Listening to my own cold voice, I was shocked to realise what I was about to do.
I quickly dismissed my spell and stood up.
It's seems I'm not ready to confront them.
"Odysseus, Hali. Let's leave. There's nothing that's going to help us here, might as well start our investigation."
My team immediately shot up and got close to me, not before shooting a murderous glare towards Yudher. Which the bastard simply ignored.
"And how are you gonna do that by yourself? your specialty has never been information, but action."
I chuckled at his poor attempt to grasp me in his clutches.
"Oh Yudher, you poor thing. If you want my work, you need to pay the price. I'm not a member of the House, by your most gracious concession."
"So what? I'm still your father, I can reinstate your status with a word."
This was honestly getting ridiculous. This man was not realising there was nothing he could do to get me to work for him, yet he was trying so hard.
"Winona, have you finished your background check on my partners here?"
This is so stupid.
"Yes young master."
"And would you kindly inform your patriarch?"
"Yes young master, they do not exist."
Yudher's eyes shook for a second before he was able to get back in control, of course such a result was impossible, but our case was a little different. With things settled down I was about to leave when Odysseus reluctantly stopped me.
"I know we shouldn't… but if he really has information on the fragment… we need to get them."
Hali also chimed in, reinforcing his statement and I was left wondering with a raging conflict in me.
Stuck in this impasse, I slowly turned back to face Yudher.
"You want work, and I want information, but! Solving your problem outweighs your knowledge. I will be giving you sure results, but you only offer a possibility, nothing clearly confirmed."
Yudher stayed silent, unmoving. He was getting on my nerves again. How could this man not even blink? I was supposed to be his dead son, yet he came with pretences, no welcome, no signs of affection and of course, not even a speck of regret. In his eyes the only possible outcome was me getting back in the family.
I exhaled deeply trying to get a better hold on my nerves.
"I will clean the situation with the dungeon here and you'll get me the information on the church. If you want more, pay up."
"How much do you need?"
That's it? I really should just kill him.
"I don't want money."
"Then what do you want?"
I wasn't even sure myself, I didn't know how this world worked anymore, so I did the best thing I could think of and directly asked Odysseus.
And as the genius he was supposed to be, he quickly found a solution.
"For the first dungeon we will get the information on the church and keep everything we find inside for ourselves, Dim… Klaus will decide what to do with the loot afterwards; for the second, you'll take preventive actions against the church and report your findings, same for the loot as before. For the third… I want a complete list of extremely powerful being present in this place that are related to wind or thunder and eventual assistance in reaching them."
"Ha, is this your secretary? Why does he make demands for you?"
I looked at Yudher in the eyes and I could feel the shiver running down his spine.
"Are you okay with Odysseus' demands or should we add something?"
My cold words resonated deep into his soul, I wasn't joking and most definitely I was not someone to be taken lightly.
"If the House needs to act I want more than just your work, since you'll also be keeping all the resources… teach me how to form a Mana circle and an Aura core."
This bastard wanted strength.
"Will you share the information with all the family?"
"…"
His silence spoke volumes.
"Then just wait for a genius out there to figure it out on their own and steal that information."
"Fine… I'll teach the entire family."
I wasn't going to fall for such an easy scam.
"Being away from the family really ruined you. Fuck. Very well, if I fail to inform every member of House of Damocles about your technique I will cut my arms."
"That's nothing, even I am able to reattach a lost limb, surely your healers could do much more."
Odysseus then interjected.
"You can swear on the Styx staking your mana, if you break it all your mana will be sealed forever. No turning back."
My eyes glimmered with joy. I quickly hugged him and stamped a kiss on his cheek.
"Yes, let's do that Yudher."
"Sure, but you will also swear on that thing and when you're not on mission you 3 will be staying at the household."
"We will enjoy the stay, but"
[skill activated: negative answer.]
"We will not swear on the Styx for your reassurance, you are already indebted to us."
[negative answer: success.]
As if forced by the hands of fate itself he quickly made his oath on the Styx and when he was done, he glared at me.
"Did you cast a spell on me? I would have never accepted you not staking anything."
"The fuck did you expect? I'd happily risk my powers for you? It'll already be a torture staying in that place. Now quickly bring us to the dungeon. Time is quite literally against us."
As soon as I finished the sentence, a car pulled close to us and the doors opened by themselves.
"Let's just go, the dungeons are almost collapsing either way."
Yudher seemed exhausted and I relished in his suffering, for once, the tables had turned.
With Odysseus asking all kinds of questions on the car and Hali pointing at basically every building, the ride was slowly starting to get exhausting for me as well.
"FUCK! YUDHER CALL A MECHANICAL ENGINEER TO EXPLAIN THIS MANIAC."
