While sleeping soundly, I felt a slight pain in my chest. Upon waking, I realized someone had stabbed me in the heart with a knife. The blade was buried so deep that its entire length was hidden, reaching halfway into my heart.
The would-be assassin was the Lady Knight, who was still naked and wet in places from last night’s activities. I hadn’t yet fitted her with the enslavement cuff, and despite the intense debauchery of the night before, she seemed to have regained her senses and decided to take me down, at the very least. Fortunately, there had been a wrought iron knife (crafted by the blacksmith) lying nearby, which she’d used to execute her plan.
I pondered this rather nonchalantly, grasping the knife handle protruding from my chest and pulling it out. There was some pain, but it was bearable, and the bleeding was minimal. The vitality of an ogre shouldn’t be underestimated.
Without even needing to activate one of my many abilities, a mere stab to the heart with a wrought iron knife wasn’t enough to kill me. It did make moving slightly uncomfortable until it healed, but that was all.
So, because even tolerable pain is unpleasant, I activated High-Speed Healing. Instantly, I could see the wound healing at an accelerated pace. The torn flesh writhed and bulged, and then the gaping hole closed up.
Raising my gaze, I saw that the Lady Knight was now completely exposed, pinned to the ground by an angry, naked Dhami, who was roughly yanking her victim’s hair. The knight had no chance of resisting Dhami’s inhuman strength, and as she was pressed against the ground, she glared up at me with a look of resentment.
It seemed my affections last night had been insufficient. With a sigh, I carefully secreted a concoction from my fingertips and injected it into the knight, ensuring it wouldn’t leave any marks.
Then, Dhami and I took turns tormenting her. Despite her desperate, endearing pleas to stop, we continued undeterred. And by the afternoon, the Lady Knight had willingly donned the cuffs herself! But let’s set that aside for now.
I gathered the dazed male slaves and extracted all the information they possessed. Thanks to the effects of Subjugation, they couldn’t lie or hide anything, allowing us to gather a significant amount of intelligence, which we then relayed to the elven chieftain. To keep the elven soldiers’ morale up, we had arranged a deal with their chieftain yesterday to exchange information for ten barrels of elven wine—the chieftain was cunning enough to use the celebratory gift as a bargaining chip.
Finally, four more hobgoblins evolved today, one of them into a cleric. As usual, I presented them with gifts of congratulations.