Yara found the contrast between the arrogant attitude the marquis' son usually displayed and the way he was speaking to her now amusing; it was as if he was genuinely concerned about her career.
'I think he doesn't know anything about the terms of the agreement between his father and me, otherwise he would have started worrying about my brother's health as well…', Yara thought to herself, almost seeing the marquis' son glaring at her with an accusatory look, saying, "How can you be such an irresponsible sister?"
"You should be more worried about yourself...", Yara told the marquis' son, not feeling the need to explain why she had switched sides. On the contrary, she enjoyed seeing him so unsettled, as the airs he had given himself during the journey, constantly ordering her around to do this or that, even though her only job was to guard him, had often irritated her to the point where she had to restrain herself from kicking him.
Yara was well aware that the reason the marquis' son pestered her more than anyone else was that he resented her for not paying any attention to his advances, which he made almost every time she returned from a trip with his father, during which she was tasked with providing security. This made her have even less patience with him, but since half of the period agreed upon with Marquis Olsen, during which she had to work for him in exchange for the antidote for her brother, had already passed, she worked hard to suppress her anger. Her only satisfaction was that the superficial attitude with which she treated him made the marquis' son just as, if not more, dissatisfied as she was.
As always, whenever he heard Yara respond apathetically, the marquis' son felt like throwing something at her. No matter how beautiful she turned out to be after revealing her face, it wasn't enough to diminish the hostility he had built up towards her. Used to being treated with respect and flattery by everyone, someone like Yara was, for him, a natural enemy.
However, the marquis' son would soon learn that he had been wrong about the food chain he belonged to; in reality, he had far bigger natural enemies than Yara. For example, Lucy and Rina, who, seeing the hostility in his gaze directed towards Yara, whom they had just acknowledged as their lover, decided to begin his interrogation immediately.
"Bang!!", Rina punched the marquis' son in the face, his nose almost having negative length for a few moments.
"Aaahggg!!", tears streamed from the marquis' son's eyes, their flow rivaling that of the blood pouring from his nostrils.
A few minutes earlier, when he had been affected by the explosion of the explosive papers that caused his magic necklace's defense to fail, he hadn't had time to experience any significant pain, as he had fainted instantly from the shock, and, when he woke up, he was almost healed. But now the situation was completely different. Since most of the force of the blow had been absorbed by his nose, sparing his brain from injury, and the healing potion he had consumed was still working, he remained conscious, the pain he felt at that moment being greater than anything he had experienced before.
"Nice job, Rina! You controlled the force of your punch perfectly..." Lucy praised Rina, very pleased with the state the marquis' son was in.
After letting him scream for about a minute, Lucy approached him with a black steel kunai in her hand, intending to make him understand the gravity of the situation.
With his vision almost obscured by tears, the marquis' son suddenly felt something sharp pressing against his right eye, the fright momentarily making him forget the pain. Realizing that even moving his head a few millimeters could cost him his eye, the marquis' son didn't dare breathe, let alone struggle or cry from the pain, which brought the silence back to the clearing where they stood.
"Do you think you're in a position to threaten anyone? Besides, the one you were glaring at with so much hatred is now my lover, and I won't tolerate anyone disrespecting her. So, if you want to keep your eye, learn to behave. Got it?", Lucy threatened the marquis' son, then moved the kunai an inch away from his eye, allowing him to respond.
"No, no...", the marquis' son began to whimper. Although he hadn't fully digested Lucy's words, he hurried to answer as quickly as possible, fearing that she might gouge out his eye if she saw him hesitate.
"So, you don't understand?", Lucy began to grow angry, seeing the marquis' son's lack of attention.
"No... Yes, I'll do whatever you say...", the marquis' son quickly corrected himself, genuinely intending to obey all their orders, as he was aware that if he tried to resist, he would have the most to lose.
"Alright then...", Lucy said, visibly more pleased, removing her kunai from the marquis' son's eye.
But the marquis' son didn't have more than two seconds to breathe a sigh of relief before Lucy stopped her withdrawing hand and added in a very malicious tone, "But that only applied to your other eye..."
In the next moment, he felt a searing pain in his right eye, which hadn't even caught sight of the attack that plunged it into total darkness.
"Ahhhh!!!!", the marquis' son started screaming in pain again, the terror he felt at that moment being visible in the remaining eye he still had.
Though losing an eye wasn't irreversible, as some high-level healers were capable of curing any type of wound, this didn't console the marquis' son at all, as the chances of him receiving such treatment in the near future, given that he was a hostage, were virtually non-existent. On top of that, he feared that if things continued at this rate, he would probably lose his life within an hour.
Seeing how Lucy and Rina had jumped in to beat up the marquis' son, who had not only disrespected her then but also many times in the past, made Yara feel warm inside. It wasn't as though no one had ever helped her get justice before, as in her childhood, due to her appearance, she had enjoyed the support of many. But there was a difference between someone who did it instinctively, like Lucy and Rina, and someone who did it just to win her favor.
However, thinking about the same possibility as the marquis' son, that he might lose his life at the hands of the two, Yara felt the need to intervene and point out something that neither of them seemed to care about.
"His storage ring is of very high quality, which makes the chances of accessing its contents after his death quite low. So, I think we should make him take out everything he has in it first. I'm not sure if it contains any clues about the marquis' plans, but I expect it has many valuable things inside..."
Since the marquis' son didn't seem very resilient, Lucy thought that Yara made sense, the chances of him dying, even if they were careful not to deal him a fatal blow, being significant.
Lucy didn't think it was likely that the marquis' son had anything in his possession that she needed, as the Ninja Shop had provided for all her necessities up to that point. But she was curious about the financial situation of a high-ranking noble's son and what kind of magical items existed in that world, so she didn't want to miss the chance to see the contents of the marquis' son's storage ring.
'Yara and Rina, who are natives of this world, will probably find many things useful. Plus, it never hurts to get rich with little effort...', Lucy continued to find reasons to begin the interrogation by making the marquis' son reveal everything he had on him.
But before Lucy could decide what method to use to make the marquis' son cooperate, one that would cause him as much pain as possible without endangering his life, gold coins, jewels, and all kinds of objects started raining down in front of him, as if an invisible piñata had burst above the place.
"You.., you can take everything. Just please, don't hurt me anymore..." the marquis' son said through sobs. He didn't see that the three young women in front of him wanted his possessions as an assurance that they would keep him alive, but only as a reason for them to make him suffer even more.
Lucy and the other two didn't know how to interpret the marquis' son's gesture, as it could be seen in two ways: either he was smart for realizing that if he resisted, he would only delay the inevitable, or he was showing a complete lack of character for giving up so quickly on something that guaranteed his life, merely out of fear of pain.
'It seems this interrogation will be much easier than I expected...', Lucy thought to herself, feeling a mix of joy and regret, because it no longer seemed necessary to make the marquis' son suffer for him to tell them everything he knew, thus saving time but losing the opportunity to punish him. 'But who says in an interrogation you first have to beat the person and only then get what you want from them? I think it works just as well the other way around...', Lucy found a way to have the best of both worlds.