“Leave,” Came the calm instruction from the man to Zarra. Despite the cold way that the man was regarding him. Greg could detect a hint of care in the man’s voice as he directed this single word at his wife. Zarra looked like she was about to protest, maybe even come to his defense. A single look from her husband, however, and she was meekly walking out of the room with her head down. There was one last guilty look sent his way by Zarra when she went to the door of the room. In short order, however, she was out of the room and now it was just Greg left with two people that looked about as friendly as vipers ready to strike.
“Who are you and who sent you?” The man, Sir Joram as the thief had called him, lost any warmth that had been in his voice. His tone became glacial and the look in his eyes was positively murderous.
An easy and relaxed smile crossed Greg’s expression even as he tried to mask his fear and project an air of calm that he didn’t truly feel. “The name’s Roka,” Greg replied. Although Greg preferred his real name to the one that he got in this world, he still chose to use the latter. Given the fact that it was her creation, Greg didn’t know how much access Olivia had to what went on within the dungeons. Until he knew what her true motivations were, and how that would affect him, he wasn’t about to leave any openings and chances for the familiar to figure out his true identity. “As for who sent me, the answer is no one,” Greg replied.
The look in the man’s eyes told Greg that he didn’t believe a word he’d just said. “How did you know my wife was looking for a personal servant?” he continued to ask.
“I didn’t,” Greg replied simply. He didn’t try to explain beyond that, knowing that to someone already as suspicious as the one before him, it would sound like he already had the story prepared.
“How then did you end up as my wife’s servant?” The man asked.
“I only came into this city early this morning…” Greg began to retell the story of how he found himself as Zarra’s manservant. He knew that there was a very high chance that the man wouldn’t believe him, still, if he could avoid having this turn into a brawl, it would be a win as far as he was concerned.
“So, let me get this straight,” The man spoke. You, a nobody who only arrived in Torrin early this morning, were just walking around when a thief put a priceless gem in your pocket. Which you, like the fount of wisdom that you are, then took out in the sight of the armed thugs that were after the thief because of this particular gem. They chased you around town, which somehow ended up with you hiding inside my house. And when my wife saw that a nobody was being chased by armed thugs, she immediately thought, here is someone I can hire as my servant!” Greg couldn’t help but inwardly cringe at the man’s retelling of his story. Even to his ears, it didn’t sound very plausible. “Is that what you expect me to believe?” The man asked.
“Anything can be made to sound ridiculous and unbelievable if you use a mocking and condescending tone to tell it,” Greg replied with a shrug. “It also doesn’t help that you are already disinclined to believe anything that I say,” He commented. “Being the well-connected merchant that you are, however, I’m sure you have the requisite power and coin to investigate the truth of all that I’ve so far said,” Greg relayed. “As such, you’ll forgive me if I don’t waste my time trying to convince you that I’m telling the truth,” Greg offered calmly.
The brute standing beside the man narrowed his eyes at him, his fingers clenching and unclenching. Clearly, he didn’t like the casual way that Greg was talking to his boss and was dying to teach him a lesson. Still, he didn’t act. It seemed that Sir Joram had tight control over his underlings. Without orders, they wouldn’t act. “So where is it?” The man asked.
“Where is what?” Greg replied.
“This supposedly priceless gem that you were chased all around town for,” The man replied. “It would be a rather easy way of proving that you are telling the truth, wouldn’t it?” he relayed.
A sigh left Greg, already knowing what his reply would sound like to the man. “I don’t have it,” Greg stated. There was a complete lack of surprise in the man’s expression, clearly never having believed a word that he’d said. “The thief took it back from me,” he stated.
“Would this happen to be the same thief that you’ve never met before? The young lady about your age that was captured by six fully grown men? The same one that I am supposed to believe you weren’t working with?” The man asked, his tone growing colder with each word. He clearly thought that he was being taken for a fool and didn’t appreciate it in the least.
