“Get out of there or I will come in, catch you, skin you alive, then slowly break all your bones one by one and after you die I will catch your soul and torture it for my whole life!“ Tsude was enraged like she had never been before in her entire life.
“Elder Tsude, you forced me to do this with your previous attitude. But don’t you worry, I will not destroy or even touch anything in here… as long as it is not interesting for me or expensive enough to make me want to take it.” As Boe said that, he started walking deeper inside of the corridor of Tsude’s mysterious master’s hideout.
“Don’t you dare to touch anything in there! If you will take even one of my master’s items I will kill you, all your friends, relatives and anyone who has any connection to you or your bloodline!” Tsude was yelling as loud as she could, but Boe was completely ignoring her and was already out of the corridor. When Boe left the corridor, he entered a very spacious hall, which started lighting up as soon as he stepped inside. Boe was pleasantly surprised with what he saw, hall had 10 meters tall walls, took roughly 200 square meters of space and all those walls were packed with ancient looking books. Boe started looking around and found out that all light was coming from strange yellow gems hovering near ceiling. Even though Boe wasn’t sure about that, but gems were similar to his shadow attribute magic stones so he could only guess that those gems were some kind of light attribute magic stones used to illuminate rooms by rich wizards. Boe noted to himself that he should probably take them all with himself when he would decide to leave, because they would be valuable for sure and he wouldn’t sleep well if he didn’t take everything valuable from here. Boe wasn’t very greedy, but he would definitely take all he could from people who offended him, and he already decided that he will surely get back at Tsude later, when he will have enough strength to make her bow before him.
Boe started checking out some books that were close to him and found out that most of them were very valuable materials about alchemy, spirits control, wild monsters taming, magic arrays and some of them were even full battle techniques. Even though most of battle techniques were of low level, they would already be enough for someone to establish a clan or a small school. Boe didn’t spend too much time with books, since he needed to find a way to escape out of here without encountering Tsude or he would just die in this treasury from hunger. Other than the one he came through, there were only three doors out of big hall. Boe came to first of them, but when he tried to open the door something pushed him off and he fell on his butt five meters from the door.
“You don’t have master’s permission to enter the treasury.” Boe heard a deep, ancient sounding voice from every direction of the hall.
“Who are you? Show yourself!” Boe was scared that master of this place left someone to watch over insides of a hideout, while Tsude was guarding outside.
“My name is Alfred. I’m master Thomas’ butler, I exist to watch over my master’s wizard manor.” Right after voice answered Boe’s question, blue person appeared next to Boe, Alfred looked to be just a spirit of some kind, but Boe didn’t dare to relax because he knew that some spirits could attack people or even take over their bodies.
“My sincere apologies for my previous words, elder Alfred, I didn’t mean to offend you, I was just surprised by your appearance.”
“There is no need in apologies to me. What is a purpose of your visit, young Sire?”
“I came here by my master’s orders.” Boe immediately thought of a plan to make use of butler’s loyalty to his old master.
“And who your master might be?”
“My master is great wizard Thomas, he sent me here to gather some experience and get treasures of my choice from his old manor.”
“Even though I’m just a spirit, I’m not stupid enough to believe nonsense you are spouting.”
“Nonsense? My master sent me to this precise location, saying that even after he wasn’t here for almost 300 years his loyal butler and a beast companion would definitely still be guarding his manor. If I wasn’t my master’s disciple, how would I be able to find this place and even walk past elder Tsude?”
“Tsude has actually let you in?” Alfred appeared slightly shocked before he straightened his face and stared at Boe as if he was inspecting his soul.
“Yes, elder Tsude was already released by me from this place to go to my master’s new manor.”
“New manor? Master built a new manor and even called Tsude to be by his side again?” Alfred’s voice sounded depressed, but nothing was shown on his face this time.
“I’m very sorry to tell you these news, but you can’t leave this place to become a butler of his new mansion, since master has already put elder Jarvis as his butler for a new manor.” Boe sounded very apologetic as he was saying that.
“My master is the wisest and if he decided so, then there are reasons for his decision. Even though I don’t understand this decision, I’m still my master’s butler and will never leave task he entrusted me.” Boe’s plan to gain trust of Alfred succeeded without a hitch and he was very happy with himself.
“Master told me to make sure you won’t leave this manor even for a second, because he might come back here anytime to visit you, so don’t feel too sad, elder Alfred.”
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Thank you for your kind words, young master. May I know how should I call you, young master?” Alfred obviously trusted everything Boe said and was now considering him inheritor of his master.
“You can just call me Boe, since my master always talks with affection about you, elder Alfred.” Boe kept on flattering Alfred to make sure he would gain complete trust from the butler of this huge treasury.
“Even your manners are the same as my master’s, young master Boe. I’m very sorry for not trusting you from the beginning, but I have no choice since this place holds a lot of my master’s treasures and I have to protect them from greedy thieves.”
“I understand, elder Alfred. I hope you won’t be against me staying here for the time being since master sent me to this place to gain experience and I need a place to live when I’m not on adventures?”
“Of course not, young master, you may use all benefits of my master’s manor and I shall leave right now to prepare room for you to live in.”
