Player-Hunting Inquisitors

Chapter 19

I was already waiting at the location Yuria had informed me about.

Beside me, Natasha was also waiting for the Player, while Riel was assigned to another investigation and would not participate in this interrogation.

'According to Yuria, the Player should be showing up about now.'

The academy at night was desolate.

Coincidentally, it was the night of the new moon, making it darker than usual.

The light from the streetlamps, spaced at regular intervals, was not enough to push back the darkness.

In the darkness, the sound of the Player's footsteps echoed.

Unexpectedly, the Player's steps were light.

Yuria approached her and spoke.

"Welcome."

"This letter, you sent it, right?"

The letter the Player unfolded was typed by Yuria.

It was typed on a special typewriter provided by the Cult, modeled after machines from the Players' world.

Because of this, the Player was completely fooled.

As I looked at the Player's face, I felt a sense of déjà vu.

'Come to think of it, I've seen that face somewhere before... Ah! That time with the mirror!'

It was the female student who handed a mirror to an injured person when I went to mediate a fight.

'To think that female student was the Player. How troublesome.'

Her ability was presumed to be related to the mind, but the exact mechanism was still unknown.

Therefore, a cautious approach was necessary.

If Yuria failed to subdue her, we would reveal ourselves.

"Oh, really? You've had it tough, huh?"

"Yes, I struggled to hammer noble etiquette into my body. At that time, I even thought about just boosting my stats to get through it."

Yuria was thoroughly pretending to be a Player to lower the Player's guard.

"Were your eyes always like that?"

"No? They stopped working after I came to this world. The Status Window only has a voice recognition function."

"Wow, that must have been really hard."

Although her guard was already quite lowered, caution was still necessary when dealing with the Player.

'Her name is Rina. No surname. Her name in that world was Seo Ji-eun.'

While eavesdropping on Yuria and the Player's conversation, I organized the Player's information.

"Did you tell anyone you were going out? If so, we can arrange another meeting."

"No, I didn't tell anyone. I just don't feel attached to the people of this world. It feels like dealing with NPCs."

"Haha, I see."

The two continued their conversation as they slowly walked, eventually reaching a secluded spot with no one around.

'It's almost time.'

"Then, shall we get to the main point here?"

"Huh? The main point? Can't we talk a bit more?"

"Oh, you'll have plenty of time to talk."

Yuria lightly tapped the ground with the staff she was holding.

Tap-, Tap-

As Yuria twisted the handle of her staff, a blade popped out from its end.

Slash-!

Before the Player could react, Yuria's blade pierced the Player's shoulder.

"Oh, your reaction speed is impressive."

"Damn it, what are you doing all of a sudden!"

However, the Player did not collapse immediately.

She reacted quickly, preventing Yuria's blade from sinking deeply.

Grasping her shoulder and retreating, the Player prepared to counterattack.

"Tsk, I guess I let my guard down because we're from the same region."

Although the Player was unarmed, Yuria did not recklessly charge forward.

She was waiting for the Player to reveal her hidden abilities.

The opponent also assumed a combat stance, staring at Yuria.

Her eyes began to glow, and patterns appeared in her pupils.

"You can't escape from this ability anyway!"

She muttered softly as she gazed at Yuria.

"You, you won't be able to move until I allow it."

A brief silence followed.

The Player moved slightly, observing Yuria's reaction, but Yuria remained still.

The Player stared at Yuria for a moment, then burst into laughter.

"Haha! This ability really is the best. Even a pretty woman like you can't do anything with just one word from me!"

The Player slowly approached Yuria.

However, Natasha and I continued to observe the situation.

'If the ability truly worked, we might need to call Riel. If not...'

The Player, savoring her supposed victory, reached out to touch Yuria's face.

"Haha, such a beautiful face. Why didn't the Goddess reincarnate me as someone like you? This is the first time I've felt resentment."

Suddenly, as if struck by a good idea, the Player pulled a shard of a mirror from her pocket.

"Haha, yes. I've always wanted to break someone as pretty as you at least once!"

Laughing maniacally, the Player held the shard in one hand and brought it close to Yuria's face.

"Let's see, shall I take off the eye patch? Let's see if your bare face is just as pretty~."

Just as the shard was about to touch Yuria's face, something unexpected happened.

"Oh my, I've never seen it, but my face must be quite pretty."

"Aaaah!"

Slash!

Yuria's blade pierced the Player's stomach in an instant, catching her completely off guard.

Unlike before, the Player couldn't react at all and collapsed to the ground, bleeding.

Thud-!

Pressing her shoe against the Player's head, Yuria called for Natasha and me.

"Saint, please heal her. Just keep her alive."

"Got it."

Natasha pulled out a rope to tie up the Player, and I healed her just enough to make her look okay on the surface.

"My... my ability... doesn't work?"

