“Why are we here though?” asked Maxine.

  “To interrogate Lady Ophelia,” replied Otto.

  “Yeah, obviously,” said Maxine. “But why here? Couldn’t we do it back at the cathedral? They have baths there.”

  “Haha, idiot!” jeered Liliane. “You really don’t know? We’re not actually interrogating her! We’re using her to bait out the dragon!”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know that?” asked Maxine defensively.

  “You would have known if you had been paying attention,” said Liliane. “But I guess you care too much about your hair to think about strategy and tactics.”

  “Oh, like you’ve ever thought about either of those,” retorted Maxine.

  “That’s enough,” said Otto, hiding a smirk. “We are interrogating her and hopefully using her to lure out the Midhna. I chose this location because it is an auspicious one where another Demon King was defeated previously.”

  “Wait-” said Ophelia, looking pale. “Why am I being used as dragon bait? And what am I being interrogated for? I already told you guys I didn’t know anything about Jocelynn’s m-murder.”

  “This isn’t about the princess,” I said. “It’s about your lover. I believe you called him ‘Mimi’?”

  All the color drained from Ophelia’s face. “W-what are you-? How did you-? Have you guys been spying on me?!”

  “Hold off on the interrogation for now Lucy,” said Otto. “We haven’t even set out the truth-detecting orb. Barnabas, would you mind making us a few chairs down in the valley?”

  “Not at all,” said the mage, who had returned to his original jolly disposition since leaving the Dungeon.

  “Wait no!” protested Ophelia. “You guys have been spying on me and listening in on private conversations?! And you’re interrogating me about my love life?”

  “Silence,” said Otto. “We will explain further once we have reached our final destination.”

  “No! Why should I-?”

  “Silence!” repeated Otto, putting aura into his voice to amplify it.

  Ophelia cowered back slightly, and did not open her mouth again.

  We walked down the slope, with Barnabas using earth magic to create a smooth path ahead, free of the countless loose stones that littered the ground. When we were about halfway down though, I felt another faint mana slicker, much like the one that had appeared near Casimir’s head back at the duke’s castle. Immediately, I set up a [Mana Shield] around us, causing the whole group to pause and stare at me.

  “She just received a message,” I said. “I’m blocking her from receiving any more, or sending any back.”

  Although [Hex Shield] was far stronger for defense against offensive spells, [Mana Shield] was actually more suited for jamming long-distance communication. There weren’t actually any spells specifically designed to block communication, because long-distance communication was essentially just connections formed by mana, and ordinary magical shields blocked all mana from passing through. [Mana Shield] was better than [Hex Shield] for this purpose because it was not segmented, and had no joints or weak points. A [Hex Shield] was stronger than a [Mana Shield] overall, but powerful communication devices like the one that Otto had handed to me would be able to get their signals out in between the shield panels.

  “Good work,” said Otto, nodding at me before looking back forward. “Keep moving,” he said to the group.

  We completed the short walk down to the bottom of the valley, my shield moving with us, and Barnabas summoned a set of stone chairs from the ground for us to be seated on. Ophelia was placed in a larger stone chair, and as soon as she sat down, a stone belt grew out of it and strapped her in place.

  “Why am I being treated like a criminal?” she asked. “W-what did Mimi- what did Armin do?”

  “We were hoping you’d tell us,” said Otto, reaching into the spatial bag around his hip and pulling out a familiar-looking blue orb.

[Pride] has nullified [Truth Orb]’s effect

  “We have here a [Puppetmaster],” said Otto, gesturing toward Maxine. “Should you fail to answer, you will be compelled to answer against your will. I’ve been told it is not a comfortable experience. It is in your best interests to cooperate. Do you understand?”

  “What did Armin do?!” asked Ophelia, panicked. “Why am I-?”

  “Do. You. Under. Stand,” repeated Otto.

  “Wha- I-”

  “Maxine,” said Otto.

  “Wait no!” said Ophelia. “I’ll cooperate!”

  “Good. First, to calibrate the orb. State your name, title, and age.”

  “O-Ophelia Lyon. 43rd child of Duke Louis Lyon. I am 21 years old.”

  “Now tell us an obvious lie.”

  “I- uh- I know exactly why I’m here.”

  The orb turned red for a moment before slowly fading back to blue.

  “Excellent. Now, we can begin. What is your relationship with the Demon King of Greed?”

