And now, it is execution time, or in other words, the time when nothing works out as planned and I improvise anyway, I thought grimly.

After eating my last few Fusat nuts, I set up everything I needed for my plan. I cast a Rock Burst spell to create a rectangular rock that could cover my face from the front: I planned to angle it in front of my face so that I could see them without them seeing my face. Then, I created some more smaller rocks to place below the stairs. Why didn’t I use my trusty jagged rocks from the dungeon, you ask? Well, I didn’t want anyone to step on jagged rocks: I’m not trying to kill people already!

After many attempts at using the Rock Burst spell so many times, most of which resulted in melted rock instead of solid rock, I finally had all the required rocks ready in front of me. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand how to do the spell. To the contrary: I understood it perfectly. It was just really hard to actually cast, and as a matter of fact, the hardest spell I learned so far. This was just another example of the difference between understanding the theory and actually experimenting.

In any case, I gathered all the smaller flat rocks that I planned to put on the floor and tossed them into my bag. Then, I put my orb staff into my bag upside-down to make it look like I had a trash stick in it. Then, I lifted the back over my shoulder with my left hand and grabbed the rock with which I would hide my face and tucked it between my arm and body.

Then, I carefully opened the door to go out into the hallway. Peeking out to the right, I saw nothing. All clear, I thought. I walked out, with my flat rock covering my face in a way that would allow me to see in front of me. I always stayed near the wall so that the moment I heard or saw movement from the stairs, I could pop into a room.

This precaution paid off when I heard a thumping noise from the front and immediately opened the door to my left. As I practically jumped in, I caught an inkling of someone walking up the stairs about 20 yards in front of me now.

Breathing heavily, I heard the person keep walking up the stairs and the thumping sounds faded away. After waiting for a few moments, I went back into the hallway and continued walking.

Arriving at the stairway intersection with no further incident, I looked both up and down the stairs. Since there seemed to be no one on either side, I quickly took out the flat rocks from my bag and placed them down on the floor where the stairs were going up. Then, looking around carefully and still seeing and hearing nothing, I silently took out my orb staff and cast Hydrosphere. Since this spell was quick and easy, I covered the entire intersection with water while making sure no one showed up in sight. After completing this task, I put my orb staff back into my bag and walked into the food storage, ready to loot.

Some roffelet nuts, check. A couple dozen yachfruit, check. Oooh, a couple brownpops, don’t mind if I do, I chuckled while stealing a decent amount of good, fresh food.

Suddenly, I heard a loud voice yell, “WHY IS THERE A BUNCH OF ROCKS ON THE FLOOR?!?! You stupid, good-for-nothing servants! CLEAN UP ALL THIS RIGHT NOW!!! We’re not paying you dumbasses to sit around all day, twiddling your thumbs!”

I froze. In just a few moments after that outburst, I heard a bunch of what were presumably servants running up from the bottom floor, down from the top floor, and from the other side of the intersection. Actually crap, I swore at this unplanned development, before realizing that all those running people are going to slip on the water. I sighed. This is going to be a disaster, I realized. There would be far too many people for me to run back into the Mage room right now unnoticed.

There’s only one thing I could do, I thought. I quickly hid my stuffed bag in one of the empty cabinets.

Hearing shouts and people slipping to the floor, I used this moment of chaos to pop out of the food storage and jump into the mess of servants slipping around. Needless to say, I slipped on my own water and fell down, hands in front of my face to protect myself. After gathering my bearings, I looked around and saw about fifteen servants in total.

Huh, interesting... Selza’s not here, I thought. The Galamon that called for these servants was still standing in the stairway above us, looking down at his servants with anger.

“You useless fools!” he exclaimed. “How can you not see that there was water down there? And how do some of you idiots slip on the rocks that I called you to clean up!?! Fools, all of you!” he yelled.

All the servants got up, wet, and bowed to the man while apologizing profusely.

“I’m so sorry, Master.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“My apologies for this mess.”

I also fit in and bowed, thinking, Haha, they’re all taking the blame for it! It seems like I’m somewhat in the clear after all…

“Ha! You think you idiots could get away with this just like that? All West Wing servants will be punished for allowing this mess in our precious home! No food for any of you for the next two days! Bound by your Oath,” the Galamon exclaimed, with the last sentence in a voice much deeper than the pitch he had been talking, or shouting at, before.

