"This must be the house of that bastard."
Zeus stopped in front of the subdivision house where everyone in the entire neighborhood was already asleep and quiet.
"A renting room is already occupied, I see," he thought after not witnessing any rent signboards in front of the house. "I guess, I am unlucky this time. I have no choice but to force myself inside."
The structures were made of tan stucco and wood slats and were erected around grassy knolls. A small, squat tower with a broad, slightly sloping octagonal roof on top. The peace and quiet of an older community. The surrounding area was amazing.
"Let's see... " Zeus took a bond paper inside his shirt. It was there for a very long time, for the whole day. He must have prepared it just for this moment, "... so they stole almost half a billion from my father's bank..."
When he glanced back at the home in front of him, it appears elegant and grand. Unlike the previous residences he'd visited, this one was the biggest windfall of his whole life. Even if it was a subdivision, the house stood out from the rest.
The owners inside must be pretty rich.
"Damn, how many people are after your money, idiot?" he murmured, jumping onto the house's balcony through the house's exterior walls.
After he landed safely on the balcony, a certain dark room appeared in front of him. It was really dark that even the moonlight didn't get through inside. But he must endure. He thought it would be a great opportunity to continue his work, which was to get the money.
"But yeah, I guess... since this will count as 18th, this will be the last."
Zeus entered the room and collided with an object that looked slightly like a box, or so he imagined. The room was bleak, cold, and completely dark. The room was silent and solemn, and he felt a shiver as the darkness overtook him. It was the most intense darkness he'd ever experienced. It wasn't just darkness that resulted from the lack of light, it was far eviler.
"Shit. I dropped something. Nobody heard me, right?" he thought. He paused for a while, and after observing the area, he thought, "All right. No one heard me."
The pitch dark environment was impenetrable. Zeus remained stuck to the ground, stretching his eyes as wide as he could, but he could only make out a weak silhouette of some faraway thing. There was nothing welcoming about the setting. It had a horrible odor, and the darkness seemed strange. Zeus attempted to slip out, but it was pointless; he was neither in nor out, too afraid to move lest he made a loud sound.
When he moved for another step not long after, he heard deep, loud breathing near him. It was a tense breathing of an unknown. Because the room was too dark for him to see, he couldn't identify who it was.
After turning an eye beside him, trying to see what it was, a penetrating clank of the pan was hit on his head. It was too painful that he didn't notice it bled afterward. When he lost his balance because of the impact on his head, almost stepping three steps backward, another attack ensued behind him. He got hardly stabbed by someone. It was too deep that it obviously got pierced through his gut.
It was intentional, almost looked like a plan just from the beginning.
"D-Did you get him?" a voice of a woman in her forties.
When Zeus discovered he'd been bleeding profusely, he couldn't move an inch or reach the balcony to flee. All he could feel was his vitality dwindling.
"Damn, did I lose?" he thought, staggering onto the wall until he dropped onto the ground. "Shit. Today's really not my lucky day."
The pain had subsided to a faint ache. The ache in his forehead and gut went from stiff to scorching, blinding anguish faster than he could blink. And, just as the agony was at its peak, it receded, like fog on the surface of a dreadful lake.
"Yeah, I got him," a man's voice in his forties as well, and though he said, "This has to be the person who's all over the news."
The pain rushed up to his gut like a bolt of lightning. He shivered. It erupted in his mind, blinding him with whiteness. He became dizzy as a result. The pain seemed like needles soaked in alcohol had been forced through his skin, as if his intestines had been replaced with ice and electricity had been plugged right into his spine.
Later on, when they heard a loud thud, which was Zeus's body falling on the ground, the woman turned on the circuit breaker to turn on the lights inside the room of her husband. After they saw Zeus left unconscious on the ground, they didn't hesitate to grab him with both hands to move and tie him up.
"We will get a reward for this. I don't know whether I should be happy or not. He chose our house for robbing us, but little did he know, he's a valuable opponent," said the woman as both of them placed Zeus on the chair.
"Now, don't get started. I told you earlier to be prepared; get a taser, guns, a plastic bag or something, rope or what... but you did nothing and didn't even trust me when I said we would get a reward out of this. What would you do when he's too knowledgeable about martial arts or killing, huh," the man argued, putting a duck tape on Zeus's mouth.
