After the fake manor… we had probably made them lose track of us.

Because A-18 drove straight back to the main manor.

The only problem, because we had driven in the opposite direction when we left the academy in the first place… the whole drive took us about nine hours.

Nine whole hours of complete silence.

They were definitely the most tense hours of my life, every single one of them.

Knowing that I had to be completely silent, knowing that my grandfather was right behind me, injured… knowing that the moment I opened my mouth, I was sure to face his anger…

It was frightening.

So much so that… my mind wandered to the past without thinking about it.

The moments when I reminded myself every day how much I hated the Laute Family.

The image of my grandfather in my mind and the vows I made to kill him with my own hands.

The days when I swore that I would make anyone who caused me pain pay for it.

But, despite all this…

Because I was nothing in front of them, I could do nothing but turn into a docile dog.

The only thing I could do… was to always talk behind their backs and obey when they came in front of me.

It was the same now.

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Even though he was injured, my grandfather was so much stronger than me that I could do nothing, and there was A-18 too.

I was like a rag doll between them, which they manipulated and played with at will.

And I realized this again and again, every second, minute… hour.

Then…

“I will destroy the Laute family.”

He said the same thing… What I’ve been saying for years.

But he was much more confident.

He had a plan and he was executing it.

It had failed, though.

He’d been led into a fake manor, a trap, and the man who was their biggest threat, my grandfather, Rian Laute, was still alive.

Most likely… with a grudge against them now.

It was the end.

But… even then, wasn’t he much braver than me?

Aiden, I mean.

At least… he had tried.

I paused for a brief moment, thinking again of what I had thought during the fight between Leonard Quie and my grandfather.

Really… where was Aiden?

Had he just sent Leonard Quie away and gone into hiding?

Why hadn’t he tried to bring the whole kingdom down on the family, but opted for a more… stealthy attack?

Yes, he might have been naive, overconfident, but… he was also smart.

He certainly wasn’t one to make such a mistake.

The hours passed like that… accompanied by my thoughts.

I thought about more things, literally hundreds, thousands of things went through my mind. Each one was about the past, the present, and the future.

And finally… we came to the end of our journey.

Laute Manor was located at the very edge of the kingdom, almost on the border with Elhair to the northeast.

From the outside, it looked like a simple… farm. It belonged to The Laute Family, a fake establishment under their control. But the illusion was lifted as soon as one stepped into the farm, was authenticated by cameras, and walked into the woods behind the farm.

This is how the manor was able to remain a secret for years.

And it would continue to do so.

The car drove into the farm, past the fake employees, and into the woods. The moment it passed the first few trees… the image of the entire forest rippled as if through an invisible wall.

A huge, truly huge, plain was revealed… a manor house with no trees around, unlike the rest of the forest, with a garden the size of a large town, with the main building in the center and many others for their own special purposes, just like the academy.

It was a mini kingdom in its own right.

A-18 proceeded directly toward the main building without turning into any of the other buildings. It just stopped in front of it without bothering to park, then quickly got out and went around to my grandfather’s door.

I got out too, making sure to stand back and keep my head down… of course.

After the door opened, my grandfather slowly got out with his cane.

First, he stood for a while, examining the surroundings. Then he fixed his emerald-green eyes on his manor.

“I do not need any help, take care of the rest.”

A-18 quickly knelt down.

“Understood, sir.”

He continued to stand where he was for a while. Before he started to move, though, he spoke one last time without turning his eyes to me.

“And you, Alysia. Follow me.”

“Understood, sir…”

With the empty space where his right arm should have been and the state of his clothes… the former aura he had was completely changed.

No, he didn’t look more vulnerable or weak, although in fact he was.

He was just… much more frightening now.

And everyone else in the manor must have felt it too, because none of the servants or any of the other employees even approached him. Even their facial expressions remained exactly the same, as if they didn’t want to disturb him, even though they could see his condition.

He went up the usual staircase, the one with the paintings of past family leaders and their entire families… without us.

When he arrived in front of his office, he kept a certain distance from the door.

“Open it.”

I rushed over and opened the door wide for him, but… he didn’t come in right away.

When I saw him standing where he was, a shiver went through me. And… it was only intensified when I saw his frown.