“The very same one,” Greg replied his tone just as flat as his expression. Greg was fully aware that there were situations in which the more one tried to explain themselves, the less believable they would sound and the worse they’d make the situation. As such, he just stuck to telling the truth and nothing more. He could already see that there was almost zero chance that the man would believe him, so why bother?
The man quietly looked at him for a while then let out a low chuckle. Despite the sound, however, there was zero mirth in the man’s eyes. “You really take me for a fool, don’t you?” he posed.
Even though he knew that it was a rhetorical question, Greg shook his head in response. “Not even remotely,” He stated, his tone of voice serious. “But let’s be honest, even if I had an airtight explanation for how I came to be in your wife’s employ, would it make any difference to you?” He asked the man. Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “You and I both know that if I was some plant that someone had sent to infiltrate your house, I’d have come up with a much better put-together background for myself than the seemingly ridiculous tale I’ve just told you,” Greg said. “The fact that I’ve given you places and people you can easily use to tell whether I am a liar or not means nothing to you because you don’t care one way or the other, do you?” Greg cut right to the heart of the issue.
A smile slowly crossed the man’s lips. “I like dealing with intelligent individuals,” The man relayed. “A thousand coins,” The man said. “I am willing to give you a thousand coins for you to turn around and walk away,” he offered. “That should be enough money for you to comfortably start your life in the city of Torrin, shouldn’t it?” he added.
Greg couldn’t help but smile at the man. “Call me smart and then proceed to insult my intelligence,” He said with a mirthless chuckle. “We both know that the contract requires you to give me ten times that if you wish to get rid of me,” He stated.
The man’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Are you trying to extort me?” He posed in a glacial tone of voice.
Greg let out an unamused snort, rolling his eyes at the poor attempt at deception. “You could offer me a million coins and I still wouldn’t take it!” he declared. “I don’t know a lot of things, I’m ashamed to say,” Greg continued. “I do, however, know a killer when I see one,” he relayed. “We both know that the moment I agree to dissolve the contract, I lose all the protections it offers me. Once that happens, you’ll be free to do with me as you please. And going by the look in your eyes, I can tell that death is almost certainly guaranteed. What number of coins I have in my possession at that point would be a completely moot point,” Greg laid out.
The man’s threatening look faded and a smile that didn’t reach his eyes took its place as he realized that Greg wouldn’t be as easily tricked as he’d been hoping. “You really are a smart one, aren’t you?” he said mostly to himself. “Luckily for me, I don’t need a million coins to get rid of you,” He calmly declared. “According to the contract, ten thousand coins is all that I’d need. An amount that I will require no more than three days to gather,” He said.
The fact that Greg managed to scowl in displeasure instead of bursting out in laughter, was an Oscar-worthy performance as far as he was concerned. Just like the ten-year contract with this man’s wife, his threat went over the short period that the dungeon would be active. Greg suspected that the time he was allowed in the dungeon would lapse as soon as the Mayor’s dinner party was over. And with the end of this dungeon run, all relationships to characters inside the dungeon, whether hostile or friendly, would be reset. In other words, the man’s threat meant nothing. Still, he didn’t want to let it show on his face that he didn’t care. If he did, the man would grow suspicious and that might push him to act sooner.
“Look,” Greg spoke up in the tone of one who was trying to be reasonable. “Despite what you might think, I am not your enemy,” He said. “In fact, I am not the problem you should be concerning yourself with,” Greg informed him. “You love your wife,” Greg more stated than asked. “You are unwilling to see her come to any harm, which is why even though I can tell you want me dead, you made no move to harm me. But as much as getting rid of me might make you feel like you are in control, you’ll still be losing your wife in the process,” He said. “Your real problem isn’t me, it’s the fact that your wife thinks that you love your ledgers more than you do her. It’s that she felt the need to hire a complete stranger behind your back just so she can feel like she still has some modicum of control over her own life! It’s the fact that she felt the need to make such a lopsided contract to make it so that even if you later dissolved it, the process would rip out a chunk from you,” He laid out. “I may be the latest one, but I’m just a symptom of a problem that runs much deeper than who your wife’s servant is. If I am right and you really do love the woman, then you still have time to fix what is broken,” He said. “Keep ignoring the problem and come after her servants, however, and you might just lose her completely,” Greg said.
