Chapter 71: The Story of Raines Noel Delpheman
Damon grinned as he looked at Haina, who was trembling, her forehead pressed against the table.
“Aaaaah… Aaaaaaaaah!”
Haina gasped, then vomited. She slumped to the floor, almost collapsing. The maids rushed to her side. They were at least more composed than Raines, who was frozen in his seat.
The sight of his mother collapsing on top of her own vomit snapped Raines out of his daze.
Something impossible had happened. In his own home, of all places. He stood up, suppressing the feeling of blood rushing to his head, and spoke,
“Who the hell are you?”
“Hahaha! Raines, I always thought you were an interesting guy, but you’re even more interesting than I thought! It’s a shame I didn’t get to know you better.”
“Answer me! You… how… that face… what… what are you doing here…?”
His mind was a chaotic mess, burning black. He had too many questions, too many things he wanted to ask, too many things he wanted to know. Damon shrugged, grinning.
Just then, chains shot up from the floor. The blue chains quickly bound Damon’s arms and legs, lifting him into the air in a matter of seconds. It was Delthel’s high-ranking binding spell.
“You bastard!”
Unlike his son, he didn’t bother asking Damon for an explanation.
Delthel, the chief mage of the Imperial Magic Division, had a duty to apprehend escaped felons from the Wastelands and hand them over to the Imperial authorities. And his instincts told him that it would be dangerous to leave this man unrestrained, for the sake of his family. Delthel, having overcome the initial shock, shouted at the servants,
“Contact the Security Bureau immediately! Tell them it’s an emergency!”
“…Kekeke…”
Damon, bound by the magic chains, chuckled as if he was enjoying the situation. Raines shuddered at his sinister grin.
“…What the…?!”
Delthel gasped in horror. As if to prove his amusement, Damon broke free from Delthel’s chains in the blink of an eye. And without lifting a finger, he decapitated the servants who were trying to leave the dining room.
“……”
“……”
“……”
A heavy silence descended upon them. The dining room door slammed shut with a creak. Someone, panicked, frantically twisted the doorknob, trying to escape, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“I escaped from the Wastelands and came all the way here without anyone noticing. How do you think I did it? Use your brain, Uncle Delthel.”
Damon said, shoving his hands into his pockets, his voice laced with annoyance.
Raines, pale with shock, instinctively stepped back, witnessing this senseless carnage for the first time in his life.
Damon, who had always been inferior to him in swordsmanship, who could barely use magic, had appeared before them, wearing a completely different face.
…Why?
Why are you here?
“Now, the reason why I came here…”
“You bastard!”
Delthel still didn’t seem interested in listening to Damon. He started launching attack spells at him. Damon effortlessly deflected them. The deflected magic bullets scattered throughout the dining room, and the room itself began to shake. Some of the servants were killed by the stray bullets.
Raines Noel stood frozen in the midst of the chaos, unable to do anything.
“Ah… This is so annoying! Let’s just talk!”
Exasperated, Damon unleashed a destructive spell he had never seen before. Unlike Delthel, he wasn’t aiming at anything in particular, so the damage was even more severe. Debris rained down from the ceiling.
“I… I’m losing to a criminal like him…?”
The head of the Noel family, known as the ‘Master of Magic’, was helplessly defeated, unable to counter Damon’s magic. He had never seen such powerful magic before.
“Stop! Stop it!”
The senseless fight ended when Haina Noel’s scream, filled with terror, echoed through the room.
“Ah… Ahhhh…”
Haina, curled up like a turtle, was clutching her hair, tears and saliva streaming down her face.
“Hahaha, Aunt. Do you see Father in me?”
Haina’s movements abruptly stopped at Damon’s words. Then, she raised her arms and started pleading. She crawled towards him and clutched his pants leg, sobbing.
“Please, please spare me… Brother, I’ll do whatever you say. So please spare me… Sob, sob… …Ah, ahhh! Please don’t hit me! Don’t hit me! I’ll be good! I have dirty blood!”
It was strange. Damon wasn’t doing anything. He was just looking at her with a mocking gaze.
