CHAPTER 56: PSYCHIC AMPLIFIER PROTOTYPE

DANIELLE KEINE

1 ½ YEARS AGO

It’s been ten minutes since Senor Wingate went to the restroom, and there are still no signs of him coming back. We’re currently conducting an operation to capture Cheng Du alive, and this is not the time for him to be wasting each minute. But even with such flaws in our operation, I can still make a joke about it.

“Ohoho! Looks like senor lost it in the restroom.” I said with a sassy laugh as I covered my mouth with my paper fan. Even if I’m two tables away from Alphonse and Serena, I made my comment loud in order for them to hear it.

“What’s taking him so long?” Alphonse mumbled. “That moron won’t be sleeping on the toilet, isn’t he?”

“Actually, he might.” Serena made a sorry smile. She stood up and planned to check on Xenon on the men’s restroom, but Duke Corasell stopped her.

“Cheng Du is back.” 

As we saw the fat doctor approaching us, Serena went back to her seat. Cheng Du also sat on his respective seat and apologized. 

“I’m sorry, my dear guests. I just had to check on something before we get started. Now that all my preparations are done, all my attention will be focused on you guys.” Cheng Du said to Serena and Duke Corasell.

“We are greatly honored, Duke Cheng.” Duke Corasell said. “About the deal-”

“Hey, why won’t we have an intermission number first?” Cheng Du said. “I’ve never heard our precious Serena Maizono perform in the stage personally. I would love to hear her beautiful voice.”

Hearing those, Alphonse and Duke Corasell wrinkled their foreheads. This Cheng Du looks a lot fancied by Serena’s presence. It’s like he deeply desired Serena even though he’s no longer at the age of being perverted. Somehow, I can feel this odd thing that he might be planning something bad on the adorable dragonoid. 

I get the feeling that this party is a trap after all.

“I’m fine with it~” Serena made a jolly smile as she stood up. Then, she took the stage and hold on to the mic. Seeing that Serena is obeying his request, Cheng Du put a clean smile on his face.

The dukes and duchesses in this hall started to applaud when they saw Serena readied for her performance. The crowd went wild when Serena immediately changed her dress from a royal blue nightgown into a pink idol blazer and miniskirt with her Forge magic. Then, she started her performance with a loud pumping-up shout.

“Serena Maizono, here I come~”

As the speakers unleashed joyful bubblegum music, Serena started to sing with her wonderfully soft and gentle voice. Her tone is so cheerful that has a magical effect on giving smile to people. It might be the wavelength of her voice that is responsible for curing the depression of everyone who hears her, or her jolly energetic movements that synchronize with the music which defines the true meaning of entertainment. I think if Xenon ever saw his dragonoid perform, he will certainly fall in love.

“Go, Serena! Go!” Z cheered.

“Tres Bien, Serena! Tres Bien!” I cheered too.

“Her voice is excellent. But not manly enough. She needs more muscles on her voice.” Nathaniel made a comment while sulking. He must be depressed that an adorable idol is much more popular than a muscle-buffed model like him.

Nathaniel always sees Serena as a rival in terms of popularity and career even though he doesn’t hold a match against the most beautiful dragonoid. Well, I always wanted to side with my own dragonoid, but I admit that a greasy macho man would often scare people rather than to entertain them.

I noticed that Alphonse and Duke Corasell are not blending the crowd's amusement to Serena's performance. Alphonse kept on checking the surroundings, maybe waiting for Xenon to come back. On the other hand, Duke Corasell has this worried frown on his face, and his eyes are fixated on the smiling doctor who is busy watching Serena perform.

Doctor Cheng Du can be seen snapping his fingers as he nodded like a bubblehead, syncing the beats of Serena’s song. He seemed to be so entertained, and I find it odd because of most old men only like classic songs, and not trendy bubblegum music. This crazy doctor has strange preferences for his age. 

It took a few more seconds of the song until I realized that Cheng Du is no longer syncing his finger snaps with the beats, but instead, I can see a repeating pattern. A morse code. I focused my eyes on Cheng Du’s snaps and it took about fifteen seconds before I could decipher the code.

The morse code translates: “Kill them all.”

“Merde!” I cried out loud.

