Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, Day 11

After I left the little urchin that was that slave girl, I quickly made my way back to my estate. It wasn't that I didn't like my stay here, just that my home was far better, and I would rather go there. Hmmmm, on second thought, the day was still young for me, might as well get some work done. I walked back slowly to my dorm room, then quickly teleported myself to a very large skyscraper. It was nighttime, yet the entire building was bustling around with activity, ah, I loved this building. It was built rapidly around twenty years ago, shooting up into the sky over a kilometer tall. The building was a beautiful piece of engineering, and it was all under my control. Well, my family was the one that had it under their thumbs, it was mostly a hub for all our businesses.

I really should get to skim through all the logs, I need to know everything we do and how it connects. Very important, but I can leave that for later, I need to finish out this contract to build some more infrastructure in my colonial holdings. The current output of coal simply wasn't meeting the standards, with most of it being lost due to the poor infrastructure. Tsk, this was going to cost some money, the mages willing to do such a task are few and far between, and it would take far too long for normal people to build the entirety of it. The price for speed, I suppose. This room was the office at the very top of the building, reserved for people of the Lendenburg line. I sat at the desk and called up my assistant, I didn't call her much, but she was useful when I needed her.

After a few seconds, a lady of small stature with orange hair, brown eyes, blue skin, and horns atop her head came into the room. She held an air of professionalism and wore a suit and glasses. There was a personal assistant assigned to all the people in my family, and while I wasn't the one to run this place, usually, I could if I wanted to. What was her race again? Eh, doesn't really matter, “Laizi, can you bring Reginald here within 10 minutes?”, she nodded and then walked off. Hmm, I wonder how much the price should be, it was 500,000 pounds last I checked, for around 3% of the entire colony.

I stood up and looked at a map on the wall, the entirety of the mainland for Iabrun was over 70,000,000 km² and our colonial holdings all measured over 30,000,000 km² when added up. That was for the entirety of the country, though, I and even the Emperor owned much less colonial holdings and mainland territory. Of course, everything is technically the Emperor's, but he doesn't push his weight on almost all the land. Only keeping a few of the total for himself, and I don't see that changing any time soon. The people of this country do love the monarchy, but they would get mad if we were to just suddenly take their land. I owned some off-shoot small islands that I didn't care for, a larger island near the coast of Iabrun, that one was mostly for leisure. One of the most important was my holding of a large piece of land on another continent, it didn't have a name yet, it was a relatively new holding of ours. It just held the name of the continent it was on, Presa, and not its own name. There were some other offshoots on the other continents, and undoubtedly, the most important one was a gigantic piece of land filled to the brim with natural resources, and most importantly, magical ones. That one was priceless, and no one in our family tried to do anything with it yet. I plan to change that, but there were plenty of ways to milk that place for all of its resources, I can’t be too hasty and pick a subpar option. I sighed and looked at the map once again.

Six continents in total, with a share on every single one of them. Iabrun truly was gigantic, and Solaria was all the same as us, imperialistic with colonies all over. Hmm, 500,000 pounds is pretty good for 3% of the entire colony, and I only really need that much to fix the problems. Good, after I sat back down, Laizi came back with a short child. That was just his species being the way it is, he was a participant of the Last War, though I never bring it up with him. “Please, sit.”, I gestured at the couch as I sat upon an opposite one, he nodded respectfully and sat down.

“You need help with building some roads? Sure, just tell me how much you're willing to pay.”, he said in a jovial voice. I replied, “500,000 pounds is the upfront cost I am willing to pay. All the materials, which add up to another 100,000 pounds, will be provided by my family.” The little child nodded a bit, “600,000 pounds.” he said to me in a firm tone, I smiled a bit, “I will give you that much money if you finish the entire project within the hour.” He groaned out loud, but did say that he would. I asked Laizi, who was standing at the doorway, “Write up a contract, be back in 20 minutes.”

She nodded without a hint of dismay and left the room, good, “Reginald, I need to ask you for a favor.” I said, completely getting rid of my slightly happy tone for a much more serious one. He tilted his head in puzzlement before seemingly realizing what I was going to ask. I pulled out 3 sheets of paper with 3 different faces on them, all 3 were of the same race, humans. They were some pesky people that were sabotaging the island's coal supply, and worse, they were competent mages. They really were quite annoying, “Capture these 3, and if you can't, kill them. I expect their acquisition by the end of the hour, and if they are dead, I will reward an extra 300,000 pounds. If they were alive, I would give you an extra 400,000 pounds.”

