「Y-Your Highness!」
「Shit! Damn you! Let our boss go!」
The prince’s many subordinates immediately began kicking up a fuss the moment they realized he’d been captured.
「In the way.」
「Gyaaaah!」
「Guaaaahh!」
But Fran budded into the conflict and cut them down before they could so much as make a move.
「So how did the whole pirate ship thing end up going, Fran?」
「Sank all but this one.」
「That was quick. Nice job.」
「You too. Captured captain.」
「I was just lucky. But enough of that, let’s save singing each other praises for later, shall we? We’ve got a bit of an interrogation to get out of the way first.」
「Nn.」
Suarez still had quite a bit of fight in him. His expression was fierce, and expressed that he wasn’t willing to give up. That wasn’t to say, however, that he wasn’t intimidated. He twitched a bit, as if daunted, when Fran and Mordred approached him.
「Release me, you mongrel!」
「Why?」
「Insolent! Do you not know who I am!?」
「Let me guess. A guy that leads a group of criminal scum?」
「Filth, causes problems by being alive?」
「The lot of you are all ignorant fools! I am a man of great importance, Sheedran’s king!」
「Mhm. I’m sure you are.」
「How dare you!」
Mordred, being the total badass he was, ignored Suarez’ shouts. He instead lifted a foot and started grinding it into the prince’s face—an action that Fran soon began to imitate.
「Cease that immediately! I will allow you to acknowledge me as your lord, and yourselves as my retainers if you immediately prostrate yourselves before me and apologize!」
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There had to be something wrong with the prince’s head. He seemed to think that his offer would entice his assailants despite the fact that they’d already defeated him and tied him up.
And he meant it. The expression on his face demonstrated that the offer was as serious as could be.
「I am one of Sheedran’s royals, a lord that commands water dragons. All you have to do is the natural act of licking my shoes. Do that, and I’ll treat you no different from any other in my service.」
There was no way the prince was simply bad at reading the mood, he must’ve had some sort of communication disorder or something. I was surprised he lived as long as he did, and I also now fully understood why he’d gotten ripped off the throne and deported.
Still, I could see why the pirates had taken his side. His lack of brain cells was a pretty major issue if you asked me, but he was still strong, and did still have control over a Water Dragon Warship. To them, his threats held plenty of weight; he could easily annihilate them if they failed to yield. Moreover, serving him wasn’t without its merits. There were clearly many payouts, of both the immediate and potential future variety. Besides, I highly doubted he’d gotten himself captured by them before starting to negotiate. Given all the aforementioned circumstances, their allegiance to him was almost a given.
That said, neither Fran nor Mordred hadn’t bothered caring even the slightest bit for what he had to say. They ignored everything he had to say and immediately began interrogating him.
「Tell everything about controlling water dragons.」
「We won’t hurt you if you tell us what we want to know.」
「What!? Why would I tell you anything!? 」
The prince refused to talk. I couldn’t tell if he was demonstrating a royal’s pride, a pirate’s obstinacy, or the simple fact that he couldn’t read the mood. But either way, he shut his mouth and turned his face away from his interrogators.
「Fmph.」
「Guaaahh! The paiiin!」
Fed up, Fran pressed once again jammed her foot into Suarez’ face and started to grind down on it even harder than she had the first time.
「Cease that immediately, woman!」
Though many would rejoice from having Fran step on them, to the non-masochistic, it was merely a sort of humiliating torture.
「Last chance. Explain controlling water dragons.」
Fran’s gaze went cold. She started emitting a heavy aura of bloodlust as she looked down upon the prince. It was powerful enough to make the average person shit their pants. Still, the prince managed to both retain his wits and return her glare as he continued to complain.
「Stop going on and on about that and release me!」
A foolish move.
