Arc#1 Chapter 16: Night Visit
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Yikes. Quite a while has passed since the last post, huh? My bad, I've been busy!

Anyway, I finished my revisions! Here it is, I hope you like it!

=Lire ♪=

Zayne moved to sit down on a nearby chair as he observed Olivia close and lock the door.

"Oh? I thought you'd be a bit more... impatient?" She smirked while walking over to a cabinet.

"I'd like to get to know each other a little first." Zayne smiled. "Before we... get busy."

"Hm~." Olivia hummed as she took out a wine bottle from the cabinet and shook it a little. "I like the way you do things. How about we have a drink first?"

"Sure. Though I hope that's not what you sell in the tavern..."

"Ahaha. Of course not. It's from my personal stash." Olivia retrieved two cups from the same cabinet, gave one of them to Zayne, and poured him a cup. After pouring herself a cup as well, she sat down on the bed and crossed her legs, giving Zayne a good view of her pearly white thighs.

"I'm looking forward to it." Zayne knocked back the entire cup, drinking it all at once. He felt a sting in his mouth for a moment, but it quickly disappeared.

'She really tried to poison me... Heh.'

"Oh, you really know how to drink!" Olivia's eyes widened in amazement. She also gulped her drink down, her eyes never straying from Zayne's. Once she finished, a blush had already bloomed on her face.

"..." Zayne just sat there, smiling as he continued to stare into Olivia's eyes.

"Oh, my... are you just going to sit there and look at me? You can do more, you know?" Olivia's hands passed over her bountiful mounds as she licked her lips alluringly. "What are you waiting for... oh, come to think of it, I don't know your name. Fufu. Even though I was just about to do something so scandalous with you..."

"Right. My name is Zayne, by the way." He opened his mouth and tipped the cup to pour every last drop in, even going as far as to lick the cup's rim. Under the surprised gaze of Olivia, Zayne threw the cup away and casually said, "I'm waiting for your expression to change as you wonder why your poison isn't working."

Silence.

"...uh." For a moment, Olivia thought she'd misheard. "Wh-what did you say...?"

"I said," Zayne paused as he wiped his lips with his thumb and licked the traces of wine he'd gathered with it. "I was waiting for you to start wondering why your specially made poison didn't work."

"Wh-what!?" Olivia unconsciously took a step back.

"Am I correct in assuming that I should be very horny right now?" Zayne patted his crotch, which didn't have an obvious bulge at all. "Then after about... ten minutes? My throat would swell, making it hard to breathe or talk, and my limbs would start feeling like they were made of jelly... oh, wait. You wouldn't know what that is..."

"H-how do you..." Olivia didn't even register the unknown confection's name. She continued to stare at the man before her with a disbelieving look on her face.

Zayne sneered. "I know a lot about you, Ms. Olivia. Or rather, should I call you by your real name? Olivianna sierra Ainda."

"!" Olivia's entire body trembled as she fell to the floor in shock.

Satisfied with her reaction, Zayne stood up and walked to the nearby window. "Have you noticed how quiet it is outside? Usually, you'd hear some insect cries and whatnot. Or owls hoot as they hunt. But what do you hear now?"

Olivia couldn't help but turn her eyes outside. She realized that it was unusually quiet.

"That's because I cast a silencing spell around your room before I knocked. It just so happens that the spot close to the door is included in the area of effect." He gestured toward the rooms above. "It would be inconvenient if you woke up the others, after all."

"An O-Orator..." Olivia muttered the title that the Viridan Empire used to refer to the magic users under their employ as the horror on her face intensified.

"No. I know a lot of Words of Power, but I am not under the employ of the empire." Zayne shook his head. "I didn't come here to investigate how an absurd amount of people go missing in this area, if that's what you're worried about."

Olivia sighed in relief. Regaining a bit of her composure, she stood up and started backing away toward the bed to sit down.

Zayne smiled, knowing her true intentions. He made to grasped the air, using telekinesis to pull out the bottom drawer of the nearby cabinet. The entire thing came off and flew toward his outstretched hands.

"What!?" Olivia exclaimed as she bolted forward, but was stopped when she saw the lightning crackling from Zayne's hands.

"I advise you to stay where you are." Zayne shot the lightning bolt through the open window as a warning while he fished through the drawer. After a moment, he retrieved a fist-sized metallic ball that glowed an ominous red. He waved it around to show it to Olivia, the sound of something rattling around inside filled the room. "Quite the dangerous thing you have here. You got this from a retired soldier that you fucked and ate, right?"

The red ball was called a "Boom-stone", which was this world's version of a frag grenade. It was pretty much only used by soldiers of the Viridan Empire, and was of a relatively simple design.

There was something called a "fire-elemental stone" encased in a ball of iron. The iron casing had a very simple set of runes on it, which was set to create a small spark inside the ball once certain parts on the outer shell were pressed down on with enough force. Once the spark came in contact with the stone inside, it would explode after a few seconds. The iron shell that held the stone would naturally shatter from the force, sending shrapnel flying everywhere.

