346 C346. Out of his Depths
In one of the Lord’s suites, located on the top floors of the Blackwing hotel.
The momentary disturbance in the room had lasted literally for a moment as the suite returned to its previous calm in an instant.
Feeling as though she had done a good job in carrying out Tyler’s orders and had even succeeded in stopping herself from cleaving the phantom girl’s head off, Nadine excitedly turned to face Tyler for acknowledgment, and her emotions were practically plastered on her face so even Tyler couldn’t miss that.
“Excellent work. You can relax now, I’ll handle the rest from here.”
Although Tyler had been brief in his feedback, his words had still caused Nadine’s face to be flushed and her tail to wag uncontrollably as a satisfied smile blossomed on her face.
Tyler sighed internally as he waved his hand and the ghost girl disappeared from Nadine’s side and appeared in front of him with the same dumbfounded expression on her face.
Tyler then gently moved his fingers from where he was seated and pulled down the mask that covered the lower half of her face, revealing a rather pretty young lady underneath.
Of course, Tyler didn’t remove her mask just to get a look at her face. To be frank, there was simply something that had piqued his curiosity.
He could vividly remember seeing a girl dressed in the exact same outfit as this young lady a while back. If just memories serve him correctly, it was back in the Darknar forest.
.....
To be precise, it was when he first met Zomatsu. Ther had been an assassin sent after his life and his mother’s momento. As he recalled, she had managed to kill his two companions and had even managed to escape his grasp. A feat he didn’t consider impressive at the time as he had still thought himself weak.
However, he was no longer that naive. Hence why he hadn’t wasted any time in locking the space around them the moment Nadine had forced the intruder to reveal herself. And just in case she was carrying a God Tier artifact— which was highly unlikely — but Tyler wasn’t taking any chances so he had Nadine distract her to be safe.
He truly hadn’t expected her to be defeated so easily. Not that the Ghost girl was weak in any regard. No, it was just that Nadine had gotten far stronger than he had imagined.
Although her magic potential was still at Tier 4, thanks to Potential Break. Her physical abilities during her full transformation were at the peak of Tier 5 at the very least.
Returning his attention to the intruder kneeling before him, he could easily see that her height and proportions were completely different from the last one. However, he still wanted to be sure they weren’t the same person and besides, the chances of both girls being related were incredibly high.
“Y-you... you prevented my unique skill. Jus-just who-who the hell are you guys.”
Hearing those words come out of the girl’s mouth as a mixture of emotions swelled up within her after snapping out of her dumbfounded state after her appearance was exposed.
Tyler tilted his head a little confused. His original assumption was that this girl was already aware of his identity or at least suspect a connection between Lix and Ty as he believed she was in league with the other one.
Hence why he had decided to trap her as he couldn’t allow her to confirm his identity to whomever she was working for.
He thought those were the reasons why she had been tailing them so either her question just now was rhetorical, while simply being a desperate rant of despair, or, she genuinely didn’t know their true identity and was only interested in Lix and Lilith, the VIP merchants.
“Hmm... oh well, let’s just find out then.”
Although Tyler felt as though he had wasted yet another Golden opportunity to further Z’s plans and his goals, he quickly decided against dwelling on the past as he focused his attention on the ghost lady.
The moment those words left his mouth, Tyler’s eyes glowed crimson as he activated one of his Demonic eyes. The Demonic eyes of Domination. Having already crushed any hope within Aika’s mind of surviving this alive, breaking through her mental defenses should be relatively easier than the Demigod, Brethal.
However—
To Tyler’s surprise, he was unable to completely dominate her. The reason for that was simple. Surprisingly, she had an undying love and loyalty toward her master. Whomever that was.
Loyalty was easy to understand for an assassin type. It was also something that was easily handled with a few memory alterations, provided only minimal changes are made to avoid any inconsistency that could collapse the entire mind.
However, love was a different story. The irrationality of the emotions was hard to understand much less deal with. Besides, this wasn’t something like Stockholm syndrome that could be easily traced back to its origins, rooted in self-delusions that made memory manipulation even easier.
Tyler frowned, he hadn’t expected this to prove to be so much trouble because if he were to push any dipper, he could simply destroy her mind, turning her into nothing more than an empty shell.
“Well, I’ve come this far, the hard way it is.”
In this case, the resurrection wasn’t a possibility if he were to mess up as this girl was too weak to survive the process. Hence, Tyler made use of Uriel’s precise calculations and practically took the back seat when activating and using his skill.
