Screech.
With the sharp sound, I opened the mithrill door of the cell where the Nightmare was imprisoned, and the five of us entered the cell once again.
When we stepped inside, we could see the restrained Rubina sitting on her chair with an unenthusiastic slouch. She noticed our entrance and briefly took a glance at us, then slouched back again.
She was throwing tantrums earlier but seemed to calm down now. It might be hard for her to accept the cruel truth. First, she died in her fight with Mother, and then she went literally powerless once resurrected.
Since she had pulled in her horns now, we seized this chance to have a chat with her. We had many questions to inquire about, but we had to check her condition first.
“Hello there, Rubina.” I greeted her, but Rubina did not move. “How are you feeling?”
“Kill me already.” She responded while she slouched.
“No no. We cannot do that, you know? You have not given anything yet.”
Rubina had been weakened to the ground and probably found no reason to live anymore. Of course, I could not let her leave the world without gaining anything, especially information.
“If you attempted to conduct an interrogation on me,” she said, then raised her head and stared at me. “You would be wasting your time since you would not extract any information from me.”
“You are quite a tough cookie, huh?” I said. “But it has been seventeen years since you reportedly died. So maybe your companions had forgotten about your existence already.”
“Grrr…”
She sure had loyalty to her colleagues, if she really had. The possibility of her having collaborators on the invasion plan was quite high since there would be something to conspire from the inside.
I was not sure how her putative collaborators treated her after her years of disappearance. But they probably had forgotten her since she had reportedly been charred by Mother.
“That was why you better kill me before I get myself free from here and kill you all.”
“Hah! Don’t make me laugh. I will let you gain access to your Appraisal and see what tree you are barking up.”
Since her skills had been disabled, Rubina could not use her Appraisal and check on us, of course, so she did not know who the people in this room really were.
I flicked a snap, which indicated the successful unsealing of a certain skill of Rubina. Once her Appraisal had been reactivated, Rubina immediately used the skill and carefully assessed me.
“N-no way…” Rubina stared at me with a quivering voice. “How were you able to become that powerful in just a short time?”
“I also got your ultra skill through Mother if you ask.”
“Tch, and it seems that the Sword Saint had passed down the Monarch of the Night to her son.” Rubina said that with discontent.
Since she was just using the Appraisal skill, she could not take a peek at the skills, so I had to inform her verbally that I somehow got her ultimate power. After me, Rubina turned her attention to Mom, who was at my right, to appraise her.
“So this is how powerful the Sage is, huh?” Rubina pondered and then laid her eyes upon a woman with silver hair at our back.
“What?! A Celestial Fox?!” She yelled in shock. “Why was there a Tailed Fox on this continent?! And how did this family manage to tame one?!”
Rubina clamored as she grasped a little information about the identity of Inari, who was a monster in some tales and fables around the world, and everyone would freak out when they faced one.
She implied that Tailed Foxes should not be seen there. That was what concerned me since she might have known that they were not originally from this continent.
“W-what…? Are you kidding me?! This is utterly ridiculous! First, a Celestial Fox, and now, an Ancient Dragon?! This cannot be… is this even real?!”
That was what I had been waiting for, that mortified face of yours was absolutely an amazing sight to behold. Thanks to the monstrous statistics of Inari and Czarina and their involvement with us, the reaction of Rubina was perfect.
“Calm your tits, Rubina. Let me introduce them to you.”
When I said that, Mom and Mother set aside, and then Inari and Czarina stepped forward. Once they got closer to my body, Inari and Czarina locked their arms around mine.
“Meet Inari and Czarina. As you can see, they are the Celestial Fox and the Ancient Dragon, respectively. And they are my women.” After I said that, Czarina and Inari kissed me on the cheeks.
“…”
I had done it. My casual announcement really shocked Rubina; it even made her speechless and go into silence. Hearing that information out of the blue was completely unbelievable, and I even laughed once I heard that nonsense.
“Now then, Rubina. Do you still have the will to oppose us?”
“…With that much power, you could easily conquer a few nations on this continent whenever you wanted!”
Now that she mentioned it, the people in this room were actually sufficient to conquer some of the world powers on this continent, such as the Dixon Empire, in terms of brute force.
Also, the subjugation of the Ancient Dragons living on this continent would be an easy feat, putting them into our ranks for additional military power. If we wanted to, putting a nation to our knees was entirely attainable.
“Hm. By how you said it, you and your cohorts must have been planning to dominate this continent, yes?”
“So what?” Rubina did not try to hide it. “If it has really been seventeen years, the seeds that we have planted should have sprouted results.”
“Oho. It looks like we have many things to talk about.”
After I said that, I conjured a rectangular wooden table and wooden chairs from my subspace and set them up on the floor and in front of the Nightmare.
Once set, we took our seats. Mom, Mother, and I sat in front of Rubina, with Mom on my right and Mother on the other side. Inari and Czarina sat at the sides of the table, guarding Rubina’s actions.
“A subspace, huh? As expected of the son of the Sage. You actually set this up just for this occasion.” She praised, then she chuckled. “But I know your efforts would be in vain.”
“Before we start,” I deliberately ignored her and stood up from my seat. “Let me put this on you first.” Then I walked around the table and approached her. 𝘦𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝑙.
After that, I grabbed a big crimson ring with the diameter of a foot from my Inventory. As it appeared, the ring was made out of Blood Steel.
I had collected an immeasurable amount of monster corpses, so I procured many ingots of them and crafted various items from them, such as furniture, weapons, and some accessories.
“What the hell is that?”
As she asked, I inserted the ring into her head. Then I shrank it and made the ring into a collar that perfectly fit around her neck.
“Since there is a tendency that you might chop off her arms to get rid of the bracelet, I put it around your neck. With that, you would not be able to take off your limiters.”
The bracelets were on her wrist, so if she cut her arms, the effects of the bracelet would rapidly wear off. That was why I bound the restraints around her neck instead.
“But I know you would kill yourself, and I cannot let that to happen. Even if you kill yourself, we could just revive you repeatedly anyway.”
“Tsk.”
Once the crimson collar had fully taken effect on Rubina, I took off the bracelets and threw them into my Inventory. And before I could go back to my seat, I had something to do first.
“I am sorry for this…”
“Ouch!”
After I said that, I plucked a few black plumes from her wings. Since her defenses and some of her resistances had been disabled, Rubina felt some sting as I one by one plucked her feathers.
“What are you going to do with those, Raphael?”
“Nothing, Mom. I just wanted to add these to my collection.”
Once I was done, I walked once again and went back to my seat. What I said to Mom was partially true, but my main reason was to use the plumes of a Nightmare to copy their Mental Dive racial skill.
“Well then, Rubina.” After getting my butt on my seat, I rested my arms on the table and faced Rubina. “You have some options to choose.”
“And what will they be?”
“Your first option was to spill the beans on your own. But I doubt that you would even choose that option.”
“Hah! I am not fool enough to just reveal our plans to any of you!”
“And that is where the second option would come.” I said that as I leaned my back against the chair and folded my arms. “I do not want to use it, but if you won’t speak, I will just have you spill them out from your own mouth forcefully.”