Suddenly, the speaker started to burst out a weird exploding noise that is certainly not fit on Serena’s song. I felt a wild and fast invisible sonic boom that is similar to the pulse of a heart. Everything in the hall of this hotel became red for a split second, and the red tint disappeared after the pulse. After that, the loudspeakers no longer produces jolly bubblegum music, but a series of beats that can be heard in a submarine’s sonar.

Every dragonoid in the area froze. Serena stopped singing and dropped her mic. Z stopped cheering. Nathaniel stopped sulking. Even the dragonoid maids and butlers on this hall stood stiff and dropped the trays and all the food and liquor on it.

One dragonoid maid accidentally dropped a bottle of wine to a duke. Furious, the duke stood up and held the frozen dragonoid’s collar, yelling “What the fuck are you doing, you filthy slave lizard!? This suit cost me a fortune, and you can’t pay it with your life!”. 

To the duke’s surprise, the dragonoid maid ignored him and picked up the broken bottle of wine instead… and shoved it to the duke’s throat.

“Kill… Kill them all…” The killer dragonoid maid muttered as she stabbed the human duke’s throat over and over again.

“K-Kyaaaaaaahhhh!!!” One of the duchesses cried as she saw the horror of a man’s guts splattering out.

Then, everything went chaotic. All the dragonoid maids and butlers started improvising their weapons, using trays, fork, broken glass bottles, and even spoons to kill each and every human they find in this very hall. Food and wine drops started to shower around the place as the royal party became the very definition of a bloody mess.

Suddenly, Cheng Du went up the stage, picked up the mic as he made a huge proclamation. “Yes! Hahaha! It worked! The Psychic Amplifier Prototype worked! Now every dragonoid in this place is now under my command!”

“This is… impossible!” Duke Corasell cried in fear. “This is madness! Duke Cheng, why are you doing this!? I thought you wanted to have the Dragonoid Rights Bill passed!”

“You fool, Duke Corasell!” Cheng Du smiled like a devil. “You think you can double-cross me!? You can't, you goody-shoe bastard! Hahaha! Anyway, you are gravely mistaken about my purpose. I never wanted equal rights with filthy lizards. All I want is to have a perfect dragonoid army that can dominate the whole world!”

“You’re crazy!” Duke Corasell bravely shouted as he made an empty threat. “Release the dragonoids from your control at once!”

Cheng ignored Duke Corasell and he went in front of the frozen Serena. He bowed down and held the most beautiful dragonoid’s hand, like a knight honoring his queen. Then, Cheng spoke these words: “Oh Queen of the Dragons, heed my wish. Please lend me your power as you exterminate all humans in this place.”

“Serena!” Duke Corasell cried out loud, but Serena never seemed to hear him. Serena is only hearing the mad doctor’s words.

“Yes. I will exterminate all humans for you, my master.” Serena said to the doctor. As Cheng released Serena’s hand, Serena created a bow and an arrow and aimed it to Duke Corasell. It is at this point that Serena is indeed under the influence of Cheng’s mind control technology.

“Serena, wake up!” Duke Corasell cried. “Don’t lose to his influence! Xenon will- Gah!!!”

The duke failed to finish his sentence as Serena unleashed an arrow that pierced the duke’s right shoulder. With such a clean shot, Duke Corasell was put to the ground, and lots of blood started to ooze from his body. Serena continued to make a cold glare at the fallen duke as she stepped forward, switching her weapons to two short swords.

“Kill. Kill them all.” Serena muttered brainlessly.

Meanwhile, on the same table, Alphonse can be seen running around in an attempt to escape from Z who is acting like a berserker in a battle frenzy. Z threw fireballs, waterballs, windballs, and earthballs to her knight, with the full intention of killing him.

“Fuck! Stop it Z! Fuck! Fuck!” Alphonse cried as he parkoured over the tables, evading the projectiles his mind-controlled dragonoid unleashed. “I’ll fucking cut your monthly allowance, you piece of shit! Stop this at once!”

There was a chill that ran down my spine. I can feel a murderous intent on the person beside me. When I looked at my most trusted dragonoid Nathaniel, I was completely horrified. He’s no longer on his butler suit, and instead, he’s showing off his greasy buffed body. He has this cold stare at my face, his crimson eyes glowing.

“Stockpile Buff: 20%,” Nathaniel said. At that moment, his muscles on his biceps, triceps, abs, and chest became twenty-percent bigger.

With such a boost in power, Nathaniel relentlessly flipped the table towards me.