Reincarnated Without a Cheat, I Adopted the Former Hero as My Mom

The Knight Captain listened to Uriel's statement. His brow furrowed slightly, and he let the silence stretch for a few seconds. His gaze lingered on Uriel's face, then swept over Tian, Leo, and Kai behind him. He turned his head and muttered a quiet order to his adjutant. The adjutant hurried off to start questioning the other students.

The Captain looked back at Uriel.

His tone had shifted. The practiced politeness vanished.

"You are the last person to have contact with her. We need you to come back with us and assist in the investigation."

Assist in the investigation. It was a pretty phrase, but the subtext was loud and clear. He was a suspect.

Uriel felt the atmosphere shift behind him.

He tilted his head just enough to catch Tian's face in his peripheral vision. His expression was perfectly calm, maintaining the illusion of a harmless, mild-mannered roommate. But his eyes had changed.

Deep within those golden irises, something was turning glacial. It was far more dangerous than mere anger. It was the terrifying, absolute silence of a mother quietly reaching for a wire hanger after seeing her child get bullied.

To prevent a mass casualty event in the Royal Capital, Uriel reached back and lightly tugged her sleeve. The movement was microscopic and hidden behind his back. It was a secret just for them. Tian's eyelashes fluttered. The glacial killing intent in her eyes paused, halted by the gentle pull of his fingers.

He let go of her sleeve and turned around. He patted Leo and Kai on the shoulders, one on the left and one on the right. The force was perfectly measured.

"You guys go ahead to class. Don't be late. I will be back a bit later."

He delivered the line with total casual ease. He sounded like he was just popping over to the campus store for a snack.

Leo's mouth opened slightly, words dying on his tongue. Kai just clamped a hand down on his shoulder.

Kai nodded with extreme solemnity. "I will copy the notes for you. Remember to buy me a drink when you get back." He then dragged Leo toward the school gates.

Leo kept looking back while being dragged away. His mouth moved in silent syllables that clearly spelled out, "You owe me an explanation."

Tian looked at Uriel, then at the teaching building. He kept his gaze locked on Uriel for a moment longer, then his feet carried him silently through the gates.

Uriel followed the Knight Captain toward the headquarters. Two fully armed knights trailed right behind him. The morning sun hit his back, but he felt zero warmth. He walked with his head down, looking exactly like a nervous or depressed student. In reality, his brain was running at full throttle—way faster than it ever did during class.

How should he handle an interrogation?

Option One: Spill everything. Tell them about the milk tea, the tram, the fake boyfriend deal, and the five hundred gold coins. The problem was that the Knight Order was not necessarily the good guys. The Academy had been infiltrated by the Curse Cult, and the Headmaster himself was a mid-level cultist. The Knight Order was a massive organization. There was a solid chance they had cult moles too. If he talked, a hidden cultist might learn about Seraphina's location, her cousin, and her weaknesses. They would exploit that information, and the blame would eventually circle back to him.

Too risky.

Option Two: Say absolutely nothing. But his current cover was a normal student. A normal student dragged to Knight Order headquarters who clammed up completely would scream suspicious. It would make them think he had some massive hidden background.

Then there was the third issue. Lumina had brought intel that the Curse Cult was targeting Seraphina. That information came straight from the Witch Brigade's network. He could not explain his intel source, and he absolutely could not expose the Brigade's existence. He could not even let a single word of it slip.

Uriel ran simulations on all three scenarios in his head. Then a brilliant idea struck him.

Time to play them like a fiddle.

He would act tough first and refuse to speak. The second they hit him, he would fold instantly and talk. The details he provided would be strictly normal date stuff. Milk tea, ice cream cones, the tram, the ten-minute walk. He'd drown them in boring, everyday details.

He would look completely harmless, while perfectly fulfilling the expected role of the last person to see her. They would stop suspecting him of having a hidden identity, and they would never dig into the shady financial transaction between him and Seraphina.

The Knight Order headquarters was a drab, gray building. The stone steps at the entrance were polished smooth by countless boots.

Uriel was led into a small interrogation room. It was smaller than his dorm. There was one table, three chairs, and plain gray walls. The only small window was barred with iron.

He sat on one side of the table. Two men sat across from him. The lead interrogator had a deeply sour expression, looking like he had just eaten spoiled cafeteria food. The other man held a pen and paper, ready to take notes.

The room smelled faintly of mildew. A luminescent stone lamp buzzed softly overhead.

The lead interrogator opened the file folder in front of him and cleared his throat. He looked up, just about to ask his very first question.

"I'm not going to tell you anything."

The interrogator's mouth was still open. The first question died in his throat, choked off before it could even form. He turned his head to look at the note-taker. The note-taker turned to look at him. They just stared at each other. The room went so quiet they could hear the faint hum of the luminescent stone.

