The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 522

Chapter 522 Lie Detector

Karl was led to a room where he was sat down across the table from a feathered Demon, with some sort of magical device between them.

"This is a lie detector. My species reacts subconsciously to lies. If you speak, one of the lights will glow. Do you understand how this works?" The Demon asked.

"Yes."

The green light glowed steadily as Karl spoke.

"Good, it seems to be working. Now, we will start on the basic questions before you are sent before the Oracle. This is just for his safety, and we would hope that you don't take it as a personal slight."

[That's why there are Overlords at all three doors to this room.] Rae laughed.

"Of course not. The Oracle sounds like someone important, you can't just let random strangers see him in person without vetting them first." Karl agreed.

The green light glowed, and the Demon nodded.

"You don't seem as surprised as most are to hear that the Oracle here is male. But let's keep on track. Were you sent here to spy, gather information, or otherwise obtain information about the Newbon Empire for another nation?"

"Nope." Karl replied, and the green light glowed.

The Demon looked confused, then continued his questions.

"Did you come here at the behest of someone outside the Newbon Empire."

"No."

Both light glowed, and Karl tried to keep a straight face as the Demon growled.

"If I rephrase that to 'did you arrive in Newbon at the behest of someone outside the nation' does it change the answer?"

"Yes."

The feathered Demon made a happy chirping noise.

"I see the issue here. You arrived in the city of Bethoke because the local guards requested it, and that was not what I meant, but it was a valid answer."

Karl nodded, and the Demon continued. "Did the person who sent you here wish for you to harm anyone within the Newbon Empire?"

"No."

The green light glowed, and the Demon sighed.

"What did they send you here for?"

Karl considered how to answer that for half a second.

"I was sent here to deliver a present that would help the Newbon Empire for many decades to come. I have already done that, and when I met your guards, I was intending to take my group to Clifnal to sell the tools that we are carrying and restock with whatever they had suitable for trade to the east down the road." The light remained a steady green.

"So, you haven't harmed anyone, and you came here just to deliver a present? Is that what I am to believe?"

Karl chuckled. "Don't get ahead of yourself. I've actually killed a fair number of people since we arrived here. But none that I would feel guilty about. Bandits, mostly."

The Demon frowned. "That's the job of the guard patrols."

"But it's more fun when I do it. Besides, we got a rather handsome payment for delivering a group of orphans to the driver from Halsearing."

The Demon smiled and began to relax, but from the other side of the door, one of the Overlords that Rae had detected asked the important question.

"Ask him how the children became orphans." The deep voice demanded.

"I killed their parents, of course. They were bandits, and there was a bounty on them."

"Dark Gods, what sort of monster are you?" The Demon sitting across from Karl gasped.

"The sexy kind."

The red light glowed so brightly that it drowned out the dim white backlight in the room.

"Well, that was rude. It didn't have to glow that bright." Karl mumbled, and the red light glowed again, though not as brightly.

"How many monsters have you killed in your life?" The voice from outside the door demanded.

"I don't keep an exact count. A couple or ten," the red light began to flicker. "Thousand." As Karl finished his sentence, the green light came on, faint but steady.

"Would it be closer to two or ten thousand?" The deep voice asked. In Karl's mind, Rae did a quick mental calculation of the bodies they had collected.

[Definitely closer to two than ten, but not for much longer.]

[You guys are a bunch of gluttons.]

Karl noticed that the red light flickered as he replied to Rae, though he hadn't spoken out loud.