Chapter 105 - The Story of Just Putting Them to Torture Anyway
After throwing the two—the young man who had been struck with a baton and knocked unconscious, and the girl who had been restrained while unconscious from the stun gun's current—into the car parked in the yard, the boy and Aoi headed toward the shopping district. He remembered there was a musical instrument store there.
Amidst the shopping district where shutters remained down, a small sign of a privately-owned business could be seen. Facing the street, a large window was likely for a soundproof room for practicing instruments. The window glass was double-paned, designed so that sound wouldn't leak outside.
Aoi wondered why there was a musical instrument store in such a small village. Since there was also an elementary school in this village, although the number of students was quite small, they might have delivered instruments there in the past. However, from what she could see from the outside, the musical instrument store had gone out of business long ago. Looking into the shop through the soundproof room's window, wrinkled documents were scattered on the floor. The show window was empty.
"So, what are you going to do now?"
"What do you mean 'what', we're going to have a talk."
"Don't you mean torture?"
"If they obediently answer my questions, it'll end with just a talk."
His eyes, as he answered, were not smiling. Aoi felt pity for the girl and the other lying bound in the rear seat. She could easily imagine what kind of fate awaited them from now on.
On the other hand, it was they who had attacked first. Aoi would likely never forget that sensation of having a gun pointed at her for the first time in her life. Even though it was a gun with no live rounds, she felt fear when it was pointed at her. Her body wouldn't move from fear.
Furthermore, there was a high possibility that the trio who had attacked—one of whom had been sent to the other world by the boy's hand—had some connection with the missing Yuko and Aki. Or rather, it was more correct to see that their companions had abducted Yuko and the other. When they searched the house where the trio had been waiting to ambush them earlier, they found Yuko's glove in the living room. Additionally, there was a sign that other people had been in the house. Before Aoi and the other were led to the private house by that girl, Yuko and the other had been there.
"But, to torture is——"
"It's those guys who made the first move. And what they did was kidnapping, abduction, or an act called 'getting,' which is generally an absolutely unforgivable act. This is a legitimate act."
"I feel like the last 'getting' is somehow different, but will they obediently spit out the teachers' location just because you tortured them?"
Aoi, being a military geek, knew that there were torture methods in the world that were horrifying just to read about in text. Furthermore, information obtained through torture is not necessarily always correct. It's possible for a suspect to spit out nonsensical information to escape from pain, or for only low-precision information to be obtained.
"Well, I've thought that part through properly. Since I went to the trouble of keeping two alive."
He treated them like objects. However, for the boy, everything other than himself was likely the same as an object. Just objects to be utilized for his own survival.
After stopping the car and checking the inside of the musical instrument store, they first threw the still-unconscious young man into the shop. Next, after telling the girl, who was blindfolded and had her hands tied, to get out of the car, she showed signs of resisting. However, the moment she heard the sound of the boy taking out a stun gun and making it spark while saying "Want another round of bzz-bzz?", she started walking obediently on her own feet.
Inducing the girl into the shop somewhat forcefully, he sat her in an armchair that was behind the register. Similarly, he sat the young man, who was still unconscious, in a chair and tied both feet to the chair legs and both hands to the armrests with rope.
"Not being able to see is scary, isn't it?"
That the girl was trembling could be seen even from a distance. Being blindfolded, hearing only voices, and being tied up. There was no way it wasn't scary.
"Bring water and a bucket. All the jerry cans of water."
After tying the two to the chairs, the boy gave that instruction to Aoi. Using water is a common means in torture. Although she was a military geek, Aoi disliked cruel acts, but she still followed the instructions obediently. If it was to find out where the teachers had gone, it would be okay to use somewhat rough measures. In fact, they had done that much.
The boy's car was always loaded with a set of supplies necessary for survival. Jerry cans filled with water were one of them. The 18-liter jerry cans loaded in the rear cargo bed were full of water, and Aoi carried three jerry cans into the musical instrument store as if dragging them.
The boy filled a bucket to the brim with water, and first vigorously peeled off the duct tape that had been pasted to seal the girl's eyes and mouth. Along with a small scream, the girl's eyes, dyed in the color of fear, appeared from under the duct tape.
"Y-You, do you think you'll get away with doing this..."
"Shut up."
Saying so, he immediately took out the stun gun, and the girl fell silent at once. Next, the boy similarly peeled off the young man's duct tape, but he showed no sign of waking up yet. When he splashed the bucket of water vigorously over his head, the eyes of the young man, who had cold water poured over him, opened.
"You're awake. Well then, let's have a fun talk."
"Where is this...?"
"It's a musical instrument store right near where you guys attacked us earlier. For now, let's have self-introductions to deepen our friendship. Can you tell me your names?"
A chilling smile was floating on the boy's face. It was a good smile, except for the fact that no emotion could be seen in those eyes at all.
