Ryan was at least glad to wake up. That thought lasted for about a microsecond as he thought his body was literally on fire. He coughed, trying to get the smell of sulfur and rancid smoke out of his lungs.

He dropped and rolled on the ground, taking huge gulps of air—

And he wasn’t actually on fire. Pinkie was standing over him, holding a bucket of some putrid brackish red liquid that she had just dumped over him. Whatever it was, it made his senses feel like they were on fire. Everything around him felt razorsharp as he took in the room around him.

Ryan and Pinkie were in a dark empty room with a feminine figure chained to a metallic chair and a brown bag over her head. She was limp, though at least alive if the moving of her chest was anything to go by.

The blood around her sleeve indicated that the removal of her left arm was recent.

Everything still hurt for Ryan, though not enough for him to stop screaming and glare at Pinkie.

She was both curious and accusatory at the same time. “How did you even get that much concentrated noxweed powder in your system?”

“I forgot system enhanced flora were a thing. What are you doing here?”

Pinkie seemed annoyed by his own incompetence. “I need—want a favor.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes, his mind moving at a hundred miles an hour. Possibly because of whatever drug she had pumped him with. “Last time we agreed on a deal, you lied to me and used me as a meatshield.”

“And if you don’t help me out, then I’ll burn everyone you care about alive.”

Ryan went cold despite whatever it was in his system. “How do I know you won’t do it anyway?”

“Because, once I get my transformation. I won’t need to threaten anyone anymore. I’ll be free, and I’ll owe you a favor.”

It was… a really shitty argument from someone that broke their last one. That was the problem with so blatantly breaking your agreements. Nothing you said could ever be trusted. Either way, Ryan couldn’t think of an easy way to threaten Pinkie to make sure his friends were safe.

“What’s the favor?”

“I need to know what the Witch’s Coven has hexed me with. That one over there.” Pinkie tilted her head to the limp figure in the chair. “Knows what her little matrons hexed me with, but won’t talk. Or at least, she refuses to tell me the truth.”

“A [Witch]’s coven managed to hex you?”

It was unbelievable. Ryan refused to believe someone like Pinkie could be hexed even by dragonslayer tier [Witches]

Pinkie growled. “Not a [Witch]’s coven. But the Witch’s Coven. The one the Witch Tyrant leads. They use her authority and listen to her orders, and they hexed me.”

Ryan took a moment to process that whole thing. First of all was that the Witch Tyrant had a coven. Everyone always believed that the Witch Tyrant was just so far ahead that she just didn’t have a need for a coven. Second of all, either this coven was powerful enough to hex Pinkie or the Witch Tyrant needed help to hex Pinkie. And thirdly Grettfield was involved somehow. Fourthly…

Ryan’s mind was still moving too quickly for his own comfort. The drugs were absolutely messing with his system.

“Okay, so let me get this straight. You kidnapped a [Witch] from the Witch Tyrant’s coven, then you tortured

her for information, and then you expect me to be able to make her talk?”

“Yes. She’s a Destined, I can’t torture her that much or she’ll use [Return to The Realm]. You’re smart, get her to talk.”

For once, Ryan was stunned into complete silence.

What sort of absurd request even was this? Why the hell did Pinkie think he could get someone to talk when her intimidation didn’t work?

“I need some time to think.”

“You don’t have that much time. I need this done before the Realm expansion settles.”

“Well, I don’t think I should be interrogating anyone while my body and my senses are on fire. Plus I’ve got a damned headache.”

Pinkie’s eyes dilated, electrical discharge flying across her pupils. Then she sniffed, as if trying to smell him for any lies. She gagged instead, the smell of whatever she poured over him overpowering anything.

“Fine, go take a shower and think. I’ll be waiting.”

As Ryan left the room, he took one last look at the one-armed figure that was tied to a chair.

——

Ryan scrubbed really hard to get all the gunk off his skin. He didn’t actually have a headache. It was just that he was way too overstimulated. It felt like what adventurers described taking miasma pills were like. A tool adventurers used to navigate some of the more Noxweed dense areas in Sector Five. Just several times worse.

Plus it felt like he was covered in rashes.

Focus. What’s the problem at hand here?

