When the plot-skips players into the game world

Tommy was not held in the interrogation room, nor was he made to tread the treadmill in prison.

Instead, he was very carefully detained in a secret chamber beneath the Supervisory Bureau in the Red Queen District.

His hands were shackled in glowing irons, and a shimmering silver-white seal was branded onto his naked back. He wore only a pair of shorts without pockets, nothing else.

The Upper-Level Demon Tommy had contracted with was chopped off by the Guardian within ten minutes. After he was detained, he was also searched to confirm there were no accessories or materials on him—not even his mouth was spared a thorough inspection for any hidden false teeth.

As a Demon Scholar, he should have been disarmed... but even so, he was still firmly sealed by the Legal Mages, rendering the mana within him immobile. The same light attribute mana that could heal others and dispel darkness in the hands of a Priest, became a tool for binding and sealing in the hands of Legal Mages.

Although in the presence of the Guardian, Tommy knelt and surrendered without hesitation—actually, the moment he saw the Guardian, he knew he could not escape.

If Tommy had chosen to flee on the spot, it was highly probable that Gryphons already watching would have caught up with him directly. There was even a chance that the Guardian riding a Gryphon would have personally come after him.

—He couldn't defeat a Guardian without a Gryphon, let alone one with one.

Even if he had managed to escape... he would become a fugitive, and a warrant would be issued for his arrest.

After all, he was no Anonymous; "Tommy Lohar" was a name that resounded throughout the entire Lohar District. His stature was clearly ill-suited for hiding.

Most importantly—he did not wish to die like that.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

The ice-cold rage in the eyes of the Guardian had frightened him.

If he didn't surrender in time, even if he were not killed, merely knocked down or injured, he would be killed by Meg's Word Spirits. But his surrender was not because he wanted a cleaner death... rather, he indeed had confidence in surviving.

—Because he held far too many cards in his hand.

Tommy could be one hundred percent certain that Boka knew far less than he did. Not even a tenth as much.

He took on the most crucial part of the work normally, preparing for this very moment.

He knew too many people's secrets: at least two-thirds of the Knights in the Round Table Hall, directly or indirectly, had sought his financial support, and he had carefully preserved at least eighty percent of the evidence.

He also knew the whereabouts and passwords of the Noble Red Society's hideouts throughout Avalon; he knew where the spies who had infiltrated were now, what jobs they were doing. He knew which Knights, or who in the Knight Families, had connections with spies from Star Antimony or the Iris Flower, knew which high-ranking figures had once committed heinous crimes... and he had stored these pieces of evidence in various places as well.

To step back, he was also a Demon Scholar at the peak of the fourth energy level.

Just by completing the advancement ceremony, he could ascend to the fifth level. In the ceremony, he could guarantee someone's advancement to the fifth level—after all, a failed fourth-level advancement could severely damage the soul, and even pose a risk to life. There were not many fifth-level powerhouses in all of Avalon.

But his robust physique could withstand the backlash of the ceremony. Producing a great number of fifth-level Transcendents was also meaningful; his own advancement was not a problem, considering he was a Demon Scholar without a demon contract, which in some sense meant he was harmless.

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Whether or not he succeeded in advancing, he could also serve as a living detector for Transcendence Paths. As long as the authorities brought over suspects, he could determine whether they had levels on the Transcendence Path.

—He was just too useful in all sorts of ways.

For this reason, after being locked up, Tommy became even more unyielding. He was confident that after revealing all this information, the Supervisory Bureau would have to contemplate carefully. And to keep him alive, they would need to lift Meg's curse.

Although Tommy was sealed, at least he could commit suicide, preventing the Legal Mages from searching his memory—the last power of a Demon Scholar was to offer himself as a sacrifice to summon a demon. Not to mention, the secrets he knew were too numerous; many of them Tommy himself couldn't recall clearly, requiring analysis with hidden texts in certain places combined with passwords.

Memory search could only access recent events and experiences, but "thoughts" and "skills" were invisible. That meant, nobody knew his passwords, and getting encrypted documents without the key would serve no purpose.

This was Tommy's preparation specifically against the memory searches of Legal Mages.

—If he was killed, those secrets would never see the light of day. He threatened as much.

And so, the situation entered into a phase familiar to Tommy—bargaining. Or rather, negotiation.

If he didn't cooperate, Meg would execute him with a curse; but if he died, then Avalon would lose a myriad of precious clues, and Avalon would be unable to find a more valuable source of intelligence than him.

And many secrets were known only to him, unattainable even by searching his memory.

In other words, Tommy's death was a scenario unwanted by both sides; and after all, he was bound with a bomb that would go off if not removed in three days, and the authority to resolve it was in the hands of the Supervisory Bureau.