To his credit, Tim overcame his initial freeze instinct very quickly. In the slowest half second of his life, he whipped around and dove under the desk. A poor hiding spot to be sure, but he did not have time to find another, because just then the dragging noise ceased and the door opened with a subtle creak.

Whew, just in the nick of time, Tim congratulated himself even while he still hyperventilated. Now, Tim, ol’ buddy ol’ pal, time to shut the fuck up and stay as still as a corpse, because a dead man is what you will be if Kevin finds you in his study. Stay peaceful, lest I find myself in pieces...! Tim stifled a deranged giggle.

Tim’s panic attack was cut short by the wet thud of the maid’s head and torso hitting the ground, dropped unceremoniously. Tim felt the floor shake a little and clapped his hands over his mouth as he felt acidic bile start to rise in his throat. On second thought, maybe now would be a good time to take a mental leave of absence…

“Oi, you, butler. Take care of this.” Kevin called into the hallway, voice devoid of any emotions one might expect after committing murder. Just after Tim heard this, another set of footsteps entered the study, lighter and more timid than Kevin’s had been.

“Yes my lord, it shall be done,” a husky baritone voice said, “though, this insignificant one wonders if the staff vacancy shall be filled again after how this… thing displeased you.”

There was a short pause, almost as if Kevin spared the question just a moment of thought, or had briefly considered executing the butler for his impertinence, but then he replied. “Ha, it doesn’t matter. Just take another npc from the slums, it will be honored to serve a great hero like me. Anyways, I’m going back to the party, so don’t you go and slack off.”

After that declaration, the heavy footsteps of Kevin moved out of the room and rung out against the wood flooring of the hallway, and the door closed once more.

“Really, the great hero truly is a handful sometimes,” The butler muttered with a wry voice, sounding like this is something that had happened before. Tim heard a small exhalation of exertion and sounds of the man picking up the corpse then, for some reason, throwing the maid’s body to the side of the room. However, before any questions could fully form in Tim’s mind, the sound of a match being struck, and the sensation of burning flesh and hair that followed, answered them.

The room steadily filled with one of the worst smells imaginable, but all it did was remind Tim of how his village smelled after the monster attack. In fact, he was so focused on trying not to smell the stench, that he failed to notice the light footsteps of the butler approaching the desk and opening a window behind it to get rid of the smell. At least, until the shout of “What the devil !?” jolted his heart into his throat.

Tim looked up and was immediately met with the shriveled, angry face of the gaunt butler. Though Tim had assumed he was a human from the sound of his voice, the butler appeared to be of elvish decent, and very well-dressed.

“You, maggot! What are you doing in my lord’s study? Are you a spy? Sent to blackmail the lord hero?” The butler spat the last bit out with complete contempt for Tim’s obvious idiocy. Tim could only stare in the face of this veritable barrage of questions. “Guar-“ before that word was fully finished, Tim lunged out of his hiding place and tackled the elf.

The two men rolled around on the ground, each desperately trying to get the upper hand over each other, despite having similar physiques and levels of strength. Tim battered the face of the butler with his hands, rejecting any nuance or finesse of combat in favor of sheer savagery in an attempt to overwhelm his opponent. Shit! I can’t get to his eyes, his hands are in the way!

The butler pulled himself up on a chair, kicking to get Tim away. Tim lunged for his face again, but the butler shoved him off. As Tim was falling he remembered something very important. He rolled to protect it and reached his hand into his pocket as he scrambled off the ground. The two combatants eyed each other across the room.

“What filthy tricks do you have now, assassin?” The butler questioned, brandishing the chair, evidently wary of Tim’s hand in his pocket. The half-elf only replied with a thin smile as he reached with his other hand towards another pocket in his suit. The butler flinched and ran at Tim with the chair raised, obviously expecting an assassin’s throwing dagger of some sort.

As soon as the butler dove towards him, Tim acted, diving forwards to the left, swinging the thin glass tube up towards the butler’s face under his chin with as much force as he could muster.

Crack! The tube, with a tinkling sound, broke on the face of the butler, who instantly fell backwards clawing at his throat, screaming in agony as the hydrochloric acid contained in the tube emptied rushed outwards. Tim could feel the same horrifying, burning pain on the palm of his left hand and frantically scrubbed it off on the desk, trying his best to tear his gaze off the grisly scene. The butler writhed on the floor, screaming while choking on bubbles of melted flesh.

Damn, I had read a bit about this strange chemical, but it still is worse to see it in action. The old man in the shop must have given me the good stuff. Tim realized. He also realized that if the screams continued to go on at their current level, someone might investigate, so he grabbed the butler by the hair and swiftly forced the remaining glass and hydrochloric acid down his throat with his ruined hand to dispose of any evidence and make sure that he would die. The screams, now hacking gurgles, coming from the leaking, seizing man, gave the scene an almost surreal feeling. But, even with everything that had and was still happening, Tim could only think of one thing. Jeez that guy looks old and weak. Maybe I should work out or something.

With that dirty deed done, Tim strode over to the window and hoisted himself out of the window after giving the still-burning body of the maid a brief glance. She looked like Maria. As he walked away from the mansion nursing his hand, he could still smell the stench of burning hair, so reminiscent of his village, and made a promise in his head that he would do what he could do avenge her unjust death as well.

Soon, the study was silent, with only the softly bubbling, twitching body of the dying butler and the crackle of a fire in the hearth to break the stillness.