"Milord...Are you alright?" Shot Renata in concern.
"Um...Yeah...I'm fine, Assassin." Snapping out of the lingering daze, I waved to her.
"Are you sure, Shepherd? You're like blanking out for a moment there." Questioned Clara further, not buying it.
"...Yes, I am fine." Brushing their reactions aside, I walked away from the similarly confused dwarf.
"What about him? Are you finished?" Added Clara, hinting toward Helios.
"He's okay. We can trust him." I answered.
"Are you sure?" Noticing that my reaction had differed from usual, it was reasonable that Clara would have some doubts regarding this.
"Yeah, I am. Someone vouch for him. Someone I can trust." I fixed my gaze straight and reassured her.
Ignoring the disgruntled look that still plagued Clara's face, we decided to conclude the matter with Helios's authenticity as it was.
"We're done. Let's get out of here." I turned to Renata, and she saluted in response.
"Chosen one-" Sounded Helios low before I cut him.
"Call me Shepherd from now on. As for the rest, we'll talk when this whole thing is over."
"...I understand. But can we take someone with us?" Continued Helios, not backing down.
"Take someone with us? Who?" I peered sideways while musing, 'Why?'
"The word Need may not fit him. But as a doctor and a priest of the White Serpent church, I can't leave the boy." Argued the man.
'The boy...?' My eyebrow arched in wonder.
"Please. I will carry and care for him myself. He won't be a burden as we travel." Pleaded Helios, gesturing a dwarven sign from the looks of it.
It was at times like these that I felt the weight of Sir Lodrick's classes.
"No! He can't leave the house! Not that boy!" And from the side, the forgotten Marquess, for the first time ever, had gathered his courage and yelled out.
'Hm...' My eyes squinted narrowly at the standoff between the two.
"I can cure him of his sickness, Marquess. Look at this. My research has been showing clear and definitive progress. I can save your son! Just give me some time." Helios walked to his desk and handed the Marquess the neatly arranged papers.
'Huh...Look at this bastard...?' I scoffed mentally, befuddled with what I was seeing.
Anybody in the room save for Helios could totally see the change in the Marquess's expression when Helios told him he could cure his son.
Much was still lost on me regarding this whole family love thing. But I knew wrong when I saw one.
And boy, the Marquess's face was twisting so ugly, I was wondering whether Helios was blind or something to miss that.
"Where is this boy?" I said. 'This whole thing smelt fishy as hell from day one anyway.'
"Ronald's room is further down the passage after we exit this room!" Exclaimed Helios in pure joy.
'The curse mistaken as illness, the Marquess reaction, and now this...' I mused inwardly.
An obscure puzzle that I couldn't quite make do with at first was finally starting to come together.
"Please don't do this. I need him! I can give you everything instead, but not that boy."
To someone like Helios, the Marquess's words may sound like the plea of a desperate father. But not to me, and the more he begged, the more irritated I got.
And apparently, it wasn't just me that thought so.
Clara, who got impatient with the Marquess, beat the man black and blue before shoving a dirty rag down his throat to shut him up.
Helios, who was still lost about the sudden change, froze in place awkwardly.
"Well, what're you dilly-dallying for, old man? Do you want to save this boy or what? If so, then get a move on and lead the way." Urged Clara, casually wiping the blood off her hands.
"Shadows. Take care of the guards."
Following Renata's command, the Shadows immediately moved. A moment later, faint grunts could be heard from the outside.
"Move." Stated Renata coldly toward the Marquess.
After tossing another look at the messed-up man, Helios finally left the room and tracked his way toward a certain room, deeper into the dark and damp dungeon.
We went inside, and the room was nothing like Helios's room. Not only in terms of the size but also based on everything in general. If Helios's room was like a hidden, neat laboratory, then the boy's room was simply a prison. A dark, awful prison for a boy who was too weak to even get up from the bed.
The only upside in this whole thing was how clean everything looked. Leaving it to my discretion, I believed it was likely due to Helios's intervention that we could even see such a clean space in this dump-like dungeon.
"Ronald. Ronald, my boy...I'm here. Uncle Helios is here." Without missing a heartbeat, Helios immediately and naturally found his way to the boy, who looked more like a living skeleton than a young human.
"Cough, cough...Uncle...? Who...?" Never in my life have I ever seen someone coughing so weakly like him.
"They? They are Uncle Helios's friends. They're here for me. Come with me, Ronald. Uncle will heal you. Remember our promise?" Muttered Helios with tears pooling in his eyes as he grabbed the young boy's fragile hand.
"Uncle...will cure..." Said Ronald with great effort despite only giving out a few words.
"Good boy. Smart boy! That is right. Uncle will cure you. Then you can run, play, and eat whatever you want, my boy." Nodded Helios zealously.
"I said no!!" A high-pitched shriek pierced through the room.
It sounded too feral and beastly to come out from a middle-aged man.
Marquess Pearl, clad with a mysterious mantle of mana, stood up and glared murderously at us.
"Did lowlifes like you even know what I had to go through before I had him!? Strangers...? I only need a good year or two. Have him then, I don't care!! Boy...Delicious food...No taking...But before then...Kill...Strangers...Don't even think you can take what's mine!!"
With a series of broken speeches, we watched as the Marquess delved down into the rabbit hole of madness. It was as though there were two people living in his body, each vying to take control.
"Hoh~ Did I beat you too hard in the head...Wait...Is he...?" Finally noticing the faint lingering mana that surrounded the Marquess, Clara jumped away from the man.
"Spirit manifestation...He made a pact with the spirit." Sounded Renata somberly without taking her eyes off the raving Marquess.
'Ah, so that's what it was! Spiritual eyes...'
I said, and at last, I could see the reason behind the strange movement of mana that had bothered me since we first set foot in this mansion.
"Kill stranger...Kill stranger...I will kill all of you!!" Marquess Pearl let out a beastly roar, sprinting straight at Renata and Clara, who were the closest to him.
'Well, that shit looks almost as ugly as the horny dog Pepe's summons.' I retracted my neck back at the distasteful sight of the ethereal monsters that hugged the Marquess from the front.
It had the body of a human baby with a long black tail, the head of an elephant with human fingers as its teeth, and lastly, a tusk out of a goat horn.
In other words, it looked fucking nasty...
Renata and Clara had made short work of the frenzied Marquess, slicing his neck clean and delivering a fresh huge hole in his heart. It was over in an instant.
Then again, if only it was so easy...
The man stood up unceremoniously once again, placing his severed head back in place as we watched in bewilderment at how they were glued together while the hole was patched anew like nothing happened.
'The heck is that!?' My eyes widen in shock.
"Cough! Cough!!" Meanwhile, Ronald's coughing could be heard getting worse by the second.
"Thankfully, this spirit doesn't seem like it is used for combat, or we'll be in a lot of trouble right about now. This place looks like it's lair, and I prefer not to drag this out for too long." Commented Clara with sigils lighting in successions.
"We need to kill the spirit's medium. It's the fastest way to deny this place as it's lair." Added Renata.
'...So that's what it was...'
My eyes were drawn to the helpless boy on the bed, coughing blood.
'The medium...'
And then it went to the man, hugged by the devil.
'And the contractor...'
The puzzle had been solved at last.
"Which one do I need to kill first?" My mana pool bubbled up as rage surged from within me.