Sergei slammed his fist into Mikhail’s belly in which he ended up throwing blue blooded saliva unto the ground.

“Now, Mikhail. I’ll just make it clear from the get go. We only want two things. The manal figure and the girl with the spirit gem. Unfortunately, I think the girl just escaped now. With our gem non the less. But no matter. You have the manal figure, right? We’ll be taking it” said Sergei threateningly.

Despite the beating he received Mikhail couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, he had to. The situation just became so funny, he just couldn’t control himself.

“What’s so funny? Or you’re just simply losing it?”

“I’m sorry, my old pal. But you should check my dimensional bag yourself” said Mikhail with a grin.

Sergei looked at him with contempt and dipped his hand into his bag. Soon his eyes became wider and the realization hit upon him. A dagger, some papers, food box and…

“The figure. I don’t have it. And I’ll save you the trouble. Neither he nor she has it” said Mikhail as he pointed at Diego and Amanda with his chin.

“Y-you…You little, BITCH”

Sergei’s whole body stiffened and his face tightened. He roared at Amanda who was still lying on the ground, all tired.

“Why didn’t you make sure he had the figure. That was the deal”

Amanda got up and knitted his eyebrow.

“What are you talking about? I told him to bring it. He said he had it. In fact, I saw him pulling it out and putting it back in his bag when we left”.

“Well, now he doesn’t have it. Did you steal damn thing for yourself? Stop trying to trick me little missy”

“I don’t have anything. I lost the gem that you gave me and I have nothing now” said Amanda with frustration in her tone.

”She isn’t lying, Sergei. I figured that she was planning something and hid it. You were always the one to get worked up over nothing” said Mikhail with a smile.

“You little jester” roared Sergei but soon a smile appeared on his face.

“You’re always pissing me off. Befooling me at every moment I thought I had it my way”

“Haha. Maybe you and I are bound by fate. I, destined to make a fool out of you and you, destined to get hot headed about it” said Mikhail and threw his most sincere smile at his captor. Seeing it Sergei grinned. 

“Oh, you’ve only begun to see how boiling hot my rage is going to get. I’ll wipe that smile off of your face, I promise you that”

He gave one last eerie look at him, turned around to face his followers.

“Check Amanda and Diego’s bags. And let’s drag them back to base”.

“Oh, you know their names?” asked Mikhail.

“I did my research, Mikhail. I’ve been keeping an eye ever since I found you in this game” said Sergei.  

“As much as I despise stalkers, I’m fine with it if it’s you” said Mikhail with a giggle.

Before Sergei could answer his remarkable statement, Amanda screamed at him. This time with more anxiety than anger as she was being dragged by Sergei’s men.    

“What are you doing? I did everything as you told. Tell your people to let me go!”.

“No, why would I? An extra hostage and not to mention it being a girl such as yourself. Why would we ever pass down this opportunity”.

Amanda’s face was struck with horrible realization. She struggled hard and managed to slam her head against one of the men behind her. She got to her feet and ran towards Sergei but when she barely took a few steps one of Sergei’s men caught her by the hair and easily threw her to the ground.

“Y-you lair!” she screamed.

Sergei couldn’t help but laugh at the fallen girl. He slowly walked towards her and sat next to her.

“What are you doing? I’m not their friend. I’m not. I never liked any of Mikhail’s goons. And none of them liked me. Just let me go. I don’t even need t-the-“

Before she could finish talking Sergei quietly caressed her cheeks and smiled.

“Do you really think we were men trustworthy to be negotiated with? We do whatever we want. The earth gem I gave you.  There was a tracker hidden in the gauntlet so we can keep an eye on you. We could have simply ganged up on you while you were unaware and stolen it back at any time. But you remained so occupied in your small little world. Thinking that you’re gonna make it big time. It’s nice to have dreams once in a while. But sometimes, you gotta wake up and face reality”.

Amanda teared up and she looked at him with utter contempt and hissed at him with desperation.

“You, you fucking bastard! I’ll never forgive this. If I get my hands on you I’ll choke you to-“

Sergei grabbed hold of her neck and slammed her to the ground.

“Like this?”

The fiery attitude of hers was immediately changed to fear and panic, it was clear in her eyes.

“You’re my property now, little maiden. If you wanna keep seeing the light of day again, do not ever talk to me with that voice. Be gentle and nice and we’ll think about sparing your sorry life after we have a little fun with you”

Tears trickled down her cheeks and she looked away in disgust.

“Oh, how disappointing. Take her away”