The man regarded him for a long time in silence. Greg could tell by the look in his eyes that something of what he had said had hit home with the man. There was a slightly conflicted expression on the man’s face. Greg could almost see the tug of war between the man’s pride and his feelings for Zarra. For a moment, Greg thought that he might have succeeded in getting the man to turn his attention away from him and towards his wife. Greg, however, couldn’t help the sigh he let out when the man’s expression hardened once more. “Three days,” He growled. “You better have come up with the most ingenious escape plan ever devised,” He said with a note of dark amusement. “You’ll need it,” He declared…
***
Greg walked through the garden looking this way and that. After speaking to the other servants, he’d found out that Zarra was here. The garden, however, was composed of hedges that, while immaculately trimmed, were rather tall and easily obscured one’s line of sight. He’d already been moving around for a few minutes trying to find her without success. It wasn’t until Greg heard sniffles that he got a clue as to where the woman might be. Walking around a few hedges full of vibrant purple flowers, Greg found the woman standing alone dabbing away at her tears with a white handkerchief.
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Greg couldn’t help but show a cocky smile even as he spoke. “Are you crying for me?” He asked.
“You are alive!”
Greg couldn’t help but arch an eyebrow at Zarra when these were her first words to him when she turned around and saw him. Clearly this woman knew a lot more about her husband than she was letting on. People didn’t usually think that murder would be the first option that a merchant would go for. That she had been dreading his death, meant she knew that a merchant wasn’t all that his husband was. Walking up to her, Greg, reached up to the woman’s face and wiped away a tear from her eye. He knew perfectly well that this wasn’t an appropriate thing for a servant to do. He, however, wasn’t looking to establish a master-servant dynamic between the two of them anyway. At least not with her as the master.
“It seems you know more about your husband than you let on,” He said calmly.
The woman let out a snort between sniffles that sounded a mix of annoyed and amused. “The man seems to think that he married a brick wall given how much intelligence he seems to ascribe to me,” She relayed. “I just turn a blind eye to it because I don’t like the darkness in that world. It… it scares me,” She finished her words in a whisper. There was a yelp in the little clearing they were in as Zarra felt Greg’s hand land on her ass in an audible smack. There was a look of shock on the woman’s face as she looked questioningly at Greg. Without saying anything, Greg raised his hand and brought it down on the woman’s other cheek. SMACK!
“Wh… what are you doing?” Zarra managed to squeeze out.
“These are for hiring me despite knowing the danger you’d be putting me in,” He said in a hard tone of voice.
The woman’s gaze dropped to her feet, suddenly unable to meet Greg’s piercing gaze. Greg could see that she did indeed feel guilty about it. “B… but the contract, it…”
“The contract only prevents me from harming you,” he said. “I’m not trying to harm you, I’m punishing you,” He said even as another smack resounded in the clearing. Other than a small yelp when his palm connected with her ass, the woman didn’t let out any protests. Greg acted calmly but this had been quite a gamble on his part. The encounter with Sir Joram had made him go over the contract in his mind more closely just to see if there were any loopholes that the man could use against him. It was in this analysis that he realized that the part dealing with harm had to involve the intent of the actor, otherwise, it would be an untenable clause. If intent is not factored in, then causing the woman any kind of pain would be enough to trigger the contract. Say for example that she dislocated her shoulder, if the contract didn’t factor in his intent, then Greg would be unable to help her reset the limb. Otherwise, the pain that doing so would cause would set off the contract and cause it to attack Greg as if he’d broken it. Even a minor accident of any kind, even if it only caused momentary pain would set off the contract if intent was not factored in.