I could see the dollar signs in his eyes, he really could be bribed with enough money, and since the entirety of Iabrun's economy is well over 400 trillion pounds a year. With my family holding a decent chunk of it, I can bribe almost anyone. I do still need some liquid, untraceable cash, so I'll go deal with that later on, the drug cartels under my thumb would be very useful for this, all for later. Reginald nodded, and with his powers, made a tiny wooden cup appear out of thin air, and inside it was the pulp of a tree, which was his favorite meal. I could sense where a large amount of mana was transferred and looked out of the gigantic window next to me, only to see a tree that was previously there gone.

“You do know that's illegal, right?” He laughed a bit, and said, “Oh come on, don't be such a stickler to the rules. Let me get away with some stuff.” I smiled a bit, and just nodded along, “How do you do it?” I asked inquisitively, “Any good mage has his secrets.”, he replied quickly. Tsk, still no closer to figuring it out, was it just a simple shaping ability? Exchange of resources from one form to another? I never did get to see him work, so I wouldn't know, another thing to try to do later on. Laizi came back, with a written contract in hand, and handed it over to me. I waved her off, and she accordingly left the room, leaving me and Reginald alone. I put down the contract and slowly slid it over to him, and without batting an eyelash, he agreed and signed the contract. “Goodbye now. I will get it down, see you later, then.”, he said before merging with the floor of the office room and leaving the area.

Knowing him, he would be back soon enough, so I might as well take this time to relax a bit, before moving on to the next venture. I called up Laizi again, she came just as quickly as always, “Get me something to eat.”, I said, “What do you want?” she replied. Hmmm, I didn’t really know what I wanted, “I don’t know, pick something for me.” I replied, she nodded and walked off. Wait, I need a drink, I yelled out, “Oh, and get me some Vesil Juice!” She nodded enough for me to see, and walked right into the elevator. Good, I stood up and walked to the gigantic window that was the back wall of the room. Peering over the edge, I could see the bustling of cars as they moved across the roads of the city. This modern era architecture was nice, but I was of the type to like the more traditional type.

A young man and woman were walking on the sidewalk, there was an older man in a suit that ran past them and entered a skyscraper nearby. A small child with their mother was on the other side of the street, lamp posts lit up the roads and I could see that she was eating some ice cream. A person was flying on a Blemdorf in the sky, and someone on the ground was calling someone on his phone. Someone walked out of a restaurant with his friends looking drunk, they walked down the street and sprawled into their car. A waitress looked out from the window, sighed, and then went back inside to work. From my perspective, I could see that the restaurant was a family-owned business, with their living quarters situated above the restaurant. That child and her mother met up with someone, presumably their father, and walked away out of my view. A person on the street was performing low-level magic tricks for the people walking around, and he had an assistant that was also an amateur mage. I loved just watching the lives of everyone on the street, it was soothing in a way. It felt nice to see the people who I ruled over, and I just liked to see all the mundane parts of normal life.

A man wearing a suit walked out of a building, he had blue skin and horns, huh, the same race as Laizi? He was staggering around on the street and dropped a red and black chip shaped like a circle, I narrowed my eyes a bit. A slave chip, eh? I wonder why they were so brazen as to hold a meeting right near my building, if I get him, then that should be a good way to make the public like me more than they do already. After all, who doesn’t like to see slavers get what they deserve? I took a picture of the man’s face, and then sat back down on the couch when Laizi came back with a tray of grapes, Griffin Cheese, some biscuits, and then a glass of Vesil juice, something light was nice. I said to her, “Thank you, Laizi, can you go and get me the logs for that island off the coast?” She nodded, she knew exactly what I meant, and rushed off to go grab it for me.

