The corner of Ashe's lips twitched as she looked at the aftermath of William's spell. This was the first time that she had seen her lover use this spell and the effect was...
"... That's it?" Ashe asked. "All that spell did was just a flash of light and a loud explosion?"
William lightly coughed before raising his chin in arrogance.
"Just as I had planned," William replied.
"As if!" Ashe's spectral image slightly pulled on Wiliam's ears because he was bragging about something not worth bragging about.
William had still not perfected the World End Tempest and at most, it only served as a super flashy flash grenade with a stunning effect.
"Isn't it fine? The targets were still neutralized in the end," William insisted. "Besides, I was not planning on killing them. I'm still itching to beat them up for what they did to Chiffon."
Before Ashe could even say anything, the Half-Elf summoned a gust of wind and threw the mercenaries inside the portal. He made sure that all six of them were accounted for, before entering the Thousand Beast Domain to conduct his interrogation.
-----
Dickie awakened due to ice cold water that had been splashed on his body. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a Half-Elf, seated on a chair, with one leg crossed over the other.
The leader of the Mercenary Group immediately recognized William because it was not long before that they had battled against each other.
Dickie was about to stand up when he realized that his body had been tied up with adamantium shackles that prevented him from using any kind of magic. He scanned his surroundings and saw his subordinates tied up in the same way as him.
However, what made him suck in a deep breath was over a hundred Elven Undead who were standing behind his men, with their weapons at the ready. It was as if they were just waiting for William's order to hack his comrades to pieces.
"You don't have to worry about them. I won't kill them, at least not yet. I have questions, and I want answers," William said with a devilish smile. "You can choose not to answer them, but I will advise you to cooperate if you don't want to get hurt."
"If this is due to the harassment we did at the Academy, please, allow me to apologize." Dickie bowed his head submissively because this was the only thing he could think of to save his life.
"I have already made a deal with the Headmaster to keep Chiffon's current circumstances a secret. I swear that I won't harass her again, so please, forgive me and my men."
William shook his head slowly as if telling Dickie that gaining his forgiveness wasn't that easy.
"Answer my questions first, we will talk about forgiveness later," William stated. "But, before we get to that, I just want you to know that if you lie to me, I will kill your men and turn them to undead. I have a skill that allows me to tell whether someone is lying or not."
Kasogonaga stood a few meters away from William while gnawing on a Centennial Core. This was one of the cores that Gilbert had given him earlier as compensation. The two other cores had already been given to B1 and B2 in order to raise their ranks.
Kasogonaga's role was to tell the Half-Elf if his prisoners were lying or not. Demigods could easily ascertain lies from truth, and William needed the rainbow-colored Anteater to ensure that Dickie wouldn't be able to lie to him.
"First question, who is your employer?"
"A Duke in the Demon Continent. He commissions us to visit Chiffon in the Academy to see how she's doing, and whether the Kraetor Empire is following the agreement."
"His name?"
"Piers Ryder, the Duke of Grimgar," Dickie answered.
William glanced at Kasogonaga and the latter nodded its head in affirmation.
"Is he Chiffon's father?" William inquired.
Dickie shook his head, "I'm not sure. All I know is that he pays us good money to do this commission."
William snorted. For the time being, he would remember the name of the Duke. If there was an opportunity in the future to visit the Demon Continent, the Half-Elf would give him a visit, and smack his face for good measure.
"Let me get this straight." William rested the side of his face over his right palm. "Your mission is to visit the Kraetor Empire twice a month to check whether Chiffon is suffering or not, correct?"
"Yes."
"And if she's not suffering?"
"... We are duty bound to make her suffer."
William nodded his head before pointing his finger at Dickie's head.
"Stone bullet."
A stone which was as large as a baseball ball, materialized in the air and flew towards Dickie, hitting his forehead, before breaking into pieces.
As a Demon who had reached the Adamantium Rank, the stone bullet wasn't able to deal him a serious injury. However, it was still enough to make him feel hurt.
William shot five more stone bullets, which hit the other mercenaries who were pretending to be unconscious.
All of them cried out in pain, but William was still not done with his interrogation.
"Aside from your group, are there any other envoys that come to check up on her condition?" William inquired.
"No. We are the only group that travel to the Human Lands. You can be assured that we will keep everything a secret," Dickie answered. "If you don't believe me, you can ask the Headmaster. We already signed a Blood Oath. if you like, I can tell you the details in full."
"No need." William shook his head. 'I already know the details of the contract.'
William interrogated, and tortured the mercenaries for half an hour before forcing them to sign another contract with their blood.
One of the things that was written in the contract was that they would not say any information about him to anyone. If they were to break this oath, they would immediately die due to a breach of contract.
