Asta had trouble coming to his senses. After suddenly being grabbed from behind, he tried to break loose and fight, but the drugs in his system were making him extremely drowsy., losing his grip on reality. Opening his eyes to a dark room, he felt his wrist being lifted in cold iron chains.
Trying to use his mana, nothing moved inside his core. Even moving his finger to form runes, nothing was activated. Letting his rational brain activate, he started to think on how he would possibly escape.
Taking a closer look at his wrists, the chains held dozens of runes unknown to him, but they were the most likely cause of him being incapable of using magic.
As he tried to think of a way out, he suddenly heard the sound of a cane followed by very silent footsteps. As the sound of the cane became louder and louder, Asta started to feel sweat form on his forehead.
Seeing an older demon come into view with a single candle to light up the room, he looked like a gentle old man. "Hello there. This is the first day. My goal is to make you use your Demonic Powers. It's the only thing that can get you out of this place."
"Hmph, you think I can't use my powers? What's the point of chaining me here?"
"People with certain interest want you to awaken. It is my goal in life to make that happen," the man bowed slightly. "The moment you use your powers is the moment I let you free."
As the man slowly trod closer to Astaroph, he stood in front of him with his cane. "Will you use your powers?"
Asta didn't bother answering. In response, the old man grabbed his hand and ripped out one of his nails.
The sudden pain was immense, but he was used to pain. He wouldn't be brought down by something of this magnitude.
The blood started to drip to the ground, making the man pause for a moment, "Please don't worry about your life. This room is designed to keep you alive. You will loose a lot of blood though, and pain will be the only thing you experience as long as you don't use your powers."
Satisfied with his own explanation, he grabbed the next finger before pulling the nail out. Sadly, he grabbed it incorrectly, only pulling around half of it out.
Asta felt his hand get increasingly hot as he started to sweat from the pain. Finger after finger, nail after nail. Once his fingers were up, his toes were next. The man was slow, but methodical. He got better and better at pulling out the nails.
Once they were all out, Asta needed to take a moment to catch his breath. The old man walked to the side of the room before activating an array. Suddenly, all his nails had regrown, but his stamina and the lingering pain hadn't gone away.
"Like I said, you need not fear for your life."
As the man walked back, he pushed a small trolley with a few tools on it. One of them was a small grater meant to use for something like cheese. Bringing it close to his legs, he started to grate his skin off. Asta couldn't hold back his screams of pain, but it gave the man little to no pause.
The grating continued, with each struggle and hitch, the man continued without changing his expression in the slightest. Once his legs were fully grated, a pool of blood had formed underneath him. The man didn't bother asking any questions or pausing his work as he brought the grater to his stomach next.
An hour or two had passed, Asta was barely recognizable as his body was covered in blood. The old man's hand were dyed crimson as he slowly walked to the side of the room before activating an array, healing all his wounds in an instant, but not relieving any of the pain.
"I will stop here today. We have started late, so I will give you some time to sleep. Tomorrow morning, we will continue."
Asta barely held strong as he couldn't help but smile slightly, "Heh, it's useless."
The man stopped in his tracks as he turned around.
"Lucas will find me soon enough, and then you'll be dead."
"I'm afraid that won't happen, good sir. Goodnight," blowing out the candles that lit up the room, he turned the room pitch black. With those departing words, the old man left, leaving Asta completely alone.
His thoughts were blurred, unclear and in chaos. Plans and tricks to escape from this cell had turned to mush as he barely kept his mind free from the pain.
He truly did want to go to sleep, but he just couldn't. If he wasted his time here, he would just have to endure day after day. It wasn't an option, but sleep took him before he had the time to argue.
Or he at least thought he would sleep, as he was suddenly surrounded by his siblings. Standing in place, Asta couldn't move as he saw his siblings being killed in front of him by monsters of unknown origin. Even Cecilia was being tortured before being ripped apart in front of him. The scenes seemed to repeat themselves. Asta couldn't keep his thoughts straight.
"This is an illusion! I can tell!", but even if he knew, it wasn't as if the illusion would stop. Closing his eyes, shutting himself off from the scenes, he was suddenly awakened by the sound of a cane hitting the floor.
Opening his eyes, he was back in the room, but this time, he saw the old man walk towards him with a candle in his hands. Lighting up the other candles in a slow manner, he eventually walked back to the entrance.
"Hello there. This is the 2nd day. Are you willing to use your powers yet?"
"What? Only a few minutes passed."
The old man shook his head slightly, "Around 7 hours have gone by. The night has passed, and a new day has begun. Now please answer me, are you willing to use your powers yet?"
---
Making their way back to Agatha's estate, the entire trip not a word was spoken. Bell didn't know how to feel, she was used in multiple ways, with no one truly trusting her. She felt treated as a tool. Not only that, but her entire reason for almost screwing up the life of her young master were her own emotions.
She cried in silence more than once, to which Lucas didn't say anything. He was too preoccupied with how to move forward now. He didn't even truly know if the Duke was responsible or not, but there seemed to be little room for interpretation. Spatial magic was something barely anyone could comprehend.
Thinking about it, he remembered that even Asta was interested in it, but couldn't study it due to his oath of not using elemental magic. His head clearly wasn't thinking straight if that memory popped up, it held no significance to his goal, yet he just couldn't push Asta out of his mind.