He entered his office with slow steps. When he reached the center, he stopped, closed his eyes, and waited for a while. In that brief moment, I felt his mana spreading around, even throughout the manor.

But then he opened his eyes, and all the mana he had spread around him was drawn back as his eyebrows returned to normal.

He walked to his desk with slow steps.

“Come inside, close the door.”

He sat in his chair at the same time as the door closed and remained silent until I was in front of him. Then he was quiet again, waiting.

After a short while… he slowly turned his eyes to me.

“Are you happy?”

His question echoed in my mind, literally causing me to stiffen where I was.

Am I… happy?

What kind of question was that?

And… why was he asking?

“You found out I was dying slowly, you saw my arm cut off. Answer honestly, do not even try to lie.”

I swallowed, the words just came and went on the tip of my tongue.

Was this a test?

Did he really want me to… answer honestly?

What was he going to do… after the answer he got?

“Yes…”

In the end… that was my answer.

Of course he knew, what I felt about him and the Laute Family… what I thought.

So he could tell right away if what I was saying was a lie or not.

So… I decided to be really truthful.

The room fell into intense silence. Rian Laute, my grandfather… did not react to my answer.

He leaned all the way back in his chair, squinting his eyes and staring at the ceiling.

Finally, he closed his eyes completely, took a long, deep breath in… and let it out just as long.

He opened his mouth to say something else, the words were about to come out…

But he paused.

His eyebrows furrowed, just like when he first entered the room.

He opened his eyes and tore them away from the ceiling, fixing them on me. Then… again, his full mana slowly filled the entire manor.

And soon, it returned to him in the same way.

He seemed to be looking for… something, every time he did that.

But why… and what he was looking for, I had no idea.

After his mana retreated, his emerald-green eyes sparkled slightly, and the room suddenly felt cold and heavy.

He looked at me, focused specifically on me… right into my eyes.

“Your Mana Contracts. They are still there, correct?”

I almost felt like I was going to collapse to the floor. The cold… it was so sudden that I couldn’t stop shivering, even momentarily.

“Y- yes.”

I don’t understand why he’s asking.

What’s going on, I’m too confused to think about things.

Does he think I found a loophole in the contract and betrayed the Family?

Why would he think that?

“The human you talked about, Aiden Tenebra. What did he say to you last time?”

My mind quickly went back to the last time we met.

I hadn’t seen him since the day he told me… that I was a parasite.

He basically said he was going to destroy the Laute Family and then disappeared.

And…

“He said I would help him whether I wanted to or not…”

That was the last thing he said.

As if I had no choice, as if I really… had to.

A few more seconds passed in silence.

But, then… my eyes squinted slightly and my mind went back in time. I thought about the moments when I was talking to Aiden, if there was anything I could catch.

And as my squinted eyes widened slightly at this very moment, I tore my eyes away from my grandfather, unable to stop them from falling slowly to his desk in my thoughts.

I remembered a certain memory.

Not, not the moment I spoke to Aiden… but the moment I spoke to someone else who probably worked for him.

Alexander Callidas.

“Keep them fully informed of everything we do. Don’t betray them and you won’t trigger your contract.”

Ah…

“T- they have a plan…”

I quickly raised my eyes, and my grandfather… was still looking at me.

“Leonard Quie lost on purpose, he meant to lose all along!”

They followed us?

It was impossible to escape the eyes of A-18 and my grandfather.

Aside from them, it is impossible to escape the eyes of those in the main manor…

There’s no way.

They haven’t followed us, they haven’t infiltrated the manor yet…

Then…

Then why…

~thud!

In an instant, all my thoughts were interrupted by the loud sound that echoed throughout the room.

Absolute silence filled the room as if time had frozen. I didn’t move nor could I understand where the sound was coming from.

My grandfather… simply leaned back in his chair again.

He sighed deeply in the silence.

The next second… the scene in the room changed completely.

A figure appeared right behind his chair, standing there as if he had been there the whole time.

A pale purple glow slowly enveloped the room, reaching out to the walls and windows, even to my grandfather…

With his left eye shimmering the same color, and his right eye an almost blank gray, as if resembling nothingness… he spoke slowly.

To me.

“Thanks for your help, Alysia.”

Aiden.

“You did quite well for a parasite.”

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