Editing Tytania:Volume 2 Chapter 2 (section)

=== IV ===
''“I do get caught a lot,”'' thought Fan Hyulick, half in admiration of himself. He wondered whether this was simply bad luck or whether he was just a fool, but the correct answer lay elsewhere. Tytania’s organisational prowess had outmanoeuvred the fugitives’ calculations. To apply Lieutenant Mahdi’s line of reasoning, Tytania got serious before the anti-Tytanians did.

Although Hyulick was not subjected to any particular abuse as a prisoner, he was certainly not treated with courtesy either. The surveillance was extremely strict, with men who could only be described as burly constantly watching him in groups. On top of that, he had been fitted with a metal collar, and having been told that high-voltage current would be passed through it, he had no choice but to err on the side of caution rather than bravery.

Since Donald Farah never gave his full name to the prisoners, Hyulick had no way of knowing his true identity. It was an unnamed Tytanian who revealed his fate to him as follows:

“It appears that Duke Zarlisch has vowed to make you lose three kilograms while you’re still alive.”

“So he’s going to put me on a diet, then?”

Fan Hyulick’s reply seemed to lack imagination. The Tytanian laughed pityingly as he explained that the total weight of human skin was three kilograms, and that Fan Hyulick would have his entire body flayed alive by Duke Zarlisch’s mother. It was a story so horrifyingly amusing that Hyulick’s laughter froze on his lips.

As far as Donald Farah was concerned, capturing Hyulick and handing him over to Duke Zarlisch was nothing more than a side project born of chance. His passion and interest lay solely in the election.

With no opportunity to escape and no knowledge of events outside, Fan Hyulick ate about fifteen meals. They were by no means meagre, but the flavour did little to stimulate his poor appetite.

Even so, was it really acceptable to die in such a ridiculous manner as that Tytanian had suggested? The thought made Fan Hyulick seethe with anger.

He had always found himself in a position of opposition to Tytania, though this was not by choice. The reason he had defeated Ariabert Tytania at the Battle of Cerberus was simply because he held the post of commander of the City Fleet of Euria. As for the assassination of Arses Tytania, that was because that perverted count had caused Lira Florentz’s death. Hyulick had always been in a passive position and had never been the one to pick a fight.

However, Hyulick did not put this thought into words. He did not believe the term passive carried any profound significance.

A somewhat self-deprecating mood had taken hold of him. Striking back only when cornered, humm, wasn’t that the behaviour pattern of a herbivore? Of course, herbivores were not inferior to carnivores. That said, wasn’t it a convenient reaction for a carnivore to never tire of repeating the same pattern of defence and counter-attack?

The reason Fan Hyulick had been pondering these matters at length was simply that, as a prisoner, he had nothing else to do. Yet even this idle, unproductive life of confinement had an end. It came walking towards him of its own accord. Around the sixth day since Fan Hyulick had become a prisoner at the Tytania’s representative office on planet Bargash.

The cell door opened silently, and a middle-aged man in a grey military uniform appeared. The man, who appeared to be a mid-ranking officer in Tytania’s military, had extremely short hair and hard, cold blue eyes; he introduced himself as Lieutenant-Commander Kaits, a staff officer to Duke Zarlisch Tytania.

“Come. His Grace Duke Zarlisch Tytania wishes to see you in person. Consider yourself fortunate, given your lowly status.”

“I’m not particularly keen to meet him, you know.”

Fan Hyulick’s childish defiance failed to impress the officer in the slightest. The officer approached the prisoner with a cruel-looking smile, seized his arm as if to say he knew nothing of the expression human rights, and yanked him along roughly. Fan Hyulick was flung about two metres across the floor and planted in the midst of a circle of non-commissioned officers who were waiting for him.

Surrounded by grey walls, he was now forced to walk a distance of about eighty metres. He turned several corners, passed through a series of opening and closing doors, and finally reached a door that seemed unusually large in its two-dimensionality.

Following the standard formalities, the door opened before Fan Hyulick and closed behind him. As the procedure leading up to this point had been carried out with such perfect mechanical precision, Fan Hyulick had no time to feel any fear or anxiety; he had simply been transported in like a piece of cargo.

The figure standing before Fan Hyulick was a man who surpassed him by several degrees in both presence and intimidating aura. There was no need to ask his name. With his majestic build and thick musculature, he was the very embodiment of the word “valour”. Although this man was supposedly two years younger than Fan Hyulick, his appearance and bearing made him seem the elder.

This man, Duke Zarlisch Tytania, scrutinised the prisoner who had been brought before him for about ten and a half seconds. His gaze was the sort one might reserve for observing a panda walking upright. When he finally ceased his scrutiny, he spoke for the first time:

“Are you the lawless traitor known as Fan Hyulick?”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not? Are you trying to conceal your true identity at a time like this?”

Zarlisch cast a contemptuous glance at the prisoner’s face.

“If you are not Fan Hyulick himself, then who the hell do you claim to be?”

“His twin brother.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you dunce!”

Zarlisch’s thunderous roar pounded against his eardrums, and it took Fan Hyulick five and a half seconds to gather himself to reply. Shaking his head to clear the lingering echo from his ears, he finally fired up his sharp-tongued retort:

“You’re the one being ridiculous. I have no recollection of ever committing treason. Treason, as I understand it, refers to a subordinate or vassal turning against their lord. I’ve never once drawn any kind of wage from Tytania.”

“You’re running your sharp little mouth.”

Zarlisch clicked his tongue but, contrary to Hyulick’s expectations, made no attempt to resort to brute force.

“Very well. Go ahead and sharpen your tongue as much as you like, and see if you can outwit my mother. It is not my inclination to inflict pain on those who are bound, but my mother is different. She is also Arses’ mother. I’ll just leave you with that.”

Zarlisch turned on his heel. His broad back made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of engaging in any further fruitless conversation with Hyulick. Hyulick realised that he was a figure of no consequence in that person’s eyes. To Zarlisch, Hyulick was nothing more than “someone to take revenge against for his mother’s second son”, a living tool to appease his mother’s paranoia and blind devotion. And eventually, he would become a dead tool.

Yet, at that moment, Hyulick had made up his mind. He had been driven into a corner far enough. He was determined to break free from his current predicament, a plight so dire that even a herbivore would fight back.

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