The only contract that William trusted was a contract that was supervised by the God of Contract, Sancus. There were certain beings that were capable of forcefully breaking a contract, but none of them would be able to break a contract that was reinforced by the God of Contract himself.
This was why William preferred to form his own contract, than trust a contract that was only reinforced by lesser beings.
After knocking the mercenary group unconscious for a second time, William tossed them out of his Domain.
"Before I forget, I want you guys to do something for me. I want you to bring me a detailed map of the Demon Continent on your next visit," William ordered. "It doesn't matter how expensive it is. I'll pay you once you hand it over to me, Understood?"
"Y-Yes!" Dickie answered.
He and his men were bruised and battered because William didn't go easy on them. All they wanted was to get as far away from the Half-Elf as they could, and never see him again if possible.
Unfortunately, the latter had bound them to do his bidding with the help of the Arcane Spectral Lich. Although they weren't wearing any collars on their neck, they had been placed under a powerful curse, which left them no choice but to follow William's orders.
The Half-Elf raised his head to look at the East. he had sensed someone approaching their location, and he was quite familiar with the person's magical presence.
"Go," WIlliam ordered. "Seeing you guys makes me want to beat you up all over again."
The bodies of the demons shuddered as they hurried to leave in fear of William's threat. This time, they used their physical abilities to empower their body and ran as fast as they could.
The Half-Elf didn't bother to watch them go because his attention was focused on the black dot that was approaching his location. The System had already informed him of the identity of the newcomer, which proved that William's hunch was correct.
Five minutes later, an owl hovered above William and Gilbert looked down on him with a glare.
"What are you doing here, William?" Gilbert asked. "Don't you know that our Academy has a curfew?"
William gave the Headmaster of Silverwind Academy an innocent smile before giving his reply.
"Headmaster, I wasn't able to sleep, so I decided to take a stroll."
"Take a stroll? Do you know how far away we are from the Academy? I even used the teleportation Gate of Silverwind City just to get here as fast as I could! Boy, do you think I'm stupid?"
Gilbert patted the Owl and ordered it to land. He had already used his Night Vision to check the surrounding area and found traces of battle. There was even some blood on the ground, which made him livid.
"Did you kill them?" Gilbert asked.
William shook his head, "No."
"Are you telling the truth? You'd better not lie to me. You have no idea what the consequences are if you killed the envoy from the Demon Continent."
"They're not dead. Don't worry, Headmaster. Everything is fine. I just taught them a little lesson, that's all."
Gilbert didn't know if William was telling the truth or not. However, he would rather believe his words than think of the worst case scenario. He nagged at William for a bit before urging the boy to ride the owl with him.
He intended to personally take the boy back to the Academy in order to get some peace of mind.
----
Meanwhile inside Princess Sidonie's room…
"And that's how William and I became lovers," Princess Sidonie said with a smile.
She was currently brushing the little girl's hair in front of the mirror, while telling her the story of how William and her became lovers.
Chiffon looked at the beautiful princess' reflection in the mirror with a dumbfounded expression. "... You tricked him?"
"I didn't trick him. I just didn't tell him that the Kraetor Royal Family had this custom."
"You used his ignorance to get what you wanted."
Princess Sidonie nodded. "Yes. I did."
The beautiful princess admitted without any tinge of guilt or embarrassment. She loved William so much that she was willing to do anything in order to make him her lover. In the end she succeeded, and the Half-Elf had also opened his heart to her, which made her lovelife very colorful.
"Tell me, Chiffon, what is Will to you?" Princess Sidonie asked.
As someone who loved William, she could feel that the little girl in front of her was somewhat interested in her lover. However, the feeling was very vague, so she wasn't sure if what Chiffon felt for him was love or only admiration.
"He's my caretaker," Chiffon answered. "He makes sure that I don't suffer from hunger."
"How can he stop you from feeling hungry?" Princess Sidonie inquired. "The Sin of Gluttony can only be sated by massive amounts of food. We always eat together and although you eat more than me, that can still be considered normal because I don't eat much.
"Just what is Will feeding you? How did he prevent you from losing to the power of your sin? I just don't understand how he did it. Okay, all done."
Chiffon turned her head to look at Princess Sidonie and answered her question.
"I stave off my hunger by licking Big Brother's lollipop," Chiffon replied. "It is long, hard, and is very delicious. Also, It is very sweet. For some reason, I don't get hungry for a day after eating it."
"..."
< … >
William was unaware that the little girl that he was protecting had made Princess Sidonie misunderstand what she was talking about.. He would come to learn about it the next time he spent some time with his Princess Lover, who made sure she bit his lollipop to show how displeased she was with his action.