There were several courses of action that he could take. The first one was, of course, the most straightforward course of action. He could just storm in and start interrogating the people running the show.
But the odds were high that that would alert the target of his mission before Rui actually reached him. First, he would be assuming that the people there were actually aware of the location of their ringleader. Second, even if they were aware, he needed to be careful of how he extracted the data from Faraday’s men. It was risky.
Even if he killed all of them after interrogating them, there was a high chance that Faraday would find out about the leak and would immediately scram, making Rui’s job even harder.
The probability that the target of his mission was waiting at this location was, of course, unlikely. Rui was relatively certain this was merely the location where the drugs were sold and distributed. The actual location where they were received and processed was likely not at this particular location, which was clearly just a commercial outpost.
(‘Barging in is risky.’) Rui noted. (‘I should nab a Martial Apprentice and interrogate him separately.’)
It didn’t take long for the masked Martial Apprentice to leave the flower shop. Rui waited for the right moment.
WHOOSH
One moment the Martial Apprentice was simply walking minding his own business, and the next moment he was gone.𝑶𝔳𝑳xt.𝑪𝒪𝕞
A few random people who were near him turned, and glanced at the spot he was just at in confusion, before shrugging and going on about their day.
In a distant remote alley away from the commercial district, Rui dropped the man to the ground. Although Rui had moved extremely quickly, the Martial Apprentice had still struggled to break free from his grip while they were moving. Too bad that in front of him, even a grade ten martial Apprentice was no different from a child compared to a sports athlete.
The Martial Apprentice dashed away the second he was dropped to the ground, yet Rui simply tore off his Mind Mask.
“Freeze.” He said calmly.
The masked Martial Apprentice froze on the spot as if forcefully halted by a powerful force.
Fear was a powerful force.
The grand aura and force of a Martial Squire descended upon the area as the masked Martial Apprentice shivered in his spot.
He knew that Rui could kill him with the slightest exertion of effort.
“You,” Rui spoke in Kandrian. “You’re of the Lowminers, aren’t you?”
The Martial Apprentice stiffened as he realized what all this was about.
“I know you’re not sticking with the Lowminers out of sheer loyalty. Faraday Lowminer must be paying you heftily to earn your services. The question is whether whatever he’s giving you is worth your life.” Rui told him.
The Martial Apprentice didn’t reply, but he understood where Rui was going with this.
“I have an ability that can allow me to detect whether you’re lying or being honest,” Rui told him. “I can accurately determine what is true and what isn’t.”
In reality, it wasn’t that convenient. With Primordial Instinct, Rui could gauge emotion and intention in normal people to a certain degree. He could tell the difference between the sincere truth and a complete lie, but when things were a mix of both, he had no idea what was the truth and what wasn’t.
“You will answer my questions truthfully. If you lie, I will inflict horrific suffering on you. I won’t let you die. You will suffer at my hands and at the hands of the Kandrian martial Union until you spit out the truth. This doesn’t need to happen if you speak the truth. Is that clear?”
He nodded nervously.
“Alright then.” Rui calmly asked him. “Where is Faraday Lowminer?”
There was a moment of silence before the Martial Apprentice opened his mouth to answer Rui.
“He’s at our main base of operations, in an underground base that poses as a homeless shelter on the surface.”
Rui processed the information that the Martial Apprentice gave him as he carefully studied the man with Primordial Instinct.
(‘Sincere… Hm,’) Rui noted. “Where is this homeless shelter?”
“A little south of the commercial districts.” The man quickly ratted out.
(‘So it was even further south than we suspected, while he certainly did use the chaotic commercial districts as a way to distribute drugs without attracting much attention, I suppose it’s not feasible to have their main base in such a populated area.’) Rui realized.
“Give me an address, be as precise and accurate as you can,” Rui told him calmly.
He carefully eyed the man as the latter spat out an address, as well as some landmarks.
“You’re lying. Trying to throw me off?” Rui snorted.
“I’m telling the truth!” He exclaimed, repeating the address again, being more descriptive this time. Rui kept pushing him despite that.
SNAP
“AAARRRGH!” The Martial Apprentice cried out loud as Rui casually broke his arm with a single hand. “I’m not lying!”
“Hm…” Rui stared at him.
In actuality, Rui sensed a lot of desperate sincerity from the man, he just wanted to make sure there was absolutely no avenue for him to lie whatsoever.
“Last question,” Rui told him. “Do you remember the assassination of Bella Hier?”
His eyebrows scrunched in confusion, wondering why Rui randomly brought up something of that sort.
He nodded slowly, nervous.
“Do you remember the Martial Apprentice you fought?” Rui asked with an icy tone. “The one you attacked, fought, and separated from Bella Hier?”
More confusion, more nodding.
“That Martial Apprentice had been too weak to fight and protect his target back then, hadn’t he?” Rui said, looking at the sky, before turning back to him. “What do you think he would do to you if you were standing before him after all that time?”
More confusion followed until the Martial Apprentice had a scary realization.
He turned towards Rui in fear, but a jittery shiver flew down his spine.