It wasn’t the [Witch] chained to the chair, it was Pinkie. She was an erratic psychopath that didn’t care about keeping her word or anything else. The only thing she cared about was getting stronger and being free of the Witch Tyrant and didn’t care about…

Ryan came to a realization.

Pinkie would kill them all if she thought there was a chance her attempt at a Legend would leak to the Witch Tyrant. I’m going to have to be careful not to let her think that I might share anything with the Witch Tyrant.

That thought truly did make him go cold. There was a high chance that even if Ryan got the [Witch] to tell them about the hex, Pinkie would kill them all to keep her ambitions a secret. Him overhearing that conversation with the Secretary might have doomed them all.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

No wait, Pinkie doesn’t know I only have one life. I need to keep that fact up while making her think we’re on the same side.

Otherwise she might just kidnap his friends to keep him compliant instead.

I need to get her to believe that we’re on the same side.

He left the shower and put on the fancy bathrobes that were available. He marched back out and into the basement where Pinkie was keeping the [Witch] locked up.

Pinkie appeared in front of him with a smile.

“So?”

“I do this for you and you don’t threaten or touch my friends. If you’re going to kill or eat the [Witch], do it away from my friends, got it?”

He didn’t have time to worry about someone that was on the Witch Tyrant’s side.

Pinkie licked her teeth. “Get her to talk and we can be on our way. I won’t need to touch your friends or threaten them and I’ll even owe you a favor.”

Now that he listened to her, he couldn’t believe he had fallen for it the first time. She did sound genuine but it was the exact same genuine that she had sounded the last time he had dealt with her.

Pinkie was a proper psychopath that only believed in words in so far as using them to manipulate others into doing things she wanted.

Well, two could play it at that game.

“You really think when you complete your Legend that you’ll be free from the Witch Tyrant? You know she’s just going to plot around you, right?”

“I won’t care. I’ll be able to do and say whatever I want and threaten the entirety of The Realm. At that point I’ll be able to tell her to piss off.”

Pinkie looked so pleased at the idea that Ryan didn’t know how to process that. He was… starting to get the feeling that Pinkie was a little stupid. Not that he was going to say that out loud.

Ryan nodded agreeably, as if what she had said was the most interesting thing in the world.

“If you do end up being that strong then yeah, I’d love to have a favor from you. Honestly, just another person that she can’t control would be a great distraction to keep her off my back.”

Pinkie smiled a happy toothy smile. “See? I knew we could come to an agreement.”

“Well, now I need to know as much as possible about this Witch Tyrant’s coven.”

——

Ryan was back with his team, talking about the entire ordeal. Pinkie had let him go, accepting that he needed time to discuss and plan but… he sort of really had to talk about the crazy shit he had just learned..

When he explained the situation Milock shook his head.

“You’re trying to tell me that FallenAngel, the whole reason why the world can’t say anything bad about the Witch Tyrant is because of her coven?”

“It’s not even really her coven, it’s an old group that used to spearhead the Occult Weavers. You know, the group that got in a fight with the Dwarven Tyrant’s faction and ended up disbanded? The Witch’s Coven is the original toxic fanclub.”

“So, why is she coming to you for this?”

Clara was nervously biting a fingernail. Of all the people, Ryan expected her to be interested in such scandalous gossip. Apparently, seeing someone bloody was too much for her, even if the chained up one-armed [Witch] had a safety life.

“I don’t know. I mean she probably knows that torturing someone doesn’t work but it is weird she’s assuming that I can just do it.”

This was the thing that Pinkie wanted Ella to do and she’s replacing me with the Secretary?

It finally dawned on him why Pinkie had brought the [Witch] to him.

“Ohhh, this is how they used to operate. Pinkie and Ella.” Ryan had to elaborate further when it became obvious that they didn’t get it. “It’s the classic good [Mage], bad [Rogue] routine. The big bad dragon intimidates them, and the nice secretary comes along to offer a way out. Remember? They actually tried to do the exact same thing to us. Isn’t that right Pinkie?”

Pinkie reappeared lounging on the top of a couch, it startled Milock because they were under his silence bubble. The one that was supposed to reveal others when an invisible intruder was in their midst. Barry took his focus off his phone to stare daggers at the newly joined dragonslayer.

That’s one thing confirmed at least. The ring isn’t good enough to work on Pinkie.