This was why Greg had been willing to take the gamble and see just how far he could push this loophole. The reason he was confident he meant the woman no harm was because regardless of what happened, Greg wouldn’t be harmed in real life. Despite signing the contract, he wasn’t actually tied to this woman for the next ten years. Despite his desire to kill him, Sir Joram wouldn’t be able to get to him within the day, which is all that mattered as far as the dungeon was concerned. As such, even as his hand came down once again on the woman’s rump, there wasn’t even a hint of malice in Greg, just a lustful fire that was being stoked every time his hand came into contact with her perfect ass.
After the fifth smack on each cheek, Greg spoke up once more. “This is for forgetting my warning that not even your husband can save you from me,” he said before continuing with his punishment, alternating between one cheek and the other. By this time, the woman was blushing in spite of herself. Greg was once again reasserting his control over her and despite knowing that it was dangerous and wrong, Zarra’s body was betraying her and reacting to it. “Finally,” Greg continued after each cheek had received another five slaps. “This is for marring your beauty with needless tears,” He declared. Even though she was being punished, a small smile played on Zarra’s lips at this. Greg knew that if someone pulled up Zarra’s dress, there would be red handprints on each of her cheeks. Still, he didn’t relent. He looked deep into the woman’s eyes even as he brought down his hands on her ass again and again.
The woman didn’t know at what point Greg transitioned from spanking her to slowly rubbing his hands over her sore ass. Despite only being a few inches taller than her, the young man had grown in her eyes so much so that she felt small before him. Here they stood, face to face, her large breasts pressed up against his firm chest, and eyes locked on each other, both unable to tear their gazes from each other. At the back of her mind, she was keenly aware of the fact that they were out in the open where any of the servants could come across them. The hedges, while tall, weren’t exactly a labyrinth. It’d only take a few days to get used to them and know how to navigate them and all the servants currently working in the house had been with them for at least a few years. As such, what they were doing was in every sense of the word unwise, risky, and dangerous all rolled up into one. And yet… she just couldn’t take his eyes off him.
There was such a relaxed air about the young man. It was as if nothing in the world could ever touch him. Part of her wanted to just dismiss it as the folly of youth and yet, another part of her so deeply desired to have that wide-eyed wonder and intensity with which he seemed to be living his life. What is it that the young man said? Death does not scare him, but to never really have lived is what he feared. Before she could stop herself, the woman leaned forward and locked lips with him. It felt like sparks of electricity were coursing through her even as their tongues danced a duet of their own, pushing and pulling, twisting and turning as they explored each other. Like a pebble carried along by a strong current, she found herself being swept up in the intense emotions of the moment. Never had she felt so alive. Never had she felt so safe in someone’s arms. Never had she felt so wanted by someone. Never had she felt so… guilty.
A sigh left Zarra as she pulled back from Greg’s lips and embrace. “Go,” She said weakly.
Despite the weak tone in which she said it, Greg could tell that she was being serious. Arching his brow at the sudden change in the woman, Greg asked in a serious tone. “What do you mean?” Greg asked.
“I was… I’m being selfish,” She declared in a self-recriminating tone of voice. “You said it yourself, I hired you knowing perfectly well that my husband could very well kill you for being my servant,” She relayed. “I… I was willing to see you lose your life for some petty act of rebellion against him,” She said, turning away from Greg in shame. “I… I’m not any better than he is!” She judged.
“What changed?” Greg asked. Although this new development threatened his access to the mayor’s dinner party, Greg wasn’t all too bothered about it. He still had the rest of the day to figure out how to get into the event, so this wasn’t a do-or-die turn of events. Instead, he was more curious about it than anything. “What made you change your mind?” he clarified his question.
Zarra smiled. “You, you fool,” She said with some measure of frustration. “You’ve rekindled in me feelings I never thought I would get to feel ever again,” She said. “To want someone and to be wanted right back,” She said. “To be important enough in someone’s eyes that they’d be willing to risk it all for me,” She said then, once more, turned away in shame. “I know, I know… It’s stupid and vain of me to want that, but it is what I’ve been craving all this time and like an unexpected ray of sunshine in the middle of a storm, within a few hours of meeting you, you’ve made me feel all those things,” She stated, her cheeks turning slightly pink. “I can’t just stand by and watch you get killed because of me,” She asserted.