  The little rosiness that had returned to her cheeks during the short hike immediately fled, when she heard this question.

  “None! Unless…” A look of horror slowly spread across her face. “Unless… Is Mimi- is Armin a Demon King?”

  “Yes,” said Otto, looking down at the Truth Orb, which remained blue. “Were you aware of this fact when you met with him?”

  “N-no!” she said. The orb did not change. “I thought he was just a businessman!”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “A businessman?” asked Otto. “What kind of business did he say he did?”

  “T-trading,” Ophelia said. “He said he traded precious metals and Dungeon loot.”

  “When did you first meet… Armin?”

  “Five years ago, when I was s-sixteen,” said Ophelia. “It was at my coming of age ceremony. I-I thought it was really cool that he was such an important person at such a young age, so we started talking, and then it went from there.”

  “‘A young age’ you say? How young did he say he was?”

  “Twenty.”

  “I see,” said Otto, stroking his chin. “And you never doubted him? You never thought that his wealth was suspicious?”

  “N-no. He said that he got most of it from his parents, who passed away. He looked really sad. I was too worried about comforting him. Was- was that all a lie?”

  Otto stared at the still-blue orb for a few seconds before speaking.

  “Lucille says that you received a message a few minutes ago. Who was it from and what did it say?”

  “Is he really a Demon King?”

  “Answer the question,” said Otto sternly.

  “I- It was from Armin,” said Ophelia, shrinking away. “He was asking if I was alright.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe he will attempt to rescue you?”

  “I-I don’t know,” she said, trembling. “He- he said he would, but… If everything else was a lie, wouldn’t that be a lie too?”

  When she finished speaking, she burst into tears. “Why? Why me? First J-Jocelynn, and n-now Armin too?”

  “That will be all for now,” said Otto, stowing away the orb. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “Lucille. Sylvester. With me,” he said, standing up and walking away.

  As Sylvester and I made to follow, Ingrid got up as well, moving to comfort the weeping princess. Once we reached the edge of the [Magic Shield] that covered us, we stopped, and I set up a [Wall of Silence] around us.

  “Is her story consistent with what you saw?” Otto asked me.

  “Yes,” I said. “But didn’t you already know she was telling the truth, from that orb?”

  “The orb is not infallible,” he said. “It can be resisted with sufficient willpower. The threshold is high, and I doubt she meets it, but she has already proven to be a more powerful mage than we were aware. Additionally, the orb can only confirm whether someone believes they are telling the truth. If she was brainwashed, or hypnotized, or under the influence of any other mental skills, the orb may be useless.”

  “I see,” I said. “And we know shes a strong mage because of the handcuffs. Do they drain mana?”

  “Precisely. Those cuffs absorb mana and release it into the atmosphere harmlessly. Judging purely based on the amount that was expelled, she is likely only a few levels shy of the twins, which is very, very impressive for someone her age. Either that, or she has a very powerful class that has granted her a lot of [Willpower].”

  “Yes, yes it is,” I said.

  I was surprised to hear how competent Ophelia actually was. All I had heard about her previously was that she was beautiful. No one seemed to want to talk about any of her attributes other than her beauty. She must have been hiding her strength.

  “So, Lucille, based on your observations, do you believe that there is a chance Midhna will attempt to rescue her?”

  “I can’t really say. It depends on how much of what he said was an act. If he’s anything like how he seemed when he was talking to her on the beach, I don’t think he would hesitate.”

  “Good. And how is your [MP]?”

  I checked my HUD. “Recovering a bit slowly while I’m maintaining these barriers, but it’s up to a third or so.”

  “Can you maintain the barriers while meditating?”

  “Yes, but I’ll have to sit outside the big one, and keeping them up will harm my efficiency.”

  “Then go meditate. You can take down the sound barrier, but leave the communication barrier up.”

  “Roger that,” I said.

  I did as he bid, stepping outside my shield to start meditating while he and Sylvester started discussion strategy. I kept an eye and an ear tuned to the conversations of the others, but there wasn’t much of interest said. The twins were sent into town, because if Midhna did come, they would be more of a hindrance than a help. Otto recommended for Humility to join them, but he declined, and said that if a fight occurred, he would just hide behind Ophelia, and the dragon wouldn’t attack.

  Ingrid and Barnabas tried their best to cheer Ophelia up, which was mildly entertaining. Neither of them were very good at it, and I found myself wincing a few times while I listened to them.

