After the servants found the prisoners within the dungeon, they did not show much of a surprise. Their expressions only had silent resignation plastered on them.

I see, so they were aware of this happening, but still they did nothing. No, more accurately, they could do nothing…

Out of the ten elves, only one was alive. Her hands and feet were chained and shackled; her entire body had many cuts, not to the point of causing internal bleeding, but enough to cause pain. It was obvious that she and the other elves were tortured. Nine of them lost their lives, it seems like they died one after another during the span of the month, two of them died during the last three days, the last one was alive, but barely, her heart beating weakly.

Her face, covered by a helmet, had seen better days, bruised, cut and swollen, apparently her torturer, after damaging her face put the helmet in order to not look at her face. Runfar wondered whether Augustus didn’t want to see the pain on her face or just wanted to see her whither in agony.

After they staff retrieved the elf out of the dungeon, Runfar bid his workers to do an emergency first aid.

So many injuries, cuts, bleeding…

After they took off her helmet, several maids gasped as they saw the state of her face, it was still looked elven, but it seemed irreparably damaged…so many bruises, her face was swollen and blue to the point that she looked like a puffer fish. Augustus did not seem like a merciful man, not at all.

After applying ice packs and medicine, the swelling on her unconscious face had subsided, but the bruises and scars remained. However, her face was not ugly, not in the least.

It was obvious if it were not for her injuries, she would look rather charming.

“What is her condition?” Runfar asked.

“Currently stable. But I don’t know how long it will last.” One of the maids, with long blue hair, twenty one years of age, named Meriam, who was apparently the medic in the house, gave her diagnosis.

“While we took care of the external wounds, her body suffered from malnourishment, she is currently sick, and her mana is steadily declining. Her condition is slowly getting worse. At this rate, her mana will fade away within a couple of days. I am afraid this is a rather severe case of mana deficiency.”

The conditions she was kept in were terrible indeed. It was a miracle that she even survived.

Apparently the other elves have died from the combination of starvation and their mana fading away as a result. Not to mention the constant torture they were subjected to. And the fact that they were left in the dungeon to rot for almost a month contributed to that.

Runfar found some of Augustus’s research documents; apparently he did experiments on elves and demons, researching the respective abilities of the species; trying to find a way to incorporate their abilities into himself.

Elves have much stronger connection to magic than humans and demons possessed demon eyes.

From reading over Augustus’s documents, his goal was obvious- to become a bonafide demon. His writings betrayed his odd fascination with demon kind. He even wrote how much he regretted being born human.

All he wanted was to be born again as a demon that he was on the inside.

But he also wanted to have stronger magical power. For that end, he experimented on elves.

His magical research involved amputating limbs and implanting them to human slaves, blood transfusions, and organ transplantations, among other things.

The unwilling donors were of course, demons. And because of their inability to be compatible with demon flesh, all of the human slaves used for experiments were dead.

Runfar saw them for himself; Mordon led him into a room which was enforced by spell of ‘Freeze’, and the place was in one word, a morgue.

All of the failed test subjects were kept there, preserved for further research. Their bodies were rarely in one piece, Augustus made sure to cut them up for further research and analysis, to find out what exactly went wrong with a particular experiment.

The staff even put the bodies of demons and elves found in the dungeon in the morgue. Apparently they thought that Runfar would need them in the future. They most likely thought that Runfar shared his father’s hobby.

I will bury them later.

No wonder there are so many ghosts and malevolent spirits in this mansion.

The underground layer, no, more accurately, the dungeon had many rooms, it was in a sense a prison and a laboratory for all of Augustus’s depraved experiments.

As for the other prisoner, who apparently was a black wolf type demon, Dark Lord had her placed in a separate room.

Her condition was stable compared to that of the elf, but she was unconscious. Her sleeping figure was laid to rest on a soft bed and covered with an equally soft blanket.

Apparently Augustus wanted to keep the demons alive longer, so he did not starve them as much, and he treated the elves far worse, occasionally using them to relieve is stress by torturing them, sometimes to death.

Still, it is not like the demon was not hurt either, her hands and feet, there were cuts in them; her blood was drained out of them for research. Runfar was sure that her entire body under the bed covers was covered in scars.

But the worst injury was her missing eye. Her right eye was missing. Apparently, Augustus harvested her eye for the research purposes. Yet another attempt at taking demon’s identity for himself.

In fact, Runfar found a white demon eye, preserved in a glass tube inside Augustus’s former office. While Augustus failed in his experiments to implant demon eye into himself, he devised a way for him to use the demon eye without it being attached to his body.

When someone puts mana into the tube with the demon eye, the demon eye activates, shining with the bright white light. However, Runfar was not sure what kind of ability the demon eye possessed. He would have to ask the former owner of the eye after she wakes up.

Black wolf demon, after being given nutrition and several days’ rest, according to Meriam, she would wake up.

“However, if something is not done, the elf will die. This is too big of an opportunity to pass up.” Runfar muttered.

Elven kingdom, which was near the grand kingdom of Kizilalem, it looked pale in comparison due to being only about tenth of the size of Kizilalem, but their power was strong enough to stand up against the human kingdom due to the quality of their warriors and magicians.

Having an elf meant potential information about the elven kingdom, maybe even a way to sneak into the elven kingdom.

Relationship between humans and elves within the holy city was notoriously bad. Elves were a popular race among the demi-humans to be enslaved.

Elven kingdom tried to make amends with the kingdom of Kizilalem, but currently Kizilalem conducted raids upon their villages, thus bringing many elven slaves in the process.

Mana deficiency…meaning if I can somehow restore her mana or even give her more mana than minimum, her condition should stabilize. Let’s just hope that is the case…

* * *

An undead possesses the natural ability to drain mana from anyone it touches, meaning the flow of mana goes from the victim to the undead.

