Dark Lord in Chains 81 (Patreon)

I walked out of the prison cell, leaving Isolde behind — as much as her naked body tempted me to stay for another round — and started climbing up the stairs, forcing my mind to focus on my next problem. 

How to handle the exact details of my next challenge. 

Coming to a decision about Isolde’s freedom wasn’t the difficult part. Prison break was not an option, at least not the first one. There was no doubt about the necessity for her freedom, but not to a point of ruining my ability to visit the nest of the Phoenix whenever I wished to do so. Even someone as irresponsible as her would change the security of her base once a prisoner had escaped, and focus on the limited number of subjects — which I stood at the top.  

Or at least, I assumed she would do so, and testing whether my assumption was accurate on that subject was not exactly worthwhile. 

Of course, going out and directly asking her to free Isolde was not an option as well, as doing so would mean that she knew my interest, and once I saved Isolde regardless, she would know who was responsible, promoting me from the list of suspicious people, to being the definite criminal. 

Luckily, there were other, more measured, approaches I could use between the two extremes of arranging a prison break and begging her like a pathetic supplicant, hoping to receive her goodwill. 

And even more fortunately, despite all her power, the Phoenix was overconfident, everything she had done since I had been acquainted with her reinforced that idea. I agreed that she had enough magical strength to be proud of — which was, admittedly, phenomenal enough to actually scare me — but she was clearly under the impression that her power gave her the necessary political acumen as well. 

Perils of a privileged life, I reasoned. How could they learn the art of decision-making, if their families isolated them from every single bad decision of their lives? 

And, that overconfidence left her weak against some of the simplest ploys a conman could pull. 

I grabbed my sword to pull the shadows tighter around me, making sure I stayed concealed as I traveled through the long corridor filled with the constructs, using the same method I had used during my previous time, yet, just as I passed the halfway stage, I felt a small flicker of magic, a magical tripwire made of fire, in front of me. 

As a master spell crafter, I had to admire the effort that went into the tripwire. Elemental magic had always been challenging to force outside of their nature, and the fire was definitely notorious for that aspect. Using fire as a ward was not impossible, but managing to keep it concealed enough to make it almost invisible certainly was. 

I wasn’t bad at detection, yet, without the Tether enhancing my capabilities with the wards, I would have missed it. 

It was that good. 

I paused for a moment, examining the little magical tripwire, trying to understand where it was connected to. My first instinct was to check the combat constructs that were spread along the corridor, afraid that it was there to trigger them to turn the corridor into a deadly ambush. 

Luckily, that seemed not to be the case. Instead, I tracked the connection toward the end of the corridor, where the office of the Phoenix lay. 

I tried to decide between two options, avoiding the little tripwire, and showing her that I was even better in magic and concealment than she expected, increasing her wariness against me while also simultaneously increasing my perceived value. 

Yet, after a brief consideration, I walked like I hadn’t noticed it, choosing to trigger it. I was tense as I did so, grabbing my magical shield in case it would trigger a deadly assault — as there was no harm in being on the safe side. Luckily, that seemed not to be the case, and other than a simple flare that I would have missed if I hadn’t been looking for it intentionally, there was no reaction. 

I stood in front of the study, where I had met with her the last time, and knocked on the door rather than trying to sneak in. Since she was already aware of my presence and playing dumb, a fake show of respect didn’t make me lose anything. 

On the contrary, it highlighted the fake limits of my capabilities. 

“Come in,” called a familiar voice. 

 I opened the door, only to meet with the perfect stature of the phoenix once more. “Good evening,” I said with a slight bow — just enough to accept her superiority without reaching an absurd level of subservience, which needed to be avoided considering the fake identity I had displayed against him. It was the same reason I avoided any kind of honorific. 

A king might be subservient, but never to the point of being mistaken for a servant. 

“Why are you here?” she asked, equally abrupt. If it wasn’t for the wildness of her magic, swelling threateningly, I might have assumed that she was actually angry, but ironically, the immensity of her magic was enough to reveal the truth of her attitude. 

A bluff. If she wanted to attack, she would have done it when I was in the corridor, with my mobility impaired even more. 

I paused for a moment even I made a show of staggering backward, pushing the shadow of a well-hidden fear on my face. She clearly wanted to give the message that she was the superior one without a doubt, and I let her succeed in that message. 

As I made a show of staggering backward, I examined her looks. I stopped for a second to enjoy her perfect face, flawless flaming hair, and her wings, burning even brighter than her hair. 

An impressive sight, certainly, but not as immediately impressive as her dress, a silver low-cut one that displayed an amazing cleavage, yet I noticed the texture of the dress moving, suggesting it wasn’t just the color that looked silver, but it was some kind of liquid metal. 

Which posited another interesting detail, that she was displaying her cleavage intentionally despite knowing I was coming to visit. 

Maybe I wasn’t the only one that intended to use subtle tricks for subversion. 

“I’m here to report about Eternal Core,” I said after taking a deep breath, acting like her magical flare scared me. 

The mention of the treasure that she had been looking for was enough to break her forced disinterest. “Sit down, and explain,” she ordered as she pointed at a chair, her tense voice showing the great importance she had attributed to the item. 

I did my best to keep my frown concealed, still unable to believe that an artifact I picked more as curiosity was slowly turning into the center of a great hurricane that threatened to devour both the Empire and the Dark Lands together. “Let me give you a breakdown…” I started as I sat down on the chair. 

I started explaining the political situation in extremely great detail, enjoying the flicker of impatience on her beautiful face as she listened. She clearly didn’t enjoy listening to a detailed report. 

So, I did the simplest thing I could do, and extended the report, even more, letting her frustration build up even more. 

Of course, if it had been possible, I would have loved to work on seducing her directly, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Her attitude made it clear that she had treated me as inferior to her. And that emotion was the most difficult thing to convert to seduction. 

Even hatred was easier to convert to romance than dismissal. 

I extended my explanation, because I wanted to replace her impression with boredom. Hardly a great emotion, but at least a better thing for her to focus on. 

Especially since she had no choice but to listen to get an accurate understanding of the situation. 

As she listened, she waved her hand, and a bottle of wine came flying and poured itself into a glass, the wine radiating with an impressive amount of magic, more than I had seen in high-grade healing potions, highlighting the great fortune she could access. 

Like the two intimidating hulking magical armors behind her weren’t enough to show that detail. 

She took a large sip off her glass as she listened to my explanation, her attention slipping away despite her best effort to keep it. 

Yet, despite the great view, after several minutes, I was starting to feel the stirrings of boredom as well. After all, creating a useful yet dry report was even more boring than listening to one. 

I decided to use the opportunity for a little mischievous trick. I carefully expanded a little string of magic, and touched her dress. For a moment, I did nothing, just continuing my explanation as I did my best to hide my tenseness. 

Yet, she showed no reaction. 

Interesting, I thought with satisfaction as I pulled that connection softly, giving me momentary control over her dress and widening the already impressive cleavage of her dress even more. 

Her other magical achievements showed that she had the sufficient magical capability to catch it. Even the boredom wouldn’t be enough to make her ignore that unless she had written me off as a threat. 

Apparently, ‘being caught’ by her little trap was enough for her to finalize a decision about my abilities, enough to completely dismiss her alertness. 

What an interesting choice, I thought as I glimpsed into her beautiful cleavage. 

Under different circumstances, being underestimated this badly might have annoyed me, but facing my current opponent, I would take any advantage I could find. 

I just needed to decide the best way of turning that into an advantage.