One would think that an empire that ruled over the entire central continent would have the brains retrieve all the dangerous stuff a soldier had when they retired... but that wouldn't be convenient for GMAG's plot, now would it?

'I didn't write anything specific, but I guess that soldier bribed someone or maybe even stole it. Well, I suppose it isn't important...'

He'd just made up a reason for Olivia to have a tool that could deal damage to Grant even though she was super weak.

Olivia bit her lips in frustration.

"Don't make that face." Zayne gave her a warm smile. "Even if you used this, It wouldn't do anything to me. I know a barrier spell and I even used that to block something more powerful than this."

Contrary to his words, Olivia's vexation grew. Her fists tightened as her nails dug into the flesh of her palm.

"Oh, man. Your face is surprisingly expressive, isn't it?" He chuckled as he rolled around the ball on top of his hand, even throwing it in the air and catching it again. "Even though you're sixty years old."

"..." Olivia sighed. It seemed like she'd become desensitized to being shocked. "You even know about that..."

"Haha. Oh, I know a lot about you, Miss Ainda." Zayne stowed the Boom-stone in the space within his ring. "I know how the thirteen-year-old Olivianna and her loyal knights were stranded on an uninhabited island after a terrible storm..."

"!" Olivia's eyes were as wide as saucers as she fell on her butt yet again.

"I know how your knights tried to keep you alive as best as they could throughout the weeks that you hoped for salvation..." Zayne paused as he used telekinesis to take out a new cup and a bottle of wine from a nearby cabinet. After pouring himself a drink and taking a sip, he continued. "I also know how they started butchering themselves just so that you could have something to eat."

"!!" Olivia's chest heaved up and down as her breathing started to grow erratic.

"I know how, after every single one of them had fed themselves to you, a passing fairy found you and helped you get back to civilization. Even going as far as to give you a blessing! Poison immunity and slowed-aging after reaching your twenties, truly something a noblewoman, submerged in all kinds of plots and politicking, would find quite useful."

"S-stop..." A tremor traveled through Olivia's hands as she tried to use them to back away from the Zayne.

"I know how... you were never the same afterward." Zayne stood up and walked toward the terrified woman. "Ordinary food just tasted like nothing after that, right? That's why you secretly used your status and wealth to sate your hunger. First, it was slaves. But then you didn't like how dirty and malnourished they were, so you moved on to the peasants in your territory."

"Stop!" Olivia covered her ears and shook her head as she tried her best to avoid Zayne's gaze.

"But tragedy struck! Your father lost a battle with a nearby territory, getting slain in the process. Fortunately, you, your mother, and your other siblings managed to escape due to the efforts of your knights, who fought valiantly to the death against your pursuers..."

"Stop! I said stop! Ahhh!!" Oliva screeched as she dashed toward the door.

Zayne snorted in disdain as he pointed toward her feet while rousing his mana, focusing on the vision of condensed darkness bending to his will.

<< Di Lim >>

Olivia crashed to the floor as she found a rope of black energy binding her legs together. After a second, the darkness spread to her arms, restricting them as well. No matter how much she struggled, she couldn't break free.

She looked up and glared at Zayne with eyes full of hatred.

"I'm not done yet, Miss Ainda." Zayne grinned as he walked over to her. "I don't want to hurt you, so please don't struggle."

"Stop calling me that!" Oliva yelled as she tried to kick Zayne away, but failed when he dodged her with ease.

"I guess you wouldn't like that, huh?" He nodded in understanding. "Since you pretty much ate your entire family. I suppose you feel somewhat guilty about that?"

"Ahhhhh!" A gut-wrenching scream escaped Olivia's lips as she crazilly tried to crawl toward Zayne and bite him.

"You and your family were unable to bring much of your fortune with you, so you had to live a frugal life in hiding... but what of your hunger?" Zayne casually stepped on Olivia's back as he continued his story. "With no domain to abduct peasants from, no money to buy slaves with, and no strength and might to take people by force, you were in quite a dilemma."

"Ahhhh! Stop!"

"But, what's this?! There just happened to be fresh food right next to you!" He smiled sadistically while looking down on the woman. "Your mother was sick, and your other siblings were too young to know any better."

"Stop..." Olivia screamed weakly as tears fell from her face. "Please..."

"One by one..."

"No..."

"You ate them." Zayne knelt down and grabbed a fistful of Olivia's hair, forcing her to face up from her prone position. "All of them, Miss Ainda."

"No! I... I didn't mean it!"

"How does it feel? You killed more of your family than the entire enemy army did! They only got your father and your only older brother, after all!"

"Stop!"

"But you killed seven! Seven members of your family! Good lord, that's more than thrice the amount the enemy killed!"

"Ahhhh!!! Stop, please!" Olivia begged as snot stained her face. "I really...! I really didn't mean to do it!"

