Building a Modern Nation in a Fantasy World

[Just a heads-up before you read, this chapter might be revised by tomorrow. Due to some work-related issues, I haven't had the time to properly research and polish the content to the level I wanted. As a result, parts of the chapter may not feel as convincing or refined. Thanks for your understanding!]

After Delric departed, Arthur turned to Klein and asked, "How's the spy doing ?"

Klein straightened immediately. "Your Majesty, we've treated his wounds and provided food, as you instructed. He's been given fresh clothing—plain but clean—and we've assigned a rotating guard to monitor him closely. So far, he hasn't made any sudden moves, but he's been quietly observing everything."

Arthur gave a small nod of approval. "And the guard—is he speaking to the prisoner regularly? Trying to build rapport?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Klein confirmed, nodding once. "Just as you ordered. The guard speaks to him regularly—nothing official, just casual conversation. We instructed him to be patient, to maintain a consistent presence. Someone the prisoner might eventually see not as a captor, but as a person. Maybe even… a friend."

Arthur gave a small nod of approval, his tone calm and deliberate. "Good. That's the first step. Familiarity breeds cracks."

He paced slowly, hands behind his back, eyes focused not on Klein but on the flickering fireplace nearby. After a moment of silence, he spoke again.

"I assume you've reviewed the interrogation framework I gave you?"

Klein straightened slightly. "I have, thoroughly. It's… unorthodox, compared to what we've done in the past. But I can see its logic. I've already begun preparing to implement it."

Arthur's expression didn't shift, but a glint of satisfaction flickered in his eyes.

"Then proceed. No rush. No shouting. No pain. Just pressure—applied in the right places, at the right times."

Klein bowed low. "As you command." and left.

The framework Arthur had provided was not born from formal training or state-sponsored intelligence briefings. It was cobbled together from the fragmented remnants of a modern world—half-remembered studies, online think-pieces, investigative journalism, psychology podcasts, and documentaries he once watched while idly scrolling late at night. He had never worked in law enforcement. He'd never worn a badge or sat across from a suspect in a mirrored room. But what he did have was something this world had never seen:

Structure. Psychology. Strategy.

In this kingdom, interrogation meant pain. Iron rods. Whips. Shackles. Screams in dark basements followed by silence and shallow graves. It worked sometimes—but only in the crudest way. And the information it yielded? Often inaccurate. Desperate. Confused. Lies disguised as truth, offered only to make the torment stop.

Arthur had seen this kind of "justice" play out in medieval history books and gritty fantasy dramas. But he also knew something else—real interrogation didn't begin with fear. It began with control.

He envisioned a process where silence became the prison, and speech became the only escape. A structure designed not to force truth out, but to make lies crumble under their own weight.

At its core, the system functioned in phases—each one building pressure, wearing away resistance without drawing a drop of blood.

Phase One: Connection.

Arthur understood that most people didn't confess under duress—they confessed under familiarity. The guard outside the cell wasn't just a watchman; he was part of the design. A fixture. Predictable. Friendly. A calm presence in a storm of uncertainty. Over time, his daily interactions—asking how the prisoner slept, making small talk about the weather, even offering a warm drink—became anchors in the prisoner's mental world. The prisoner didn't trust him, but he noticed when he wasn't there. And that, Arthur believed, was the first fracture.

Phase Two: Subtle Threat.

Once a baseline of psychological comfort was established, that comfort was gently disturbed. No screaming. No violence. Just suggestions. The casual placement of shackles on the wall. The quiet scraping of metal tools being cleaned in the next room. A phrase from the guard that hung a little too long in the air:

"Let's hope today's calm stays that way."

The threat was never stated—but it lingered. It made the prisoner question if silence was safer than speaking, or more dangerous.

Phase Three: Controlled Disorientation.

Should the spy resist, Arthur would shift the environment itself. Not torture—but confusion. The loss of rhythm. Of time. Meals delivered at erratic intervals—once too early, once too late. Lights kept on far too long, or turned off when the prisoner expected day. Long stretches of silence followed by sudden noise. No beatings. Just the slow degradation of mental clarity.

Even subtle manipulations—like swapping out a blanket for a scratchier one, or replacing the guard with someone cold and unresponsive—would amplify the sense of unreality.

The goal wasn't to inflict pain. It was to make the prisoner long for stability—and find it only in compliance.

Phase Four: Framing the Choice.

Then, once disoriented and frayed, the prisoner would be offered a choice. Klein would return—not as a captor, but as a familiar face. Calm. Centered. Reassuring. "Do you want to talk… or go back into the dark?"

Not a command. A choice. Not between life and death—but between clarity and confusion. Between the known and the unknown. It created the illusion of power. A trap disguised as mercy.