“You are as smart and loyal as my master was always saying, elder Aldred. I will then have to use your services from this time on.”
“it is my pleasure, young master.” Alfred vanished into the thin air right after he bowed to Boe.
‘That was risky, but it was sure worth it!’ Boe was happy he took a gamble and Alfred wasn’t smart enough to see through his blatant lies.
“Here is a room I prepared for you, my young master.” Alfred took Boe through the second door Boe saw earlier and after they walked for ten minutes, Alfred showed him his room with a huge bed, small table with various food on it and two chairs.
“As expected from elder Alfred, you already knew I was very hungry even before I told you anything.” Boe smiled brilliantly to Alfred and bowed deeply to him.
“No need to be so courteous around me, young master. All your wishes are my commands, that’s my only job here. Now, I shall take my leave and let young master eat in silence. If you will ever need me, you can just call my name in any place of the manor and I will immediately come to serve you, young master.” Alfred bowed to Boe and disappeared from his sight.
‘Did I really just hit jackpot? The only problem right now is Tsude, I need to make a plan to take her out or at least make sure Alfred wont find out that she is still here.’ Boe sat down and started eating. Even though all meals were delicious, Boe couldn’t enjoy the food because of a problem with Tsude.
“Alfred, do I have a permission to go into treasury now?” Boe couldn’t make up a plan to eliminate Tsude’s danger, so the only choice he had right now was the treasury. He hoped that there were some kind of treasure inside of the treasury that will allow Boe kill Tsude or somehow make Alfred his own loyal servant.
“Young master, I can’t stop you from entering treasury, but I have to ask of you not to take more than three items from there at once. You can swap any item at any moment, but there shouldn’t be more than three items out of treasury at same moment. That was the rule my master told me to follow in case his disciples will want to take something out of the treasury.” Boe now understood that he wasn’t Thomas’ only disciples, but since no one appeared in this manor for almost 300 years he thought that all disciples died together with their teacher.
“That is not an issue, elder Alfred. My master is wisest and if he thinks that three treasures are enough for me then it is definitely so.”
“Then please follow me, young master.” Alfred started float in the direction of a main hall and Boe followed closely behind him.
“What are other facilities I am allowed to enter in a master’s manor?” Boe was very interested in what kind of good experience he could get from this place and Alfred was perfect to find everything he wanted to know about.
“You are allowed to enter all rooms except for master’s personal room and his laboratory.” Boe now understood that even though Thomas was keeping a lot of treasures in treasury, most valuable treasures were probably hidden inside of his personal room and most valuable information was probably In the laboratory.
“Is there some kind of garden with plants used for alchemy in here?”
“Of course there is, I was watching over growth of all plants, trees, beasts and monsters inside of an inner garden since my master left.” Boe felt his heart beating faster and louder when he heard Alfred’s words.
“Then I shall visit an inner garden after the treasury, I think I will need some alchemy ingredients for my experiments.” Boe showed no signs of being happy as if all he heard was very normal for him.
“Yes, young master” They already reached the door Boe tried to open when he first came into the main hall. Alfred opened a door in front of Boe.
“My master’s treasury is sure rich with all sorts of artifacts.” Boe said calmly, but inside he was burning with desire to scream and run towards all those treasure he saw. There were a few hundreds of items inside of the room, which looked like an ordinary storehouse at first glance. Some items were hanging on walls, some were hidden inside of boxes and few even were displayed inside of glass boxes as if they were some kind of museum artifacts.
“Master was collecting all these items for almost 600 years and was very proud of his collection. Here is list of all items and brief description of each item.” Alfred handed a book to Boe and he started reading contents of it. After two hours of reading through the book, Boe already made choices on items he wanted to take out.
“I have to trouble elder Alfred to help me get “Dark Elf King’s bow”, “Claws of Enthriil” and “Medusa’s glance” from the treasury.” Boe read through all information on all items inside of the treasury and there were definitely a lot of more powerful items than those that he picked, but these three were perfect for him right now and he could come and change them anytime he wanted.
Dark Elf King’s bow was an artifact created by the best weapon craftsman of the Dark Elves for a King of Dark Elves of ancient times. The only way to use this bow was to use a shadow attribute magic and condense arrows from the shadow attribute magic, which was perfect for Boe with his “Shadow Arrow” attack technique.
Claws of Enthriil was an artifact used by a famous assassin 450 years ago to kill his targets. He was very famous for his sneak attacks with these claws, they were made from a mysterious material that couldn’t be broken, stained or scratched with anything. The one who created this artifact was unquestionably an extraordinary skillful blacksmith. Boe was using “Shadow step” movement technique, which was perfect for sneak attacks and claws type weapon was good to make up his lack of close combat weapon.
Medusa’s glance was a very ancient artifact in form of a small grey ball with runes all over its surface. This artifact was used to turn user’s opponents into a stone for a small period of time, it was one of the most valuable and powerful artifacts in here, because it allowed a user to defeat opponents of higher levels of strength if opponents didn’t expect to be attacked. The only downside to this artifact was the fact that after each use, it became useless for a year. Boe decided to take this artifact to use it to kill Tsude. After Tsude’s death he would become a sole owner of this manor and Boe was ready to gamble with his life to get this opportunity.