"What is your relationship with the Void System?"
If I said I hadn’t considered the possibility of being discovered, I would be lying.
Yes, I thought about it when I escaped. I knew someone would eventually connect the dots and uncover me. I assumed it would be people from the Void System... but that wasn’t the real problem.
I thought I would have enough time to carry out my plans, at least a few months.
Yet not even a week had passed since I arrived here... only a few days, and I was already being interrogated.
My mind raced as I retraced every step I had taken since I recovered my memories.
Where did I make a mistake? I erased the laboratory and every record of myself there... was it the red eye and the identity?
But even if the identity was forged, that didn’t link me to the Void System.
I sank into thought... then, in the next moment, I realized it.
I had been silent for too long.
Fortunately, I managed to maintain my expression without much change.
I quickly tried to recover and deny everything.
I smiled like an ignorant person."The Void System? What’s that... a company or some kind of organization?"
The only response I received was her eyebrow lifting slightly in silence.
The only thing I was certain of was that alicia astra nova was not one of them.
She finally spoke, and I wished she hadn’t."So you’re trying to deny it."
From her words, she seemed one hundred percent certain that I was one of them.
Damn it.
There were some people from the Void System in the academy, but out of all of them... you came to me?
"I’ll ask again... what is your relationship with the Void System?"
With those words, everything around me changed... I felt an overwhelming pressure crushing down on me, my body trembling violently as my breath escaped without my control.
I clenched my teeth and resisted the intimidation."Vice Director... I don’t think you have the right to treat students like this... based on suspicions I don’t even understand."
It wasn’t as if telling her that I was just a pitiful experiment would solve anything.
I never once thought that anyone would sympathize with me. The moment I gave her even the slightest proof, I would probably find myself in an underground cell again.
Just the thought made an immeasurable anger surge within me.
"You don’t understand?" she murmured calmly.
Her tone shifted, becoming serious."Caius Astroweild... what is your relationship with the Devourer’s Cult?"
She had changed the wording of the question, and she was still pressing down on me with her power.
"Believe me... I have no connection to any of those strange cults... so I hope you stop these reckless actions."
I planned to deny everything until the very end.
The pressure vanished, and I felt relief once more.
I gasped for air."So you finally believe me."
I thought she might be done interrogating me, but her next words shattered my hopes.
"You don’t understand. From the moment I saw you, my intuition warned me about you... and believe me, my intuition never fails."
Damn that intuition of yours.
If it was really that accurate, was this the reason why members of the Void System were so few within the academy?
Did this woman catch most of them... and now I would be the next victim?
Why... why does this cursed world treat me like this?
No matter how much I think or plan, there is always an obstacle in the end...
Especially this time, things seemed to be slipping far beyond my control.
Her voice filled the room once again."Since you insist on denying it so stubbornly, I have a solution to prove that you’re telling the truth."
In the next moment, without even realizing when it happened, I saw a small gray sphere floating in front of me, covered with countless engraved patterns.
alicia pointed at it."Hold it in your hands."
I didn’t move... I wasn’t insane enough to obey her orders without hesitation.
"What is this?" I asked.
"An artifact... called the Honest Promise. When you hold it in your hands, you can only speak the truth."
My body turned cold, as if the blood had stopped flowing through my veins.
She was this determined—so much so that she had brought a specialized artifact just for this.
I tried to think of a way out, but no matter how much I strained my mind, there was no way to escape this woman.
After all... she was a King.
Right now, I was like an ant standing before a giant.
"Hold it," she ordered again.
I didn’t. Instead, I looked at her as calmly as possible and spoke.
"What if I refuse?" I asked.
"I’ll take you to a mental specialist for interrogation," she replied in the same calm tone as always.
She would take me for interrogation without hesitation.
The problem wasn’t the interrogation methods of torture and pain... I almost wished it were. I could endure that, no matter how severe.
But this was different.
They would bring someone capable of entering my mind and seeing all my memories... everything, even my previous life would be exposed.
I clenched my teeth so hard that I heard a cracking sound from my mouth.
alicia raised an eyebrow."You seem very tense... perhaps I should help you make your decision."
With those words, my hands moved on their own, and I grasped the artifact.
The moment my fingers wrapped around it, the symbols on its surface lit up, and I felt a strange sensation, as if something was creeping into my mind.
I tried to let go, but my hand refused to obey me. Even the essence within my body refused to move according to my will.
I felt helpless.
I had been cornered with no escape.
It felt as if my head had been placed on the guillotine, waiting for the execution to be carried out.
And it was.
alicia asked the question once more, but this time, I couldn’t lie.
"Caius Astroweild, what is your relationship with the Void System?"
I didn’t want to speak... I tried to remain silent.
But it was useless. My mouth opened, and my tongue spoke the words one after another, against my will.
All I felt was helplessness... absolute helplessness.
"I was an experiment."