"All right. All right. I know. It's just that... I had no idea you'd know about all of this. I mean, where did you even get this information, huh," the woman talked back, placing her hands on her waist as he confronted her husband.
"I got it from the news of course while I'm at the cafe," he faced his wife, "That's the result. You're not always watching the news. You're just hanging out with the neighbors, gambling, and continually having A LOT OF FUN. Do you really have no clue why we ran out of money in the first place?"
"Why? Do you know the reason?" she yelled, eyes almost blurting out.
The man then face-palmed, "It was your fault!" it was a shout that even his wife didn't flinch out of it. It seemed like they're used to be like this, "It was your fault that we ran out of money! It was your fault that we had to steal from his money 3 years ago!"
The woman then slapped her husband, "Now, don't you dare blame that on me. Do you know why I tried gambling? It's because of your goddamn foolish ass! Only if your company didn't get bankrupt at that time, of course, I'd be free and maybe going to a beauty salon right now, not wasting money and betting everything I have. It was because of you why I had to do it! And it's you who stole the money, so don't blame me!"
Recording saved.
After they heard the voice of a woman on the technology, they glanced at where the sound came from. Right beside them, they saw a man holding a cellphone, standing straight and smiling. He recorded the whole thing including the best part of their conversations.
"Oops, I thought I turned off the volume... how unlucky."
Both the husband and wife had not expected this to happen, so they were left frozen in place, terrified and unable to utter a word. They had no idea who this person was or why he had appeared at this precise moment. And why was this stranger listening in on their conversations?
The intruder, Mr. Travis, looked back on his phone and turned on the camera video play button and again, aimed the phone at both of them.
"Please continue where you left off. Just don't mind me, I am really sorry for what happened. So please, you may now continue," he politely asked and pressed the video play button.
The couple didn't even realize that the guy they captured, was now on this intruder's shoulder. Mr. Travis didn't only record a videotape, he was also carrying Zeus on his shoulder as if he rescued him --- which they didn't know about.
"H-How did you get him?" the man asked, looking back on the monoblock chair beside them, where they placed Zeus beforehand. He then tensely looked back at Mr. Travis who's now about to head out on the balcony.
They were busy fighting over earlier. Now that they thought about it, they didn't concede this intruder since the beginning, maybe because of their loud voices perhaps. Both of them screwed up and their nervousness painted on their faces.
"Don't worry. All of us in here are all fair. I and this little man are both trespassers, and you are both thieves."
With the loud screams coming from the two earlier, they made the neighbors wake up from their shambles. Now that because of too much tension the two felt, they kept quiet that the neighbors went back to sleep again.
Mr. Travis's smile looked genuine but his eyes told otherwise. He was in a hurry so he went to the balcony and was about to hop on the ground while carrying the unconscious Zeus one hand on his shoulder.
"Before I'll go, be sure to prepare all of that half a billion you stole from the man you talked about. I don't care if I'll be put to jail for being an intruder, just repay everything you stole and we're done. In exchange, I'll surrender to the police and tell them I trespassed your property. You have my word," Mr. Travis put his phone inside his pocket and he then went for his chest to get something behind his blazer. It was a card filled with numbers, "Once you're done doing my request, send the money to that number."
The man was the one who received the card. When he took a glance at the card, he was too astounded to speak. His wife noticed him almost freezing in his spot so she looked at the card too. Both of them were now blurting their eyes out from too much surprise.
"H-He's from RG Group!" the man looked back at Mr. Travis but now he's completely gone. Maybe he finally jumped off the balcony. The blood of Zeus, coming from his stomach, looked like dripping all over the floor that it left a trace as to where they're headed.
"Damn, that royalty something group? Shit, we almost got our rewards out there, now we will be the ones to pay instead. How unlucky we really are," the woman lamented. Both of them didn't mind the mess they made, all they had to do now was to decide.
After Mr. Travis finally got in his car, he immediately requested his major-domo to come to the nearest hospital. Since Zeus was bleeding a lot, Mr. Travis worriedly applied a small treatment on his student's deep wound.
"H-He's bleeding a lot! What to do now?"
Mr. Travis was too anxious and distressed that he couldn't concentrate on what to do next after ripping Zeus's clothes off. He had to at least stop the bleeding. So what to do next after getting a close glance at his bleeding wound?
Only if he arrived at the right time will he be able to save his student's critical life right now.
How unlucky.
