Ali al-Saachez felt he had been far too careless. He had let his guard down just because he was in a regular army camp. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been stripped down to his underwear and tied to a metal chair in a room with four metal walls, unable to even resist. And now, he was being stared at by a short young man with the expression one would reserve for a dead person.
The one staring at him from across the room was Mikazuki.
Reid knew full well that conventional interrogation methods were useless against Sachez. That was why he hadn't sent someone tall and intimidating who looked tough at first glance.
This situation called for the opposite approach. Sending the short, sharp-eyed Mikazuki would actually increase Sachez's psychological pressure.
This was because Sachez couldn't figure out what kind of person Mikazuki, with his indifferent eyes that seemed to look past everything, was.
In his understanding, for someone of this stature to be in charge of an interrogation, he must have mastered some rather perverted torture techniques that no normal person could withstand.
So, after being woken up by a basin of ice water and staring at Mikazuki for a while, Sachez couldn't hold back the fear of the unknown in his heart. He converted it into anger and cursed, "What the hell is with you, you little runt? Who are you people? Did you capture me just to look at me like a specimen?"
Mikazuki had received Reid's orders: as long as they didn't kill this guy, they could do whatever they wanted. If he was in a bad mood, he could even beat him up.
This order from Reid wasn't about using the rather low-level method of beating the truth out of him. It was purely to use him as a free punching bag.
If Reid hadn't felt that getting his own hands dirty was beneath him and would get them covered in blood, Sachez would be facing a beating from Reid right now.
Thus, Mikazuki unceremoniously gave Sachez's eye socket a purple makeover with a punch. A purplish-red hue—one had to admit, Mikazuki's technique was excellent.
Sachez obviously wasn't going to give up his verbal assault just because he took a punch.
After all, Sachez still had no idea which of his enemies had captured him. He knew he had done too many bad things; heaven knew how many people wanted him dead.
So, the situation in the interrogation room was Sachez constantly cursing while Mikazuki picked up a nearby iron rod and repeatedly beat him, leaving Sachez drenched in sweat, with blood and sweat pooling on the floor.
After the beating was over, Mikazuki was the same as ever, his face calm. Back when he was still on the streets of the Martian slums, he had beaten up his fair share of people, so he knew how much force to use to injure without killing. Sachez looked miserable now, but they were all superficial wounds that wouldn't leave any lasting effects.
However, after a satisfying round of beating, Mikazuki habitually asked, "Are you going to talk now?"
Sachez was completely baffled. You're not an enemy seeking revenge? You captured me to interrogate me for information?
But what kind of intelligence agent was this kid? He was so ruthless, beating him up first without even asking a question. Anyone who didn't know better would think he was an interrogator bent on beating someone to death.
Thus, Sachez roared with extreme frustration, "You little runt, have you even asked me a fucking question? What am I supposed to answer if you don't ask anything?"
Mikazuki seemed a bit airheaded at this moment, as if he had genuinely forgotten that he hadn't asked any questions, making him feel a little awkward.
But again, Reid had said that if he was unhappy, he should beat him. If he was still unhappy, he should use torture. This guy was a tough nut to crack; it would be hard to have a chat without softening him up first.
So, adhering to the principle of "if you make me lose face, I'll send you to heaven," Mikazuki walked to the door and pressed a few buttons. A 180-volt current instantly surged through Sachez's chair.
The result was predictable. The electric current made Sachez's entire body convulse as he screamed and shrieked, and his eyes even began to roll back into his head.
However, Mikazuki shut it off after five or six seconds, so Sachez wasn't electrocuted into unconsciousness.
But now, he felt he might have run into a complete blockhead. The kid in front of him seemed to have completely forgotten what he was supposed to ask, focusing only on torturing him.
Sachez believed in the principle of "winner takes all." If he died because he was captured due to carelessness, he had nothing to complain about. But to be toyed with to death like this? Wasn't that a bit too pathetic?
So, Sachez said, somewhat weakly, "I say, little brother, why don't you get your superior to interrogate me? You're just torturing me without asking anything. I don't even know what to say."
Mikazuki put on a puzzled expression, then said in a deadpan voice, "You want to see Orga? He said he was going to get something called a 'wooden donkey' (as ordered by Reid). I don't know what it is, but it seems to be a rare form of torture. You'll see him when he brings it."
The moment Sachez heard this, he was instantly wide awake. As a mercenary, he had studied torture methods for a time, and the Human Reform League had a long history of experience in this area. So, Sachez had focused his studies on the historical torture methods of the League. He knew what a wooden donkey was.
