A Sinner’s Chance

The first thing I did to the now captive Hero was to use the same puppeteer technique I'd used on him in the Dreamscape. This allowed me to prevent him from fleeing or struggling as I manipulated another set of threads to remove the entirety of his equipment before tying his wrists together and suspended him.

It didn't take long before I could hear him groaning from his body weight as it began to strain his shoulders. His arms would probably soon pop from their sockets, however, I didn't want to waste time so I used more threads to wrap and pull on his ankles, causing Hiroshi to scream in pain along with a sudden popping sound that indicated his arms had been dislocated.

I watched gleefully as he panted while glaring at me, he was far more resilient than I thought he would be. Regardless I still had plenty of ideas on how to break his resistance. Not wanting to allow him a moment's respite I brought him towards me and forcibly relocated his arms, of course without any healing magic or pain numbing of any sort, causing him to unleash another scream.

While I'd found it enjoyable to torture the arrogant Hero like this, the longer I looked at him the more disgusted I became. Rather than wasting my time on a foolish creature like him it would be far more pleasurable to head back to the manor. However, hearing the information I wanted came first, but it wasn’t like I was going to let him off the hook or forgive him, so I prepped what I could only imagine would be the worst form of punishment for him.

For the first time I saw fear in his eyes as he felt thread begin to bite into his manhood. I smiled sadistically at his reaction. "Come on Hero-kun, if you don't tell me you're going to lose something very important." My tone was mocking and full of ridicule as I watched his face go through several emotions in a panic.

Just before the thread could cut in and draw blood Hiroshi's mouth opened. "Wait, wait, I'll tell you so please stop." The arrogance had fled from his voice and now he was just pathetically begging. I spread my fingers apart as I loosened the thread and looked at the helpless and hanging Hero expectantly.

"Your father, the duke, told me about it, he was also the one who instigated me to pursue you. I don’t know anything more than that. You're going to let me go, no hard feelings, right?" His voice was desperate but I paid little attention to the shock of hearing that it had been Alcrem who had sold off my secrets. I'd never told him, which meant that he heard it from someone else, but who? There were only three people who knew, Marian, Arya, and Elaine, and of those three it could only be Marian. Arya had learned far too recently, and Elaine didn't have a full picture of what my previous life was like unless Marian had told her, which I supposed could be possible.

The answer I'd gotten from Hiroshi was the worst possible one I could think of. If he'd said it was a demon or a God, at least I would have a clear and easy enemy. I wanted to believe that Alcrem had overheard me and Marian, but we'd been in the bath at the time, not exactly an easy place one could eavesdrop.

I was now frustrated and left with more questions than answers. However, the Hero still needed some punishment, and now that my uses for him were done I thought it was about time to get on with them. I glared at him with undisguised disgust before bringing the fingers I'd separated earlier together. What followed was the Hero screaming in extreme pain as he was emasculated. Not wanting him to die just yet, I applied healing magic with an overabundance of mana, just to make sure nothing would go wrong as the Hero's crotch healed into a smooth empty area.

There were tears streaming from his eyes that were filled with fear as I looked towards him, there was only one other thing I wanted to do. The strange strength had been roiling this entire time but I'd kept it in check as I didn't know what it would do, it was only now that I unleashed it that I felt the power course through the entirety of my being. In addition the threads I had placed in the Hero's body began to absorb something from him, along with trace amounts of his vitality.

I could feel the radiant energy being devoured and turned into more of the strange strength though I did feel some of it go to other areas, such as my bones and flesh. I felt much better than I had before and it felt like my mastery over my Aspect Skills had suddenly increased as well, but I planned on waiting to check the changes until I was somewhere less conspicuous.

Before I could do anything else however, I heard the sound of breaking metal as a rogue thread had somehow made its way over to the pile of equipment I'd removed from the Hero. The Divine Artifacts had been ransacked of their energy, turning them into what was the equivalent of junk. I was only slightly upset, it would be extremely conspicuous if I tried to take the Hero's equipment anywhere anyway so it was probably for the best.

Hiroshi had passed out at some point and hung limply from my web, looking older and more haggard than he had before, but I didn't particularly care as I rummaged through the rest of his items, taking the money and a few other choice spoils, though I was unable to find a subspace item, which meant he either had a Skill for it, or it had been part of one of the Divine Artifact’s functions.

I took some time to remove the traces of the battle as well as anything that could tie directly back to me, before taking some time to harvest some aphrodisiac, and place it among his items among along with a few other toys that made it seem like he'd been planning on doing something that would get him into massive trouble, if not get capital punishment outright.

While I honestly hoped that he would just try to avoid me out of fear, I had to cover all my bases, I didn't want an incident to come bite me in the ass later, and though it would probably have been easier just to kill him and decompose the body, death was too good a fate for him, plus for all I knew death might not even be the end of him, he was supposedly summoned by one of the Gods after all.

It took me nearly an hour before I was satisfied and started to meander back to mine and Arya's residence, a bottle of Labyrinth Brew in my hand should anyone have any questions about where I'd gone. I'd just bested the Hero, how could I not celebrate?