"Halt!"

Two elven guardsmen stopped Lucius' carriage. They were guarding the gates to an Enrivier city called Ellan.

This city was the nearest elven city to Heimer's still unnamed outpost settlement.

"State your business!"

One of them exclaimed.

One of Lucius' guardians was about to answer when the carriage door opened, and a figure emerged.

"I'll take it from here."

It was Elizabeth.

"P-princess?!"

The two guardsmen were shocked.

"We meet again."

Elizabeth calmly addressed.

After greeting the guardsmen and passing through the front gates of the elven city, Elizabeth finally knew why Lucius brought her here.

"I knew I could count on you, Elizabeth."

"Yeah yeah, now quickly finish your business so we can go with our date."

The reason why the guardsmen knew that she was the Empress' daughter was because she had already visited the city back when her mother was returning back home.

She did so by joining her mother and her half-siblings on their journey back home.

Unfortunately, back then she couldn't go all the way to the capital. This was because she wanted to spend more time with her husband. Not to mention, her research on finding a way to prevent her father of dying from old age also took priority.

Still, she at least wanted to visit her mother and half-siblings' home at least once in the future. And she also wanted to enjoy at least a tiny bit of break from all of her research.

Thus, she spent some time in the city of Ellan with her mother and half-siblings.

Although it was a short period of time, she still familiarized herself with the people of the city knowing that whenever she visits her mother, she would pass through the city.

****

Darkness surrounded a certain room, with only a single measly little candle as the only lightsource.

This room was underground, situated under the barracks of the city of Ellan.

It was in fact, one of the many rooms located there.

As some might have guessed, this was a prison.

An oddly located prison, but a prison nonetheless.

Although rarely occupied by prisoners, today was a special day.

Today's entrants numbered in the tens of thousands. The status of those entrants were quite ambiguous.

One could consider them as prisoners, while another could consider them as possible allies.

The entrants were in fact Edmund De Corvus and his men.

Nobody knew why they surrendered and defected. But everyone knew that there was a motive behind it.

Today, the prison cells were overcrowded with them.

The prison cells were overcrowded to the extent that it was hard to breathe properly.

Luckily for them, the doors to the aboveground were opened to ensure proper airflow, preventing them from asphyxiation.

An elven soldier entered the prison and quickly brought with him one of the prisoners outside.

The soldier then brought the handcuffed prisoner into an interrogation room. Afterwards, the soldier left and shut the door tightly, locking it in case the prisoner tried to escape.

With only 2 chairs and a single table as furniture, the room was unsurprisingly dull.

The prisoner waited in there for a couple hours, yet no one else came into the room.

Bored and tired, the prisoner dozed off.

****

*BANG*

"?!?"

The prisoner woke up to a sudden banging noise that came from the table he laid his head on, not knowing how long he had slept.

And due to the shock, his heart felt as if it was going to pop out.

Still drowsy, the prisoner looked towards the person who woke him up.

The person wasn't an elf, yet his face was as handsome as an elf.

His semi-long white hair, pale white skin, and deep red eyes was also unlike that of a human.

It was as if the person in front of him was a vampire.

Then, the white-haired and red-eyed person calmly spoke.

"Are you Edmund De Corvus?"

"Yes, that's my name."

"Is it true that you're the greatest war strategist in Zurg?"

"Yes, that is what people call me."

"Is it also true that you're the youngest ever person to reach that status?"

"Yes, it's because I'm a genius."

Something was odd. Usually, Edmund wouldn't have been this straightforward with his words.

He would usually take control over a conversation, but this time, he wasn't abke to do so.

He also felt that his drowsiness was strangely getting stronger. However, no matter how sleepy he got, his mind felt strangely awake.

Why?

The answer was simply, drugs.

Prior to waking up, Lucius had injected him with a special concoction which would put him under a state that makes him answer things as truthfully as possible.

In other words, he was drugged with a truth serum.

The truth serum was a combination of multiple famous sedatives, hypnotics, and painkillers.

Substances such as scopolamine, thiopenthal, and even methamphetamine, among many other substances, were mixed into the serum.

Though creating the serum was a bit tough, a simple chemistry equipments coupled with the synthesizer could do the trick as long as the person making them knew of the recipe.

This was exactly what Lucius had done just a few hours before he met up with Edmund, evidently the cause of Edmund's long wait in the interrogation room.

The substances which were too complex to make were made in the synthesizer back in Heimer, while the final mixing was done in Ellan using the simple chemistry equipments.

Now, why didn't he just mix the serum all using the synthesizer?

'Mixing chemicals is so much fun.'

That's what he had in mind before, during, and after the serum's creation. Even now, he still had that thought.

Continuing the interrogation, Lucius' questions became more and more personal to test out the scope of his serum.

"How old are you?"

"I'm 19 years old."

"Based on what I've heard, you're a war strategist. What made you become a war strategist?"

"Because everything else was boring."

"Okay, so what made you surrender?"

"Because I wanted to get revenge on the Emperor, and he was forcing me to die in enemy territory."

"But just why did he do that?"

"Because he has an irrational hate towards me and my family."

"What is the source of that hatred?"

"I don't know."

"So then why are you working for that son of a bitch?"

"I worked for the previous Emperor, his father. The new Emperor only took over the throne a year ago."

"So are you claiming that you're enemies with Zurg?"

"N-n-n-no, I'm only enemies with the new Emperor."

'Gotcha!'

Although the serum was quite strong, the last question proved to be the toughest one to answer.

This meant that Edmund's determination to not answer that question truthfully was strong enough to make him resist for a bit, ultimately causing him to stutter.

But this was enough for Lucius to know that Edmund was only doing this for his own gain.

'I need to force him to be under me. Based on what I heard, he's a perfect candidate to further improve Heimer's military.'

'But he didn't surrender because he was enemies with Zurg, this means that he can betray me at any time if I were to make him my underling.'

'Let's ask him while the serum still lasts.'

"If you were to be enemies with Zurg forever, hypothetically speaking, would you do it?"

"A-although I'm only enemies with the Emperor, I have no problem with being Zurg's enemy."

"Do your men agree with you?"

"They might not agree with me fully, but they will be loyal to me forever."

"Great, from now on, you're my slave. Do you agree with that?"

"N-no, I don't want to be your slave."

"Do you know who I am?"

"No, I don't know who you are."

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Lucius Von Heimer, the King of Heimer."