At midnight, Leon and his daughters were brainstorming how to obtain intelligence in an abandoned wine cellar somewhere.

Leon rubbed his wrists, with faint traces of blood on his fists. "Torture won't work anymore. If they were going to state outright, they'd have disclosed after the first punch. If they haven't disclosed by now, nothing can make them open their mouths."

"Dad, can your punches be compared to that of a normal person?"

Aurora suddenly seemed to realize something. "No way, I must go to check if those two are dead or not."

Leon grabbed his youngest daughter. "Relax, I was careful enough to control my strength. I've done this kind of interrogation before, back when I was a soldier at war. Though I didn't do it often."

Noa raised an eyebrow. "Intelligence must be crucial in wars. If you rarely interrogated prisoners, where did you get your information ?"

Their father spread his hands. "We just steamrolled through everything. What intelligence would we possibly need?"

Noa showed the whites of her eyes speechlessly.

"…Well, simple and brutal. That matches the stereotype I have of you, Dad," Aurora sincerely concluded.

"But this time, steamrolling isn't an option anymore. We're outnumbered, with too many unknown variables. If we want to find the exact location of the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale, Nacho and his partner are the only way," Noa said.

Leon pondered for a moment before asking. "You know, your mother once used magic to probe captives' memories. Do you know how to do it?"

The three sisters looked at each other, and then shook their heads tacitly.

"Such a useful spell, and none of you have learned it?"

"Did you?"

"I didn't either. Haha—oh, damn!"

Noa elbowed her father sharply.

Ah, it brought back memories of flirting with that dragoness back in the day...

"So what to do now? Torture is useless, and none of us know the memory-probing magic. Can we just sit around and waste our time?"

Aurora said, "The Blade Trio went to the manor but didn't find Nacho. They’ll immediately notify the Empire to start a search. We're running out of time. We need to move fast."

Fast, yes, but at the moment, there seemed to be no way to make those two disclose intelligence.

After thinking for a moment, Leon suddenly spoke.

"Have you ever heard of… the 'prisoner's dilemma'?"

......

Leon opened the door of the storage room, where only Nacho was being held.

His hands and feet were bound tightly, rendering him immobile.

Upon seeing Leon, Nacho snorted disdainfully.

"You monster... Why couldn’t you just stay in that coffin? It has been twenty years—why did you come out now?"

By now, Nacho had regained his composure.

Whether Leon had risen from the dead or for whatever reason, it was clear that he had brought trouble to Nacho.

But Nacho hadn’t survived the past twenty years without learning a thing or two.

He looked at Leon and said slowly.

"Ah… well, regardless, I admit that I’ve fallen into your hands. However… even so, your situation is quite precarious, isn’t it?"

Leon stood in front of him, looking into his eyes, but remained silent.

"You kidnapped me in haste because you need information about the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale, so it's clearly important to you. Am I right? But you don’t have much time; otherwise, you wouldn’t risk provoking the royal family."

"If you can’t extract the information you want from me, then even if you kill me, your plan won’t progress, and you’ll have drawn the Empire’s attention."

"The Silver Dragon Clan has already been disbanded, Kasmodyn. You’ve got no backup. If you fail, your fate will be far worse than mine, am I right?"

Nacho’s twenty years in bureaucracy had taught him a thing or two about game theory.

If both parties hold their own chips, then there is no need to concede too quickly.

He smugly looked at Leon, as if showing off to this unkillable pest that he had the upper hand, at least for now.

"Hmm. You're right,"

Nacho was frozen, not expecting Leon would admit it so freely.

Nacho pressed his lips together, preparing to further analyze the situation and listing all of Leon’s disadvantages bare, piling pressure on him.

Nacho relished this kind of game—where others were desperate to strike him down but couldn’t.

That was when Leon pulled a dining knife out of his pocket.

Nacho’s confidence cracked, and he instinctively swallowed hard. "W-What are you doing...? You can’t kill me. You won't dare to do so. I’m a royal official, and I have the information you need. If you kill me, you’ll never find out where the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale is!"

"Besides, besides!—If you make a move, you won't get another chance to capture someone else who has this intelligence. The Empire is already on high alert, and any disturbance will only make it become more cautious."

"No matter how strong you are, you can’t hope to catch a royal official in the web that they’ve already fortified!"

Leon rubbed his temples in annoyance. "Have you finished talking?"

"......"

"Your deputy, Scott, had told me where the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale is just now. So......"

Leon shrugged as if in regret. "You’re useless to me now."

After saying that, Leon brandished the dining knife.

