"So, Belicia, you're not a woman willing to submit. You can't be possessed by anyone."
"Not even the Black Street Brotherhood."
Raphael stared thoughtfully at the woman lying on her side across the table. Her gaze was unfocused as she futilely tugged at the handcuff attached to the table leg. Beneath her graceful curves was a languid, careless allure.
"Of course. No woman is willing to submit. All possession is against her will," Belicia said coldly, shooting him a sidelong glance.
"Even those who think they're willing, the women who've grown accustomed to relying on others."
The Aridbone person glanced toward the one-way glass.
Tales noticed that the Black Prophet beside him was silently laughing, causing the vines on his knees to tremble back and forth.
Raphael opened the documents beside him and returned to the subject.
"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me why, over the past few months, the Brotherhood's 'population flow' from other regions into the Royal Capital has been so active—particularly its focus on northern immigrants?"
Belicia, who seemed to have given up resisting, shifted her gaze.
The charming little minx rolled over on the interrogation table and drew her stocking-clad, alluringly shaped legs up beside Raphael.
She was as relaxed as if she were stretching on her own soft bed.
"What's so strange about that? A few months ago, the northerners in the Black Sand Territory started a civil war. A lot of people couldn't survive, so of course they could only cross the border and flee south. Every other land already had its owners, while it was easy to make money in Everstar City, and there was plenty of work. Why wouldn't they come?"
The civil war in the Black Sand Territory.
Tales remembered the intelligence Gilbert had told him about: during the days