The Player, regaining consciousness, looked unable to accept her defeat.

I shared my analysis of her ability with my companions.

"A shard of a mirror. As expected, the condition for her ability was making eye contact."

"That must be why she was always near the scene of the incidents. She tried to hide it by using a mirror, but that wasn't enough to escape our family's information network."

In a way, she was a terrible match for Yuria.

Because Yuria couldn't see with her eyes.

"Wouldn't her ability have been less noticeable when used normally?"

"Yes, the appearance of her eyes probably changes with the intensity of the brainwashing. She must have used it weakly most of the time, so it wouldn't have stood out."

The Player, now stuffed into a sack, had only her hair sticking out.

"Oh my, this might get noticed."

Yuria grabbed the Player's hair and dragged her across the ground toward the interrogation site we had prepared.

At some point, Natasha had gagged her, and the sound of something being dragged echoed through the night at the academy.

We headed to the back of the academy's church.

"From here, I'll take over."

Using the position of the trees and the church's patterns as references, I stood in a specific spot.

From that spot, I channeled Divine Power and struck the ground, revealing a hidden door as the earth split apart.

"This is an interrogation room created by a former Pope several generations ago within the academy. It's my first time seeing it in person."

Only Divine Power infused with Blessing can serve as the key to open this door.

Therefore, even the highly skilled people of the academy couldn't find this place.

"Hmm, I came here a long time ago. Hang them here, and after the interrogation, just throw them into that hole."

Natasha looked around the interior and skillfully prepared for the interrogation.

Yuria followed Natasha's instructions and hung the Player from the ceiling.

The Player, having been dragged here across the ground, was unconscious.

"Oh, and water comes out here too. It's cold, so don't drink it—just use it for splashing. I'll go check if there are any traces left."

I scooped up a bucket of water and splashed it on the Player's face.

"Please save me... No, please, save me."

The Player, regaining consciousness, gave up resisting and began pleading for their life.

"Well, my mother also said the same thing to the Players. And the result... you know it too, don't you?"

But to Yuria, the Player was merely a target for revenge.

There was no reason to show mercy.

"Th-that's... not something I did... I'm different..."

"Different? You're all the same. Who was the one who brought shards of glass to my face, fooled by your acting?"

Yuria pulled out a blade from her staff and slowly approached the Player.

"Player—or should I call you Rina? Rina, I'll just return the favor for what you tried to do to me. Try to endure it."

"No! Don't come near me! Please!"

Ignoring the Player's pleas, Yuria's blade moved toward the Player's face.

The Player thrashed violently, struggling in resistance.

"Stay still. Otherwise, you'll poke your eye out. I'm saving your eyes for the finale, you know?"

"Please... spare me..."

Yuria's blade finally touched the Player's face, and the Player's screams filled the interrogation room.

"Saint, heal her."

"Alright."

The Player, who had screamed several times before losing consciousness, was revived with Divine Power.

"Now, let's begin the proper interrogation. If you answer honestly, I won't kill you for now. Let's work well together, okay?"

In truth, among us, the person most ruthless to the Player was Yuria.

She had witnessed her mother being killed by a Player right before her eyes when she was a child.

Because of that, she burned with a desire for revenge and threw herself into the path of the Inquisitor.

When faced with Players, she often conducted excessively harsh interrogations.

"We don't need to leave a corpse, right? We'll deal with it through repatriation anyway."

"Yeah. Do it moderately. We need to extract all the information before that one breaks."

"Don't worry."

Most of the corpses Yuria interrogated were unrecognizable in form.

This Player would likely meet the same fate.

"Now, tell me slowly, in chronological order, what you did as Rina."

"I... through a quest... gathered magic materials... completed a potion and drank it... and gained this ability..."

Completely consumed by fear, the Player obediently provided the answers Yuria wanted.

"And then?"

"They told me to try this ability in the village... so I started fights... secretly picked pockets... and saved up for tuition."

The Player slowly unraveled the quests they had experienced.

"Wasn't there an adult to stop you?"

"Do you know how awkward it is when someone you've never met suddenly claims to be your parent? So, I ran away."

I checked her physical condition and recorded the content of the interrogation.

"At the academy, did you not meet any companions other than me?"

"No. For some reason, things just seemed to go well, but that's all."

It seemed the interrogation was nearing its end, and the Player began trembling in fear again.

"Alright, Rina. Now it's time to ask about Seo Ji-eun's life."

"Wait, why that?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? To catch Players like you, we need information. How do you think I learned Hangul?"

However, the interrogation directed at her was not yet over.

She needed to spill information about the world she originally lived in.

The Player met her end around the time the sun was about to rise.

Her body, mangled, was burned.

And in the academy dormitory, a letter was found stating that a student had withdrawn due to family circumstances.

Since she was always alone, no one took an interest in her.