Jonathan, in order to complete this job, needed to give some guidance to this problem to find out if it was a minor issue or one he should truly worry about.
And thanks to the technology they had, they were able to find some people connected to Monica.
"Who are the prisoners?" Jonathan arrived at a provisional base while looking at Father Doug, who had come as his reinforcement due to the special request he had made.
"Frank and Aitor, they're the voices of those who performed the rituals in this place, but it seems they're connected to an organization called Black Cover." Alexander replied briefly while watching Jonathan approach the room.
"Who brought them here?"
"A good captain named Erick, he might soon become the captain of an elite team."
…
Five months ago.
In a training base of the recently formed organization The Order…
"So, you only have nine seconds to decide whether to believe or not believe any of the people you have at your side. It doesn't matter if it's true or not, you only have nine seconds to know."
"What happens if we don't reach a concrete result?" A man raised his hand among the crowd and asked.
"Cadet Erick, you have the best deduction among the cadets of this battalion… I'll be brief with my answer, if you have a man who is an enemy of our organization and you have to interrogate him, you will have to ask him questions and you only have nine seconds to believe him or not…"
"Listen, if you don't believe him you have to ask the same question again… You must be sure that the person answering you is responding with the truth and only the truth. If you aren't sure, that man or woman would have deceived you."
Erick remained silent. Talking about torture and interrogation was something very extreme that he had never considered before. Would it be necessary to reach such situations when he was active as an Agent of Light?
"And for this, there is an effective method. If there are two people, it will work; if not, you won't be able to use it. This method is called the two questions. Tie the two people facing each other and ask them the same question, but the answer must be written. Once one gives you the answer, you must ask the other, and if the answers coincide, they're telling the truth."
"And if they don't coincide, it means they're lying…" Erick murmured in a low voice, and moments later those same words were spoken aloud by the chief instructor.
…
"What is this, Frank?" Aitor asked as blood filled his throat and made it hard to breathe.
Frank, who had remained silent, saw how the enormous rat moved inside Aitor's stomach, so he decided to look around, trying to understand where they were.
Erick, who was beside Alexander, stood frozen. He never imagined this kind of torture could be performed on these people. But seeing the indifferent expressions of Jonathan and Akira, Erick chose to stay out of it.
"I want you to write the answers to the following questions! Where is your sect and how many people are in it?" Jonathan signaled the agents and they untied one of Frank's hands.
Jonathan looked at Frank—one of the men who had killed his agents—and warned him, "Listen, I want you to know that whether your answer is correct or not depends entirely on you, because your friend's life is in our hands!"
When Frank heard these words, he frowned and tried to make eye contact with Aitor to know if this man had answered truthfully or not. They had never been in such a situation before, but since they belonged to the Black Cover organization, they always had a way out of this, and Frank immediately tried to figure out what Aitor had written.
"While you think, I want to tell you a story…"
After saying those words, Jonathan lit a blowtorch that was on a metal table, and the strong flame slightly illuminated his face. "The world, both in the past and now, is incredibly insane, full of deaths, incidents that will be remembered by history, and unnecessary wars. But if being Agents of Light has taught us anything, it's to be cruel and experienced."
"Learn from your mistakes and don't ever be so stupid as to repeat them in the future! If you think playing with the unknown gives you authority in the world I have decided to protect, you're very mistaken."
Jonathan placed the tongs on the table where Aitor was lying and said, "Today I'll tell you about the torture known as the rat torment, originally used by the Chinese, practiced by the Holy Inquisition and the Dutch Revolution… This torment consisted of placing the condemned man lying on his back, completely immobilized…"
While Jonathan said these words, he held tightly to the ropes that kept Aitor immobilized on the table. "On top of that man, a cage with a rat inside was placed. For this to work, it had to be open at the bottom and secured with chains to the victim's abdomen. Oh look, exactly like your friend right now…"
"You damn son of a bitch!"
Jonathan ignored Frank's insult and continued, "They would heat the top of the cage. This made the rodent go crazy in search of an escape route, and tell me, boy of evil, how do you escape a cage where the only exit is through a man's body?"
When these final words reached everyone's ears, Jonathan snapped his fingers and said, "Exactly, through the abdomen! The rat, driven mad by the flames, can bite its way through a man's abdomen, tearing through the guts and even sometimes coming out the other side of the body."
"Like a hungry werewolf, the rodent can't stop devouring the soft tissues just to find a way out. I think everyone in this room can imagine such pain. The rat would bite and bite, damaging important organs along the way and bleeding the victim out, who would inevitably end up dying."
While Jonathan told the story, he walked to Aitor's side and whispered, "Write the answer, you only have three seconds."
As Jonathan said this, the blowtorch flame lowered and the cage slowly began to heat up. Frank remained motionless, his body drenched in cold sweat preventing him from reacting in time. And hearing Aitor's screams of fear finally made him snap.
"Alright, I'll do it!" In a panic, Frank wrote the answers with difficulty. As each word was written on the paper he was given, Jonathan began to see how the rat clawed at Aitor's stomach.
When Frank finished writing, Alexander handed the paper to Jonathan, tension written all over his face. When Jonathan read the content, the answers matched in content, but the number of people was different.
"What a shame…"
"What?" Frank asked immediately.
"The place was correct, congratulations, but the number of people was written very poorly… One wrote between 300 and 500 people, how is it you don't know how many people are in your sect, Aitor? The other wrote between 600 and 900. Who should I believe?"
Jonathan let the paper fall to the floor, and at that moment a voice came from the radio: "Zz… The drones identified a strange report near our location, what are your orders?"
"Everyone get ready, once we visit this place we'll have to eliminate all of them…" Jonathan gave the order, then looked at Erick. "You, go write a report on the situation."
"Yes…"
"Understood, sir…"
"Ahhhhh!" But in that moment, a scream of agony echoed, and Aitor, who had severe wounds in his stomach, was shaking violently. Jonathan, however, remained indifferent and instead increased the intensity of the flame.
"Tell me, Frank! How many people are in your sect?"
Frank froze. He watched as a simple rat was perforating his subordinate's stomach. Each bite was fierce and aggressive, the rat desperately searching for a way out as it felt the fire burning its body.
But Jonathan did not plan to stop. He had to leave a traumatic mark on Frank's aggressive mentality. He wanted to make the punishment for his actions clear; everyone had to understand the consequences of killing his soldiers.
"You stupid bastard, you killed my brothers! Did you really think you would walk out of this place alive? This is just a small part of my fury for what you tried to do to my people…"
Jonathan looked at Alexander and said, "Doug, you decide, his hand or his head!"
"Yes!" Father Doug grabbed a machete and walked toward Frank step by step.
"No, please!"
Jonathan wasn't looking for the number of people in the sect; he only needed the location, and he had obtained it. If the situation became truly unsustainable, he would kill them all, but he knew there was always a way out.
"No, have mercy!"
"Ahhhhh!"
"Rrrrr!"
"Kill me, please, take my life!"
"Ahhh!"
The heartbreaking screams echoed one after another, and then there was nothing but silence. Father Doug came out of the room cleaning his machete, while Jonathan wiped the blood from his face.
Bang, Bang!
A few seconds later, two gunshots were heard and two agents came out of the room dragging two corpses—one had a large hole in his stomach and the other was headless.
All the prisoners had been eliminated.