Chapter 43

Wild Hunt 1

-:-

1 month later

Nichola’s Room

HAA Clock Tower

Groveling was an amazing skill used by the most daring of negotiators.

It was often considered as a trump card when all was lost.

By throwing away one’s pride and self respect, there was a slight chance that one’s pitiful apperance would somehow touch one the person’s merciful side in order to get them to agree.

Theo, who viewed himself as someone who bows to no one, has groveled twice in a span of a month.

The first was in front of Lord where Theo begged him to promote Dorothy Boreal’s father.

This went surprisingly smoothly.

Apparently, Lord wanted to promote Dorothy’s dad due to his qualifications and experience.

Unfortunately, Lord’s ‘employees’ were a rugged bunch that didn’t want to be under a flimsy person.

Dorothy’s father was skilled but had no experience leading a bunch of, for a lack of better term, hardened criminals.

And that’s where Theo came in.

Quite simply, Dorothy’s father was being promoted at The Boss’s recommendation.

The same Boss that defeated 3 superheroes at the FNN Incident, started the massive gang war in Hellhole one month ago for fun (baseless rumor) and ,though only considered as rumor by most, responsible for the Dionaea Mass Murder.

Who in their right mind would dare challenge the will of a person with clear disregard to human life?

As such, Dorothy’s father was promoted without any issue.

The second time Theo groveled was right at this moment.

In front of him sat Nichola in her lab coat.

Behind him was Juno silently watching the scene in amusement.

As per usual, it was hard to make out her facial reaction due to how badly morphed her skin was.

However, give how Theo suddenly entered her room without a word and groveled in front of her without any explanation, she was probably confused.

“…. Er…. What are you doing?” asked Nichola

“I’m groveling.” Replied Theo

“Why?” asked Nichola as she also threw questioning looks to Juno.

Juno simply shrugged in response.

“I’m ashamed to say that I have made negative progress in the materials you requested for your Khlysti Gospel” said Theo while his face was still kissing the floor.

“Ah… yeah… that….” Said Nichola with a sigh.

Theo wasn’t sure if it was a sigh of defeat or a sigh of playful sarcasm.

The month after the massive gang war in Hellhole has been complicated to say the very least.

About 500+ dead, 2000+ injured 200+ arrests and millions of Rooks in property damage.

Theo was quite disappointed on the casualty numbers.

After all the crap he and Juno pulled off, only around 500 criminal scum died?

That was way below than he hoped.

The 200+ arrests also caused quite a bit of irk for Theo.

Odds were that 25% of those arrests would be released on bail or escape from prison after 1 month.

And those were probably the most cunning and dangerous of the lot.

Theo needed to know who they were so he can hunt them down later on.

Hellhole has largely calmed down since the Superheroes beat them into submission, however, the district was in a state of alert.

The temporary state of anarchy has revealed to the big players of Hellhole a very terrifying truth.

It seemed that all of their fellow scum were hiding quite a lot of fire power.

The Triad’s Blazing Bull via their cultivator allies

The M1 Abrams tank legions of the Mob

The Onis and magic katanas of the Yakuza

And these were the ones that Theo saw personally.

Apparently, there were more these ‘weapons’ rampaging during the great gang war, and the fact that the big crime organizations didn’t know that the others had such hidden power was a very rude wake up call.

Based on what the info the doctor has been feeding him, there was an arms race happening in Hellhole.

And given how the Superheroes were keeping a close eye after what happened a month ago, the arms race was both very secretive and very cold war-ish.

Because of this heighten sense of paranoia within the criminal community, Theo’s efforts in securing the Khlyst from the Shigetsu Clan has become infinitely harder.

These guys have pretty much turned their mansion into a fortress that was prepared for any attack.

Even Theo’s ‘sneaking in from the sewers’ tactic wasn’t going to cut it against the counter measures they have prepared.

Due to this, all of his attempts to sneak into the compound ended in either him sneaking away before they spot him, or him fighting his way out when they do spot him sneaking in.

Anything short of bombing the damn place was impossible.

And with the Superheroes keeping tabs on Hellhole, such action was very unwise.

Thus Theo’s current groveling

Naturally, given the magnitude of the Hellhole incident, even the social outcast Nichola understood why Theo failed.

