46 – Progress

Alternating eye contact to build up influence worked, as far as I could tell. I could even slowly increase it in a single person with interrupted focus, so splitting the time between two people wasn’t an issue. The main question was whether I could effectively activate it.

Gazing into Hana’s eyes, I felt the influence properly take hold, her face relaxing into a neutral state. I quickly swapped my attention to Yarek. He hadn’t yet noticed his lover’s change in behavior, eyes locked on me a little vacantly. It was understandable really, he’d gone through quite the roller coaster of emotions just now, not to mention the stress.

All my fault as well, I reminded myself. Nothing I could do about it now though.

Just like Hana, Yarek’s eyes quickly unfocused. The influence had properly unfolded.

I had managed it! Two people influenced at nearly the same time. The exact time was off by a few seconds, so there was a weakness there still, but it was significant good news. If I ever found myself in a conversation with multiple hostile people, I could defuse the situation. Though how well influence would work for that purpose was still unknown.

Well, at least interrogating a group was possible. It would be highly suspicious if one member suddenly spilled everything for no discernible reason after all.

Now I just needed to test the longevity of the effect. Obviously I couldn’t maintain eye contact with both of them at the same time to renew the influence continuously. But I already knew it could last for a while if properly applied, so I should be able to manage.

Time to test the limits.

“Is anything you told me in this meeting false?”

Yarek answered with a simple “No.” For some reason, Hana didn’t answer. Which was unusual. If something was a lie, she should have said yes. I quickly realized a potential issue.

Switching my gaze to Hana as I talked, I repeated my question. This time she confirmed she hadn’t lied.

Hmm. I’d been swapping my target between the two continuously, to keep them both influenced. It was mainly a coincidence that Yarek was my focus the first time I asked. But it explained what might have happened.

Apparently, influenced people only react to direct questions. Or what they perceive as direct questions anyway. Let’s test some more.

I already knew they only reacted to things I said from when Lily hadn’t reacted to Mia’s interjections yesterday. Being limited to things directed at them also somewhat followed, now that I thought back.

Ensuring to swap my eyes back and forth, I asked a slightly different question. “Who do you both each love?”

““I love Hana/Yarek”” They both replied correctly, speaking over each other with no regard for the other’s reply. But they did indeed both answer, unlike before.

“Do either of you have any plans to run away from my employ, now that your relationship is no longer forbidden?”

“No,” Yarek said. At the same time, Hana was a bit more verbose. “I don’t have any plans, but I’m going to speak to Yarek about the topic after our meeting with you.” Due to Yarek’s one syllable answer, Hana was easy to understand.

Good to know. Though I was confused why Hana was the one who might want to leave, when she’d been so happy to be allowed to stay. I focused on her a bit more. “What reasons make you want to leave?”

“I’m scared of what happened recently. All this talk of a demon. And one of the people that disappeared after the demon hunters came was my friend. I was a little bit scared of you as well.”

Ouch. That made sense. Suddenly having one of your friends just disappear was sure to be mentally scarring. Finding out afterwards that they were demon contractors or puppets didn’t really help there. And being afraid to remain in a manor that had been infiltrated by a demon once, especially combined with the sudden loss was more than understandable.

That raised another, related question. “What makes you want to stay?” After all, if she just wanted to talk it over with her lover for now, there had to be something that balanced out the fear, at least a bit.

“Yarek and I both grew up in this town, so leaving would hurt.” That was a reason I already knew from earlier. She wasn’t done yet. “I don’t know if Yarek would want to leave his position now that he won’t be kicked out. And my own job pays well too. There’s also the recent thing I heard about the healer caring for the families of people working for you. It would be perfect to raise a family here, if everything worked out.”

So the obvious answers then. It did feel good to know my policy change with Theodore had such a large impact on people’s opinion already. I could understand why. Medical care in this world wasn’t cheap. Even less so for the really dangerous things. Getting it for free, not to mention for potential children as well, was a big deal.

Yarek’s influence was slipping a little by now, since I’d focused on Hana for so long. I quickly reoriented to maintain it. A few seconds later, it was back to being stable.

At least for people that already saw me as an authority figure, maintaining two separate instances of the ability was possible long-term. Which was an encouraging result. The recent emotional upheaval might also play into it, I don’t know.

One last important question. Well, two.

“Who do you two work for?”

““I work for you, Lord Steelheart,”” they both answered nearly in perfect sync.

“Have either of you ever worked or conspired against me, or planned to do so in future?”

““No.””

With that, the interview was basically over. After collecting my cup of blood from each of them, I woke them up. The couple was still a bit mentally out of it, so they didn’t even really notice they’d been spaced out until I cleared my throat.

“Now, that covers the most important parts. Please keep in mind this situation was an exception. Don’t go around breaking other rules or laws just because this time it ended well, understood?” Both of them nodded mutely.

“If there is a ruling you think is unusually harsh or unjust in a similar way as the ban on relationships was, please ask me about it. It is more than possible that it’s old or that I overlooked something when making new ones. Or your interpretation is incorrect in some way and I can explain my reasoning. If I’m not available or too intimidating, Mia is also capable of bringing things to my attention if necessary.”

I looked the pair of happy but drained people over, then added, “With that, you may leave. Don’t forget to train your literacy and come back for a test if you want that extra raise. Now, have a good afternoon.”

When just the two of us remained in the room, Mia looked at me. “How did you know about those two? I had no idea, so they must have hidden it pretty well.”

“Oh, that’s easy. One of my little scouts accidentally saw them together at night. …they were just hugging, stop looking at me like that. It was also outside, I didn’t intentionally spy on people’s private affairs.” Though I could, so easily.

Just the heart sense alone let me learn so many things about people from several rooms away. Through walls at that. Two people together in bed would be very obvious, not just from the proximity, but the elevated heart rates as well. Now that I considered that, I better keep a tight rein on that ability. A frown crossed my face.

I really didn’t need to know some things. Like how the lovers that just left the room had stopped a few corridors away and were hugging tightly right now. I pulled back my awareness a bit to give them some space, even though they didn’t even know I could do this. Some things were about the principle.

Turning back to Mia, I asked, “Didn’t you say Theodore’s first lesson would be this afternoon?”

“Oh right!” Mia jumped up from her relaxed posture and hurried to the door. “I’ll see you later, or tomorrow.” With a small bow, she was gone.

“Time for me to go to my own lesson,” I muttered before rising a little unwillingly from my seat. That chair was way too comfy. Maybe my enhanced sense of touch had something to do with it.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Training with Lars was more of the same as this morning. A bunch of exercises, with the difficulty rising now that Lars had a better grasp on my capabilities. It was actually a good workout now, compared to yesterday.

After the warm-up, it was back to basic hand-to-hand form. Lars was a bit annoyed at the ‘indoors only’ restriction and explained why. It was pretty simple – the ground of mosaic tiles was a lot harder than the packed dirt of the training ground outside. There were certain maneuvers he didn’t want me to attempt here, for risk of me getting hurt if I fell awkwardly.

“In a case like this,” he elaborated, “being stronger is actually worse for you. It’ll hurt if a normal man makes a mistake and lands badly, but someone with your strength could easily break something. Be that your body, an object in the surroundings or even another person, it’s a bad outcome either way.”

I understood his concern well. My body was definitely more durable than normal – evidenced by the fact that my enhanced movements didn’t hurt me – but tripping and planting my face into the stone wall at significantly higher than normal speed would suck. A lot. Other, more elaborate movements were even worse.

It wasn’t like I could really show off my super regeneration either. Well I could, but I didn’t want to.