Mind Manipulation?
He had no interest in this girl so he hadn’t wanted to see her memories and had simply planned on asking her the questions he wanted but this was fine too.
He could simply view the details of the information he wanted from her memories so there were no problems with this. While her mind was protected against invasive skills and spells like this, it took Uriel less than a plank instant to shatter those defenses and began Tyler’s questioning.
What he wanted to know was her connection with the petite girl that had attacked Z in the forest, and as though reading his mind, Uriel sent memories of her assigning the mission to Amra his way.
There were also the memories of then torturing her after she had managed to escape from him which was a feat this one had failed to accomplish so he was the failure in that regard.
Next was the identity of her master and although a lot of resistance came from this question, Uriel instantly dominated her mind once more and continued as though nothing had happened.
Tyler was sure if he had been in control just then he might’ve made a mistake and caused irreversible damage to her mind.
As Tyler’s thought shifted to this, the new memories Uriel sent his way snapped him out of it. These were memories of her addressing the former City’s lord as master.
As a bonus, he found out that the Zorak family had removed the previous lord from his post and assigned one of their direct descendants to serve as the city’s new lord.
To send a prince all the way to a border city like this, Tyler couldn’t understand why the Zoraks would do that. They must really value this city highly to even consider the idea. Then again, perhaps this decision has something to do with him, either as Lix or as Lord Ty of Darknar.
Tyler consider the possibility careful and concluded that there was a high possibility that was their reasoning. However, he held little to no information at the moment and couldn’t rely on mere speculations and theories to decide so he quickly shifted his focus.
Moving on, the next question Tyler asked was why she was after them and instantly, the memories of her meeting with Aur appeared before him and explained their reasoning to him.
Honestly, it was a good plan, it’s only flaw was he had sent a minor spatial user against a Space dominator, and one who was immune to illusions to booth. A typical case of ‘the wrong opponent.’
Still, something else stuck to Tyler from that particular memory and that was the fact that none of the high-ranking Hunters and Merchants had managed to return from their expenditure of the Grade 3 Gold mine.
He had found it strange that he couldn’t sense the presence of any high-level Hunters when he had first entered the city but he didn’t want to believe that they were truly stupid enough to get done in by only a temporary summoned creature.
Not to mention, the creature, wasn’t even that strong. Its mere purpose there was to scare the Hunters and provide legitimacy in the Green-eyed devil story from Kylyra.
Of course, he realized that perhaps his killing the Royal knights guarding their cave and kidnapping their miners hadn’t helped but still, those were the highest-ranked Hunters they were talking about.
Even he as a weak-ass human wasn’t stupid enough to get done in by a monster beyond his capabilities. It was important that one values their life and know when to fight and when to retreat. Then again, perhaps that was solely the mindset of the weak. Or maybe the mindset of humans. One of the Minor differences between humans and demons.
“Geez... I can’t hide from reality anymore. I guess this little predicament is partly my fault. I will have to accept the Lord’s request I guess. As for this Aur fellow...”
With that, Tyler asked another question while still within the mental world of the girl named Aika. The location of her master Aur, and apparently, the dude was just a floor above him.
“And here I thought this was the highest floor available for guests. I suppose the last floor is set aside for members of the Zorak family only huh, can’t really blame them for putting their family first I guess. How annoying.”
The reason Tyler had thought there were no residential rooms on the floor above was that his Magic perception could not pick up on any signs of life on the upper floor and he only knew there was a floor above his due to his spatial awareness skill.
With a deep sigh, Tyler digested the information he had just received and contemplated his next step.
Firstly, there was the situation with the new lord of Wingedcity who seem to have developed some interest in him. An unexpected bonus of his actions thus far.
Next was the situation with the missing Hunters which Tyler could only pray for their safety as World divination could not peak into this information meaning there were outside forces at work here.
And last was the situation with Aur. His disgraceful step down as city lord was an unexpected boon from his actions but his existence was now a wildcard in the game he was playing and wildcards were more dangerous than anything else he could expect from the others.
The issue now lies in how to handle each and every one of these situations in a way that would aid in Z’s plan for his nation.
Although he didn’t really like leaving things up to Uriel and only ever sort her advice on how to proceed as a way of self-improvement. Tyler found himself now playing a political game beyond his comprehension and was completely out of his depths.
Sigh... What a massive drag this turned out to be. Fine then, I give up.
Alright, Uriel, I’ll leave this to you.
{Understood.}
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