Far from the city’s noisy marketplace and its miserable alleys, in a luxurious neighborhood of Veythral, we stood before a two-story, tastefully furnished house.
The garden around the house was well-kept, and a warm, inviting light seeped from the windows, illuminating the interior.
This was a world entirely different from the hell I had just left behind.
The guard who had brought me this far, blindly loyal to his boss, spoke with the ease of a man who had completed his task. "Mr. Silas, is there anything else you need?"
I pretended to think for a moment.
I stroked my chin and looked up at the sky. "Let me see... hmmm... what could you possibly do for me?" I murmured.
Then, my eyes lit up as if I’d had a brilliant idea. "Ah, I’ve got it! It would be best if you died."
A look of stupid confusion appeared on the guard’s face as he tried to process what he’d just heard.
But before he could understand, the stone ground beneath his feet split open.
Dark, thorny vines shot up from the earth, grabbing him by the legs.
They dragged him underground before he even had a chance to scream.
Then, the ground sealed itself smoothly, as if it had never been disturbed.
"Now that we’re rid of one more nuisance... how about we get your wings back?" I called out to the little girl hiding in my breast pocket.
But I received no reply. She was likely in shock after the trauma and all the horrors she had witnessed.
I approached the wooden door of the house.
I turned the lock to nothingness with a simple touch of Chaos Flame.
I slipped inside silently. My feet moved through the house with the careful, silent steps of a cat.
The inside of the house was not as lavish as it appeared from the outside; it was rather plain.
But something was off.
The kitchen area was a complete disaster. Scraps of food were scattered on the floor, and dirty dishes were piled high in the sink and on the table.
A thick, foul stench hung in the air.
The next room opened into a bathroom, but there was no sign of anyone there either. I checked every room, one by one.
Finally, I found the bedroom at the end of the hall. I pushed the door open slowly and carefully, without making the slightest creak.
Inside the room was a huge, messy bed that dominated the space.
On the bed, a large, half-bald man with a slightly pudgy belly was sleeping naked.
Drool trickled from his mouth onto what was clearly an expensive silk pillow.
This pathetic sight was the cruel and feared boss of the slave market.
The mana radiating from the man was not very strong. He couldn’t have been more than a mid-level Fourth Star.
He posed no threat to me.
I looked at the snoring man with a scornful gaze.
Then, in the blink of an eye, I moved, severing both of his arms at the shoulder, right from their sockets.
The man’s eyes shot open, wide with the searing pain he felt.
He wanted to scream, but not a single sound escaped his throat.
His mouth had been instantly sealed with a layer of ice.
He tried to get up in a panic but realized his entire body was bound to the bed with chains of Chaos Flame.
The bald man stared at me, who he still thought was Silas, with eyes full of shock and agony. He couldn’t understand why the man he loved would do such a thing to him.
As if understanding his bewildered gaze, I returned to my normal form.
I stood at the head of the bed like a nightmare with black hair and black eyes.
"I think it’s best we start slowly," I said, my voice cold and emotionless.
"I will ask you questions, and you will answer. You do not have the right to remain silent. You do not have the right to lie. If I find that you are lying, I will make you eat your own intestines while you’re still alive."
"And no, you will not die. You will stay alive until this little interrogation of ours is over. So, be a good little bald man and answer my questions, and I will grant you a painless death."
After I finished speaking, I melted the ice on the man’s mouth.
The man spoke, trembling with pain and fear. "Wh-what do you want from me?"
Before he could finish his sentence, a sharp ice needle I formed from the air pierced one of his eyes.
The man wanted to scream in agony, but his mouth was instantly frozen shut again.
"Oh, are you some kind of idiot?" I hissed. "I ask the questions here. Who told you that you could speak without my permission?"
After watching him writhe in pain for a moment, I continued. "Let’s get to our first question. I heard you’ve been abducting fairies from the Fairy Forests. And that the Imperial Family specifically requested this from you. Why?"
I melted the ice on his mouth again. This time, he was smarter.
"I-I don’t know why they wanted them, I swear!" he said, his voice choked with pain and fear. "We just received the job. We don’t have the luxury of questioning our clients. Especially when the client is the Imperial Family..."
"Fine. I heard you have a primitive fairy girl. And that you have her wings. Where did you hide them?"
The man swallowed, blood and tears from his eye dripping onto the pillow. "In-inside the wall... There’s a small chest hidden in a secret compartment behind the bookshelf... But the chest is locked! It’s a special chest given by the Imperial Family! Once locked, it can only be opened with the blood of the Imperial Family."
As soon as I had my answer, I tossed the large bookshelf in the room aside with one hand.
I shattered and destroyed the wall behind it as if it were a piece of paper.
In the hollow space within the wall, I found the chest I was looking for. It was a small, ornate box, decorated with golden runes. At first glance, it seemed impossible to open.
But for me, it didn’t look difficult at all.
With an amused expression on my face, I summoned the Chaos Flames.
The pure energy of destruction assaulted the ancient seals on the chest. After a few minutes of struggle, the Imperial Family’s powerful seal could no longer hold and the lock opened with a ’click’.
Inside the chest, resting on a velvet cushion, was a pair of delicate, emerald-green wings.
I took them carefully. I tried to place them in my dimensional portal, but for some reason, the portal wouldn’t accept this living, magical object.
I sighed and carefully put the wings in my pocket.
I turned back to the man lying helplessly on the bed. "So... from what I understand, you only did this job because you were asked to. And you don’t have any useful information for me about the Imperial Family. What a pity."
The man stammered, as if grasping the deadly meaning behind my words. "No, no, no! I swear, that’s everything I knew! I told you the trut—"
His words were cut off as ice once again sealed his mouth.
I formed dozens more ice needles from the air and drove them into the man’s body, all the way to his bones.
The man writhed in agony, letting out silent screams, but he couldn’t fight back because of the chains that bound him.
The chains, made of Chaos Flames, not only held him but also absorbed his mana like a sponge.
Then, I looked into the man’s remaining eye. The blood-filled eye was silently begging for its suffering to end.
"I suppose you’ve been of some small use to me," I said in a thoughtful tone. "Thanks to you, I’ve gained quite a bit of gold and valuable items today. I should give you a reward, shouldn’t I?"
A glimmer of hope appeared in the man’s eye.
"I heard... you’re a pervert who fancies his own gender," I continued, the mockery in my voice obvious. "I assume you enjoy having things put inside you."
The hope in the man’s eye instantly turned to horror. He shook his head in fear.
I let out a laugh. "No need to be shy. You’ve earned this."
From the floor, I formed a thorny stake, about a meter long.
Then, I ignited its tip with Chaos Flames. A burning, thorny instrument of torture...
With a demonic smile on my face, I brought the burning stake closer to the man.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to escape. He thrashed in place.
But his fate was already sealed.
The stake slowly entered him. The man’s body convulsed with indescribable pain.
Then, the stake tore through his intestines and internal organs.
Within minutes, the man breathed his last in agony.
In the silence of the room, I called out to the little girl hidden in my breast pocket.
"It’s been quite a tiring day, hasn’t it? Come on... let’s go home."