The Young Master in the Shadows

“What’s wrong with her?” Victor asked Rosette, looking at Emira who was lying sick in bed. After leaving the cauldron yesterday he was shocked by Emira getting sick all of a sudden and had to spend the last few hours with her as she held his hand and fought the fever.

The strange thing was that the effect of all the healing pills he was giving her was only temporary, and dispelling talismans was not effective at all.

Too bad that he couldn’t see her status screen, and could only make guesses and try to help her to his best effort by sharing his regeneration skills with her. She was also his blood slave after all!

It was not until an hour ago that she began to get better after Rosette returned home and gave her some kind of strange medicine.

“It is as if her body is getting assaulted by all kinds of pathogens at once…” Rosette said. “Do you know her origin?”

“No idea…” Victor shook his head as he understood something.

“Oh… Well, thankfully, she already crossed the most dangerous stage… With the stuff I gave her she will be ok!” she said as she put away her medical tools. “I recently invented Vaccines here, so I might as well try them on her!”

“Yes… Thanks…” Victor nodded, then watched her leave. She seemed to have something on her mind wanting to tell him something, but in the end, she didn’t say it.

Victor decided to ignore that for now as he looked at Emira and sighed. He most likely knew the reason behind her sudden sickness. She lived most of her life in the Death Gorge, never getting sick and having a chance to build her immune system,

No wonder that after one trip around the city, she immediately got sick and it was really dangerous and she might have really died if Victor wasn’t here with his super regeneration!

“Ah….” Emira began to speak in her sleep, she had done that a lot earlier, but it was all incomprehensible.

“No… BAD LORD!”

“MOMMY…”

“Curse you Nimera… Curse you….”

Eh… Nimera? Wasn’t that the storm lord’s name?

***

Mona frowned as she looked out of the hotel window.

In her entire life, she would have never imagined that she would come here, to one of the most depraved and desolate cities in the world.

Drimalia city, the capital of the Liberal Democratic People's Republic Of Drima, could be described by only one word.

A shit hole…

Literally, due to all the corruption here, they didn’t have a functioning sewer system and shit filled the streets.

“Why are we here again?” she turned to her twin sisters and asked. They had to take two boat rides to get here incognito!

“Don’t ask us…” Mana sighed. “According to Lily, the dungeon here is very good for experiencing farming, and it would be a waste not to get to it!”

“Oh…” Mona sighed. “How does Lily know all that?”

“Ask her later!” Mina replied, “Let’s just get ready to have some sleep, we have a lot of work tomorrow, Oh, and Make sure not to drink the water here or eat any food from here and only use the things we brought….”

“I know…” Mona sighed. “Couldn’t we just get a better hotel?”

“This is the best one in town!” someone replied, making the three girls look at the room’s entrance where Alpha walked in with a device in her hand making a quick scan. “Even this country's president brings his concubines here!” she added as she made sure there were no listening devices in the room.

“Really?” Mona asked in shock. “How do you know that?”

“Oh… He was there in the other presidential suite when we came in!”

“WHAT?” Mina and Mana asked in shock.

“Don’t worry, he is already a corpse…” Alpha said.

“DEAD?” Mona asked in horror.

“Yup! Along with his mistress!” grabbing one candy from a stand near the door, then just as she was about to put it in her mouth remembered that she should not eat anything there and threw it away! All things here have a faint trace of narcotics that were meant to control the population!

“You're kidding right?” Mona asked with a shallow smile. “Who would kill the president?!”

“I did…” Alpha said she was 100% serious.

“Wha….”

Alpha shook her head. “Not at all… Girl, you must remember… Players rule this world, and humans are livestock!” she stated the view all the Oligarch family share.

Mona frowned. She didn’t like this.

“Wouldn’t this create a lot of trouble?” Mina asked, not caring about one dead dictator, their minds had already been tampered with after a few months of staying with Victor and the Castration Maniac Lily.

“No! On the contrary!” Alpha said. “The nice thing about totalitarian regimes like this one is that once you control the top of the pyramid, everything goes on smoothly…. “ Alpha replied.

“But you killed him…” Mana commented.

“Yup, let me tell you, this guy is a total douchebag, involved in all kinds of crimes…“Alpha sighed. “Even Ruby, who is working to make him a cursed puppet, couldn't help but throw up when she touched his soul!”

“What? A cursed puppet?” Mona frowned again.

“Yes. The guy would think he is alive and act accordingly. The only difference between him and a human being is that he will completely follow Ruby’s commands and will rot away quite rapidly after a week.”