"FUCKING FIRST TIME YOU SAID SOMETHING RIGHT SINCE YOU'RE BACK! DOES THAT BASTARD EVEN KNOW HOW TO SHUT UP?!"
Seeing our reactions shocked Odysseus to the core, but he was satisfied since he somewhat understood that someone will answer his questions. Hali instead pointed at herself and nudged at my sleeve.
"The hell do you want half sardine?"
"I want more of these clothes! You bastard flower maniac, why didn't you make some for us before!?"
Fucking bullshit. Can't believe her.
"Yudher…"
"There are clothes at the house, and I'm not your butler, just call Robert."
I patted Hali's head and promised her a shopping spree if we had time.
After this last interruption we were finally in silence and soon reached our destination.
In the outskirts of Niagara Falls, there's a conservation area: Willoughby Marsh. Basically an Oak and maple forest, but it was a nice place to spend sometime, at least for me.
"Are you for real? The dungeon is in Willoughby?"
Yudher looked at me and as if remembering finally something important he quickly commented.
"Right, you used to come to this forest every spare moment you had from training."
Just remembering the training of House Damocles was enough to anger both me and Odysseus.
I could easily keep it in, but Odysseus buried his face in my chest to calm himself down, this brought confused stares from Yudher and the driver, but I dismissed them and just waited to arrive on the site.
The moment we reached our destination, I could feel the pressure emanating from the dungeon, it was a different kind of energy.
We were familiar with time fissures and were able to identify the influence of Chronos, but this was something completely different.
This was the power of Khaos.
"First the king of titans, now we have to deal with remnants of the Primordial? Fuck my life sideways."
"Klaus, we need to get back as soon as possible and inform our lazy teacher."
I nodded and grabbed both his and Hali's hand.
"Let's just clean this shit up."
______________________
As I entered the gate, a sickly pulling sensation hit me and soon I found myself in a dimly lit cave, or cave system. Odysseus and Hali beside me, weren't faring any better, but we were soon able to get a hold of ourselves.
Crystals all around us were illuminating the path and we debated on what to do.
Ultimately we decided against separating and started to move along the path.
"Dimitris, can you sense something? The sounds just keep hitting every wall and it's disturbing."
I nodded.
"There's movement around 300 meters ahead, I'm not sure of what kind of creature it might be though."
We approached as silently as we could, clearly I wasn't worried about myself, but seeing how Hali and Odysseus were both using my stealth techniques, albeit poorly, filled me with pride.
When we reached the 100 meters mark, I was finally able to describe the creatures awaiting us.
"5 foes, grey skin, 2.2 meters tall. They seem physically strong, I don't know about any kind of ability or magic, do you?"
"There's really only a way to find out, is there?"
Hali was exited. It seemed our earlier battle had left her wishing for more and she didn't want to let this opportunity go.
"Fine, you can have a try, if you manage to kill one get his body, we might be able to sell it or give it away for research, you never know."
"Yeah sure, I'm going."
She took out her sword and quickly dashed away. Her enemies didn't stand a chance.
Yes, she was a demigod, and a strong one at that, but this was just toying around.
This however gave me some anxiety. If this weak monsters were enough to deal with this planet population, even after the advent of mana, what was going to happen?
The house of Damocles was supposed to be one of the strongest households in this world, if they were powerless…
The situation was dire.
They needed to adapt faster.
It also seemed like their system was different from ours, it didn't give advices, it just showed their stats and skills…
Maybe feeling the conflicting emotions in me, Odysseus held my hand.
"Klaus, don't worry too much, as soon as you teach them how to form a circle or a core, things will get better."
"I know… it's just, I don't know, I guess being here is making me feel disgusted by everything yet this is everything I knew and loved."
"… do you… do you want to stay here?"
"Fuck no. I want to get back as soon as possible. Kill Basil, get back to our men and then back to Itaca."
He didn't say anything else and we simply started walking towards Hali.
That couldn't even be called a battle at this point, it was just her bullying the monster.
She stored the bodies in her internal space and then proposed a competition.
"Since these bastards are so weak, let's just make a quick work and meet up in a couple hours yeah?"
I wasn't exactly against the idea and since these were really weak I could also use some work out to let off my steam.
I took out Arachne's hair tie and Odysseus did the same.
We had our means of communication, and although Hali didn't have something similar, I was pretty sure she'd be more ore less safe.
"Hali, just to be sure, if you feel you're in danger, just run. Honour kills you."
"Yes yes flower maniac."
So we parted our ways.
Odysseus ever present in the back of my head thanks to the artefact Merlin made and Hali rampaging through the cave.
As for me, I chose the bulldozer way as well.
All the rage I had experienced in a single day needed to be lashed out.
And there possibly wasn't a better way then to kill these poor monsters.
Sorry folks, wrong place wrong time.