As if experiencing a final burst of energy before death, Sachez shrieked, "What! A wooden donkey! Did I sleep with that Orga's mother? Using that on me! That's too vicious! I've read about it, that thing is for women! (In reality, the wooden donkey can be used on both men and women)."
Mikazuki, in his innocence, truly didn't know what a wooden donkey was, but he knew that Sachez was insulting Orga. So, he gave him another five-second session of electrotherapy.
After that was done, Mikazuki finally remembered to ask a question. "The leader of the terrorists who acted with you in the Kingdom of Azadistan, that man named Kowloon. Where is he?"
Hearing this, Sachez almost coughed up a mouthful of blood. Of all the things he had considered, he had never imagined that these people weren't after him at all, but were looking for Kowloon.
Did that mean he was suffering an undeserved disaster, taking a round of torture on Kowloon's behalf?
Sachez truly didn't know what the leader of the organization that had kidnapped him was thinking. Did they need to use extreme torture to ask for Kowloon's whereabouts? Kowloon wasn't his employer, and were there really mercenaries with such strong professional ethics? To protect a client's information at the cost of their own life?
So, to suffer less torture from the blockhead boy in front of him, Sachez immediately shouted, "Kowloon is in Europe now. I'm not sure if he's in the Mollaria Republic, Montenegro, or Greece.
"I'm telling the truth. After we left the Kingdom of Azadistan, I invited him to join my mercenary group, but he refused.
"But my subordinates and his were all wiped out by Celestial Beings. We couldn't stay in the Middle East, so I brought him to Europe. We just went our separate ways in the Mollaria Republic."
Reid had actually dismissed all the female crew members and strictly ordered Hoshino Ruri and Nein not to peek. He watched as Mikazuki tortured Sachez in the cell. At this moment, Orga, following Reid's description, had actually built the wooden donkey.
After all, it wasn't too complicated to build from scratch. The metal barbs could just be replaced with nails.
However, after finishing it, Orga frantically told himself never to provoke Reid in the future. His new boss was truly ruthless when he got serious, to be able to think of such a torture method.
Reid judged that what Sachez was saying was quite credible, at least ninety percent true.
But wasn't there still a ten percent chance he was lying? So, Reid said to Orga, "Take the wooden donkey over and let Sachez have a good ride. Repeatedly confirm Kowloon's whereabouts. Same rule, just don't kill or cripple him. If you really mess up, throw him in a Medical Pod. You guys torment him until three or four in the morning, then drop him at the entrance of his room in the camp. The rest is too bloody, I won't watch. If you feel sick, you can arrange for someone else to carry out the torture and go rest."
With Reid's words, Orga understood.
Reid had already gotten the information he wanted. The rest was purely for the sake of torturing Sachez.
In truth, it was because Reid knew Sachez had an important role to play later. He was the one who actually destroyed the Trinitys (he also killed their intelligence officer, Laguna Harvey). If it were someone else, they might not have had the ability to take out three Throne Angels at once. (If Setsuna hadn't come to the rescue, Nena Trinity definitely wouldn't have survived.)
More critically, Sachez killed Lockon, which led to Lyle Dylandy inheriting the Lockon name in the second season.
Without this event, the pilot of the Cherudim in the second season would still be the current Lockon. If the World Change Fluctuation Value were to change drastically, Reid would have to step in and kill the current Lockon to correct history.
(If Lockon had been willing to enter a Medical Pod here, he could have survived. His eye could most likely have been regrown and reattached, but he definitely wouldn't have made it to the final battle. The plot mentions that once in a Medical Pod, you can't come out until you're fully healed, proving that it takes a very long time. However, as long as he survived the first season, the four years in between would be enough for him to recover.)
To be honest, Reid wanted to save the current Lockon, but he couldn't do it openly, so Sachez couldn't die yet.
Reid paid no more attention to the torture Sachez ultimately endured. In any case, when he was discovered at the AEU camp early the next morning, his body was covered in bruises, his face was too swollen to be recognizable, and his lower body and thighs were covered in bloody holes. The wounds had even damaged his vitals as a man. He was as miserable as one could be.
However, none of these injuries were life-threatening. Even without a Medical Pod, he could recover with two or three months of proper rest.
Sachez had accumulated a small fortune over the years; he could afford a Medical Pod. At most, he just wouldn't be able to participate in the three powers' Gundam capture operation this time.
