Like Taking Candy From A Baby

Why hadn't Isaac simply put Petbe into his inventory or teleported away with her in tow? It would have surely made his getaway far easier and faster.

Well, there were many, many reasons for his decision.

First of all, he wanted to emulate an actual, legitimate kidnapping. After Petbe got sent back up to Heaven, she would be able to communicate with her allies again, which would enable her to share everything that she had seen or heard. Had she been put into the inventory or witnessed Isaac teleporting, that would have surely alarmed both her and her allies, causing them to move more swiftly when dealing with him.

He wasn't worried about himself, as no matter what they did, even if they destroyed his body, he would still end up fine. But his allies would end up in a lot of danger. There was a solution for this problem, but he didn't want to employ it, as it required him to either go against his principles or to waste a lot of AP - both not outcomes which he would like to see.

Had he decided to completely erase Petbe, instead of sending her back to Heaven the usual way, then the laws of this world would definitely show a clear sign of her permanent demise, once they became aware of it. This would, in turn, alert the goddess' allies yet again. Of course, everything could be dealt with by spending AP, but why do so when a far simpler method was readily available?

Isaac didn't bring his prisoner to the Loki Familia's grounds either, as he wanted to make a point of not involving them, to fool the captured Petbe. The method that he was going to use to get to the bottom of all of this was actually far more simple than perhaps expected. He already had enough information to deduce quite a lot of things.

He ultimately stopped in an unassuming inn room that he had rented beforehand. Next to him, the green-cloaked Ryuu was speechless, because nobody had even glanced at them while they were carrying a bound and gagged woman with them into the establishment.

"Why didn't anybody ask about her?"

Seeing no reason to keep this doubt to herself, as soon as they were alone with the prisoner, she voiced her question.

After placing the goddess down on the ground, making sure that she was facing away from them and could only hear their voices, Isaac turned to Ryuu and responded to her inquiry.

"I have a certain Skill which allows me to camouflage myself and others in my immediate vicinity. Remember how I got away from you on the 18th floor? That's how."

Realization flashed past Ryuu's eyes and she nodded to herself. She had suspected as much, but now that she got the confirmation, a lot of things suddenly finally made complete sense.

A small smirk played across Isaac's lips. By feeding his enemies this information via Petbe, they would explain all of the instances where he and his allies suddenly showed up at different spots than where they were supposed to be with this Skill that he had just made up. As long as they wouldn't be able to ascertain that he and his allies had suddenly disappeared and reappeared at a different spot with almost no time having passed in between the two appearances, then the enemies shouldn't find out about his ability to teleport. At least not immediately. Using his ability to blur his existence to make up such a convenient excuse was well worth it.

Sharing information with the enemy did give them a glimpse of one of his abilities, yes. But it also would make them vastly underestimate the threat that he posed. He would stay a talented mortal adventurer in their eyes, which was exactly what he wanted them to think.

Now that this most recent confusing event had been explained, Ryuu had time to think back on what she had witnessed. There was just something about what Isaac had done… that she couldn't agree with on a fundamental level. She didn't like the way that he had handled the situation, and she made sure to let him know about it.

"Was it really necessary to kill so many of them? Couldn't you have spared them and gone straight for the goddess?"

Noticing the accusatory glare that the Elf shot him, Isaac shook his head in resignation, before sighing deeply and then looking straight into Ryuu's eyes, with a stern but unwavering expression.

"Why should I have done that? So that they could have a chance to think about their mistakes and become 'good people', ones that don't stand in my way? Ones that aren't a danger to those that I care about? I'll admit, it's possible that some of them could have followed this path. But at what cost? Only a small percentage of them would have changed, and I would have let far too many enemies go, which would only lead to more suffering and annoyances in the future."

Although it was obvious that Ryuu wanted to interject, Isaac didn't give her any chance, and continued with his speech. He clearly was a bit annoyed and wanted to get this point of contention out of the way, once and for all.

"Aside from that, they all have a bomb implanted in them, as I'm sure you know. Almost all people in such a situation are either fanatics or unfortunate victims. But even should they turn out to be the latter, isn't it likely that these bombs can be remotely activated as well? So to give the very small amount that both want to stay out of my way in the future and that also aren't fanatics a chance, I would only have had two options. First of all, I could have removed their bombs. Let's not even discuss the feasibility of this. As for the alternative, it would have been to eliminate every single person who can activate these bombs remotely. Needless to say, as I don't know who or where they are, it's impossible, for now."