“Smart, yes. Just be like Ella and get her to talk.”

Ryan felt like he was banging his head on a wall with her. “It’s not that simple. If you’re right, she’s basically a fanatic and a [Witch]. You should know that torturing someone like that wouldn’t work. Why did you even think torturing her would work?”

Pinkie shook her head. “I thought I could lure her mentor out and get her to talk if I threatened the apprentice. I didn’t torture her.”

The entire room looked at her suspiciously. Pinkie huffed.

“…much. She’s a Destined. She can abandon her body whenever she wants, she’s not doing it because I promised I’d hunt her down and kill her twice if she did. I only ate her arm as payback.”

“Payback for what?” Clara asked morbidly.

“The Witch Coven starts their meetings with exchanging snacks. She ate some of my wing. I eat a part of her, it’s only fair.”

Clara looked like she regretted asking.

The whole cannibalism part aside, this ‘Mirelda’ being a Destined complicated things much further. Since there was no timer going from Earth to The Realm, it meant that Pinkie couldn’t actually torture her to the point where she would abandon her safety life.

Clara shook her head. “Ryan, I don’t know about this. I don’t think you should do this.”

Pinkie growled, a deep rumbling sound that echoed throughout the mansion. “You don’t get a say in this.”

Ryan turned to the grouchy dragonslayer. “Pinkie, growling is a threat. We’re allies against the Witch Tyrant, remember? Besides, the problem isn’t whether I should or shouldn’t do it. The problem is why both of you seem to think I can pull something like this off.”

Pinkie tilted her head at him. Then she changed form, her image changed to a prim blonde woman with a pink napkin in her suit pocket. Ryan vaguely remembered seeing her somewhere. Then he remembered.

She had been the one that interviewed Valee’s father. She was the one that made everyone terrified that dragonslayers were going to use civilians on Earth as meatshields from the Witch Tyrant. That whole damned interview had been a plot by the Witch Tyrant.

“The blacklisted dragonslayers were supposed to cause more chaos on Earth than just this. The Witch Tyrant abandoned that plan after you distracted the world by assaulting Lazhen.”

That wasn’t completely true. Gamielle had posed as her mother and let the dragonslayers think she was easing up on them. That had lowered the tensions the most.

Then Pinkie changed back. She lifted a phone. Displayed was an article where the front image was of Shara, Valee and Sideark, standing victorious over the Flesh Titan

“The Witch Tyrant was supposed to be using those skin shamblers to force all the fourthers through a deadly filter. Once again changed when you went through it. Don’t act stupid, boy scout.”

Ah. Recent events must have given Pinkie the brilliant idea that he was some sort of mastermind capable of foiling all of the Witch Tyrant’s plans. Apparently because of that she thought he could replace the Secretary in the operation.

Ryan rubbed his forehead. Trying to think of a way to explain to this stupid lizard that this was completely different and completely unreasonable. To think that she just expected him to be capable of getting a fanatic to betray their cult was like…

Pinkie smiled. “You already have an idea, don’t you?”

Ryan sighed. His damned mind.

“I have a few that might work. That doesn’t mean they will. First of all, I’m going to have to talk to her. Do you have anything that I can cover my face with?”

Pinkie shoved a hand into her stomach, her hand squelching into her own flesh and brought out a large pouch. Clara looked away, gagging. Even to Ryan that was a little disgusting. Pinkie rummaged inside the dimensional bag for a bit, taking out a black woolen face covering with three holes. It had runes running down it.

“Aren’t you a shapeshifter? Why would you even need an enchanted ski mask?”

“That’s definitely a sex thing.” Clara answered, nodding her head sagely. “Hey Pinkie do you have another one? I think I can help interrogate the [Witch].”

Pinkie just looked at the girl like she was the oddest creature in the world. Then she turned to Ryan. He was just staring at his friend and was getting the feeling she was trying to communicate with him silently. He turned to Pinkie.

“Well, Clara is actually better with people than I am.”

Pinkie eyed Clara and took out another… ski mask—only, this one was pink. Clara pinched the mask with a finger and a thumb, looking a little disgusted that her guess had been correct.

It was time to meet this [Witch] Mirelda and try to pump her for all the information she had.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep