing... never happened before...”

The commander mumbled as he looked over to team leader Dains as if to make sure that he was right, only to see that his subordinate was forcefully holding down an injured prisoner on the chair.

“....”

He then glanced at Kairen.

“Let’s... continue.”