While mentioning getting rid of the bombs, Isaac strongly gestured, pointed at the prisoner and winked at Ryuu, making it painfully obvious that he wasn't stating the full truth in their current situation, because of who was listening in.

The Elf wasn't an idiot, and even though she disdained lying herself, she wouldn't go out of her way to expose the lies of others, especially not in this situation. With a small nod, she muttered to herself.

"I see…"

Moments later, she couldn't help but add a few more words.

"But… seeing you kill them just didn't feel... right."

She was well aware of how hypocritical her words were, especially because she had lost herself in her revenge-fuelled rage after her familia's tragedy herself. Many members of Evilus had fallen to her blade, she had ruthlessly ended their lives. In truth, she had felt like she didn't even deserve to live or be happy ever again for a long time, until she had found her place in the world at the Hostess of Fertility, with her friends. Still, there was a bit of left-over sorrow and bitterness remaining in her heart, which would most likely never fully go away. Although she was criticizing Isaac's actions, the one that she was really condemning was herself.

Frowning slightly, Isaac shook his head. He had a vague guess about what was going on in her psyche right now, but there were some things that he wouldn't easily compromise on.

"It sounds like in your eyes, the act of killing someone is 'wrong'. In mine, however, ending a life is anything but. Sure, going out of one's way to murder an innocent is tasteless indeed, but slaying one's enemies? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Imprisoning them would waste resources and food that could be spent on and fed to other people. It would also waste space. Meanwhile, killing them only requires one to get rid of the bodies afterwards, to forever be rid of their danger and threat - to protect one's loved ones and one's life. Look, I'm not going to say that your view on the value of life is wrong, but neither will I say that it's correct. We simply don't agree with each other, and that's fine. I can live with that. But can you?"

A long moment of silence followed, during which Ryuu was deep in thought. Finally, she sighed and nodded.

"I can as well. I won't mention it again."

She wasn't a rookie anymore, she knew how the world worked. Her rose-tinted glasses had shattered many years ago. While she wouldn't stop chasing after the elusive 'justice' that she yearned for, she wouldn't chide others that didn't follow her same exact path. Not everyone was the same, not everyone had identical goals in life. Not everyone defined 'justice' in the same way that she did. From Isaac's words, she could clearly sense that he thought himself to be 'right', that his actions were 'just'. And she couldn't bring any real arguments against this to the table. What he had said made sense, but a part deep inside of her just couldn't agree with it.

Shaking her head to get rid of these distracting thoughts, Ryuu suddenly recalled something else that she had been meaning to ask.

"Why didn't you bring her to the Loki Familia? It should be much easier to interrogate her there."

The sudden smile that spread on Isaac's lips took her by surprise. Unbeknownst to her, she had asked about something that he really wanted to explain while in Petbe's presence. Before he started talking, however, he made it very obvious that he wasn't going to tell the truth, as he pointed at their well-packaged guest on the floor multiple times, quite exaggeratedly even.

"If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. I didn't want to involve them in this, as I'm confident that I can handle it more cleanly myself. The only reason that I brought you along is that I knew about your grievances with Evilus and thought that you deserved to know more about what's really going on behind the scenes."

The latter half of this wasn't a lie, or, well, not entirely. He hadn't known that Ryuu had a history with Evilus for sure, as he had heard the name of the group for the first time today. But as Finn's words let him know the time-frame of when Evilus had been the most active, combined with the fact that he knew that Ryuu hadn't been working as an adventurer for quite a few years now, he only had to connect the dots. It was a bit of a gamble, but a justice-seeking Elf fighting against an antagonistic force calling itself 'Evilus' seemed far too much of a cliché to be a coincidence. At least in the DanMachi novels, it would surely have happened this way, and although this world was only considerably similar to them, this detail was very likely to be the same.

A conflicted look appeared on Ryuu's face at the mention of her old foes.

"Is everything that you said before, about Evilus being just a bunch of minions of this woman's 'Black Blade', really true?"

Isaac nodded. Then, before he was about to give a reply, he again signalled to Ryuu that she should take his next words with a grain of salt.

"Yes. One of her lackeys - unluckily for him - survived the blast of the bomb implanted in him. A bit of Mermaid Blood and some torture later, he was all too happy to spill the beans. But enough of that. It's time to talk to our esteemed guest."

Turning the bound goddess around, Isaac removed the gag in her mouth, and she immediately began to scream at the top of her lungs.