The two tied to the chairs looked at each other's faces and then answered nothing. To those two, the boy, with the smile still on his face, suddenly took out a telescopic baton and swung it down vigorously onto the young man's hand. Both their hands were tied to the armrests with fingers extended, and the tip of the baton, hard enough to crush even concrete, directly hit the young man's finger. Along with a dry sound of something breaking, the young man screamed.
"No matter how much you cry or shout, I don't think help is coming, you know? This room seems to be soundproof."
"Scumbag, it h-huuuuuurts! My finger's broken! Gwaaaaaaaah!"
"Humans have as many as 215 bones, you know? What's one bone?"
The young man's right index finger was twisted in an unnatural direction and greatly swollen. Approaching the young man who was distorting his face in intense pain and flailing both hands and feet, the boy said in a bright tone as expected.
"From now on, I am God. If you don't follow what God says properly, divine punishment will fall."
"What 'God', you! Aren't you crazy!? Release us right now!"
This time the girl shouted. The boy let out a deliberately large sigh and muttered, "Why won't you listen to what I say?" Then he took out a cloth bag he had brought from the car and pulled it completely over the girl's head.
"W-What are you..."
"Bad children get a punishment."
And he poured the water he had filled in the bucket over the girl's head again. This time, instead of a method of emptying the bucket all at once, he poured water little by little over the girl's head covered with the cloth, like watering a flowerbed with a watering can.
Aoi knew this same torture method. It was the "interrogation" that America was said to have done at a naval base in Cuba. The suspect experiences the sensation of drowning as water enters the nose and mouth through the cloth, but because they are restrained, they cannot take off the bag and breathe. And the interrogator takes off the bag just before they drown, repeating that to break the suspect's heart.
By the way, the American government called this method "interrogation" instead of "torture," claiming it didn't damage the body. Even so, it remains a non-humanitarian method that caused opposition movements around the world. Aoi doubted the boy's mental state for being able to do such a thing so easily to a girl of the same age as himself.
The girl, who had water poured over her through the bag, desperately flailed her restrained hands and feet. The bag stuck to her face, and she could tell the girl was opening her mouth wide to try to breathe. However, the wet bag didn't let air through, and conversely, water kept flowing into the girl's mouth.
When two buckets became empty, the boy finally took the bag off the girl's head. The girl, who had the bag taken off, coughed heavily and opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water, looking like she was desperately trying to take oxygen into her lungs.
"So, your names? You'll tell me, right?"
As if resigned, the young man spoke his and the girl's names. However, it was unknown if those were their real names, and the boy didn't seem interested in their names themselves. What was important was that the two had spat out their own information, even if it was just names.
"I too have a certain amount of mercy, you know. Although you attacked us, if possible I want to avoid rough measures. Unfortunately, one death has occurred, but I don't want to produce any more dead people."
How can you say that so shamelessly... Aoi thought, but she decided to keep quiet.
"If you guys obediently answer my questions, I won't use rough measures anymore. When the talk is over, I'll release you; I could even send you to your companions. However, if you don't answer the questions obediently, you might experience more pain than this."
The girl and the young man shook their heads vigorously. Instinctively, they seemed to have realized they must not resist. They couldn't imagine what a guy who calmly crushed a person's finger and pushed them to the brink of drowning would do.
"Well then, let's have that girl over there listen to some music for a while. I'll talk to you first. I'll ask her the same questions later, but if the answers are different between the two of you... you know what will happen, right?"
The boy fitted headphones he had brought from the car onto the girl tied to the chair. He pressed the ear pads firmly against her ears so that outside sounds wouldn't be heard. And when he connected the headphones to the music player picked up at the gas station, he started playing music at a high volume.
With this, the girl wouldn't be able to hear what the boy or the young man were saying. Aoi understood the meaning of the words the boy had said earlier: "Since I went to the trouble of keeping two alive." By listening to stories from the two separately, he was trying to obtain more precise information.
If he were listening to the stories from the two together, there's a possibility that one would match their story to the other's lie and spit out false information. However, if he asked the same questions to each one separately, even if one lied, the other wouldn't be able to match the story. If the answers were different despite being the same questions, it meant one of them was lying.
What would happen if they lied or didn't answer the questions—the boy had just actually demonstrated that. The two would fear retaliation when it was discovered they had lied, and would start speaking only the truth. Was it something like the prisoner's dilemma?
"You really come up with such means..."
"When I was alone, I was thinking while reading books on torture, game theory, and such. If it were a professional soldier, they probably wouldn't spill their guts with my method, and if it were a professional interrogator, they'd probably do it better."
But these two had never received training against torture. There's no way an ordinary person would receive such a thing. That's why the boy might have been certain he could obtain information from these two.
"Anyway, I have to pull information out of these guys quickly. If the teachers have been abducted by the companions of these guys, it'll be quite troublesome."
The boy dragged another chair over and sat in front of the young man, declaring with a smile, "Well then, let's begin."
I look forward to your opinions and impressions.