There are times when I blow a steam, but when I do, something always breaks. Now that I have a very powerful thing inside me, I’m doubling my cool mindedness.

***

My head hurts!

A stinging pain hits my head and wakes me up from a deep sleep.

When I opened my eyes, I saw an unknown ceiling. I’m pretty sure that this isn’t the wine cellar judging from the color of the wooden ceiling.

“Ah, that’s right! I had a party going last night.”

While scratching my head, I slowly lifted my body using my arms as support. After that, I felt the cold wind go through my skin.

“Why am I naked?”

That’s right. Butt naked.

I don’t recall anything related to getting naked at all.

“Wait… my clothes!”

In a panic, I raised my body more and sat up straight and looked for my clothes. When I saw them on the wooden floor beside the bed, I tried to immediately pick them up but ended up falling from the bed instead.

“Money… ah! Yes, they’re still here.”

Obviously, that’s what I would want to look for first. After all, this pouch is a magic pouch that can store a one type of item in large quantities. For this case, it’s gold coins. 900 gold coins to be exact. It would be a big problem if this would be lost or stolen.

When I finished wearing my clothes and boots, I noticed that I smell orange from my clothes.

“Weird…”

I look outside the window to see how much the sun had risen.

“Good, it hasn’t been a quarter of the day yet.”

Feeling relieved, I get out of the room and headed downstairs.

***

Near the end of the steps of the stairs, I noticed that there are two people sitting in front of the bar eating breakfast. And these people are,

“Amly, Lapis, having breakfast are we? Wait, why is Lapis here?”

Both turned their heads towards me.

For some reason, Amly averts her gaze when she met mine in a panic. Is she angry with me?

Looking at Lapis, she’s giving me an emotionless expression, but the aura around her is telling me good morning. I patted her head when I got near her.

“So, how’d Lapis end up in here?”

“She was here the whole night. Good thing I found her before the thugs outside did.”

Out of a sudden, a beauty with large breasts walked towards me while carrying a wooden tab. She seems to be the one who helped Lapis.

“How’d you know she’s mine?”

“The Slave mark has the same shape as your household crest. That’s how I knew she was yours. It’s 132 gold and 23 silver coin pieces by the way.”

While saying so, she gave me the tab where there are numbers written. To think that the people in the bar last night didn’t hold back drinking…

After giving her the said amount, she then left with another maid since the amount of gold coins was too much for one person to carry. I forgot to say thanks to her.

I look at Lapis who is eating eggs and bacon soundlessly. When she looked at me, I wiped off the little mess on her cheek with my right hand. She’s so cute! I want to adopt her as my daughter.

Then after that, I noticed something is missing. Just when that thought crossed my mind, I heard steps from the stairs. When I looked, it’s Sanjeet.

“Just what happened to you man?”

I asked him that because I can see his face full of kiss marks from red colored lipstick. I guess he had a really fun night.

“Leaving that aside for now, where are we going today? Don’t you have an appointment with that [Grey Legionnaire] guy?”

“Yeah, I do. I’ll go to his place after we go home. I have to take a shower first since I smell weird.”

Out of a sudden, a sound of something that fell resounded. When we turned our gaze, it was Amly who dropped a wooden mug. For some reason, she looks really flustered.

“Is there a problem?”

“N-no! There’s no problem. It’s just my hand that slipped that’s all!”

Hmm… If she says so?

***

“Are you alright, Key!?”

Just when I arrived in the living room of my mansion, a loud yell filled with worry reverberated in the hallway like a thunder. Not only that, this yell came from Ghena.

She can finally raise her voice towards me huh… Leaving that aside, what’s wrong with her?

“What’s the problem?”

I walked towards her calmly while feeling confused.

By the way, Sanjeet and Amly are together with their group so Lapis is the only one with me.

“Last night, a dozens of people wearing black and white clothes of the Darkus and Helius followers suddenly attacked. Thankfully Sir Flordist was able to notice them with his magic and countered them together with Miss Cherlaine and Miss Balerishk.”

WHAT?!

“Why didn’t you guys contact me sooner!?”

Because the impact of the news was too strong, I grabbed Ghena’s shoulders on impulse and pulled her towards me.

“Where are Sora and the others?”

“K-Key~!”

Because I got too surprised, I didn’t notice that Ghena is getting hurt by my strong grip.

When I noticed, I let go of her and apologized. That’s going to leave a mark… sorry.

“Sir Flordist is chasing the remnants of the intruders right now. Miss Cherlaine is currently sleeping after healing the injured Knights during the attack which includes the dwarves that are surrounding your mansion.”

“What about Matilda?”

Then out of a sudden, Ghena made an expression which looked like she just remembered something. If she’s making such a dire expression, something must’ve happened.

And with that, a bad premonition suddenly hit me.

“She’s currently in your room. Something that is beyond my comprehension is happening to her! Please hurry!”