“She can do that?” Mina asked in shock. What an overpowered skill. It felt a little scary.

“Yes, She got that skill book with Theta, that skill required someone with an ELDRITCH class or something and she fit the bill… Damn, that girl got lucky!” Alpha said. “ Anyway, With this, no one would realize a thing for the next three days!”

“What will happen to him after we leave?” Mana asked. She had the strange image of a formal party when the president would suddenly open his mouth to make a toast and then rot away in front of the horrified guests.

“No idea… It doesn't matter, he will be assassinated in two days!!” Alpha stated. “His body will be blown to smithereens…”

“Oh… Blown up… ” Mona, who couldn’t believe what she was hearing, asked. Weren’t they talking about clearing a dungeon earlier? Why were they discussing terrorism now?

“Yes! And it will also be on live TV!” Alpha explained. “It is all a part of Lily’s plan!” she added. She had a lot of free time recently so she came up with the plan about this place with Lily.

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“Oh!” The twins looked at each other. “Then… Lily is already here?” they frowned. What was that girl planning?

“Yeah, but she can’t appear publicly as she needs to put on a show later!” Alpha said. She already met Lily and promised to handle her fat girls after the Dungeon ended.

“A show for what?” Mana asked.

“What is your plan exactly?” Mina added.

“The opening of the dungeon…” Alpha explained pointing out of the window to the grand square where a bronze statue of the late ‘Democratically elected President’ stood proudly. “It is there… In the center of the city!”

“Ah… What does it have to do with the president…” Mona asked.

“The dungeon gate is 10 feet below ground level… We are going to Blow it up while he is giving a speech to his gathered supporters on live TV… we will also be hiding in the security trucks to that side!” she said pointing to one side of the square out of the window.

“You want to make thousands of people into players?” Mona asked as her twin sisters also looked at Alpha as if realizing something. The dungeon would suck all of those people around once it opened.

“Don’t worry, Other than the Troublesome boss, the dungeon here is supposed to be very easy, most of the monsters are Rats, so people should be able to manage!” Alpha said.

“That’s not the point…”

“True, but…. There is no better way to blow up a thousand-year-old secret!” Alpha said with a shrug. Victor had long told them that they should tell the world about the existence of players to lay the ground for the grim future. “Though it would be mostly covered up, but still… It is worth it…”

“Is this really what this is about?” Mana asked, feeling that Alpha was not telling the whole truth.

“I am not sure…” Alpha said. “You can ask Lily when you meet her!”

***

“So… When are we going to escape?” Nova looked at the girl in front of her and asked.

“Very soon, I almost figured out the guards' patterns,” Nightshade replied.

“You said that two weeks ago…” Jane Armstrong who sat on the other side of the dark humid dungeon spat.

“Look… It is not my fault their pattern completely changed then… Just give me one more week…” Nightshade said. “We only have one copy of the keys, if we were to be caught, it would be the end of us!”

“... “ Nova signed. “We have all the time in the world…”

“Yeah…” Jane sighed too. “The only thing I am wondering about is why they are keeping us here alive…”

“For me, it is to blackmail my boss…” Nightshade quickly said. “And for you, it is probably that they plan to use you later…”

“Yeah… What about you Nova…” Jane asked. During the last month, the girls really bonded.

“At first I didn’t know, but after knowing what happened at the wedding and overhearing the guards and knowing that they are from the von Zwei everything became clear… They must have wanted to use some agent to infiltrate the Heavenly sect using my identity… If I were to die, that would trigger all kinds of alarms in the family after all!” she bit her lip as a tear fell from her eyes. She needed to get out of this place ASAP and warn Caspian!

“Oh…” Jane frowned and nodded. “Really evil…”

“Yeah…” Nightshade nodded as she looked out toward the moon that appeared through the tiny hall in the cell’s ceiling. HOW LONG ARE THEY GOING TO KEEP HER HERE? WASN'T THE OPERATION SUPPOSED TO END LAST WEEK? WHAT THE FUCK WAS HAPPENING OUTSIDE?

***

On top of a great mountain, at the top of an endless ancient staircase leading to the grand gate of the Heavily Sect, a girl stood stating her case!

“Harper?” the hunchbacked old man who was sweeping the stairs using an old brush asked.

“Yes!” Harper nodded. “Just Harper…”

“Like a prostitute ha….” the old man nodded.

“No… I just don’t want my family to know what I am doing here…” she quickly explained. Why did all men have to make that connection? Even Victor had the same reaction back then!

“Exactly like a prostitute…”

“No damn it…” Harper struck the ground with her leg.