  “Don’t be too sad,” said Ingrid at one point. “No man is worth being this sad over. You made some, er, mistakes, but you’re still young. Don’t let your past define you. Take back your life!”

  Another time, Barnabas tried to cheer her up with a story from his glory days.

  “This reminds me of one time when I was over in Vivaldi,” he said. “I had never been to the beast country before, and living in a small town on the southern border of Johann, I had never seen a beast-person either.

  “So anyway, I was in a tavern in the Verdi territory, when I saw this real foxy gal. As in a literal fox-person. Now, I wouldn’t consider myself to be someone with those kinds of tastes, but for some reason, I just couldn’t take my eyes off her. She noticed me staring, and came over to me-”

  “How is this supposed to help cheer her up?” interrupted Ingrid, looking at Barnabas with disgust.

  “Hold on, I’m getting to that part,” said Barnabas. “Anyway, she came over to me, and we started talking, and it came out that she hadn’t really seen many humans before, and started asking me about human culture. Now, back then, I was still a young mage, and nowhere near as famous or powerful as I am now, but I still really wanted to impress her. I was young, and foolish, and ended up telling a lot of big lies about myself.”

  “Oh, gods,” muttered Ingrid.

  “She seemed to really enjoy listening to me,” continued Barnabas, ignoring the dwarf, “so I kept going, and the lies kept getting bigger, and eventually, with the help of a lot of alcohol, we got a room together upstairs. I had never been with a beast-woman before, so-”

  “Barnabas,” warned Ingrid.

  “Ah, I’ll skip the details. We had a great night together, but the next day, I had to go into a Dungeon, so I didn’t see her again for a couple days. When I got back, she had learned the truth about a lot of the lies I had told her, and let me tell you, in all my years that I spent raiding Dungeons, I was never in worse shape than when she was done with me. I had gotten a taste of her strength that night at the tavern, but I didn’t realize how much stronger beast-people were than humans until the day she caught me. The local priest wasn’t powerful enough to heal me, and I didn’t get to a powerful one early enough to prevent scarring. I still have the marks on my back. After that, I never lied to impress a woman again.

  “So what I’m trying to say here is, when that sonuvabitch shows up, you’ve gotta give him hell. Give him a beating he’ll never forget, and he’ll never lie like that again. Trust me, it works.”

  By the end of this story, Ophelia had at least stopped crying, Ingrid was glaring daggers at the jolly old lecher, and Ji-Soo was stifling a smile.

  “Barnabas, what was that?!” demanded Ingrid. “How was that story supposed to help?”

  “Well, she stopped crying, didn’t she?” said Barnabas.

  “That’s probably because she’s disgusted with you!” said Ingrid moving to stand in front of Ophelia so that Barnabas couldn’t see her. “As she should be!”

  “Why would she be disgusted?” said Barnabas. “I learned my lesson, didn’t I? It was a happy story!”

  “It was a foul one! I’ve been trying to stay civil with you, despite your number, but that’s it. I’m not letting you anywhere near her! Or Ji-Soo! Ji-Soo, get away from him!”

  “Bah, I wouldn’t try anything. I’m far past my prime,” he said, patting his protruding gut. “If I were twenty years younger, though… Well, I don’t think even you could have resisted me, miss Chastity. I was actually quite the looker back then…”

  From there the conversation devolved into an argument that was soon broken up by Sylvester and Otto, who then adopted Barnabas into their strategic discussion while the women moved further away. Ophelia was still chained, but her restraints were loosened, and her chair reclined so that she could get more comfortable, while still appearing to be a hostage.

  I finished recovering my [MP] after the separation, and after a brief conversation with Otto, I went to join the other women and their conversation. Ophelia’s eyes were still red, but she had long since stopped crying, and was occasionally participating in Ingrid and Ji-Soo’s conversation. And by that I mean she occasionally reacted to Ingrid’s monologue, as Ji-Soo rarely spoke.

  When I joined, the conversation started to flow better, and we talked about many things, including mana, aura, food (a topic which I had to refrain from), fashion, and many other subjects in an effort to distract Ophelia from the harsh truths that had just been revealed to her. We were in the middle of an animated discussion about hairstyles when we suddenly all froze, and looked up at the ridge as spatial mana coalesced, then dissipated, to reveal the forms of two men, one a smirking blond, and the other a black-haired man, with blue eyes full of rage.