After she said that, I instantly casted > and jumped to the second floor skipping the stairs. The floor seemed to crack when I did that.

When I arrived in the room, I accidentally broke the door because of the boosted strength I had.

“Matilda! What happened to you!?”

I ignored the fact that I am inside a small room and yelled like I was facing the horizon.

Turning my head towards the bed, there I saw Matilda, having green glitter-like things on her skin. It’s obvious that she’s in a very bad shape.

Noticing my presence, or probably because I yelled, she opened her eyes.

She tried to sit up using her arms as support. However, her elbows visibly shakes and loses her strength and dropped her back.

*Matilda’s Point of View*

I am called ‘Matilda Balerishk’, but that is not my real name.

Due to our family’s custom, the name ‘Matilda’ was given to me in order to hide my real name until the time has come for me to give it to someone. And that ‘someone’ might be this man in front of me.

This man is currently my fiancé whom I gave my chastity in order to let myself live with him and to leech unto his power. I have done something terrible, but I am now regretting doing it because this man has done nothing but good things towards me even after knowing this fact.

I, who used him, am the worst thing a human can do.

And now that he’s looking at me with a face full of worry, I can’t help but feel more guilt. But at the same time, my heart flutters for some reason every time I hear his approaching steps.

“What happened to you?”

He kneeled while lying beside my bed and tried to touch me. But as I am now, I must not touch a living thing as I would deprive it of its life force aside from absorbing its mana. Because of that, I evaded his grasp by lifting my hand.

“Please, do not touch me. It’s dangerous.”

“Why?”

Hearing that, his voice raised as it was filled with frustration.

“My skin would absorb not just your mana, but also your life force.”

He looked all over my body with a confused expression. After that, he suddenly activated his magic ring and placed a spell on me. But,

“It is useless to do that. Casting a spell on the current me will…”

As I was trying to explain, out of a sudden, a thick layer of magic power coated my body like a gentle silk-like cloth. I thought it would break, but it resisted my strong drain ability and allowed Key to touch my hand.

“Tell me, who did this to you?”

“They’re from both fraction that are chasing you. It seems that they found a way to get past the gates of Berigious and assaulted this place thinking that you were here. I’m guessing that they have limited resources as they did not know of your absence.”

“So it’s still because of me… Damned gods!”

The latter was a mutter. But even if didn’t hear it, I could easily tell what he is thinking.

“Can Cherry help you?”

“I’m afraid not. This isn’t a wound that could heal but a curse. After you placed this magic around me, it seemed to relieve me of my pain.”

“Is that so? Thank goodness!”

Key dropped his head while letting out a heavy sigh of relief.

However, I hate to break that moment, but there is something that he should know.

“Key, Jane and Marie have been kidnapped.”

“WHAT?!”

When I said that, his eyes grew in surprise.

Like it was perfectly timed, something was tossed out of the shadow from the dark part of the room. When we turned our gazes, the thing that was tossed on the floor was a knight with bloodied armor.

The next moment, Sora came out of the shadow. He’s a bit wounded probably because there are too many enemies for him to handle alone.

“This is the remaining knight from the raid. The others managed to escape via teleportation scrolls.”

Looking at the bloodied knight, it seems that he’s alive as he is breathing painfully. Seeing that, Key ordered Flordist to call Cherry.

When Cherry arrived and healed the wounded knight, Key forcibly wake him up by electrocuting him.

After the knight became aware of his surroundings, he tried to pull out a small dagger from his waist. Unfortunately, Key grabbed his neck first and lifted him high in the air using his probably boosted strength.

“Where are the girls?”

Calm yet cold filled with wrath.

It’s the only words that could describe Key’s words right now.

He ignored the fact that the man was still holding a knife and just raised him up in the air.

Using the opening, the knight tried to stab Key’s face with his knife. To his surprise, the knife—no, his whole arm passed through Key’s face like it wasn’t there.

“I’ll ask you again, where did your men take the girls?”

“Die!”

Even though the knight was chocking, he still threw curses at Key.

Unlucky for him, Key is not in the mood to take on those curses.

Key dropped the knight hard on the floor that was fortified with magic beforehand. The power of Key’s slam was so great that the whole room shook like an earthquake had occurred.

Even so, the knight did not die since Key made sure that he would only feel pain and agony by allowing Cherry to continuously heal the knight. I can also see the Knight’s joints bent in an odd direction.

“I’ll tell you this: What I’m going to do to you is something only a father can do for his daughter. Every time you’re about to pass out, I’ll wake you up by electrocuting you. If you’re about to die from the wounds you’ll going to receive from me shortly after this, Cherry will heal it. I’ll make sure you’ll never die and only experience pain and agony if you don’t answer my question immediately.”

Key still continued holding the knight on his neck. He put his face up close to the knights and revealed a face way more fearsome that the one he showed when he punished me and Cherry. In other words, he is currently filled with rage.

