The second floor of Lichtenstein Castle.
As night fell, the corridor seemed to blend into the darkness, the only illumination cast by a row of antique chandeliers suspended overhead.
Outside the windows, where a dim mist clung to the panes on either side of the hallway, the castle's trees and distant cliffs seemed to have faded entirely from view.
Down on the first floor, the young master from the Canberra Kingdom's merchant guild, along with the guard siblings and the returned Frey, were busy preparing to host the count.
Yet before the arrival of the Blood Clan's Count Palocas, the others had another vital matter to attend to—
Namely, redeeming the captured priestess of the Resurrection Church to extract full intelligence regarding this Shadow World from her.
Lanqi maintained that he was unsuited for the work of interrogation. He was tenderhearted by nature, after all, and could not bear to see others suffer.
Meanwhile, though the three members of the clergy had spent years battling cultists, none of them had ever actually conducted an interrogation either.
Under normal circumstances, simply defeating those bizarre and unpredictable cultists was difficult enough, to say nothing of capturing them alive.
Even if they did take a captive, these clerics were strictly forbidden from interrogating cultists on their own. Past precedents had shown that becoming too deeply entangled in dialogue with cultists could inadvertently cause clerics to fall from grace themselves.
However, thanks to the professional legal guidance provided by Mr. Lawyer, any cultist captured within a Shadow World could be subjected to whatever form of questioning they deemed fit, provided their personal safety was assured!
Thus, to remedy the three clerics' vocational shortcomings, Lanqi had even brought in an expert to instruct them.
...
Outside Bedroom 202, where the captive priestess of the Resurrection Church was being held.
"Mr. Executioner will handle the torture, Mr. Priest will handle the healing, and Mr. Paladin will handle the repentance. Don't ask her anything. Just gag her mouth and use her to practice your techniques for an hour first. No matter what she tries to say, do not stop the punishment. I will question her personally once that's done."
A young woman's voice rang out crisp and bright in the corridor. Her gray hair gleamed beneath the faint lamplight like the brightest stars in the night sky.
The Poet of Great Love stood at the center of the hall, with an ancient mural behind her that seemed to depict some ancient, mysterious tale.
"W-Why must we interrogate her this way?" the three clerics asked in bewildered distress.
Inflicting punishment without asking questions—wasn't that pure torture?
Although the Poet of Great Love was a demonic summon, she was a training instructor appointed by Mr. Lawyer, so she was surely an expert.
Even if the Poet of Great Love were not a summon but a true demon, the clergy of the Church of the Goddess of Fate would treat her without prejudice. After all, the demon race had produced priests in the past.
"Don't underestimate the elite followers of the Resurrection Church. She has undoubtedly undergone professional counter-interrogation training. When dealing with such prisoners, ordinary questioning requires a drawn-out process before they're willing to confess."
The Poet of Great Love gave a light sigh, casually perching herself on a nearby windowsill to lecture the three clerics. Like a goddess stepping out of a painting, she was poised and dignified, radiating a charm that made it impossible to tell whether she was an angel or a devil.
"I refer to this prolonged phase as 'the prisoner's modesty.'"
"Therefore, since the prisoner will inevitably stay stubborn for a period anyway, it doesn't matter if we gag her mouth first."
"Alternating between questioning and torturing is an inefficient method of interrogation. It only leads the prisoner to believe they still hold bargaining chips and have room to negotiate."
"As the interrogating party, we must make the prisoner understand one fundamental truth: intelligence doesn't actually matter. Whether she speaks or not is up to her, but the severe punishment will be delivered regardless. Before us, she possesses neither dignity nor value!"
"And you must remember one thing: what a first-rate interrogator truly needs to instill in a prisoner isn't pain, but fear..."
"..."
Listening to the Poet of Great Love's lecture, the three clerics exchanged glances full of inner conflict and worry.
"B-But, Miss Lanfu... is this really something we of the clergy should be doing?" the priest couldn't help asking after hearing her instruction.
While they could understand the Poet of Great Love's teachings and even found them quite reasonable, they were still clerics belonging to a lawful good church. They worried that learning such taboo interrogation theories would violate their doctrine.
The more they listened to her voice, the more noticeably their hearts wavered, and the more they feared straying down the wrong path.
"The gods are inherently cruel. Unable to directly interfere with the mortal realm, they use one person's hand to slaughter another."
Seeing the bewildered expressions of the three clerics, the Poet of Great Love's lips curled into a gentle smile, and she murmured in an exceedingly tender tone,
"The gods must surely love doing this; they do it all the time. Aren't we made in the very image of the gods?"
Her whispers were laden with temptation, coiling endlessly around the three clerics' ears like an unbreakable spell.
"Cruelty and torture are best understood as forms of love, for you cannot control whom you fall in love with... Therefore, none of this is your fault. Everything is done merely to carry out your faith—nothing more."
"So that's how it is... This is love..."
The three clerics murmured, their eyes growing unfocused as if they had suddenly comprehended all things.
They began to emerge from their confusion, replaced by a faith that burned with renewed fanaticism!
...
A short distance down the corridor, Lanqi and Hyperion were watching from the sidelines.
"Lanqi... are you sure this is fine?!"
Hyperion felt her heart practically leaping out of her chest. What Lanqi was doing right now was practically cultivating a colossal disaster!
"Providing professional, reliable vocational training services to members of the clergy is also a way of accumulating good karma. You can rest assured regarding the quality of instruction."
After auditing the Poet of Great Love's open seminar for a moment, Lanqi gestured that the two of them could leave.
The Poet of Great Love always exhibited inexplicable talents that even Talia never possessed. Or rather, aside from sharing Talia's appearance and race, she was completely different in every other way.
One could only speculate that the wondrous material [Hymn of Compassion] had bestowed too many bizarre traits upon her.
"..."
As they walked, Hyperion still couldn't resist looking back a couple of times at the Poet of Great Love instructing the three clerics.
This Shadow World was nominally called "Banquet of Sanctuary Villains," but in reality, it was "Purgatory Corridor Academy II"—complete with five full days of intensive training under the Headmaster.
All Hyperion prayed for now was that when winter break arrived and she traveled in disguise with Lanqi to the Northern Continent in search of the Bishop of Annihilation, Askesan, they would never run into these three clerics there.
She could already picture the three of them waving the Selected Works of Lanqi, belting out "The Internationale," and proclaiming that only by ruthlessly striking down evil cults could the Northern Continent ever be saved.
Chapter 144