“Haha… Don’t mind me, we old men like to tease pretty girls like you!” the old man waved his hand and said.

“...” Harper glared at him. Victor was not an old man!

“So… Why are you here?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Why else would I be here after crossing that dangerous mountain range…. I want to join the sect here!” she directly stated in an annoyed voice. She spent the last month walking tirelessly through the rugged terrain to reach this place out of nowhere.

“Like anyone would be just allowed to join…” one of the armored guards at the door smirked as he adjusted his long metal spear in his hand as if reading himself to stab Harper if she tried to force her way in.

The old man frowned, then raised one hand to stop the guard. “How often do I clean the stairs?” he asked.

“Eh…. I don’t know, aren't you the janitor here?” Harper asked.

“I am not talking to you… And no, I am not the janitor…” he spat, then turned to look at one of the guards. “Answer!” he commanded.

“Elder Crain, you clean the stairs of the sect all the time…” the guard answered awkwardly.

“How about this particular set of stairs?” Elder Crane spat.

“Eh…” the guard looked at his colleague. “This is the first time I saw you here…”

“Correct… The last time I cleaned this set of stairs was 2349 days ago. It is not good for my back you see, the steps here are a little too high…. ” he nodded, hunching a bit and rubbing his back.

“Ahh…. yeah…” the guard didn’t know how to respond to that.

“And how long would it take me to clean such stairs?”

“Ah…. ” The guard paused looking at the endless stairs that went down the mountain. “A few years?”

“Idiot, I mean that last flight only, Like hell I am going to do it from the bottom!”

“Ah… Right… Then ….10 Minutes?”

“5 would be enough!” the old man said. “And what is the chance of a girl appearing to join the sect, right when I was about to finish…” he said looking at Harper.

She frowned, not following the old man’s logic.

“How did you learn about our sect?” he asked.

“A guy who saved my life told me he is from here… And I needed to escape my family, so it was my best choice!” she said, deciding not to say anything about Victor and telling her to come here.

“Another one of those…” the other guard sighed, but everyone ignored him.

“Who is the guy?” Elder Crain raised one eyebrow and asked.

“His name is Illiad… Not sure about his last name though…”

“…” the old man frowned as if realizing something.

“...” Harper didn't know what to say, after saying that last line, she felt that she really sounded a little stupid, like a girl searching for her lover.

"..."

"..."

“Follow me… Let’s see what you are made of…” Elder Crain finally said turning and heading to the door.

“Elder, this is against the…. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” the guard fell to the ground clutching his balls. The old man just hit him with the broom. “Don’t question your elders!” Elder Crane said as he walked right in.

The other guard didn’t dare to stop Harper who followed right after.

***

BAM! SMACK!

The whip struck Liam’s body without mercy.

“Now get to work…” the muscular woman who held the whip screamed.

“BITCH!”

BAM!

The whip hit again, leaving a thin red trace on Liam’s tough skin. “If I didn’t know any better I would have thought you are a masochist or something,” the woman said feeling annoyed by the guy's defense.. “But you don’t have that capacity!” She quickly resorted to a psychological attack.

“DAMN IT!” he screamed. She was even making fun of him for getting his little brother cut away by those Von Weise Bastards!

“Now get to work, if I catch you loitering again, I will punish you for real, and if you don’t mine enough Blackcopper by evening, you will have no dinner!” the woman said before turning to torture another Miner. Liam’s thick skin took all the fun out of whipping him.

Watching her leave through the dark Mine, Liam stood up as he checked his wounds.

“BITCH…” he repeated, throwing a punch at the wall.

He was fuming with anger, not only toward the Von Weis family who locked him here but also toward his stupid father who sold him away as soon as that old man came knocking on the door….

DAMN, IT…. he hit the wall again, remembering that girl who scammed him.

IT WAS DEFINITELY HER, THE ONE WHO FRAMED HIM!

DAMN IT…

BAM!

The cave wall cracked….

Liam paused.

There, in a cavity in the wall, there was a wooden box.

Liam frowned, then looking around to make sure no one was watching him, he quickly grabbed it and ducked into one of the mine’s side tunnels.

Finding a private space, he opened it and from inside, he found a Green jade key…

“This is?”

“WHAT YOU HAVE IN YOUR HAND THERE BOY?” Someone called from behind him, making Liam almost jump in fright. SHIT…

He slowly turned around to see 7 men dressed in rags and looking at him with suspicious eyes. Damn it… Why now? Those guys were part of the most notorious Gang in the mines, always bullying others. And all of them were players!

