In a familiar large room adorned with blackish gold accessories and dark curtains that prevent the sunlight from illuminating inside, a young man was sleeping soundly on his bed.
Suddenly, the door to his room crashed open with a loud noise and hit the wall.
The young man woke up from his sleep because of the loud noise and got out of his bed in hurry, but after seeing the person who had woken him up, he sighed and dropped himself to his bed again to sleep.
As for the uninvited guest, who crashed open the door, was on his knees and holding his neck with tears in his eyes while his face was purple. He was opening and closing his mouth, again and again, to let out a sound, but he was unsuccessful miserably. It was apparent that something was happening to him and if that something wasn't stopped, this person was going to die, but, fortunately, this invisible attack stopped abruptly.
"Didn't I say for a few times that, I don't like to be woken up abruptly, Sebastian? I don't care even if you can't control your strength, just ask someone to open the door for you instead of crashing open." The young man, Auriel, said coldly to Sebastian, then went to the bathroom, leaving Sebastian alone while he was desperately breathing.
Then Auriel washed his face and removed his clothes, inspecting his body closely in front of the mirror.
His face had become thinner, and he had lost some of the excess fat on his body. He was still fat, but it wasn't that much enough to hinder his movements.
This was pretty normal because today was his 20th day in this world as Auriel Weaver.
He didn't do anything important in the last 20 days other than practicing and exploring his ability. It couldn't be said that he had mastered his ability, because he couldn't even find anything drastic about these ethereal strings, other than how to make the connections between him and the puppets invisible and how the puppets' strengths increases because of the strings he injected into them.
There was a reason why Sebastian was having problems controlling his strength even after 20 days. Because only 1 of his legs and arms were strengthened with the strings connected to Auriel while the remaining ones were still the same. So, Sebastian was having some difficulty with his unbalanced strength between his limbs.
But Auriel wasn't going to add more strings to balance the strength between Sebastian's limbs or free him from his control.
Sebastian was already occupying 5 of Auriel's fingers for string connections, hence Auriel thought that it would be wasteful to use more of his capacity for Sebastian while he could tie one more puppet to the 5 of his remaining fingers.
Today, he planned to visit the auction house to find a criminal slave he could use as a puppet and perhaps buy some useful artifacts.
***********
"So, you are the one who will guide me, huh?" Auriel asked the person in front of him.
"This time I will properly do my job, young master Auriel." The guard, dressed in black lusterless armor with thin red lines, spoke with respect and bowed deeply
The guard was an average looking man with short brown hair and green sleepy eyes. He was looking pretty young, probably in his early thirties but Auriel learned that this guard was in his fifties and a Master.
And this guard was the one who couldn't guard him properly while he was dealing with the assassin.
Hence, Auriel didn't even trust this guard's capabilities as he already failed his job and didn't notice the chaos inside his room, while he was fighting for his life with the assassin.
Auriel didn't even understand why this guard was still alive even though he was useless, but he couldn't ask this of someone as he was still faking that he lost his memories because as someone who lost his memory, he shouldn't remember this guard and his idiocy.
"You do that, Gordon." Auriel said disinterested, then added:
"But firstly, come closer. If you resist, you will die."
"There is no need for threat, young master Auriel. I have already dedicated my life to the Weaver bloodline." Gordon said reassuringly and kneeled in front of Auriel without any hesitation.
Auriel smiled at this sight and took out a thick but still ethereal black string.
This was one of the small discoveries he had made about his ability. Now he could combine the strings inside him thick enough to make similar connections as he had with Sebastian.
It wasn't much but with this small progress, he could save some time instead of taking out the string one by one and combining them again one by one.
"You will feel a sharp pain, but if you move, then you will die."
After saying this, Auriel held this thick string and stabbed Gordon's nape.
"Ugh…"
The ethereal string was entering inside more slowly than usual, making Gordon feel agonizing pain, but Auriel didn't care about Gordon's pain and pushed the string further and further.
After a whole minute later, the string was in Gordon's neck in a noose shape, the same as Sebastian's.
Auriel was leaning onto his knees while breathing deeply, sweat was forming on his forehead making him feel disgusted, but he couldn't even wipe that because of how tired he was.
Injecting an already combined string to a Master was harder than Auriel expected, but it was still worth it.
So, after thinking a second or 2, Auriel came to the conclusion that it was pretty normal and a smile formed on his face after seeing the thread that connected his finger to the neck of Gordon.
With that, he could just throw Gordon or use him as a meat shield if something bad happens. Or Auriel thought like this.
"Well, get up and escort me to the auction house."