“Hey Big Brother!” Wolf greeted South by hurling a sack of vegetables, mushrooms and fresh shoots at him.

South’s arm moved in a boneless way, snatching the sack, appearing independent from the rest of the bum’s body. Wolf noticed this oddity more and more, but never mentioned it. He burned with curiosity, but always kept his mouth shut, believing South would tell him everything once he was ready.

“Oh, someone realized shame exists and finally visited his big brother! Is it because it’s Sunday?” South oozed off his garbage heap and started processing Demon Forest’s bounty before opening his mouth again. “You went to two brothels before visiting me. Did your balls get sore, and you needed time off, or did you grow a conscience and remember your big brother after sixty-three whores?”

South’s voice wasn’t sharp. It was clear he was joking, but his words stabbed at Wolf’s heart like a dagger of guilt and shame. Instead of visiting him, Wolf harvested Soul Force.

The youth was at a loss for words. Fortunately, South noticed his long face and helped his little brother pick up the conversation.

“How was the so-called Demon Forest you visited?” The drunkard yawned, pretending he said nothing while the knife’s toks filled the air.

“It was alright. I had to work hard, but the reward was worth it.” Wolf took out a chopping board and some premium turtle meat he brought back. This was a part of the reward. He picked the choice pieces of meat, fat, fruits, vegetables, any food to appease South, since he had missed a bunch of their lunch dates.

Wolf hesitated for a moment and bit his lip, still feeling embarrassed, then asked a question which bugged him. “Big Brother, what’s the difference between Monster Cores of Demonic Beasts and regular Monster Beasts?”

“So, you realized the difference lies in their Monster Cores.” South still made tok-tok noises with his knife, focusing on the premium kohlrabi in front of him.

Wolf nodded. “After consuming some Monster Cores from Demonic Beasts, the sensation of hatred they gave me grew fainter.”

This hint puzzled Wolf. The difference was minuscule, but the change happened every time he consumed a Demonic Beast’s Monster Core and it lasted several days. It could have been a coincidence, though.

“They are the same species, meaning there’s little difference, other than the energy inside the Monster Core. Energy is energy. However, most Monster Beasts you encountered were weaker than their Demonic Beast counterparts. It’s like taking two seeds from the same plant, then growing them in different environments. One will struggle while the other flourishes. Monster Beasts depend on their environment as much as they do on their potential. And this insignificant change happens every time a Monster Beast advances its Order. Over time, the difference accumulates, so the greater the Order, the bigger the gap between the Demonic Beast and Monster Beast.”

South spoke as if sharing common knowledge, not something so obscure that Lord of Steel had to spend his days dissecting Monster Cores to figure it out. Then he took a long swig from his wineskin. “Ahhh. Do you need me to refill your barrels?”

Wolf nodded, but something still bugged him. “How do I move around Demonic Beasts without them sensing my presence?”

“You’re bright enough to solve that problem yourself.” South finished chopping the veggies and picked up Wolf’s wine containers.

“I know I have to hide my Internal Energy somehow and make it not affect my surroundings, but I don’t know how to do that.” Wolf pursed his lips, giving South a pleading look. It sounded easy, but Wolf had no idea how to put it to practice.

“I’ll give you some hints.” South glanced at his pathetic little brother, forcing him to think for himself. “Imagine the energy inside you is a drifting miasma. Some of its aura seeps out, dissipating in the surroundings, just like miasma’s foul stench, which you can smell without getting poisoned. The energy you lose is a tiny fraction. You recover it faster than you lose it by drawing in the outside energy. Now, you already know how to send a surge of Internal Energy where you want, focus on that and imagine it’s a gale blowing through the miasma. Just isolate the foul smell.”

South shut up and focused on filling Wolf’s wineskins.

Meanwhile, the young man thought. Using miasma for imagery seems important. The metaphor would’ve been better if he’d used fog. Stench… Miasma moved by wind…

After a moment, Wolf recalled the trip to the mines with Anna. He used a well-shaped wall of wind to… That’s it!