"HEEEEEEELP!! SOMEBODY, SAVE MEEEE!!!!"

He didn't even attempt to stop her and only chuckled to himself. When she had shouted herself hoarse and wondered about why nothing had happened, Isaac finally explained her situation.

"Remember that Skill that I mentioned before? You're in its effective range. Nothing you do or say can be perceived by anyone outside of it."

Despair appeared in his prisoner's eyes for the first time, before quickly being replaced by a powerful conviction. Between clenched teeth, she spat out a few words of spite.

"You'll never make me talk. Torture me all you want, do whatever you like, I won't tell you anything! There is no pain that I haven't felt in my countless years!!"

Contrary to what she had expected, Isaac didn't get angry at her, neither did he attempt to find out whether or not she could live up to her words. Instead, he was looking at her as if she was a pathetic idiot, a brat who didn't even realize the trouble that they were in. It both left her indignant and a little bit afraid.

"Don't you worry, I never planned to torture you. I would be very surprised if I got a deity to talk about something against their will. Instead, I just want you to listen to a few things that I have to say. Also, sorry about this, but I don't want to be interrupted."

She had only been freed from the gag for less than a few minutes, but now it had already been stuffed back into her mouth. Partially, this was to avoid her biting her own tongue, but currently more importantly, it was so she couldn't distract herself from his voice by speaking. This way, she was literally forced to listen. She wasn't in the best state of mind right now, so she couldn't even hope to escape this fate by meditating.

With his experience in reading people's expressions and bodies, even the slightest movements or reactions wouldn't escape Isaac's eyes - which was exactly what he was banking on right now. Of course, this method of interrogation was only useful now that he had enough information to make educated guesses and deductions. Contrary to what he had stated before, he was sure that he could successfully break the spirit of some of the gods, as they shouldn't be too resistant to torture - but he simply had no need to do this.

"I already know that you, Petbe, are the leader of the Black Blade, and that Vidar is the leader of the local branch of the White Blade. Now, what do both of you have in common? You're related to vengeance - and I'm certain that it's also your Divinity."

Petbe's eyes widened in shock when she heard this, but she quickly calmed herself down again and closed her eyes. She couldn't cover her ears, as she couldn't move most of her body, but she wanted to make certain that she wouldn't give away any information involuntarily. By this point, she had fully realized what Isaac intended to do.

Without caring for her pointless struggles, he continued to speak.

"I also know for a fact that the one that the various Blades are subordinate to is a male."

This time, Petbe only twitched almost imperceptibly, but he still noticed it.

"I think it's reasonable to assume that this person should also be related to vengeance in some way. Now, there are only that many different possibilities. Is it Maximón?"

No reaction.

"Is it Takhar?"

No reaction, yet again.

"Is it Váli?"

Petbe had done her best to resist, but some of her muscles had still slightly twitched subconsciously upon hearing this name. It was incredibly difficult to control one's entire body when lying, and once one got observed closely enough, it was almost impossible to get away with it successfully, or to not react at all. When asked a question, if one knew the answer, it was natural to react. To suppress this urge to a point where one didn't show any physical reactions was something that Petbe clearly wasn't capable of. She had lived a long life, yes, but she had never needed to become proficient at this. She was a goddess, after all! Most of the time, nobody would dare to harm her.

A slight smile played across Isaac's lips.

"Thank you, that's all that I needed to know."

If this world's gods hadn't been so similar to those myths from his old world, then Isaac would have had a much harder time in finding out the mastermind's identity. Also, there were actually a lot of deities here that had no counterpart in his old world, so he had lucked out this time. But, oh well, it was only to the extent of winning a coin flip, nothing extraordinary.

Ignoring the crazed look in the goddess' eyes, Isaac turned to Ryuu who was staring at him as if he was a monster. Not in the way that she had done before, when he had slaughtered close to a hundred people. No, she was simply so shell-shocked by how easily he had extracted all of the information that he had aimed for. It felt surreal to her, like something that really shouldn't have been possible.

Seeing her in such a distracted state caused Isaac to tilt his head a little.

"Everything okay?"

His words snapped her out of her thoughts, and she hurriedly nodded. She still had a lot of questions, one of which was how he had become about as strong as her in such a short time. But she knew to save those for later, as now really wasn't the right time. Also, they had already agreed on something before. In exchange for taking her along, she would have to do him a small favour.

After assuring him that she was fine, he showed a small smile and finally got to the point.