Raines, witnessing that pathetic sight, froze.
Haina looked like a crazed lunatic from a fairy tale.
The Haina Noel Delpheman he knew was a strong woman who had never broken down or shed a tear in her life. But the chains of her unknown past were still strangling her.
Damon casually pushed Haina away and kicked someone’s severed head across the room.
“Uncle Delthel… Sigh, let’s stop this. I… I can self-destruct, you know? …No, I can even blow up this entire area. You’ve seen it, haven’t you? My power.”
Damon Keron, the boy who should have been gone forever, stood before Raines, his appearance disheveled, no, his face completely different. Their eyes met. Damon grinned.
“One is enough for me. I came here to achieve just one thing.”
“…One?”
Raines asked instinctively. Damon nodded enthusiastically, as if grateful for the question, and said clearly,
“To kill Enzhe Lopetrefer.”
***
This wasn’t a dream or a fairy tale. This was reality. But neither Raines nor Delthel could fully accept it.
After a brief lull, Delthel led Raines and Damon to a small room in the basement of the mansion.
Raines had accompanied them because Delthel wanted him to act as a mediator, as he was the only one who had known Damon.
“How did this happen?”
Raines muttered, closing his eyes tightly, just before they entered the basement. He turned to his father, but Delthel was staring blankly, muttering something inaudible.
“Father?”
“…! …R-right. Let’s go in, Raines.”
Delthel pulled Raines’s arm.
“That bastard… His magical energy is abnormally high. In a bad way… He wasn’t bluffing when he said he could blow up this entire area… Be careful, Raines.”
Delthel warned him one last time, suppressing his anger. Raines clenched his fists. He had been planning to secretly send a servant to the Security Bureau if he got a chance. But he abandoned the idea after hearing his father’s words.
The image of the servants’ severed heads, the blood spraying from their bodies, kept flashing before his eyes. If anyone else died, it would be Raines, not Haina, who would break down.
The basement was small and musty, but fortunately, Damon didn’t seem to mind and sat down on a chair.
“…First, tell us everything, from the beginning.”
Delthel spoke first. They needed to understand the situation, and Raines was grateful that his father was so calm, even in this situation.
Damon nodded, as if understanding their urgency.
“As you know, there was an incident where I attempted to murder Enzhe Lopetrefer. But that was her duke’s doing.”
“Her duke?”
Delthel frowned. Damon shrugged and pouted.
“Yeah, I’ll explain that later. Anyway, because of that, my family and I were sent to the Wastelands. But I wanted revenge so badly, so badly, that I came back. The end.”
“……”
His explanation made no sense. Delthel gritted his teeth, his fists clenched.
“What about your face?”
Raines, trying to prevent another disaster, quickly pointed at Damon’s face and asked. He hadn’t recognized him at first because of his face.
Bronze skin, droopy eyes, a sinister grin. It wasn’t the Damon he knew. The Damon he knew had narrow, fox-like eyes and a pale complexion.
“It’s a kind of magic.”
Delthel interjected impatiently,
“Transformation? Disguise? You can’t use those without permission…”
“Uncle Delthel, do you think I would have used magic with permission in my situation? I wouldn’t even be in the capital if I cared about that damn permission.”
Damon snapped, as if he had been asked a stupid question. Delthel lowered his head. Raines’s eyes flickered as he watched his father. He took a deep breath, trying to appear calm, and spoke again,
“You said you were going to kill Enzhe Lopetrefer.”
“Yes, I came here to kill her. You’re easy to talk to, Raines.”
After some discussion, Damon Keron had two demands for the Noel count family. One was to provide him with food and lodging at the mansion. The other was for the Noel family to cooperate with his revenge.
Delthel, who had been bothered by the word ‘revenge’, asked for a more detailed explanation, but Damon just sneered.
“Don’t be so annoying. I told you, didn’t I? To kill Enzhe Lopetrefer. To destroy the Lopetrefer family. That’s my revenge.”
Ok ok, we got enemies enemy, its something
Wants to prove Enzhe is evil by killing people? Right.