Eager to find out as quickly as possible what Marquis Olsen's plans were for the lionkins after he had sent the mercenaries whom she had eliminated, Lucy approached the marquis' son again to question him, kicking aside the magical objects, bags of money, and other more or less valuable things that stood in her way. It wasn't as if she was trying to look cool, but there was simply nowhere else to step, as about a cubic meter of items had spilled from the marquis' son's storage ring, spreading over a surface of barely ten square meters in front of him.
If the Ninja Spatial Pocket skill had allowed her to store more items at once, she probably would have set aside all these things obtained from the marquis' son to sort and divide later, after everything related to those conspiring against the lionkins was over, and in a place where they could not be disturbed, such as Rina's house. However, since she had to activate the skill for each individual item as long as they were separate, and not only would that have taken a lot of time, but it also would have consumed a huge amount of mana, Lucy had no choice but to leave them there until she finished interrogating the marquis' son and his subordinates. Of course, there was also the option of putting them in some sacks, which would allow her to store them much faster, but she didn't want to bow down in front of the marquis' son, thinking it would diminish the authority she had imposed on him.
"This… this is everything I have on me…", the marquis's son stammered as he saw Lucy approaching, ignoring all the items he had pulled out. Believing that, aside from Yara, the girls in front of him lived in an isolated village deep in the forest, where they had never seen wealth like his, he hoped they wouldn't be able to resist their curiosity and would start inspecting the things he had taken out of the ring. Maybe they would even argue over them, distracting themselves from him for a while.
Since there was a possibility that his father had realized something was wrong after his departure and would send reinforcements, the marquis's son was willing to do whatever it took to stay alive, and, if possible, in one piece.
"Well, you still have something we're interested in, namely information..." , Lucy told the marquis's son as she cleared a path, stopping about a meter away from him. "Tell me, what does your father plan to do with the lionkin women and children whose capture he ordered?" she continued, her piercing gaze reminding him of the caged beasts his father kept, uncertain where to sink their fangs when offered live prey.
"If I tell you everything I know, can you guarantee I won't be hit anymore?" the marquis's son attempted to strike a deal with Lucy, his own safety far more important to him than protecting his father's secrets. He didn't feel too guilty about betraying his father, reasoning that if he were fitted with a slave collar, he would be forced to reveal everything anyway. As for why he wasn't already wearing one, he believed the young women were just using the interrogation as an excuse to torture him.
Besides, he figured that if he were rescued, his father would handle those who had learned his secrets. And if he wasn't saved, why should he care about his father's situation?
Unfortunately for him, Lucy was just as interested in obtaining information as she was in helping Rina get her revenge, so she couldn't envision a future where the Marquis' son didn't end up beaten to a pulp by the end of the interrogation.
"That's not possible. But there's a difference between being beaten until you lose consciousness and being beaten for days on end, don't you think?", Lucy refused, making her intentions clear. After all, if the marquis's son refused to cooperate, wouldn't that just make things more interesting?
As he had realized from the fact that the wounds caused by the explosion healed very quickly that the three young women possessed excellent healing methods, he believed Lucy wasn't exaggerating when she said she could beat him for days if he refused to cooperate. Thinking it would be better for him if they did not beat him with a specific purpose, but only to punish him, since they would eventually get bored and stop, he decided not to refuse Lucy's questions.
"You're right…" the marquis's son replied without hesitation, afraid that Lucy might think he wasn't willing to cooperate and would start torturing him.
"Then answer my question!..", Lucy urged, her voice tinged with irritation, as she needed not his agreement, but only his information.
Understanding that Lucy cared about facts, not attitudes, the marquis's son immediately began to reveal what he knew of his father's plans.
"Yes... So, my father intends to create a large, powerful army of beastkin slaves who will be trained from childhood in a newly discovered dungeon, the existence of which has been kept secret to avoid falling under royal administration. The first race he targeted was the lionkins, as they are capable of obtaining classes with high destructive power and work well in teams. Well, the fact that they seemed easy to capture probably played a role in their selection too…"
Even though Lucy knew almost nothing about the political situation in the human kingdom, piecing together the marquis's son's response with what she had learned from Yara, it wasn't hard for her to figure out that Marquis Olsen was part of a conspiracy, most likely aimed at seizing power. Otherwise, why would he secretly be building an army? To defend the kingdom from the shadows?