Just as I took the first bite of the Griffin Cheese, Reginald appeared in front of me, I was a bit startled, but I kept calm and just slightly smiled at him. The Griffin Cheese was very mild and creamy, and it worked with the grapes exceptionally well. The biscuits, made from the wheat we grew, were slightly sweet and worked well with everything else, Laizi really did know how to satisfy a craving. I gestured at the plate on the table, Reginald smiled and shook his head, “So, where are they?” I asked him. He wasn’t the type to skimp on the job if there was a chance to earn some money, so I didn’t worry about the infrastructure, and even if he did skimp on it. I have my ways to kill him, and he knows it, so I doubt that he would dare to skimp on it. What was important were the people, he generated a wooden replica of one of the men, and then it turned into the real deal.

The person who had been a thorn in my side for a while now, Javier, with white skin, brown hair, and black eyes. He was the leader of it all, and he was definitely not someone to be trifled with, normally. Yet, here he was, gagged like a pig and unable to do anything, good, good. He looked at me with hatred in his eyes, and that was all he could, or would, be able to do for a long time coming. “Where’s the other two?”, I asked him, “Give me the money, and then I will give you the rest of them.” Reginald replied, “I can arrange that, Laizi!”, I yelled out and Laizi came over in a few seconds with a briefcase. She opened it up for Reginald to see, it was just numerous Iabrun pounds. He looked at it for a second and looked content, he took it and then summoned the rest of the people, two people, that looked exactly like Javier, Jacob, and Yave.

“Reginald, come back to me in around… Forty-five minutes, will you?”, I said, he nodded and left as quickly as he came. Leaving me, Laizi, and the three tied-up people in the office. I smiled at them and signaled to Laizi to bring them to the chamber and prep them for me. She smiled a bit, nodded, said, “Your wish is my command.” and left quickly with the three of those men. Did she smile? That was rare, I sat back down on the couch and picked up the glass of Vesil juice. Fake Vesil juice was green and flat, but the real deal should be purple with a little fizzle in it. The real one is made up of the blood of Vesil's, it tasted sweet and held a nice perfume of lavender and other herbs. The little fizzle was what made it, and the unique flavor that came from the blood of the Vesil, even if someone tried to recreate it, it just wouldn't come out the same. This little glass was well over 500 pounds alone, no wonder people didn't drink it all that often. I picked it up and took a little sip of it, before putting on the Griffin Cheese on a biscuit and biting down.

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I stood up, with another piece of the Griffin Cheese and a grape in hand, and went to the large window. Looking down on the slave building, I could see that same man walking back to it. The horrors that happen in that house are better left to burn, yet something inside me wanted to see the situation with my own two eyes. I lifted the last remaining biscuits, grapes, and Griffin Cheese with some simple wind magic and ate it all. I had to go and thank Laizi, I heard a knock on the door, speak of the Devil, and he appears. “Laizi! You got me those logs?”, she nodded and handed them over to me, “What room are those 3 being held in?”, I asked her, she said, “Room 341, 342, and 343.”

Good, I waved her off and picked up the logs for the island, starting from the earliest one, back when we first acquired the territory. A house…, some animals, huh, it all seemed pretty normal? Well, anything shady should have stayed off the logs, wait, we spent 10,000,000 pounds on what amounted to a plot of land that was worthless? I pity the poor soul that ripped off the person in my family, they definitely didn't get a nice death. Hmm, this all seemed pretty normal, I'll have to check with the earnings to see if there were any discrepancies. That can be left for later, though, I needed to know if these people had others that wanted a rebellion. These logs are relics of the past, these people are my business, and I should handle it like they were my business.

I stood up and left the room, and decided to go to room 200 first. I reached the bottom floor, every person stopped to say hi to me, before going back with their duty. Next, I walked down a hallway lit brightly with lights and came upon a door that didn't look out of place with the white hallways. I opened it up, and after that was another hallway where there was a code that was required. It was something only me, and Laizi knew about. I put the long code in and walked inside, where there was a set of stairs underground. After that, there were rows upon rows of doors, each pure white, the hallway was deathly silent and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of my shoes. I reached room 200 and opened it up, again with a unique code only known to me and Laizi. Inside was like a toy store, except it held any and every torture tool that I had at my disposable, I got some goodies and stored them in my pocket space, then left as quickly as I came.