“... It is this box…. The manager gave it to me and ordered me to fill it for her with dirt from the lowest shaft…” he quickly made up a lie, presenting the box he found, while carefully pushing the key into his underwear. He didn’t know what it was, but if those two guys noticed it, they would take it away!

“Oh… “ one short man grabbed the box. “...” he looked at his friends.

BAM!

Liam was kicked by one of them. He couldn't even tell who due to the vast Level of defiance.

He could only feel his insides turn as he hit the cave wall behind him.

“You really make good lies…” the short man said. “Strip him…”

“No….”

Of course, the men didn’t care about his protests as they quickly and 'civilly' undressed him.

“Nothing boss…” one of the men said after searching Liam and the rags he used to call clothes.

“Check his butt... I saw him slip something there earlier!” the short man looked away in disgust remembering that the man in front of them was a eunuch.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….”

Again, no one cared.

“Nothing….”

“Really?”

“Yeah…” one of the men said as he used Liam's clothes to wipe his hand.

“Damn it… And I thought you had something when we saw you running like that…. ” he said, throwing the box to the side. “Another damn Masochist…” he cursed. “Let’s go…”

Liam, who was thrown to the ground, could only slowly stand up after 30 minutes to make sure everyone really left.

He didn’t care about what just happened as it was not the same time he was bullied and his skin was really thick… What he was thinking about was one thing.

THE KEY…

He felt it break when he hit the wall earlier…

He quickly looked around but it was not there was nothing.

He touched his butt…

On it, there was a scar that he could feel. Its shape was that of a key….

“What the…”

***

It wasn’t until the next day’s dawn that Emira’s fever was finally gone, and she slowly woke up.

“Morning…” Victor, who stayed by her all night, said.

“Good… Morning…” Emira said as she sat up quickly.

He pushed her down. “Relax for now, although you are feeling lively, you should rest a bit…”

“Um…”

“You remembered everything last night… right…”

Emira was startled like a cat caught stealing food. She looked away, biting her lip.

Victor brushed her head. “Tell me… It will be ok!”

“...”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“... I … Do…”

“Then?”

“... They came… and took us…then threw us in the gorge… the men of the Bad lord….” she said with tears in her eyes. “All died…. But me….” she directly began talking after pausing a moment, probably deciding to trust Victor completely.

Victor brushed her hair again. “Bad lord?” he asked. He wanted to delve deeper into what happened, but fearing that it would be too harsh for the girl now, he decided to leave it for later.

“That is what mommy called him….” Emira spoke with difficulty. “He was that man… who attacked us… you cut his hand…”

“Zendo?”

“Um…” she bit her little lip.

Victor was surprised, the girl knew his first name.

“Your mother told you his name?”

“Um… She said… he killed his master… Betrayed the elves…. Bad elf… Stupid Elf…”

OH…. Victor figured things out. Zendo was not the original lord after all, but he managed to take the sparks out of his master becoming one!

“That’s why he threw you in the death gorge?” he asked.

“Don’t… Know….”

“Why did you call Nimera’s name… Do you know about her?”

“No…” Emira was startled. “When we fell into the gorge, everyone began yelling ‘Curse Nemira….’ including me… It was as if my mouth was moving on its own…” she said as she squeezed hard on Victor’s other hand, the one she hadn't let go of all night.

“Oh…. OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Victor finally figured it out, connecting different lines together. So his guess was right…

Knock knock….

After a knock, Lyra slowly opened the door and peered in.

“Is Emira Awake?” she asked in a worried voice.

“Yes, thanks to your mother!” Victor said.

“Of course,” Lyra said as she looked at Emira making sure she was all fine.

“Do you need anything?” Victor asked, noticing her hesitation.

“In an hour… You will need to come with me to see her lordship…”

“WHAT? Why?” This was too soon, he was not ready yet.

“Lord Stormbringer, Lizor’s father, issued a complaint. He is accusing Aerith of causing his son to become a demon, so the lord will look into it and issued a summon to all the involving parties!”

“Oh,” Victor frowned. “Is Aerith ok?” he asked. Is that why he didn’t see her for the last day?

“She is fine, but she will not be able to leave the Lord’s keep until this is all over…”

“Oh… Ok! Should I be dressed formally, or business casual?”

“... Business what?”

“Casual.”

“....” Lyra paused. “Just be decent enough…. NO! Wait! I can’t trust your perverted fashion… wear a suit.”

“Ok,” Victor smiled. As his mind began to turn, after getting all that knowledge from the library he still needed to sort a lot of things out… Shit!