“I see… I guess it can’t be helped” said Nichola

She took out a potion bottle filled with violet liquid and gave it to Theo.

“Huh? What’s this?” asked Theo

“As promised, there’s your modified Incubus serum. Its effect is temporary and you wont be able to make women instantly fall for you, but your bodily fluids will have an aphrodisiac effect. It also increases your libido to disturbing levels and it wont kill you outright. Take it. It’s yours.” Said Nichola.

“I am grateful and all, but you know I cant receive it right? I haven’t fulfilled my end of the bargain after all.” Replied Theo as he pushed the bottle back to Nichola.

“It’s fine. You can have it for free. It was unreasonable for me to ask you to steal a highly prized artifact. The deal was never fair to begin with.” Said Nichola as she slumped on her chair with defeat and helplessness in her voice.

This greatly confused Theo.

“The Khlyst vastly out values the Incubus Serum. If we equate it to money, the serum would be 50 thousand Rooks while the Khlyst’s value would be at the 700 million Rooks.” said Juno in clarification. “Quite simply, Nichola sent you to kill a dragon and your reward was a sack of potatoes. That’s how much Nichola was undercutting you.”

“Such a valuable item was going to be heavily guarded no matter what. For all the danger and wasted effort I’ve put you through and for lying to you, I give you the Incubus serum.” Said the apologetic Nichola

Theo was put in a tough spot.

In all honesty, he wanted a mission to justify the corpses he often left behind.

This made him feel that this allowed him to stand above the common criminal who only wanted to watch the world burn

He knew this was a lie, but it made him feel better every time he satisfied his bloodlust.

As such, Nichola’s unreasonable request was the perfect excuse.

While Theo was cranking his brain in order to convince Nichola, Juno stepped in.

She took the old flip phone/Incubus Eye out of Theo’s left pocket and opened it in front of Theo while pointing it towards Nichola.

“JUNO YOU BITCH!” roared Nichola as ran towards Theo and desperately pushed the phone away.

As you’d expect of a confrontation of a social outcast who almost never leaves her room and highly trained killer, Juno effortlessly danced around the desperate Nichola

“Nichola, Theo is not stupid. He probably researched what the Khlysti Gospel is and what you were planning on making him do.” Said Juno in a teasing manner.

Nichola stopped chasing after Juno and stared at Theo in a questioning and terrified manner.

“The Khlyst Cults in Tzaria believed in ‘salvation in damnation’. In order to be free from sin, you must understand sin. They have 2 signature rituals, namely flogging themselves and having sexual orgies. Your ancestor Grigori wasn’t part of the Khlyst Cults but he did do similar stuff to them. It really doesn’t take much deduction to connect the dots that you want to have sex with me, right?” said Theo in a calm and composed manner.

With no interruptions from Nichola, Theo used the Incubus eye on her.

There was a small status on top of Nichola’s head with the caption ‘IN LOVE’.

“HAHAHAHAHA! …*sigh*… it’s pathetic isn’t it? In my isolation, I fell in love with the first guy that doesn’t treat me like a diseased zombie. I know it’s a pipe dream that maybe you’ll want to have sex with this disgusting body of-” said Nichola before Theo forced a kiss on her.

He inserted his tongue in her small mouth and French kissed her into oblivion.

Nichola initially resisted, but she quickly lost her strength and could do nothing but be devoured

All this while, he was desperately trying not to throw up.

In all honesty, Nichola looked like an eldritch abomination and the very idea of kissing her was sickening.

However, Theo shoved all of his disgust down the toilet.

Nichola was too valuable of an ally, and the idea of gaining her loyalty by sleeping with her disgusting body was a small price to pay.

And besides, Theo had a gut feeling that Nichola’s original form was a hottie.

As such, Theo bit the bullet and went all out.

After a minute of intensive French kissing, Theo finally let Nichola go.

She fell to her knees, unable to stand.

Without a single word, Theo exited the room with a friendly wave.

“I hope you’re ready Nicky. When we return with the ingredients, you, me and Theo will have a ‘wonderful’ time. And we wont stop even if you beg us to. Fu fu fu fu.” Said Juno as she followed Theo out

When the duo was far enough from Nichola’s room, Theo ran to the nearest restroom and vomited like there was no tomorrow.