Vaan had already suspected Dorothy's group's involvement when he found Dahlia's hairpin, but Solana's words turned his suspicion into a certainty.
Still, the whole group wasn't involved in Dahlia's ambush; only a few were aware of it, including the two High Witches.
"We've also procured a pile of items from their personal storage spaces. There are mostly rank-three to rank-four magical plants and magic tools among them. Still, there's even a rank-five item," Astoria mentioned.
"High Witches possessing this much wealth isn't unheard of and is even truer for flourishing lords and merchants. However, I have never seen or heard of these two from the Kingdom of Verdant Woods before."
"On top of that, they aren't even the leaders of this merchant group; they are only subordinates of the witch called Dorothy Helion. So I'm afraid they didn't come to Sunpeak Town purely for trading," Astoria added.
"I've also suspected as much," Vaan agreed with a nod before saying, "We'll know more details once we acquire the information from Dorothy."
"That said, do you know much about the Helion Merchant Guild, Astoria? For example, is the guild leader some renowned or powerful man?" Vaan asked shortly after.
"Is the guild leader of the Helion Merchant Guild a renowned or powerful man?" Not just Astoria but even Solana expressed a confused look when they heard Vaan's heard.
"You should already know the situation in the seven witch kingdoms, Vaan. Men don't have much sway here, even if they are witch descendants. The only exception is if they are the offspring of the kingdom's ruler or some very powerful and respected High Witch," Astoria replied.
"I don't remember hearing Maude Helion ever getting married or even having a partner, for that matter. That said, I don't have much contact with the Kingdom of Verdant Woods; I might be behind on the news."
"Is that so?" Vaan uttered with a thoughtful look, recalling Dorothy's threat.
The person was obviously a proud witch and had a natural disdain for men. And yet when she was backed into a corner, the person she mentioned wasn't her mother but her father.
Even if Dorothy were a hypocrite, she wouldn't talk out of her ass for no reason.
"Dorothy made it sound like she had a very powerful father. But in any case, we won't learn anything new until we receive more information," Vaan mentioned. "So we should focus on other things for now."
"How should we deal with these witches, Sir Vahn?" Solana enquired.
"Since they ambushed Dahlia, we'll let her deal with the ones involved in any way she sees fit," Vaan replied. Then, after some thought, he added, "As for the rest, it seems like a waste to kill them. They have been quite obedient."
"Perhaps, we can train them to serve us," Vaan suggested.
Solana and Astoria were skeptical of Vaan's suggestion, thinking it wouldn't be easy to acquire the witches' loyalty even if they trained them.
However, the witches didn't seem to have a strong sense of attachment to Dorothy of the Kingdom of Verdant Woods; the Peak-stage Senior Witches did not try to protect Dorothy as the Early-stage High Witches did.
They cared more about their own lives than their loyalty. As such, it was possible to use them after some training.
Coupled with Vaan's methods, it wasn't impossible to acquire their absolute loyalty.
Nevertheless, after Dahlia was called over to deal with her assailants, she simply killed them all. She didn't bother torturing them to her satisfaction.
This wasn't because she was soft and didn't want her enemies to suffer; she simply felt like it was a waste of time.
She would rather focus her energy and time on Vaan's development projects.
Seeing Dahlia's devotion, Vaan decided it would be best to raise her power with some intense training. She would be safer once she had the power to protect herself.
Still, they could only save the intense training for nighttime. There was still much to do during the day, and mana was also richer at night.
Nevertheless, after Dahlia returned to work with Aeliana, Vaan collected the bodies of the three witches she had killed.
Even without the system, he could still collect the witches' mana to upgrade his Heaven-Swallowing Space.
He wouldn't waste the mana of two Early-stage High Witches and one Peak-stage Senior Witch.
Sometime later, the group eventually dispersed.
Solana took the remaining witches from Dorothy's group to the old training ground next to train their obedience. Astoria also accompanied her at Vaan's request to ensure nothing unexpected happened.
Meanwhile, Vaan headed into the mountains not too far from Sunpeak Town and created a big cave to focus on his training.
He did not bother pursuing the remnant witch merchants that might escape Sunpeak Town during this period.
There was no need to stop the spread of information. But, more importantly, Vaan didn't want to continue obstructing traffic flow to Sunpeak Town.
No information leaving Sunpeak Town also meant no new information entering it.
After Vaan sealed himself inside the new cave, he illuminated the darkness with fire and took out the bodies of the witches in his inventory to reap his rewards.
However, his body had grown so strong that mana from Peak-stage Senior Witchs and Early-stage High Witches had little effect on his body.
Thus, he simply used the mana to upgrade his Heaven-Swallowing Space, expanding its size.
Ding!
<All mana has been consumed by the Heaven-Swallowing Space>
<Your Heaven-Swallowing Space has been expanded.
Although Vaan could sense how much space had been expanded, he felt the system notifications lacked some information.
As such, he inputted some commands into the system.
Ding!
<Notification changes have been confirmed>
<Future expansion to the Heaven-Swallowing Space will be measured in metric units>
<Host's status has been updated with new information>
…
=====
[Heaven-Swallow Space (High-rank) (Upgradeable)]
[Subspace size: 514,230km^3]
[Status 1: Unable to support life]
pAn,Da-n0v e1,c
[Status 3: 0 population]
[Status 4: 10,759 inventory]
=====
Since the system was bound to Vaan's soul, he did not need to explain the metric units to the system for it to understand.
Nevertheless, Vaan updated the information on his Heaven-Swallowing Space because he believed he could construct a habitable world inside one day.
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