"Alright then. Now, would you please fulfill your end of the bargain?"

A short nod later, the cloaked Elf disappeared from the room, while Isaac sat down on the room's bed and talked to Ais via the system. On the side, he added new drops of mana to his mental body's mana flow. All that he could do for now was to wait, and he didn't plan to let this time go to waste.

-----

In a dimly lit but comfortably warm room, a group of thirteen black robed figures sat around a round stone table that had a black blade engraved on its surface. There were many vacancies around them, and the mood was heavy. All of the Black Blade's remaining Executives, the Vice-Captain and the Captain were present.

"What do you make of our situation, Mosi?"

The unassuming-looking Manu looked directly at the slender but tall man to his right. He had just told everyone in the room about exactly what he and Re had encountered and found out earlier.

For a few seconds, Mosi was mulling things over, then he finally broke the gloomy silence.

"Blackshaw seems to mistrust the Loki Familia, at least to a certain extent. He put himself in considerable risk by attacking Lady Petbe' manor. I don't think that we need to worry about the Loki Familia's interference here, as a man like that would surely not bring a captured goddess to his familia's home. That would raise far too many questions. I suspect that he's laying low somewhere else, so if we can figure out his location, we'll get a chance to rescue our goddess."

Not all of the Executives thought the same, but they didn't speak up now that their Captain had already made his deductions known. In fact, some of them even got convinced by his reasoning and set their own doubts aside, as Mosi had rarely been incorrect before.

Suddenly, a loud knock could be heard from the heavy door sealing the room.

"Come on in."

Upon getting permission, a black robed woman hastily stumbled in, the joyful smile on her face reaching all the way to her eyes.

"We just found a lead! Isaac Blackshaw has been sighted to the west of Daedalus Street, with a bound and gagged woman slung over his shoulder. Only a few people saw him, as he was in a hurry. But later on, someone else saw him enter the 'Boar's Foot', a tavern situated between Daedalus Street and the adventurer graveyard. He was still carrying around our goddess at that point!"

This well-timed news caused the group of thirteen to rejoice, but soon, Mosi had to put a damper on their festive mood.

"The Boar's Foot is in one of the most deserted parts of the city. While it's possible that he went there to hide, as the chances of him getting spotted are somewhat low, it could also be a trap for us. Especially taking into account how quickly this reached our ears… it's a bit suspicious. Maybe I'm just overreacting, though."

Manu couldn't help but frown, a worry of his resurfacing in his mind.

"Do you think that he'll have the Loki Familia with him?"

With a slight smirk, Mosi shook his head.

"I don't think so. Didn't the survivors say that some 'rat' was observing Blackshaw from a distance? It is likely that he hired some disposable help, people that he can get rid of after the job is done. He doesn't seem like a man who would trust others easily, so we can expect some mercenaries or bounty hunters to be on his side. With his power alone, he might not be confident in beating us all - and rightfully so. But with others supporting him, it is likely that he feels optimistic. Also, again, keep in mind that this is just a possibility. Most likely, there isn't even any trap at all."

Still a bit unsure, Manu hesitated.

"But the Loki Familia could be there, right? I think it would be foolish for us to step into this trap."

Yet again, Mosi shook his head.

"Even if they were there, we wouldn't have any other choice. If Loki were to be involved, it would only be a matter of time before Lady Petbe would be sent back to Heaven. And if she isn't, then we still don't know when Blackshaw would kill her. It is likely that he wants to gain information from her, which is impossible. So he might just kill her in a fit of rage. Need I remind you about what happens when a god returns to Heaven? We'll be in deep trouble. So even if it's a trap, we'll have to spring it."

Finally, Manu understood just how deeply his Captain had thought about all of this, and he was full of respect. Still, he couldn't help himself from mentioning something.

"Just in case, only us Executives and above should go. Everyone else would just be cannon fodder. We wouldn't want Blackshaw to use our secret weapons against us again."

With a slight smile on his lips, Mosi finally nodded.

"I agree, well observed. Even the Executives should only follow from a safe distance. The main burden will be on you and me. Also, remember. The goal isn't to kill Blackshaw, but to get Lady Petbe back. Only once that is achieved can we spare extra effort and focus on getting rid of him."

After everyone had assured their Captain that they had understood, they spent another hour to put together a detailed plan. When they were finally convinced that they had accounted for all possibilities, they moved out of Knossos, on a mission to save their goddess.