"Wait a second! That's just what he planned to do with the children... Why did he order the capture of the lionkin women too?", Lucy asked, realizing the marquis's son's answer wasn't complete.
"That...", the marquis's son hesitated, fearing that Lucy wouldn't like what she was about to reveal and would then take out her anger on him.
However, seeing that Lucy had begun searching for a suitable spot to hit him in order to make him talk faster, he figured it was better to tell her everything he knew, at least to delay his suffering for a few moments.
"It's simpler to have your own source of lionkin children rather than searching for them in the forests. Besides, my father wants to create hybrids by having beastkin from different species breed because it's rumored they can obtain more special classes..."
To say Lucy was disgusted by what she heard would be an understatement. She was prepared to hear that the marquis intended to use the lionkin women as sex slaves, perhaps gifting them to nobles seeking novelty to build connections, or even starting a brothel. However, she hadn't expected him to use them as breeding machines. What was the difference between this treatment and the treatment of farm animals?
'But this plot feels a little familiar…', Lucy thought to herself, recalling that it wasn't the first time she had heard of someone dealing with hybrid creation.
"Tell me, does your father have a long white beard and carry a staff?", Lucy asked the marquis's son, her tone suddenly calmer than he expected; he wasn't sure if this was a good sign or the calm before the storm.
"...No. His level is quite high, so he doesn't look older than 30...", the marquis's son replied, without giving much thought to the meaning behind Lucy's question. He simply assumed Lucy might have confused his father with someone else.
Hearing his answer, Lucy sighed in relief, thankful that her fear hadn't come true.
'Good. I really didn't want to have been transported to a world created by some fanfiction-obsessed lunatic. For a moment, I thought I had run into a cheap copy of Saruman…'
Aware of her own habit of recreating scenes from the movies that had impressed her, Lucy had been worried at the thought of being in a world that catered to this tendency. Wouldn't it lose its charm if she didn't create the conditions herself to deliver some cool lines?
"Putting that aside, do you happen to know the location of this dungeon you mentioned?", Lucy intended to extract more information from the marquis' son related to the kidnapping of the lionkin, and the location where they were to be transported seemed to be the most important thing. Additionally, knowing the location of an unexplored dungeon might prove useful to her in the future.
"No, Lucas knows...", the marquis's son said, nodding toward the man with the Hunter class.
Since Yara had mentioned that the marquis's son had joined at the last minute with those who were supposed to meet the mercenaries to take possession of the captured lionkins, Lucy didn't find it strange that he wasn't aware of many things, so she believed he wasn't lying. But if that was the case, what else could she ask him? Maybe she could get him to describe the political situation in the human kingdom, but she could learn that from Yara too, who was a much more credible source and far more pleasant to talk to.
"...I think that's enough. For now, I don't want to hear anything else from you...", Lucy decided to move on to interrogating the marquis's subordinates, who were probably more knowledgeable about the details of the operation the marquis had set in motion.
But before turning her attention to them, Lucy shoved a healing potion into the marquis's son's mouth. While it couldn't regenerate his eye, it could fix his broken nose and close his other wounds.
Feeling the potion's effects, the marquis's son began to feel hopeful, thinking that Lucy wanted to reward him for answering her questions.
'Maybe she just exaggerated at first to scare me...', he thought to himself, assuming that Lucy didn't want to risk accidentally killing him or causing him to lose his mind from too much pain; being the son of a marquis, he was a valuable hostage for whom a huge ransom could be demanded. Plus, it was easy to forget, when looking at Lucy, who sometimes had very cute and innocent expressions, just how ruthless she could be.
Unfortunately for him, Lucy wasn't someone who worried too much about the consequences of her actions, nor was she the type to gain a better opinion of someone evil just because they cooperated; this wasn't a lawyer show where deals were made with criminals. So, as soon as she saw that his bleeding had stopped, she yanked him out of the tangle of black vines in which he was caught and tossed him over the pile of riches, landing him at Rina's feet.
"Rina, the potion I gave him should keep working for a few more minutes, so feel free to hit him to your heart's content at first...", Lucy said with enthusiasm, her tone resembling that of someone handing a well-wrapped gift to their beloved, eager to watch them unwrap it. Her words filled Rina with delight just as much as they filled the marquis' son with horror.