He was worried, even if his rational part believed he would be fine. If they wanted him dead, there was no need to kidnap. They could've easily killed him through the portal that opened, so it couldn't be that they needed to hide their identities.
Frankly, Lucas had too little to work with, making him run in circles despite knowing where he would end up at.
Landing near the estate, the guards recognized him in an instant and opened the gates. Walking through without saying a single word, Bell followed behind him, her face lowered.
Facing her young master's siblings and telling them the full story would take a large toll on her body. She wasn't sure if she would even be spared from punishment, but Bell believed she was worthy of a fierce punishment. To betray her own young master who never hurt her for her own personal feelings is a step too far.
After having gathered the available siblings, Lucas was faced with an anxious Agatha, a nervous Bell, and a curious Klaro. Descartes was present, but had to leave quite urgently. Due to the growing population of Undead near his own county, his hands had been full for a while. Lucas knew that he would have to rely on one of the people here to keep his identity stable.
Without Asta supporting him, the people might start requesting his imprisonment. For a human that's not with a demon, is just a masterless slave waiting to be captured and sold. Still, Lucas didn't want to sugarcoat what happened.
"I have mostly bad news. Asta and I were capable of winning against Alastor, but after our victory, Asta was kidnapped by an unknown person or group."
"What?", Klaro slammed his fist into the table, Astaroph was someone he looked up to.
Agatha was too stunned to say anything while Descartes frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would someone kidnap him?"
"I've been having the same thoughts, but even Alastor didn't know why or who did it."
The siblings needed a moment to process that statement, Alastor was an absolute genius and if he didn't have any clue, what would they even do?
Using Alastor's image to his favor, Lucas easily clouded everyone's mind, making the easy conclusion not a possibility. Because if they could think of it, Alastor must've had the same thoughts yet said he didn't know anyway. It couldn't have been the truth then.
"I'll be going on a mission to find Asta, but I can't move around carelessly since they might target me next. I first need a strong identity tied to one of you. Agatha, I was thinking of becoming your retainer."
Agatha looked up for a moment without saying anything. She was still processing what he said earlier, unable to comprehend it fully. Now, Lucas suddenly requested something so strange. Lucas was never someone who was close to Agatha, he was more someone she was scared off.
She knew he was the reason why her lands bloomed once more, but if she could, she avoided him. His cold stare despite his friendly smile creeps her out. The false emotions he put on display, the carefully crafted mask that was rarely taken off. To Agatha, Lucas was a monstrous savior.
If she had to choose to give him the authority to use her name, she would agree to it, although not wholeheartedly. "Okay," was all she could muster in front of his unblinking stare.
If there was a way to bring her brother back, she would be willing to do anything, even holding the hand of the devil.
"Good, then I'll start researching possible mages who would be capable of using space magic. After all, we made a lot of enemies on Aurora as well, it wouldn't surprise me if they came over to take revenge. Everyone else, I hope I can count on you for something."
The siblings nodded to each other. "Start training your men to deal with the Undead. If I'm correct, they'll start to slowly ramp up their territorial conquest after absorbing a large amount of bodies from Protaris' county."
Descartes had a light smile on his face, from what he heard from Alastor, the man responsible for their growth was now asking them to prepare against them. Instead of pointing the blame towards him, Descartes openly gave his support.
"Of course. I've already started building forces against them since Astaroph asked me to do so. I was able to help contain the spread some time ago. I'll start expanding them and share the training regiments to you Klaro."
There was a reason he kept Agatha out of it. She just didn't have the resources to create an army. She wasn't in debt and her lands were healing, but that's it. She didn't have the budget for any large projects and without the constant stream of money from Augustinus, she was running a break-even at best.
Not that Lucas was expecting much, but limiting the eventual damage he indirectly caused would only help him in the end. As long as nobody pinned the increase of Undead on him of course.
As the siblings talked things through, Lucas was thinking on how he would be able to get access to the Duke's castle.
'No, getting access to the castle doesn't matter.'
'Yeah, not even finding the bastard that kidnapped him, what are we gonna do? Ask him nicely where he placed Asta?'
'Exactly, who or why matter little. All that matters is finding the location where Asta is locked up. Question is, how do we even go about figuring that out?'
'Magic is broad, no? Isn't there a mage that specializes in tracking or something?'
'There are indeed an uncountable amount of fields in the world of magic, but a simple tracker won't do much I'm afraid. If the Duke's willing to kidnap his own son using extremely powerful means to hide his tracks, there's no way an amateur will be able to do anything.'
'Then we'll have to create connections close to the Duke anyway.'
After giving it some thought, Lucas had four things he needed to accomplish. Get connections within the Duke's inner circle and make his position as Agatha's retainer clear. Find a competent tracker capable of finding Asta's whereabouts. Get in touch with the mage specializing in spatial magic under the Duke and lastly, gather information about different humanoid beings. That last one might seem unnecessary, but Lucas didn't know much about other humanoids.
Beasts and monsters were his specialty, even his own body was quite known, but if there were Demons, it opened the door for many other possibilities. Lucas was certain he had to take a look at it.
With his own priorities straight, Lucas left the siblings alone to give them some space to think. After all, their good brother has vanished without a trace. Not only that, but the results of the competition between siblings was about to come to an end. Lucas cared little for the seat, for the life of his friend mattered more.