Fortunately, it made little difference whether Sachez participated in this battle or not. He was originally just there to fill a role, bullying Setsuna a bit before being ambushed by Throne Angel Drei, which blew up his additional equipment, forcing him to flee in the end.
Reid had acted against him at this time precisely because he knew Sachez's presence or absence in this battle made little difference. It was to collect some interest on his sins.
Sure enough, after tormenting Sachez like this, the World Change Fluctuation Value didn't budge from 13.282%. This guy really was unimportant in this battle.
Fortunately, the Sachez incident was just a minor ripple within the AEU. Not many people cared about a soldier from the foreign legion being tortured. Who was the mastermind? If it was an outsider, the real question was how the intruder got in.
However, the fake message sent to Sachez's terminal had long been deleted, and Nein had flawlessly altered the surveillance footage from last night, so the AEU's investigation turned up nothing.
In the end, the AEU forces stationed there could only conclude that Second Lieutenant Garry Biaggi (Sachez's alias in the regular army) had offended other foreign mercenaries and was the victim of retaliation.
But with a major battle imminent, it was certainly not the right time to conduct a large-scale search for the culprit among these foreign mercenaries. Thus, the case of Garry Biaggi's assault was simply ignored.
Sachez himself was sent to a rear medical facility for treatment, and nothing more was heard of him.
The incredibly unlucky Sachez thus exited the stage of this incident, and Reid paid him no further attention.
Reid now had the Gran Chaos fly to a high altitude on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert to prevent it from being caught up again if an Otherworld Entanglement occurred this time.
Then, Reid declared the entire ship to be on third-level combat alert, while he himself used high-definition binoculars to observe the Human Reform League's Old Era Enriched Uranium Landfill located deep in the desert.
In fact, according to the internal data Hoshino Ruri had found, this "landfill" was more of an underground storage facility.
The location in the Taklamakan Desert was chosen specifically to use this landfill to force the Gundams to intervene.
Just like in the original story, the Human Reform League deliberately leaked intelligence to lure terrorists into attacking this Old Era Enriched Uranium Landfill. Right now, there was no old-era enriched uranium on the surface of this landfill; all the storage tanks were empty.
The facilities on the outside were just there for the terrorists to blow up. Enriched uranium has a devastating impact on the environment. Once it falls into the hands of terrorists, the world would know no peace. Even in a desert, the Human Reform League would not allow it to actually leak.
So, this was an overt scheme by the Human Reform League. If Celestial Beings chickened out of an incident of this level, then they, who bully the weak and fear the strong, should just give up their claim of ending all conflict on Earth.
Of course, the Human Reform League had also hit the mark by chance. Humanity restarting nuclear power was one of the highest priority items for VEDA's program to prevent. Therefore, whoever touched it would die; it was inevitable that VEDA would have Celestial Beings intervene.
So, Reid's side was now in spectator mode, eating melon seeds. Before the Otherworld Entanglement occurred, Reid had no intention of intervening, no matter how badly Celestial Beings were beaten.
In any case, even if the four Celestial Beings Gundams were captured, the three Throne Angels would come to the rescue. Although this time, with the three of them facing ten times the original force, they might just be throwing away three more Mobile Suits. But this also proved that the 13.282% World Change Fluctuation was already tangibly affecting the course of the world.
However, with the chaos of the Otherworld Entanglement, Reid wasn't worried that Celestial Beings wouldn't be able to escape. At worst, he would just make a bigger scene himself to give them enough room to flee.
While Reid was casually spectating, our opening act had already taken the stage.
Three Long-nosed types, followed by three off-road trucks, charged straight towards the Human Reform League's Old Era Enriched Uranium Landfill.
Reid could only say that these terrorists, who didn't even have an organization name, were particularly brainless. If you really wanted to destroy the facility storing enriched uranium, why would you send off-road trucks? If the uranium leaked, the people in the trucks would inevitably be killed by heavy radiation.
But if you just wanted to transport the enriched uranium, then why were your three Long-nosed types firing from so far away? Even if there were MS guards, it was impossible for a smoothbore cannon to hit a target accurately from that distance.
Moreover, the fact that the three powers were conducting military exercises in the Taklamakan Desert was public information. Instead of sneaking in quietly, you fired at an empty field to announce your presence. Even if Celestial Beings didn't come, you people wouldn't be able to escape.
Of course, the roles of these brainless terrorists ended here. Dynames, riding on Kyrios, made its entrance.
(End of Chapter)