Greg smiled. Taking a step forward, he took Zarra into his arms once more. Despite her weak protestations, the woman made no real effort to get away. “It seems I have my work cut out for me,” Greg said calmly. The loud sound of a palm meeting flesh resounded quickly followed by another surprised yip from the woman. “How many times do I have to tell you? Neither you nor your husband can save you from me,” He said with a smile.
“Is that so?” Greg and the woman snapped around to find Zarra’s husband, Sir Joram, standing a few steps away from them with a murderous gleam in his eyes. Standing on either side of him, were three burly men aside from the mountain of muscle that had been at the man’s side when they first met. Greg couldn’t help but notice that under the left eye of the three other burly men was the tattoo of a spider. From the cold manner in which they were all looking at him and the blades hanging from their belts, it was clear that they had only one purpose in coming here.
In the hands of the mountain of muscle, was a sizable chest which he wordlessly threw to the ground between them. Bursting open from the weight of its contents, a whole pile of golden coins spilled onto the ground before Greg. “Ten thousand coins in total,” Sir Joram spoke in a darkly amused tone of voice. “Would you like to count them?” he asked.
Several thoughts were whizzing through Greg’s head at that moment as he looked at the coins on the ground. The first was that he was an idiot. He had grown overconfident. His success with the Town-head’s wife in the real world and with the tailor’s wife inside the dungeon had made him a bit too daring for his own good. The other, more frustrating, reason why Greg was mentally kicking himself was because he had fallen for a trap that Olivia had already warned him against before. When he was still facing off against his uncle, Olivia had warned him about being made to play by his enemy’s rules. And yet here he was, having fallen for that same dumb trick. The guy had probably already sent for the three thugs and the funds needed to break the contract before he even met Greg. Greg just happened to return to the house with Zarra before the thugs got there with the money. To keep him from panicking, his enemy had told him that the money would be ready in three days and he, like a complete dumbass, had taken his word for it. Why he had chosen to believe what someone who was planning to kill him said, Greg couldn’t even begin to puzzle out.
Still, knowing that this wasn’t the time for self-flagellation, Greg turned his gaze back to the man before him. The smile that had been on his face hadn’t faltered in the least. “You seem to think that the contract has been protecting me from you!” Greg said in a cold tone of voice despite his smile. Greg held out a hand to the side and closed his palm. While his palm had been empty when it was open, it closed around the grip of a bow that was black as night.
This was the first time that Greg had summoned his soul bow both within the real world and the dungeon. The reason for this is because of Olivia’s explanation that Soul Gear grew in power with the user. The more powerful the user, the more powerful the soul gear. Likewise, the weaker the owner of the soul gear, the weaker the particular soul gear would be. Given that Greg was still a mundane human, the bow would be no different from any other mundane bow out there. And with Olivia having provided him with convenient tools such as the floating dagger set, he saw no reason to summon the soul bow.
Back inside the tailor’s shop, however, when Greg had begun to take stock of what abilities he had to bring to bear within this dungeon, the bow had been one of the two things he thought of. While he had better tools outside the dungeon, the same was not true within it, at least not presently. The other hidden card that Greg had available to him, was the STALWART blessing that he’d received as a reward for his first feat. Half of all physical damage received would be negated by it. When he first got it, Greg thought of it like an invisible suit of armor. Now that he was about to be in a fight, however, he couldn’t help but wonder how the blessing actually worked. Did it first let him suffer the damage and then heal half of it? Or did it negate half of the damage before it even reached him? Which one it was, Greg would find out soon enough.
Sending a cold glare Sir Joram's way, Greg spoke. “Before you annul the contract, perhaps you should consider whether you can afford to lose the protection it grants you,” He coldly warned…