Starting out as a Dragon Slave-Chapter 104: Full Confession

Mordred succumbed to physical exhaustion, and Isaac abruptly awoke from unconsciousness, his eyes snapping open like doors torn from their hinges. A desperate gasp tore through his throat as air flooded his lungs with the force of a tidal wave. The harsh, clinical white light struck him directly, eliciting a painful blink. This artificial brightness, devoid of warmth, seemed intent on piercing the depths of his soul.

He remained in the sterile interrogation room a soulless concrete cube where even shadows dared not linger. Four grimy white walls, a brushed metal table bolted to the floor, and two chairs fixed in place. A setting designed to break spirits rather than host conversations. The room itself stood as a silent accusation.

His wrists, restrained by cuffs biting into his skin, rested on the table’s icy surface. Instinctively, he attempted to summon his mana, to feel the familiar warmth coursing through his veins. Nothing. Not even the faintest spark of energy. It was akin to trying to breathe in a vacuum—a futile effort against an invisible yet absolute force.

His increasingly lucid gaze fell upon his bound hands. The cuffs were no ordinary restraints. Forged from an ink-black material, they absorbed ambient light rather than reflecting it. Faint violet veins pulsed across their surface, as if imbued with a life of their own. Observing them closely, Isaac discerned their nature: mana inhibitors, crafted to sever the user from their magical energy source.

- "Interesting," he mused with calculated detachment. "They’re taking no chances. They know exactly what they’re doing..."

The door suddenly swung open with calculated force, the metal clanging against the wall, slicing through the silence like a blade. A theatrical entrance, designed to unsettle. Isaac remained unmoved, his mind now tempered by the harsh trials he had endured in the other world.

Two figures framed the doorway. Inspector Marc Lemaire entered first. Beside him was Laura Bennett, shorter but equally intimidating. Her electric blue gaze seemed capable of dissecting lies with surgical precision.

Marc approached the table and dropped a hefty stack of documents onto it. The dull thud echoed in the room like thunder on a summer’s day.

- "So," he articulated in a voice as sharp as a razor’s edge, "are you finally ready to talk, Isaac?"

Isaac slowly lifted his eyes, calculating every micro-movement of his face. He molded his features to reflect a studied vulnerability, a trauma that no longer existed. His mind, once genuinely shattered by the horrors he had faced, was now clear as crystal, honed by his experiences as Mordred. The labyrinth of his thoughts was now a maze he navigated effortlessly, aware of every corner, every hidden passage.

- "Yes..." he murmured with a deliberately hoarse voice, as if each syllable scraped his throat. "I’m ready... I’ll tell you everything."

A fleeting shadow of satisfaction crossed the inspectors’ faces. A quick exchange of glances between them—a silent dialogue that Isaac intercepted and deciphered with ease. They believed they had won. Marc crossed his arms over his broad chest, a slight incredulity lingering in his gaze.

- "Good, go ahead, we’re listening."

Isaac took a deep breath, as if summoning courage he lacked. In reality, he was mentally calibrating every word, every intonation of his fabricated narrative a lie so meticulously constructed it would shine like truth in the darkness of doubt.

- "It all began when we entered that dungeon..." he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper. "At first, everything seemed normal. The icy corridors, the initial creatures... nothing out of the ordinary."

He paused deliberately, running a trembling hand over his face.

- "But as soon as we reached the final chamber... that thing... that monster... that dragon appeared, as if emerging from the very shadows."

Laura, her gaze suddenly sharper, produced a silver pen that briefly caught the harsh neon light.

- "Describe it precisely," she encouraged in a soft yet firm voice, positioning her notebook to record every detail.

Isaac visibly shivered, a performance calculated down to the slightest twitch of his shoulders.

- "It was... immense. Larger than anything I’d ever seen. Scales so black they seemed to absorb the surrounding light, with reddish hues, like dried blood on scorched metal. And its eyes..."

He broke off, staring at an invisible point ahead, as if hypnotized by a terrifying memory.

- "Its eyes were two living furnaces, two wells of liquid hatred. They gleamed with a malevolent intelligence, almost... human. And when those eyes fixed on us... I knew we were doomed."

Isaac clenched his fists slightly, his knuckles whitening under the pressure.

- "It attacked without hesitation, without warning. A breath of black flames... yes, black, not red, not orange... flames that seemed to devour light itself. The front line of our team was... obliterated in seconds. Their screams..."

He briefly closed his eyes, as if overwhelmed by the horror of his fabricated memories.

Carl slightly furrowed his brows, his piercing gaze attempting to detect the slightest flaw in this account.

— "And how do you explain being the only survivor, Isaac?"Isaac slowly lowered his gaze, skillfully adjusting his expression to convey a blend of shame and trauma.

— "The dragon... it toyed with me. The others, it just... killed. But me..."His voice cracked deliberately.

— "It looked me straight in the eyes and it... spoke. Its voice was like shattered glass scraping through my mind. It said it would let me live so I could tell the tale... so I could be the messenger of its power. ’Tell them what’s coming,’ those were its exact words. ’Tell them their insignificant existence is ending.’"

Laura, her pen frozen above her notepad, couldn’t hide her growing skepticism.