The blade gleamed coldly, reflecting brightly in Nacho’s eyes.

“No, no, it's impossible! Leon, you’re bluffing.”

Nacho suppressed his surging anger and fear. “Scott would never betray the Empire.”

“I can't tell whether he will betray the Empire or not. But ten minutes ago, he definitely betrayed you. My men have already knocked him out and sent him away. By the time he regains consciousness, we’ll be long gone. As for you…”

Leon tapped Nacho’s face with the flat of the knife. “Think about it: If you die, who’s going to take your place next?”

Those words struck Nacho like a match to dry tinder, igniting a raging firestorm of emotions.

He struggled violently, but was bound too securely to make any headway.

Leon, watching Nacho's reaction, laughed inwardly.

Indeed, he was hopelessly addicted to the intoxicating power that this position afforded him after climbing up to it.

His mentor's teachings was true—bureaucrats were all the same.

“Alright, settle down. The more you squirm, the sloppier my cut will be. If you suffer too much on your way of dying, I might feel bad later,” Leon said deliberately, wearing an expression that practically screamed insincerity.

As he spoke, the dining knife slowly approached Nacho’s carotid artery.

The blade barely grazed his skin, and blood began to seep out.

“Wait!” Nacho suddenly shouted.

“What?”

“Scott… What did Scott tell you?”

“That’s none of your business. By this time tomorrow, I’ll probably be walking out of the Empire with the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale in hand. Shame you won’t be around to see that.”

The knife continued to descent.

“Scott only knows the storage location! He doesn’t know the shift schedules and passcodes for the checkpoints!”

Driven by primal fear and searing anger, Nacho decided to trade intelligence to save both his life and his rank.

Nacho could face death—that didn’t scare him.

After all, he’d expected as much the moment he entered the world of power and politics.

What Nacho couldn’t bare was losing the wealth and authority he’d fought tooth and nail to amass, only for Scott to waltz in and take everything in his wake.

It's definitely unacceptable.

“Oh? You are betraying the Empire, aren't you? Aren’t you afraid that someone will find out later?” Leon asked casually.

“I’ll pin it all on Scott,” Nacho replied.

Hearing this, Leon lifted an eyebrow, readily inferring the deeper meaning behind Nacho’s words. “Right. Sometimes, a dead man is more useful than a living one—after all, corpses can’t speak.”

As a seasoned scapegoat and firm believer in the power of dead men’s silence, General Leon fully understood the sentiment.

Leon pulled out paper and pen from his pocket and tossed them to Nacho. “Write down everything you know about the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale. If it doesn’t match what Scott had told me, I’ll kill you both.”

Nacho, still bound, awkwardly grabbed the pen and began scribbling furiously.

So focused was Nacho that he didn’t notice Leon barely suppressing his gloating smirk.

Ten minutes later, Leon exited the storage room, just as Noa emerged from the adjacent one.

Father and daughter’s eyes met, and in each other’s faces, they saw the same look:

*Success!*

“Wow! It actually worked!” Muen exclaimed, her admiration for her father glowing unabashedly.

Even Aurora, who had never witnessed such a method of interrogation before, was thoroughly impressed. It was entirely a battle of words that nonetheless yielded solid intelligence.

“If you capture more than one prisoner of war, the prisoner’s dilemma is almost a surefire method for extracting information.”

Leon began to explain:

“When faced with the prisoner’s dilemma, Nacho and Scott had only two choices: keeping mutual silence or betraying the other.”

“But they couldn’t directly communicate.”

“So, whether they chose to protect their comrade with silence or safeguard their own interests through betrayal… who knows?”

“In either case, the advantage lies with us. With a little clever questioning, we could extract the information easily.”

Muen let out a long “Ohh,” marveling. "That’s amazing!"

She didn’t fully understand it, but she still found her father was undeniably incredible!

Leon and Noa cross-referenced the intelligence they’d obtained from both prisoners. Their descriptions of the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale’s location matched perfectly.

“What should we do with them?” Noa asked.

“Knock them out and leave them here for now as hostages.” Leon replied.

“Since we can’t predict future complications, having hostages as leverage is always handy. Even if the Empire abandons them and opts for all-out war, we’ll have plenty of time to dispose of these two.”

Noa nodded. “Got it. I’ll set up an illusion barrier here to make sure people of the Empire can’t find them.”

"Alright."

Leon lowered his gaze to the intelligence in his hand.

As long as he could obtain the Heart-Guarding Dragon Scale, he would be able to activate the reversal magic.

He had to go back.

He must go back.

"Roswitha..... Wait for me. You must... wait for me."