"Uh, we haven't even asked yet." The note-taker recovered first, carefully setting his pen down on the table.

The lead interrogator scratched his head. He raked his fingers through his hair a few times, then leaned in to whisper into the note-taker's ear. Uriel could not hear the exact words, but reading their lips and relying on his vast experience, he could guess the gist.

"What do we do? Why did he lead with that? We haven't asked a single thing."

"So, should we just beat him up?"

"That is a bad idea. Isn't he Seraphina's boyfriend? That makes him the cousin-in-law of Estella."

"Wait, that Estella?"

"Yeah. The strongest in the kingdom, the Hero Candidate. I heard she is arriving in the Royal Capital today."

"So what do we do then?"

Silence stretched between them. The lead interrogator's expression shifted rapidly, looking like he was struggling through a brutal multiple-choice exam. If this kid really was Seraphina's boyfriend, he was Estella's cousin-in-law. If they beat up the cousin-in-law, how would they explain it when Estella showed up? But if they did not extract anything, the Knight Order would have no answers for the missing Earl's daughter case. The Knight Commander's wrath was not something to mess with.

He finally made a compromise.

"Take him to the inquiry room. Let Lewis and Judd handle it."

The inquiry room was much darker than the interrogation room. There were no windows at all. A single swinging pendant lamp threw wild, distorted shadows across the walls.

Two young interrogators stood before Uriel. One was a massive brute who looked like he had just been dragged off the training grounds. The other was a tall, skinny guy who looked like a clerk filling in for the day. The door clicked shut, and they got straight to work.

The brute struck first. He drove a heavy fist into Uriel's stomach. The force was decent, but Uriel had pre-flexed his abdominal muscles. The impact felt roughly like getting whacked with a sofa pillow. He bent over on cue and let out a deeply philosophical groan of agony. The skinny guy followed up with an elbow strike to Uriel's back. Uriel howled again.

"Are you going to talk? Talk!"

The punches rained down. While taking the beating, Uriel's mind wandered. He started wondering if he should narrow the crossguard on the sword he ordered for the Witch. If it was too wide, it might slow down the draw speed.

He was completely zoned out, but his vocal performance never slipped. Every three to five punches, he unleashed a blood-curdling, miserable shriek. It did not hurt at all, but he was really committing to the bit.

For three solid hours, the two interrogators took turns throwing punches, kicking, slamming the table, and screaming at him to talk. But they never actually asked a specific question. They just kept repeating the same demand over and over. It was as if those words were a magic spell, and repeating them enough times would automatically summon the truth from his mouth.

The two young interrogators were clearly running on empty. Lewis was leaning against the wall, panting like a dying dog, sweat pouring down his face in waterfalls. Judd was slumped over the table, his uniform shirt completely soaked through the armpits.

Lewis took a massive breath, gathered the very last ounce of his strength, and threw one more punch.

"Are you going to talk? Talk!"

Uriel lifted his face. A trickle of blood hung from the corner of his mouth, courtesy of him biting his own lip earlier. His hair was a total mess, and his uniform was covered in fist and boot prints. Yet his expression was unnervingly calm. It even carried a hint of genuine confusion.

"You actually have to ask me something first. How can I talk if you don't ask anything?"

The brute froze. His fist hung suspended in mid-air. His mouth dropped open wide enough to fit an apple. His entire body looked like someone had hit the pause button. He slowly turned his head to look at the skinny guy.

"You did not ask him anything?"

The skinny guy froze too. His notepad clattered onto the table.

"I thought you asked him."

"I kept asking him if he was going to talk. You did not jump in with the actual questions?"

"I thought after you asked if he was going to talk, you would follow up with the specifics. I am supposed to take notes, you are supposed to ask the questions."

"I was talking about the division of labor. During actual execution, you can just jump in and ask."

The two of them started blaming each other right in front of Uriel. Their voices grew louder and louder. Watching them bicker, Uriel suddenly felt that the Knight Order's training program desperately needed some structural reforms.

Right at that moment, a series of footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor. Heavy military boots struck the stone floor with a heavy, rolling rhythm, each step carrying the weight of a massive frame and the scrape of steel.

The footsteps clattered down the hall and stopped right outside the interrogation room door. Then a woman's voice drifted through the wood. The tone was completely neutral and unassuming. The voice itself was ordinary, yet it carried a bizarre, piercing resonance that made the two bickering interrogators shut up instantly.

"Who is being interrogated in there?"

Another voice answered with utmost deference. "Lady Seraphina's, uh, boyfriend. Allegedly."

Silence hung outside the door for a brief moment.

Then the boots started moving again. There was not even a fraction of a second of hesitation this time. The footsteps thundered down the hall with the relentless momentum of a siege engine, dragging a massive scabbard that clanked against the stone with every stride—heading straight for the Knight Commander's office at the very end of the hall.

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