Chapter 23 – Monster (2)
“You do not need to remain silent.”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Quite the contrary actually, it would be better if you went ahead and spread rumors that we are getting married.” Lacias said.
“I don’t mean to insult your judgement, but are you sure? Your Grace?”
“Do you think I’m joking?”
“No, of course not! Apologies, Your Grace.” Said the manager frantically nodding at Lacias’s cold attitude.
He did not know the reason why the Duke had asked him to spread rumors about his marriage, but instinctively he felt that following orders from him would be the right thing to do. He survived based on his instincts and they haven’t failed him yet so he kept relying on them.
Lila looked turned back to Lacias as when the manager was out of view. “Do we really need the rumors?”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t people congratulate me on my marriage?”
Lila was confused as to why he needed congratulations for a contract marriage but she just assumed that he liked the attention. After walking a little from the exit, they arrived at their goal, Room 3.
“Here it is.” She said placing her hand on the doorknob.
The number ‘3’ was clearly carved on a metal plate with gold etchings. Before Lila could open the door she felt a warm hand wrap around her own. She looked up into Lacias’s dark eyes as he calmly lifted her palm.
“I’ll go alone from here.”
Lila wasn’t about to back down just because of the power of the moment. “What? But we agreed to go together, we formed a contract.”
“I’m the one saying it’s all right, so what’s the problem?”
“But-.”
“I do not want to show you what I’m about to do, so Please wait a bit, Lila.”
“I … I understand.”
Lila could not do anything since she had no right to refuse Lacias changing the contract nor did she have a solid reason to stop him. Lila took her hand off the doorknob and stepped back. Lacias smiled at her decision and went inside, closing the door behind him.
*
It was a small organised room with a few comfortable-looking couches laid around it. The spy was sitting on a chair to the right reading a book alone when he noticed the door opened. His face turned pale-white like he had just seen a ghost.
“Ah, hello.” Uttered Lacias with a piercing voice.
The spy began trembling from just the sheer coldness of the voice. “Yo- yo- your Grace-”
“Nice to meet you.” He said while cracking his knuckles.
The spy’s eyes were drenched with fear, he knew that his life depended on getting out of this situation, yet his reactions were still slow because the fear of not knowing what Lacias would do next was getting to him. When he finally built up enough courage to get up, Lacias sprinted towards him and grabbed his pale neck.
“Tell me, Was it nice selling information about me?” His voice was consistent with that of the devil.
“Please… Let … let me live-”
“You’re not really thinking about begging me not to kill you.”
The grip on the spy’s neck was so tight that he could barely form words. “Uh … ah … Please-”
“Why are you begging for mercy when you made this happen?”
The spy took a deep breath and finally formed a sentence “I … I made a mistake … Please … forgive me just once!”
Lacias held the scrawny spy in the air like it was nothing. “You should have been ready for the consequences when you sold the information about me”
The spy was dumped on his chest and was breathing intensely as he finally got hold of his neck again.
Lacias continued like nothing significant was happening at that moment. “I had been quite angry at you giving the slip.”
The spy remembered his situation and clung onto Lacia’s trousers “Please don’t ki-”
With a swift kick to the face the spy let go and sat on the floor barely moving. “Now, tell me who’s your leader?” brushing off his trousers.
“.…”
The spy refused to speak, unlike when he had been begging before. The spy was clearly more afraid of the person in charge of him more than himself. But Lacias was planning to change that.
He squatted down towards him until he could hear his faint breaths. “It seems like you want to die.” He hissed.
The spy looked up from the floor to see eyes with clear murderous intent staring back at his own. Lacias’s arm began to light up, and small blue shining spheres appeared around him. The spy went into a spasm from the sight.
“Ahh! Superhuman ability! Monster!”
“Are those your last words? Poor choice.”
The spy couldn’t let out more than a groan when the spheres flew straight to his neck. They were as powerful as bullets after all. The room suddenly felt very quiet as only the buzz of the lighting could be heard. The spheres returned back to Lacias’s arm and disappeared without a trace. Only a corpse remained now.
“Idiot.”
Lacias exited the room and closed the door with an innocent face as if nothing had happened. Lila was waiting for him with folded arms as she leaned against the wall across the door. He smiled deeply as he was reminded of her.
“Lila, it’s over. Come here.”
She had a confused expression. “So soon?” Did he confess already?
She had thought it would take quite some time since the spy had been a match to Lacias in the original story.
“Did the spy really confess that easily?”
“Yes, he did. He seemed to have given up on everything after realizing the situation.”
“Well, it’s nice that things ended that way.”
Lacias smiled beautifully like a docile puppy, without a trace of the merciless man he had been just seconds earlier. “Yes, really nice.”