First, first should be Yave, he was the toughest of the group and would be a joy to break. Or should I start with Jacob, who was the softest one? Decisions, decisions, eventually I just decided upon Jacob. I opened the door to room 343 and saw him on a chair, tied up and gagged. He was a very competent mage, nothing Reginald couldn't handle, but competent nonetheless. Bindings for magic do work wonders, he looked defeated and cast his gaze at me and then went right back to staring at the floor. “Awww, why do you look so defeated, Jacob? Has the futility of your actions finally caught up with your puny mind?” I said to him.

Much to my surprise, he laughed a bit and nodded, I took off his gag, “Yes, yes Your Grace. That's exactly what happened, I don't know what got into me to think this… revolution thing would ever work.”, he said, then turned quiet. “Tell me, Jacob, is there anyone else that worked with you 3?”, he shook his head. Interesting, he still had something of a sense of honor left in him. I plucked a picture from my pocket dimension and showed it to him, “See this? It's Javier talking with someone, and that someone isn't you or Yave. Tell me, who it is, and you may just be let off scot-free.”, that was a total lie, but might as well dangle something in front of him. I could get someone to track the person from just this photo, but that would be expensive, might as well do this first. He looked confused, frightened even, but that was expected. “I don't know. I really don't know.”, he said. I got an idea, I left the room quickly and went into Yave's room.

Yave was not the talkative type, and I wasn't one to try to force him to talk, for now. He was tied up and gagged, I took a saw from my space, and went to hack off his right arm and left leg. He tried to resist me, at first, he screamed and cried and tried to stop me. Eventually, the pain of getting his entire right arm chopped off got to him, and he fainted. Mages were magical, and they were competent, but they weren't at the level that they could shrug off damage from normal sources, or have gone through enough pain to resist it. It was difficult to cut through the bone, but I persevered and finally cut off both his arm and leg. I picked the limbs up, his cries of pain and agony shouldn't have been heard by anyone else, and moved into the hallway. I called Laizi, “Meet me outside room 342, I have a task.”, I said to her. Not even a second after I hung up, I could hear her footsteps resounding down from the hallway. The bliss of teleportation must be wonderful, she must've teleported a bit further away as a courtesy.

She came up to me, and the two bloody limbs on the floor. “What do you need me for?”, she asked, “What do the natives of that land usually eat? Meat?”, she nodded and replied, “The diet of the commoners there is mostly composed of meat, some vegetables are seen as well. Dairy is nearly non-existent.” I nodded and looked at the limbs, then back at her, “You know how to cook, right?” I asked, she nodded, and I swiftly continued, “Good, cook up a simple stew with the limbs here and bring it back to me within five minutes.” Without uttering a word, she picked up the limbs and teleported away. I needed to learn how to do such a thing, but for now, I'll go to Javier. Inside the room, he glared at me with hatred, maybe he should say something first. I un-gagged him, and he immediately tried to bite me, an ungrateful bastard.

“I have nothing to say to an imperialist pig like you.”, he said, “No matter what you do, I will not break, I would rather a grave in my home country of Yeven than live a millionaires life in Iabrun.”, he continued on. I looked at him, and smiled a bit, “Yeven? I haven't heard of it, the only thing it is now is an imperial colony of Iabrun.” I knew what pressed the buttons of Javier, and that was the disregard for his homeland. He was irate, and if his looks could kill, I would have been dead many times over. The eyes of his glared into mine, he tried to stand up, but all he did was rattle his locks a bit and tire himself out after a few minutes. “Indeed, you're quite protective of your homeland. Or should I say, ex-homeland?”, I giggled a bit at what I said and continued, “Javier, Javier. If you just tell me who else you are working with, you can rest peacefully in your own country, and not be confined here in Iabrun.”

“You do not understand me, you fucking colonizer. I will strike all the deals with the King of all Hell, the Devil himself before I strike a single deal with you, you imperialist swine.”, he damn near yelled out at me. He wasn't willing to give it up, good, I liked it when there was some challenge to it. I walked out of the room, and went to room 201 quickly, in there I took a small table plus some more binding. After a minute, I came back to room 341 with Javier in it and put the table down. I removed the binding of his right arm and put it down on the table. He tried to resist me, but it was futile, the bindings were too strong, and he was now too weak to put up anything meaningful as resistance. With his arm and hand spread out on the table, I tied his right arm back up with binding, except this time to the table instead of his chair. This room was a nightmare for mages, it sucked the mana out of anyone that didn't have authorization and weakened magic to the point of non-existence for the prisoners.