While I kind of felt bad for indirectly doing this to a bunch of innocent servants, I didn’t care too much considering my food struggles in this palace so far. Literally every problem I’ve had so far here stemmed from needing food.

Also, I deduced from the Galamon’s lower pitch while saying “Bound by your Oath” that this Oath the servants took may be much more tangible than I first anticipated. It seems some sort of weird magic may be involved, I thought.

Suddenly, a loud voice snapped me out of my thinking. “HEY!!! What are you doing just standing there? Do you want a turn in my torture chamber?” the Galamon sneered, looking at me.

I looked around and realized that all the other servants were busy cleaning up the water and rocks as best they could with some rags, towels, and stuff that they just happened to have. Oh, dear, I thought, I’m in trouble.

I quickly mumbled “Sorry, Master” and started waving the water towards a servant with a towel, because I didn’t have anything that would help me clean the water. Hopefully, he with this he would be satisfied and leave me alone.

Or apparently not, because my actions seemed to strike a nerve with him. “WHAT!?! Not only do you have the gall to mumble to me, ME, Sir Wallaheesh Galamon, but you aren’t even carrying any servant gear!?” He quickly snapped up and seemed to compose himself. “Well, no matter. Continue,” he told me, much too calmly with a smirk on his face and an evil glint in his eyes.

Crap, crap, crap!!! If only these servants weren’t here, I could at least try fighting this guy. I don’t trust the servants because I don’t know what their Oath entails, and even more so now that I feel like their Oath is quite tangible and real somehow. Well, the best thing to do now would be to make my way as close to the food storage room while still pretending to clean. That way, when all the servants leave and this guy inevitably confronts me, I can jump into the room and grab my orb staff. Hopefully, it would get back to full energy by then, I chalked out mentally.

So I just continued as Wallaheesh told me to, and after everything was perfectly clean, he dismissed the servants. “All you useless fools can leave now. Please, don’t disgrace my eyes with your filthy presence any longer,” he said, still too calmly.

But then he turned to me. “You, however, will stay. I have… a word with you,” he said, smiling.

Since I was already so close to the food storage room, I just stood up and waited along with Wallaheesh for all the other servants to leave. Once everyone else was out of sight, Wallaheesh turned back to me and smiled.

“You, follow me. You will be tortured for your impudence!” he asserted, before spinning around and walking back up the steps, probably fully expecting me to actually follow him to the torture chamber or whatever. Instead, I jumped into the room, opened the cabinet, and took out my orb staff. With some quick thinking, I held it upside down to make it seem like I just found it randomly and simply using it as a stick, just to throw him off from the fact that I could actually use it if he realizes I’m not following him and confronts me again.

I hope he walks all the way to wherever he’s going before he realizes there’s no one following him, I thought, mentally snickering despite my situation, to let loose a little bit.

Slowly, I walked out of the room, holding my orb staff stick up. And there he was, just staring at me.

“Ha! A struggler? You stupid servants should know better than to think that you could fight the Oath!” He exclaimed, seemingly unable to believe his eyes. Then he actually mentally registered what I was holding before proceeding to laugh his head off.

“HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!! What is a stupid, lowly servant like you going to do with an orb staff. Dumbass, you’re not even holding it right! HAAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!” He laughed.

Hearing that, I turned it up the right way, making it seem like the only reason I did that was because he told me that I was holding it wrong. He saw me do this, and continued laughing.

“All right, come on. Let’s see what you can do. HAHA! Even if you knew magic, which is utterly impossible for an idiot servant, you wouldn’t even be able to use it against me! You know you are doomed, hahaha, but I’ll let you play. Come on, try to do anything to me. You can’t even do anything, because you are Bound by your Oath!” He yelled. He then stood with his arms crossed, looking at me with a look of superiority and victory on his face.

A few moments passed, with neither of us moving.

Me looking at him without expression.

Him glaring at me, deriving some twisted fun from my apparent situation.

Until an absolutely silent lightning bolt slammed his face, knocked him off his feet, and flew him back about five yards before he fell backwards on his head and stopped moving.