“Thanks Big Brother.” Wolf beamed a smile after South gave him the clue.

“A meal of gratitude tastes delicious,” the drunkard said, and Wolf focused on cooking.

***

Ten days went by. In the back room of a high end house of pleasure called Everything Goes, a group of seventeen nobles sat around a long table.

The group used to have nine conspirators. However, after Wolf’s savage mutilation of scions from several noble households, their membership nearly doubled. Wolf would find most of these faces unfamiliar, with one exception. An obese man sat in the seat of honor, observing the discussion.

“We’ve laid the trap with fertility potions in five brothels he visited.” Marquess Hiragino started with a heavy voice. “None of them worked. He’s either taking extra precautions or he’s completely barren.”

The chubby man took a deep breath. “He’s already a Baron without-a-land; to be honest, I wanted to give up. If not for the eight gentlemen joining us, we would’ve accepted our fate. But we can give it one last shot before he becomes a Viscount.”

He then nodded towards Tommy Dmitrin. “We have a plan which will push him to the executioner’s block. Not even the Duke, or the academy Headmaster, could save him—”

“But if this backfires, our necks are on the line,” the withered old Marquess Beirut interrupted. He subconsciously loosened his silk scarf.

“Don’t worry. We’ve already discussed this.” The blonde Marquess Hiragino assured his elderly peer. “That’s where his Lordship, Sir Dmitrin, comes into play. He will be the legal owner. He will leave for Highseat immediately after signing contracts and paying taxes. Then, if our plan gets discovered, he can claim a proxy was in charge of his business. We will have the manager hang herself, leaving behind a suicide note, and we’ll all be scot free.”

“But—” Count Baskerville started.

“No buts!” The one who interrupted him was one of the eight newcomers. “If he becomes a Marquess, considering our history, he would destroy us and all our houses! He swore that as a Mage. Once he becomes a True-Namer, his word is binding, and he will suffer a backlash from the world’s laws if he breaks it. And I believe nobody here doubts that he will one day become a True-Namer.”

Other than Tommy, the rest came here under duress. The person who forced them to join this group was Wolf himself.

‘That’s your problem’ Count Baskerville wanted to say, but didn’t have the guts. Not in front of the two Marquesses and the representative from Highseat’s Alchemists’ Guild’s headquarters.

“Do we have any assurances that he will take the bait?” Count Baskerville asked, hoping the answer was no.

“He inquired about virgins in every brothel he visited. He’s a true deviant. So there’s no way he will resist the temptation of having several of them.” Marquess Hiragino had a calm air, as if people’s lives weren’t at stake.

“But won’t he be suspicious?” Count Farah, one of the original conspirators asked, also wanting to back out.

“We’ll leak the news to that Northshield’s whore mother. He is that little bastard’s friend and will certainly deliver the news…”

The discussion grew long as the conspirators hashed out the details of their plan.

***

During these past two weeks Wolf visited South twice. He also cleared out seventeen brothels, sometimes pulling double shifts to make most of his time. By working hard, Wolf’s twentieth column materialized.

It took nearly three hundred and fifty women just for that one column to appear. Wolf finally started having second thoughts about this approach, but also wondered more about the increased effect of using virgins. Sadly brothels didn’t have what he needed.

Other than that, these days a series of bizarre events repeated over and over again. Random people approached Wolf from time to time. They shouted weird things about toothpicks, matches, not feeling anything, mosquitos and many other oddities.

The people on the streets shouted the words while laughing. Onlookers snickered, laughed or ignored them. The same thing happened at Mage Academy. Somehow, each time he visited, Wolf missed Wayde, but came across a shouter. Unlike folk on the streets, these people trembled and even sobbed the words with their eyes closed. One female student even fainted, but a friend of hers scurried over and carried her away. As for the onlookers, some ran away, some gave Wolf vicious and mocking looks, but the youth didn’t understand what was going on.

This situation continued until Matilda’s celebratory lunch.