Spies (4)

The noble gave a nod before saying, "It's very simple, you can either join on your free will or you can join through other means."

I slowly asked, "What do you mean by other means?"

After a pause where neither of us spoke, I suddenly said, "If you're planning on threatening the people that I care about…"

Before I could finish, the noble suddenly raised his hand to cut me off before saying, "Do you really think that we're that brutish? Do you really think that we would have to resort to violence so quickly?"

I was surprised when I heard this, but I was also relieved.

It was just too bad that before I could even let out a sigh of relief, the noble said, "We have more compelling methods than that. Violence is only used by brutes who don't have any intelligence at all. Do you really think that we would use such a foolish method?"