Chapter 509: Strange Circumstances
They dragged the two captured men behind a large rock. Skarner instinctively reached out to take the man from Specter. He figured that, despite his skills, Arthur was still only eighteen. He might have had some military training, but interrogation was a darker skill that he likely hadn't been exposed to.
To his surprise, Specter slapped his hand away with a look of disdain and handed the man back to its master.
"???" Skarner was completely bewildered. You clueless ghost, there's no way your master knows how to—
But in the next second, he watched as Arthur skillfully woke the man, restrained him, and asked coldly, "Do you speak the Kubfu language?"
Seeing the man tremble and nod, Arthur's lips curled into a demonic smile.
About five minutes later, Skarner was having an existential crisis as he watched Arthur calmly rub the sand off his hands and analyze the information they had just obtained.
"They're not the ones who captured the Seed." Arthur didn't use the name "Stitched Shadow Army" to avoid revealing his source of information, but the meaning was the same. These two men didn't know Dayna, nor did they know anything about a "Seed" or a "plan."
"Have you ever heard of the Silph Co.?" Arthur looked up and asked Skarner.
Skarner snapped back to reality. "Y-yes. It's a large corporation in the desert region. Their headquarters is in the Syndicate Alliance. They mainly deal in minerals and desert plant products. They're a big company."
The interrogation had revealed that these two were just ordinary employees of the Silph Co., sent here on orders to collect the resources in this territory. As for why they had received such an order, or how the company knew about the fall of the Phantom of the South, these low-level employees had no idea.
From their pathetic reactions, it was clear they were telling the truth.
"Sir, please, spare us! We're just working stiffs! We didn't kill that Kommo-o, I swear! The body was already here when we arrived. We were just following orders, gathering the stuff. We don't know anything else!"
Before Arthur had even gotten rough, the two had been on their knees, begging for mercy. Arthur had interrogated them separately, mixing up the questions and repeating them to test their consistency, confirming that they had no psychological defenses. They were just ordinary workers.
Of course, any worker daring enough to seek their fortune in the lawless desert had to have some grit, but they were a far cry from professional terrorists.
"What is going on? Is the Silph Co. also involved in this plan, or is this just a smokescreen?"
Skarner, the local, provided another clue. "The Syndicate Alliance, where Silph Co. is headquartered, isn't far from here. It's less than a hundred miles south."
Skarner's unspoken question was: Could the Seeds have already been transported to the Syndicate Alliance?
But Arthur felt that something was off. "Let's grab a few more people to question. Try to get someone higher up."
"Isn't that too dangerous?"
"From the looks of these two, it shouldn't be a problem."
From the workers' reactions, the camp's security was lax. They really did seem to be just here to scavenge. This confused Arthur even more. Who are these people? How can they be so careless?
Skarner stayed behind to guard the two prisoners, while Arthur went back to the camp alone. Specter and Mismagius, shrouded in the darkness, floated on either side of him, their forms eerie under the dim moonlight.
Watching him go, Skarner swallowed hard. And you have the nerve to call other people careless? You're the most careless one of all!
Arthur was gone for a while, and the camp remained quiet. The silence only terrified the two captured workers even more. They had seen him sneak into their camp, but the fact that there was no sound at all was the most horrifying part. It was as if a demon was silently wreaking havoc in the darkness.
A dozen minutes later, Arthur returned, unharmed, with another person in tow. The two workers' expressions turned to horror.
"The manager? They even got the manager!"
"Oh my god! The manager's tent is in the innermost part of the camp, surrounded by security!"
"He... he got him that easily? When I applied for the job, they told me Silph Co.'s security was one of the best private forces in the Ashen Desert! Damn it! They're all liars!"
Skarner looked at the two Silph Co. employees with the expression of a seasoned veteran. He had also heard of Silph Co.'s famed security. A few days ago, his reaction probably wouldn't have been much better than theirs. But now, he was used to it. He felt that nothing Arthur did could surprise him anymore.
The interrogation continued. Arthur's questioning techniques were so flawless that even Skarner, a military veteran, couldn't find a single flaw. He would use a cold tone and simple threats to quickly break down the opponent's mental defenses, then mix up the order of the questions, repeating previous ones and cross-examining, giving the opponent no time to think and fabricate lies.
By the end of it, the poor company manager was a broken man, having confessed to every shady thing he had ever done with his corporate authority. Fortunately, that wasn't what Arthur was after, or the man would probably have been ready to turn himself in.
After getting the information, Arthur's confusion only grew. According to the manager, the Silph Co. had bought the news of the Phantom of the South's fall from an information broker and had sent a team to check it out. They had arrived to find a treasure trove ripe for the picking and had gotten greedy, planning to take everything back with them.
Arthur had also verified that the manager was likely not lying. So, was this all just a massive coincidence? Had the Silph Co. really just stumbled upon a fortune? But why would the Stitched Shadow Army kill a dragon and then not stay to collect the spoils? Did they really have a reason to retreat so quickly?
As Arthur and Skarner were both pondering this, the sky suddenly began to brighten. "Is it morning?" Skarner looked up.
But Arthur's sense of time was sharper. "Impossible. It hasn't been more than an hour since we started."
He checked the manager's Rolex. Sure enough, it was only a little after three in the morning. No matter how early the sun rose in the desert, it couldn't be this early.
Suddenly, Celebi, no longer caring about staying hidden, popped out and shouted, "Oh no! Oh no! Groudon is here!!"
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