But if it is reversed, then it would be mana transfer.

The plan that Dark Lord concocted was to take advantage of his undead nature and collect huge amount of mana and then transfer it into the elf’s body.

Using Camilla’s perfect concealment technique, Dark Lord went around the territory of Tracoa at night and proceeded to sneak into at least twenty houses, draining mana from the inhabitants, but not to the point of killing them of course, that would create mass panic, instead they would only feel more tired waking up than before they fell asleep.

He made sure to be discreet, and with spell of concealment cast on him, it will be as if none was there.

After taking mana of almost thirty people, Dark Lord he got enough mana stored within his body.

His hunger for mana was currently satisfied. The feeling of fulfillment after consuming so much mana was satisfying to say the least.

This might become an addiction. But for now, that does not matter.

* * *

“Here goes nothing.” Runfar proceeded to transfer the accumulated mana into the elf’s unconscious body by placing his right hand on her forehead.

Slowly, her breathing became steadier, her injuries started to heal themselves. It was working; he never transferred mana before or much less even used mana before.

Maybe being turned into a half-skeleton wasn’t such a bad thing after all, but he did miss having a sense of skin on his right hand…

When a great amount of mana is transferred into the body, it triggers body’s natural healing process, and depending on the amount of mana given, it may even accelerate the healing.

Her appearance looked fair compared to before, it was clear as day she was one of the elves.

After half an hour of transferring mana, almost all of her injuries were healed; her face was no longer in a horrific state, but still some scars remained.

But it was clear that she was going to live.

“I suppose I should count this as success.”

* * *

Pain, blood…so much blood…

Never ending pain, continuing in an endless cycle, the circle of torture, starvation, mad laughter, and death…

In the end it all ends with pain, followed shortly by death.

But suddenly, all the pain vanished.

Her body felt like it went from a burning inferno to the windy plains of her village. She questioned whether she was home.

No, this couldn’t be…Is this a dream?

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

To her surprise, she was no longer wearing that heavy helmet in which she was locked in by her torturer.

Her hands and feet were free as well. And from the looks of it, based on the bandages and the state of her body, somebody went to great pains of healing her.

“It seems you have finally woken up, I am glad.”

A male voice, a young man’s voice.

She looked in his direction with anxious, fearful gaze.

He was wearing a half mask on the right side of his face, leaving his left side and nose exposed. His hair was golden and his eyes red as blood.

His appearance…he looks like him…but he clearly is not him…

His aura is different; the mood he projects around himself is not like Augustus at all. He seemed gentler, if not outright benevolent.

But why did he look so much like him? Was Augustus wearing a disguise? Was this another way of torturing her?

“Aug...gustus?” she ended up asking, she was shaking, her silver eyes looking anxiously at the masked man. She was hoping in her heart she was wrong.

“That would be the name of my late father. He has passed away recently, leaving me in charge of the estate. My name is Runfar, Runfar Sevilles.”

No….no…no. He is Augustus’s son!? Why does his bloodline torment me so! Why couldn’t I just die in peace, instead of seeing those crimson eyes of his…?

“I am sorry it had to be this way. I did not know there were prisoners inside the dungeon; it has been almost a month since father’s death. Many must have died there from open wounds and starvation. You were lucky to survive.”

Lucky? Lucky to survive? The only reason I ended up in this state is because of your cursed bloodline! If I had the strength I would have killed you…I need a weapon…

“You need to replenish your strength. Please, help yourself.”

He gave her a bowl of soup, with bread, and some meat. For utensils he gave her a fork, spoon, and a kitchen knife.

She was hesitating, looking at the food, almost as if the food was an enemy that was going to attack her.

“Poi-son?”

“No. Just food. I would never give poison to someone I spent so much effort to bring back to health.”

Hesitating at first, she proceeded to slowly start eating, before pace got faster, it was obvious that starvation has taken its toll.

Runfar silently watched her eat, with his crimson left eye following her movements. Drops of soup spilled on her, but in her desire to quench her hunger and thirst, she ate the soup at an alarming pace.

After she was done, she finally asked.

“My …elder sister…is she …all right?”

“I am sorry. But among the elves, you were the only survivor.”

She did not react; her frozen expression of pure agony said it all.

Her eyes opened wide, Runfar could see her hands tremble, her facial expressions froze. Her eye pupils dilated and her elven ears stood up.

She clutched the side of the blanket covering her with both hands, holding on to it tightly.

Runfar proceeded to leave the room after it was obvious that talking to her will get nowhere, he collected the dishes and silverware, taking note that the kitchen knife seemed to be missing.

After he left the room and closed the door, he heard a loud wail and sound of uncontrollable sobbing.

I did not expect that kind of reaction, but oh well…

* * *

Before sleeping, Runfar proceeded to scratch the wooden side of his bed. It was his way of tracking how many days it has been since the last time curse activated, so far everything has been going well, but keeping track of how many days he remained alive had already become a habit.

“Well then, a peaceful night to myself, I suppose.”

Just like that, Runfar fell asleep.

In the morning, he woke up and checked the bedside. The scratch mark was gone.

That was because he never scratched it, not yet anyways.

“Well, well, it seems like I died at night. This is the morning of previous day.” He muttered.

It was the day after he used mana transfer on the elf, the day she wakes up, and the day he lost his life while he was sleeping.

Strangely enough, he died without pain; he didn’t notice anything was amiss until he checked the scratch mark on the bedside.

“Just when I thought that I would at least be safe within the mansion…Guess I was wrong.”

The assassin came at night; he would just need to play his part just like last time, but only this time, find out who killed him.

“Well, this is going to be entertaining.” Dark Lord chuckled.

What could be better than investigating his own murder?