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~~((The Mother's Day Special -- page 5 of 14))~~
The forest was beginning to thin, and the taller hotels of Ridgemark were coming into view. Despite his lack of access to undead vigor, Raul still wasn't even breaking a sweat.

He meant what he'd said about not regretting his actions. But he also wondered how long that landslide would truly last. There were obviously servants there in Miro. Depending on what abilities they had, removing the blockages might be trivial for them.

But they had to be spooked now, also. Even if they did manage to clear the roads, they might think twice about trying to move any more slaves. The Triplets had wanted to make their dual landslides look like a natural occurrence, but perhaps it was better for the hostages this way.

Or maybe he was just trying to rationalize his failure away.

Arumoro returned with the news he'd been expecting. 'They are indeed captured,' he said, speaking privately again. 'However, their captives haven't frozen their heads yet, because they're trying to figure out who they are.'

Ah. That was good news.

Partially.

'...Are they being tortured?' said Raul.

'Yes.'

Raul's jaw clenched. His brothers could handle it. They were servants. Part of what made torture effective was the threat of death. Without it, Adan and Esai would be all but impossible to crack.

But the pain that they were going to go through...

And other forms of torture existed, too, of course. It depended on how creative their captors were.

'Also, it's unclear if Abolish realizes that they're servants yet,' said Arumoro.

'They should at least suspect as much,' said Raul. 'It would've been difficult for non-servants to cause those landslides.'

'Yes, well, this is Abolish. They might be morons.'

Considering how they had tried to trap him, Raul doubted that. And he didn't think a bunch of idiots would have been able to successfully capture his brothers.