Holding a pair of pliers, I held onto the fingernail on his thumb with great force. Then, with even greater force, I pulled out the entire fingernail. He screamed, but I gagged him immediately and moved on to his index finger. With the same technique that I used on his other fingernail, I forcefully removed the fingernail of his index finger. He was now passed out, tsk, I needed to make sure that they stay awake regardless of the pain. I walked outside, and could hear the sound of footsteps, Laizi came up to me with a hot bowl of what looked to be a normal stew. I smiled, “Can you get me four doses of the drug that makes sure they don't pass out? Oh, and a small vat of highly corrosive acid, plus a healing stone, and the video recording of the last 10 minutes in room 342, and the video recording of you cooking the meat. Oh, and stay outside the doors in case I need anything more.”, she nodded, and I went inside Jacob's room with the hot stew. Javier's fingernails were in my pockets, out of sight, there was an extra chair in there and I sat down on it. I removed most of Jacob's binding, and his gag, then I gave him the stew.

“Here, take it. You haven't had anything to eat in a while, right? Eat some, and then we can talk.”, I said in a very gentle tone, almost motherly. It came naturally to me, Jacob nodded a bit and took the stew, he started to slowly eat it. I saw him eat the chunks of meat inside it, and after a few minutes, he was finished with it. He put it down on the ground, and then looked at me, I showed him the photo again. “Here, have a look. Try to remember who this was, and you can leave.” He took it from my hands, and even after seeing it closer, he shook his head and said he didn't know who it was. He was proving to be a tougher nut to crack than usual, but I just had to play the long game. I left the room once again, Laizi stood outside with all the stuff I requested. I took the healing stone with me and then went inside Yave's room. He was still passed out, I injected my mana into the healing stone and his limbs regenerated within a matter of seconds. With the help of a knife, I slit his wrists and the pouring blood was caught in a cup. After a few seconds, I patched the wound up and took the blood in the cup to Laizi. “Make a drink for our friend Jacob.”, she smiled a tiny amount and nodded.

I went back into Javier's room with the doses of medicine, the healing stone, and the vat of acid. I jabbed the dose directly into his bloodstream, and he woke up instantly, I smiled at him and picked up the pliers once again. Then, I went for his ring finger next, plucking the fingernail directly off from it. This time, he screamed, and his eyes were bloodshot. I removed his gag, “I will not deal with you, you swine.”, I put the gag on immediately after what he said. This time, I took a massive cleaver and slammed it down on the table, cutting off the entirety of his arm. I took it and then left the room, to see Laizi with a cup of red-colored juice. She saw the hand and looked at me, “Make two sausages with this.”, I told her, she nodded and left. Within a few seconds of waiting, she came back with two perfectly good sausages.

I thanked her and then went inside the room. Offered the drink and meal to Jacob, showed him the picture, and once he said he didn't know, I left to hack off the body parts of the others for more things to feed Jacob. I cut off the leg of both Javier and Yave, healing them at the same time, and gave it to Laizi. She came back twenty seconds later with a perfect steak and the same red-colored juice made from the blood of Javier and Yave. Inside, I gave Jacob the items and asked him once again, and once again, he said he didn't know. We repeated this routine a few more times, one time with a roast of the leg, another that was belly bacon, and finally, another stew. This time, was the time that I would show Jacob it all.

I took all the recordings of everything I told Laizi to get and walked into Jacob's room with a vintage television set, plus a way to see the tapes. I connected it to the outlet, and then sat down, put the first one on, and waited to see Jacob's reaction. It was me sawing off Yave's limbs, he gagged a ton of times throughout it. Next, I removed the tape and put in the next one, of Laizi preparing the stew, and then me giving it to Jacob. His eyes looked wide with horror and disgust, he vomited all over the area, yet I kept going. Showing him the process of each and everything he ate in his time here. He vomited over and over again, looking at me with disgust and fear. I stood up and kicked him in the stomach, then again, and again, and again, and again. I shoved the picture in his face, and yelled, “TELL ME WHO THIS PERSON IS OR I WILL FEED YOU THE MEAT OF YOUR FRIENDS RAW.” He nodded a bit, finally, some answers.