— "And the injuries on your body? How do you explain those?"Isaac lifted his head slightly, his bloodshot eyes locking onto hers with calculated intensity.

— "It wanted me to be... convincing. ’A messenger without wounds isn’t believed,’ it said before... before slamming me into the cave walls. It dragged me across the ground, its claws digging into my flesh. It made sure every wound was visible, painful, but not fatal. It wanted me to suffer enough to be believed but not enough to die."

Marc leaned forward slightly, hands flat on the table, his large frame casting a threatening shadow over Isaac.

— "Then why lie to our teams at first? Why the silence, the confusion?"Isaac lifted his eyes, carefully orchestrating an expression of vulnerability.

— "Fear. The kind that paralyzes you to your core. It promised that if I told the truth too soon, it would find me... and finish what it started. I kept hearing its voice in my head, like poison threading through my thoughts. I couldn’t... I just couldn’t..."

He deliberately let the sentence hang, feigning an emotional collapse.

Laura, still wary, crossed her arms slowly across her chest.

— "And your magic, Isaac? You’re an experienced hunter. Why didn’t you do anything to help your team?"

Isaac stared at her intensely, pouring absolute and believable helplessness into his eyes.

— "It was like... like trying to lift a mountain with a single strand of hair. Like an ant trying to stop a tidal wave with its legs. The power difference was... cosmic." freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

He slowly shook his head, eyes distant.

— "Its aura alone crushed my mana. Just being near it made my magic shrink like a flame caught in a hurricane. It was literally impossible... I felt more helpless than a newborn facing it."

A thick silence settled over the room. Marc and Laura exchanged a subtle glance a mix of doubt and rising concern. Isaac sensed the crack forming in their skepticism and drove right into it.

— "Please," he whispered, barely audible, his eyes glistening with carefully restrained tears. "Believe me. I’m not a murderer. I didn’t kill my friends, my teammates. That dragon... that creature from another world... it’s the real monster."

The silence that followed was deafening. Isaac could almost hear the electric buzz of the neon lights above, the faint hiss of the ventilation system, the steady beat of his own heart. The two inspectors studied him, weighing every word, every gesture, every tremor.

Finally, Marc exhaled deeply, as if releasing a breath held in for far too long.— "We’ll verify everything, Isaac. But if we find even the slightest inconsistency in your story..."

— "I have no reason to lie," Isaac replied, his gaze overflowing with a fabricated sincerity flawlessly delivered. "All I want now is for this nightmare to end... for this world to be prepared for what might come."

Marc rose slowly, the metal of his chair scraping against the concrete floor. Laura followed, methodically organizing her notes into a cardboard folder.

— "Very well," Marc concluded, his voice cold as interstellar space. "We’ll forward this information to the Hunter Bureau and verify every element of your testimony. In the meantime, you stay here. For your sake, I hope every word you told us is true."

The inspectors exited the room, the door shutting behind them with a metallic clang that rang like a death knell. Isaac remained still, staring at the sickly white wall in front of him.

Slowly—almost imperceptibly—the corners of his lips curled into a subtle smile. His story had been perfect: detailed enough to be believable, vague enough not to be easily disproven, and laced with just the right emotions to provoke empathy.

— "I’m sorry," he whispered softly, the smile briefly fading as a shadow of genuine remorse passed over his face.

He wasn’t speaking to the inspectors, but to the ghosts of those he had sacrificed—necessary pawns in his chess game.

Marc Lemaire and Laura Bennett stepped into the sterile hallway, their footsteps echoing across the immaculate floor. The fluorescent lighting exaggerated the pallor of their faces, drawn tight with exhaustion and unease. Marc came to an abrupt halt, as if an invisible weight had crashed down on his shoulders. His breath formed a puff of condensation before his face—the air conditioning had turned the corridor into a polar wasteland.

— "Holy shit," he muttered, dragging a trembling hand across his haggard face, the stubble rasping against his palm.

Laura leaned silently against the wall, watching her partner with clinical focus. The bluish shadows beneath her eyes betrayed their seventy-two hours without real sleep.

— "Well?" she asked in a hoarse whisper. "What’s your gut telling you?"

Marc slowly raised his head, his gaze clouded by an uncommon confusion in a man usually so direct.

— "My instincts are scrambled, Laura. Completely scrambled."

He shook his head, as if trying to realign his thoughts.

— "His story borders on the absurd. A dragon? In a yeti dungeon? It defies every rule we’ve followed since the portals first opened."

— "But?" Laura pressed, catching the hesitation in his voice.

— "But I didn’t detect any of the usual signs of lying. No contradictory micro-expressions, no significant shifts in heart rate or breathing. Either he’s telling the truth..."

— "Or he’s the best liar we’ve ever come across," Laura finished, her steely blue gaze locked on the closed interrogation room door.

Marc nodded slowly, his expression dark.

— "There’s something else bothering me," he added in a low voice. "This talking dragon... leaving a witness on purpose... It’s as if it wanted to make a statement."

— "A warning?" Laura suggested, tension tightening her fine features.

— "Or a declaration of war," Marc murmured, the weight of those words seeming to thicken the very air around them.