Even after receiving large amount of coercion from him, the knight still has his mouth closed despite breaking a large amount of cold sweats.

“Not going to talk huh.”

After that, Key let go of his neck and put his right hand on the breastplate of the knight’s armor. The next moment, the armor suddenly split into pieces and runic characters appeared on each piece.

“Let’s see if you’re going to sing or not.”

With a glint from his ring, he uttered a spell’s name.

“>”

Some of the pieces of the Knight’s armor suddenly became red hot. Shortly after, the knight screamed in agony as his flesh boils from the strong steel melting temperature of his broken armor. In other words, he is being burned alive.

“You monster! GAAAAA!!!”

When Key gave him a small break, the knight spewed some curses at him. However, Key then dropped another piece of hot steel on his skin which made him scream.

The torture continued for several minutes, but the knight still does not spill out the beans. Or probably he is too much in agony to give an answer.

“Speak now and he might spare you your life!”

Unable to endure the horrid of Key’s cruelty to the knight, Cherry cried to the knight like she was pleading. Even if she begged to the knight, the way she said it was like she was pleading for the knight’s life to Key.

I can understand her. After all, everyone in the room is still human. Anyone who will see such tormenting scene would have mercy come out deep inside their hearts.

After a moment, Key stood up from kneeling and looked at Cherry. But when he turned his gaze towards us, what we saw was not the Key we knew. His lips are twisted with anger and his eyes are filled with rage as if he’s gone mad.

“Why do you show mercy to a guy who almost killed you?”

“T-that’s….”

Even I do not know how to answer the question currently.

We only looked away from his gaze and tightened out grips on our chest as we listen to the man’s scream.

Key kept looking at the suffering knight indifferently as if he was looking at a piece of trash.

All of a sudden, Key summoned a sword made of crimson crystals.

“This guy’s useless. I’ll find them myself even if I have to do it without a lead.”

When he raised his sword in the air while looking down on the suffering knight, all of a sudden, a question ran into my head.

‘Is this the naïve Key I knew?’

The sword swung down. With that, the man’s life disappeared—or should have been.

“What are you doing?”

“This is not you Key!”

The moment the sword was going half way down to reap the knight’s life; I immediately summoned my > to intercept the blade and saved the Knight.

Because he has his boosted strength, and my stamina is low, I’m barely resisting his power. Even our blades have sunk unto each other because of their sharpness.

“What do you mean?”

With a face mixed with a dubious expression, he asked me while looking straight into my eyes.

And in reply, I stared back.

“Killing a person isn’t something you would do. I remember you once said that. And right now, you’re doing something that completely opposite of what you have said. Are you not a man of your words?”

Suddenly, Key put more strength onto his hand and push it downwards again.

I feel so vexed that he is pushing me using only one hand while I’m using both my hand. I even have my demon enchantments after effects. For me to get pushed despite that, he must have grown stronger over time without me nor Cherry noticing it. He probably doesn’t also notice it himself.

“You must be misunderstanding Matt. I am a man of my words. I still don’t kill humans, but this guy over here isn’t. The moment he and his men kidnapped Marie and Jane, they already lost the qualifications of being human. I’m just taking care of the trash, that’s all.”

This… he’s not himself anymore.

When I look at his eyes, I can’t see the Key I used to know. His eyes were filled with madness despite his calm attitude. Seeing the ‘him’ now, I can’t help but get shivers crawling down my spine.

“Please, don’t do this. This isn’t you at all!”

While I’m pushing back Key’s sword, Cherry suddenly got behind him and hugged his back pulling him away. Sadly, her efforts are in vain as Key’s strength was inhuman. Not only that, it’s still continuing to grow.

Then out of a sudden, Key’s face was struck with a fist from the side. Tracing that hand, the person who gave him such a punch was none other than Flordist himself.

“Get a hold of yourself Key!”

Probably because we were pushing him into one direction, Key got pushed back while getting himself disarmed by Flordist.

“Just let me kill that piece of shit!”

“If you want that person dead, just let me do it! You don’t have to get blood on your hands. Trust me, it’s not a good feeling. Didn’t I tell you that before?”

“I don’t fucking care! They took Jane and Marie! They’re going to pay for it!”

“If you kill him now, we’ll lose our only lead! So calm the fuck down and let me handle this.”

Key kept struggling from having his arm locked by Flordist behind his back on the floor. Because Key has his strength boosted, Flordist had to use his shadow magic to hold him down.

Seeing that Flordist wouldn’t let him go no matter what, he stopped struggling and dropped his forehead on the wooden floor.

“Let’s put it this way; if I can make him talk, I’ll be the one who’ll give this guy’s punishment. If he doesn’t, you can have it your way.”

While saying so, Flordist calmly let go off Key.

It seems that he has something up his sleeve for this.