「Got it.」
「Good. Finally, you understand. Now hurry up and undo these res-」
「Got that you won’t talk yet.」
「Gyaaaaah!」
「Heal. Next, feet.」
「S-Stop! Cease that immediately!」
「Say please.」
「H-How dare you ask that of s-」
「Fmph.」
「Gyaaaaaaaaah!」
Fran continued to violently thrust me into his body and casting heal to make up for the hp he lost. At first, Suarez refused to talk. He resisted until the situation repeated itself five times over. Only then did he finally realize that he was unable to appeal to her through the use of his authority.
「P-Please stop! N-N-No more!」
He started to beg her, his face dyed in terror.
「Explain controlling water dragons. Will stab if anything you say anything else.」
Though we didn’t really care for his pleas, we did stop so we could repeat our demands.
「Fine! I’ll tell you! So stop, cease your acts of viole-」
Stab
「Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!」
「Heal.」
「Aarrrrgghhhh! Stop iiiiit!」
「Said to only explain controlling water dragons.」
「I-I understand! The water dragons are bound by contract to obey any orders made by anyone with Sheedran’s first king’s blood flowing through their veins. That’s why they’ll listen to whatever I say!」
And so, the prince began to speak. Fran threatened him every single time he hesitated by brandishing me, whereas Mordred played more of a good cop kind of role and spoke to him almost sympathetically. The combination of these two methods allow us to draw everything we wanted out of him. Unfortunately, dealing with him was still a pain in the ass. He would start getting all cocky and shit every single time anyone softened even the slightest bit, so Fran had ended up grinding me against his thighs upwards of 30 times throughout the process. I almost felt like we’d gone a bit overboard, but it honestly couldn’t be helped. He simply just never learned his lesson.
His abnormally strong willed and ridiculous sense of pride honestly impressed me. Literally anyone else would’ve long broken into tears and become obedient. He, on the other hand, somehow managed to regain his defiance every other time he opened his mouth.
Still, we’d made him bend enough to learn what we’d wanted. The water dragons weren’t being manipulated through the use of some sort of magic item. Their obedience to him stemmed from the first King of Sheedran’s ability to use contract magic.
I was surprised to hear that the the dragons the nation used today were the very same ones that they’d had from the very start, well, sort of. The nation had started off with seven dragons. Three had fallen in battle, only four remained.
The dragons weren’t the only thing that left me astonished, the device that was used to enhance them did the very same. Their boosts weren’t unconditional. Bolstering the dragon’s defenses came at a cost. Dragons had powerful offenses, and accidentally firing upon one’s allies was quite the concern should the dragon failed to aim its attacks precisely. To that end, the device’s designers had traded its capacity to autonomously use breath and other similar abilities for a magical barrier alongside greatly increased self healing and stamina. The only way for the dragon to use its long ranged attacks would be for Suarez to order it to do so.
Learning of this gave rise to a pretty big problem. We couldn’t destroy the device without putting the Algieba in danger. The moment we blew it up would be the moment the dragon once again became capable of barraging our ship of its own will.
「What do?」
「The best way to handle the situation would probably to get our friend here to order to dragon to stand down.」
「Only option?」
「Yeah. Once we’re done that, we can destroy the item boosting its defense before finally slaying it. We should be able to give you a hand with that last part if its rendered defenseless.」
With that decided, Fran, Mordred, and all the other adventurers present lugged Suarez up to the ship’s deck. so he could order the dragon not to attack.
「It looks like we won’t have any problems stopping the dragon, but destroying the defensive device it uses may need some more thought.」
「Leave to me. Can teleport.」
「Good point, that sounds like it’d be the best option. I’ll leave destroying it up to you then.」
「Nn. Then will check on device once first. Easier to teleport to known locations.」
We could go back and forth between several locations with ease if we decided to drop a few beacons.
「Then leave that to you.」
By “that,” Fran had been referring to Suarez; she’d decided to leave him behind with Mordred.
「Yeah. Be careful.」
「Nn.」
With everything considered and out of the way, Fran set off towards the location Suarez had described to her.
