Lucky Prodigy

18: Diplomacy

I narrowed my eyes slowly, and looked at the others; they were each level 75 or so, but one of them held the Slave Contract. I mentally contacted the Orc, and chuckled. 'I'm going to kill your master. The rest are yours. Welcome to Treaty Lake, Friend.'

I drew the arrow as he slowly looked up, and grinned savagely, chuckling. The man holding the contract hissed at him to be silent, and I loosed.

The snow around me liquified, making the Game set that Mika and the Monarch were playing with fly off a few feet from the wind, and the owner fell with his head mysteriously... gone. The orc immediately snapped the chains around him, and swung his axe in an arc, slashing the others to pieces in a few seconds. The mage managed to dive out of the boat, and I contacted one of the Undine's in the river, asking her to fetch him for me.

The mage screamed as a large hand made of water wrapped around him, and casually threw him towards the mountain.

"Mika, catch that, will you? Gently, he's got information to give me. Oh, and the Orc as well." I asked, and the orc dove out of the burning boat, and was subsequently tossed towards us, flipping ass over tusks comically.

She frowned at me, resetting her game, and two hands made of dirt rose up and 'gently' caught the two beings, bringing them up to us. "I hope it was important! I was winning." She pouted.

"Mm, slave takers again." I explained, and her expression darkened. The mage was dropped unceremoniously in front of us, onto his face, and the orc landed on his feet, next to me. "Hello, Jae. Am I saying that correctly?"

He blinked slowly at me, then the bow in my hand, then the boat, burning about five hundred meters away. "Oh... tha's a fair shot, nae, innit?" He asked, his accent clearly from the western coast of the continent.

"Indeed it is." I smirked, and placed my bow under the mage's chin, letting it burn him a little. "Now then, Slave Mage! A few questions, and they'll be answered properly, or I will have my Necromantic Dragon friend take your skeleton out of your meat and make you into a puppet! Clear?" I asked smugly.

He turned very, very pale, but he wasn't looking at me, I realized, and I turned around, finding the Monarch staring at him with only his center eye, the other two closed. "I don't like liars, Mage." He spoke calmly, but his normally soft voice was now normal volume, and the difference sent shivers up even my spine.

The mage proceeded to piss himself, and I sighed. "Well that's just disgusting! Moving on, who was your target, with a level 325 Gladiator Orc? Almost No one here is weak enough that he'd kill them." I asked, moving on.

"What?" The orc asked, looking around curiously.

"Yes, darling, we're all very strong. I'm the weakest of my master's disciples, and I'm level 505, currently." I smiled at his incredulous face, and then looked back at the mage. "So!!! Perhaps you'd like to speak before the Oni Monarch over there tears the skin from your body?"

He nodded swiftly, eyes wide and dilated.

"Yes? Wonderful! Who was your target?" I asked happily.

"Uh, w-we, we were sent to capture a few Ogre Children? We knew there were some here, and-..." he paused, looking at the ground as he felt the Ogre Monarch's glare on him.

"Mm. Sent by whom?" I asked.

"The, the Silver-Chain Slave Guild? There's a contract out for high-level monsters like Ogres and Dragons, as well as specifically the Sage's Children, or the Sage himself... but we weren't here for him, that's why we waited until he was gone." He stuttered.