Primordial Villain with a Slave Harem

Chapter 555: Black Fang’s Insanity

”What the hell have you done, you greedy bastard?!” The army head shouted into his communication artifact.

”Nothing. I’ve been framed, clear as day.” Broker responded tiredly.

An envoy from Alastair, the Greenvale Duke, arrived mere moments ago, and the mediator, the one who had the single strongest voice in the Vesper Consortium, immediately initiated a call with the other circle members.

It was an emergency of magnitudes never before felt.

”Do you have proof?” The logistics head asked; he spited Broker on a deep level, so he was pretty happy with the new developments.

”Proof?!” Broker shouted; his patience was thinning at a rapid pace. ”If I’m innocent, how can I prove anything? Do you want to interrogate my tens of thousands of subordinates to ensure I didn’t order the kidnapping of the freaking Greenvale twins?! Why would I ever do that in the first place?! Do you think me to be retarded?”

”Yes.” A feminine voice answered; it was none other than Black Fang, who spoke up for the first time since the call connected.

”I didn’t ask your opinion!”

”Is that so? I shall offer it nonetheless.”

”Shut your trap before I do it for you, you damned psycho bitch!”

Black Fang’s voice was entirely unimpressed as she declared in an emotionless tone, ”The time has arrived for a second duel between the two of us. Mediator, please arrange it.”

The woman’s words made Broker wince as horrible memories resurfaced in his mind where his best friend and his jewel sack were separated from the rest of his body after losing in a duel against the aforementioned woman. Experience new tales on

”L-let’s not go that far. Anyway! I didn’t do anything to the twins.”

”Sigh…” The mediator sighed with exhaustion. His goal of seeing the Consortium flourish for the next few years under his leadership, after which he would peacefully retire as one of the most accomplished mediators of the Consortium’s history, was burning up in flames right before his eyes. ”I believe you, Broker… But we still need to offer an explanation to the Duke. He is seeing red. Saying ’we didn’t do it, sorry’ won’t cut it.”

”Why are we so sure he didn’t do it?” Black Fang asked. Although she didn’t know this gift was given to her by the sole entity who made her feel something in her cold heart besides perpetual boredom in the past century, she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And yes, Black Fang didn’t care much about her drug department. However, she cared just enough to do the bare minimum for its success, which in this case was throwing their rival department under the bus with a few sharp words of hers.

”Why would I?!”

”Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you’re a dumb creature who thinks with his miniature joke of a male member instead of his head? We already know you thought you could use your seniority to force me into your bed, then let me ask: what keeps you from thinking you can easily kidnap those crucial targets and blackmail the single most important figure in the lands of the Consortium? If you secretly got the duke on your side, you could easily be the one who ends up as the mediator once the current one kicks the bucket, which will happen in the very near future by the look of things. Such a plan doesn’t sound too far-fetched to me.”

”Thank you, Black Fang…” the mediator whispered wryly. Though he wasn’t surprised - Black Fang rarely spoke, but when she did, well, not many people tended to like what they were hearing. Ɽ₳ΝỔ𝖇Ёş

He was ignored by Black Fang, who placed the communication on the edge of her tub and leaned back into her poison bath, enjoying its great benefits for her skin care efforts while listening to Broker mounting a strong defense case for the size and shape of his little friend.

The slaver woman voiced her agreement, cutting Broker’s nonsensical yapping off. ”Black Fang has a point. Whoever successfully blackmails the duke will reap immense benefits. If the twins didn’t run away and thus ruin the plans of the perpetrator, we wouldn’t be any wiser regarding the fact that someone is trying to go behind our backs to get ahead of the competition.”

”This so-called perpetrator being me makes no sense even more then! As the second oldest member, naturally, it would be me who becomes the next mediator!”

”Broker, there’s no such rule. The person who will be the next mediator is to be decided with a vote of the current heads, not seniorit-” the mediator’s words were suddenly cut off when Black Fang let off a truly unhinged, hysterical laugh that spoke volumes of her slowly deteriorating mental state.

The centuries spent in seclusion, where she suffered from utter boredom and the stress resulting from her being unable to level up at a satisfying rate due to the phenomenon dubbed as the ’Heavenly Restrictions’ and thus elongate her life expectancy, had not been kind to her mental health.

The fact that she was abandoned in a forest to starve to her death at the age of three and has been killing humanoids, animals, and monsters alike since then didn’t help either.

All six listeners waited in complete silence for her psychotic episode to end while wearing strong grimaces on their faces. Even the slaver who did her best to befriend Black Fang preferred to converse with her over the communication artifact rather than meet in person, as the black-haired, divinely gorgeous woman gave off vibes no one felt comfortable with, besides her similarly unhinged disciples.

Black Fang’s manic laughter died down after a minute or so. The length of her episode alone was more than enough to let everyone know how ’funny’ she found the mere thought of Broker becoming the next mediator.

”Let’s put the discussion of succession aside…” The mediator did his best to regain his voice over the others. ”The duke is demanding immediate answers, but we can’t do that. Such an investigation would take months, and even then…”

His thoughts were finished by the intelligence head, ”Whoever was behind it likely wouldn’t be stupid enough to use their own subordinates but hire outsiders. An investigation would not bring results unless we enslave each other and demand answers using slavery magic.”

”I refuse.” Black Fang’s swift refusal was no shock to anyone, as none were eager to get enslaved either, even if it was for but a mere moment.

*Sigh...*

”Old friend, you’re sighing a lot.” The slaver voiced her thoughts in a tender, motherly tone while addressing the mediator, whose grief was evident for all who paid even a semblance of attention to him.

”Yes… For the past few decades we’ve been trying to gain a more permanent foothold in the lands of the crown without having to worry about clashes with the nobles. That goal is right in front of our eyes - as soon as Griffith becomes the count, the Winterwood County is ours in all but name.”

The slaver continued for the dejected man, ”And we’ve been banking on the duke begrudgingly looking in the other direction when our pawn gets the title, fearing what a full-blown war with our organization might cost him. Giving us free rein over a single county would be a lesser evil than letting his lands devolve into a bloody internal conflict when he also has to deal with the beastman invasions on the border with the Confederation and their nasty tribes of disgusting talking animals.”

The intelligence head voiced his thoughts, ”That’s correct. However, if we can’t placate the duke, I doubt he will be willing to look away. My spies have said that he is in a state of constant rage; he barely sees reason.”

”The word ’war’ has a nice ring to it. Vex has been getting annoyingly lazy; she needs a good challenge. She’ll get fat at this rate.”