Phase Five: Strategic Extraction.

If the prisoner chose to talk, the real game began. Arthur's final phase wasn't about celebration—it was interrogation through contradiction. Answers were cross-checked. The same question asked in multiple ways across different days. Timelines twisted and then laid out again. Words examined not just for content, but for rhythm, tone, hesitation.

A lie told once was easy. But told three, four, ten times under scrutiny? It collapsed under its own weight.

And when the prisoner tripped—when a date changed or a name slipped—Klein would not raise his voice. He'd simply frown.

"That's not what you said yesterday. Are you sure you're telling the truth now?"

Not anger. Disappointment. The sense that the prisoner had failed—not as an enemy, but as a person. It seeded guilt. Doubt. Surrender.

Arthur knew this wasn't a foolproof system. There was no such thing. But that was the nature of strategy: not about guarantees, but about odds. About control. About narrowing the field until the enemy had nowhere left to run.

This was not a doctrine passed down by executioners or lords drunk on bloodshed. This was a system born from a different world—one where precision beat passion, and patience was a weapon sharper than steel.

What he had created was a tool.

Not to destroy.

But to break masks.

To reveal the truth.

This was psychological chess—and Arthur planned to checkmate every enemy on the board.

…

Two weeks later…

Knock, knock, knock.

The quiet tapping on his chamber door stirred Arthur from his light rest. He had been lying on his bed, eyes closed

He sat up, pushing aside the light blanket and adjusting his robe.

"Come in," he said.

The door creaked open, and Klein stepped inside, posture straight and expression composed—but there was a faint tension in his eyes. The kind that only came with results.

"Your Majesty," he said, bowing lightly, "we've finally gotten something from Kai."

Arthur's brow lifted, sharp interest flashing across his face. "He talked?"

"Not directly," Klein admitted. "He never answered the question we truly needed. No names, no origin, no mission orders. But… we pieced it together regardless."

Arthur stood, now fully alert. "Explain."

Klein stepped forward and handed over a slim folder—a collection of transcribed notes from the past week's sessions, all handwritten in careful, clean strokes. Arthur flipped it open, skimming.

"We initially believed he was from Elysia," Klein said. "The ring on his person bore their royal symbol, and his accent carried faint traces of Elysian court dialect."

"Yes," Arthur murmured, "a little too perfect."

"Exactly," Klein said. "A little too clean. We believe now it was a plant—a cover to mislead us. A layer of misdirection to make us bark up the wrong tree."

Arthur flipped to a specific entry—an account of Kai referencing terms and phrases not common in Elysia, but far more aligned with another region.

"The way he talks about logistics," Klein continued, "His references to iron tariffs, his familiarity with the ore routes… They're all tied to Keldoria. Specifically, the Iron Hearth region."

Arthur's eyes narrowed slightly. "So he's not Elysian."

"No," Klein confirmed. "And while he didn't confess the source of his orders, there's a strong possibility that he can't. We suspect he's bound by a magical contract—likely a death-trigger clause."

Arthur closed the folder slowly.

"And yet," Klein said, "he never broke completely. But we learned to watch how he didn't answer. And what he didn't deny."

He took a breath before continuing.

"Our conclusion is this," Klein said, his tone crisp and measured. "Kai was not Elysian. He was trained, funded, and deployed from within Keldoria—most likely by a faction rooted in Iron Hearth. The ring bearing the Elysian crest was a decoy—misdirection to keep us looking outward while the true threat festers under our own roof."

He stepped closer, lowering his voice slightly. "His mission, from what we can gather, was intelligence gathering. Not assassination, not sabotage. Pure observation—watching troop movements, construction zones, messenger traffic, and royal routines. That kind of operation only makes sense if someone wanted to know exactly what you, Your Majesty, were building behind these walls."

Arthur's expression darkened, his jaw tightening as he turned to face the fire.

Delric again… Or someone else entirely? Another noble? A foreign-backed collaborator? Someone inside the inner circle?

"How certain are you?" Arthur asked, his voice low, controlled, but razor sharp.

Klein didn't hesitate. "Eighty to ninety percent. We don't have the final thread, but every piece points to Iron Hearth. His language, his behavior, the economic references he made without realizing, even his familiarity with the way Iron Hearth schedules its shipments—all of it connects. Someone from there trained him. Someone from there funded him."

Arthur nodded slowly, turning back toward the table where the kingdom's map lay stretched before him. His gaze drifted over the Iron Hearth region, already marked with a red wax seal.

"Is Iron Heart really out of control?"

Arthur stared at the map in silence for a long moment.

"Either way, I'm done waiting."