"Mm. Sure you didn't." Zayne rolled his eyes as he let go of her hair, letting her head hit the wooden floor with a thud. "After that, as a girl barely into her teens, you had no way of providing for yourself, so you worked as a traveling singer. This also served to sate your hunger, since all you had to do was kill your customer discreetly. It'd be easy since they'd be exhausted. You learned about poisons while you traveled, managed to marry an inn owner, and lived happily for a few years while trying to suppress your hunger for human flesh until you couldn't take it anymore and ate him too."

Tears streamed down Olivia's face as the tension in her body was released. She had clearly given up any hope of resistance.

"For a while, you used the inn as a base to abduct travelers, gathering quite a lot of funds in the process, even having enough wealth to have an artifact custom-made for you. It was a fail-safe, right? If you ever got caught, you'd use this to kill everyone around you and run away. This is it, I believe..."

Zayne walked over to the bed and stuck his hand underneath the clump of hay that served as a mattress. After a few seconds, he fished out a silver rod the length of an average phone, glowing runes the color of grass carved all around it. He waved it in front of the despondent Olivia as he yanked off the necklace she was wearing.

The necklace was of simple craftsmanship, an ordinary string with a black stone hanging off of it.

"We can't forget about this as well. A sacrificial artifact that blocks a certain amount of damage. This is why you were okay with using a Boom-stone indoors, huh?

"..." Olivia looked at the rod and necklace with emotionless eyes.

"Moving on... since you aged slowly, you realized that you couldn't stay in the same place. Which is why you moved from time to time... this should be your fourth inn, yes?"

"...yes." she answered, wishing for this to end.

"Thank you for answering." Zayne nodded in satisfaction as he wore the necklace and threw the silver rod into his ring's storage. "Now, I bet you're wondering why I'm doing all this. There are two reasons."

Olivia's previously dejected face morphed into one sadistic pleasure.

"The first is that I enjoy this."

"..." Olivia took a second before what he said sunk in. Her eyes widened as she felt like the veins in her neck were about to burst from the maddening rage she felt at the moment.

Seeing her reaction, Zayne couldn't help but chuckle.

One of the things his readers seemed to love about his novel, GMAG, was how the villains always got fucked over. Over time, Zayne had also developed an enjoyment for them too.

Writing about how utterly helpless villains are as they watched everything fall apart was one of his guilty pleasures.

He also discovered that he was a sadist at heart as he made both his protagonist and his antagonists suffer.

Of course, Zayne had no intentions of sating his sadistic urges in real life. He loved Luna, so the idea of inflicting pain on her was something he would never entertain. Teasing her was all well and good, but physically doing so was out of the question. And although he'd done quite a few unlawful things during his years as a troubled youth, they were all things he did to survive, not out of malice or some twisted form of satisfaction.

But now?

He had an honest-to-goodness shitty person right in front of him. Zayne could be as sadistic as he wanted to this person without feeling guilty.

Olivia may have become like this due to the blessing that the mischievous fairy bestowed on her, but all the blessing did was give her urges.

She was the one who chose to actually answer those urges.

'I mean, even I sometimes look at kids and think how far I can kick them, but I don't actually do it.'

Even though his real intention for visiting Olivia wasn't related to it, he chose to enjoy himself a little bit on the side.

"My second reason is wealth." Zayne pointed in the direction of the village chief's house. "I know that just before the village chief got assassinated by his son, you were his mistress."

Olivia sighed. "What don't you know...?"

"I don't know. I just know that I don't know a lot." He chuckled as he continued. "You've got quite a lot saved up too, but the village chief was a big-named merchant in the past, right? He's got a huge stash hidden away that even his son doesn't know about. But you do."

"And you want me to tell you where it is," Olvia stated as she sneered.

"Pretty much. I'm also going to take your stash." Zayne nodded as he moved to sit on the bed. "Don't worry, I won't expose you. Or ask you to give me this inn too. I won't take any of your booze or whatever. Just the money and any Manatite crystals that you've got saved up. Anything else that's of value too, I suppose."

'I hope the chief's stash has a bunch of Manatite crystals...'

Although he hadn't told Luna about it yet, he could actually expand the dimension if he had enough Manatite crystals, which were basically crystalized Mana that condensed after decades or even centuries. The private dimension was only about a thousand square meters at the moment, but with enough crystals, he could theoretically expand it to the size of an actual world.

'Well, that would require a ridiculously large number of crystals though. An amount that I wouldn't be able to gather even if I stole every single crystal in this world and in the Demon's world.'

He also had the option of improving the house instead. Although the house had an option to fix itself, this came with the added caveat that you couldn't modify it — unless you offered Manatite crystals to the ring.

Even though he had no idea how to build a castle, if he paid with crystals, a castle could be built in a single day.

It was all very game-like in nature, but Zayne didn't think too much of it. It benefitted him and Luna, and that was all that mattered.

"And what makes you think that I'll agree?" Olivia smiled defiantly. "Why would I trust that you wouldn't tell anyone anyway?"

"Oh, we don't need trust."

Zayne roused his mana as he cast a spell.

<< Kon Torata >>

A thick, glowing golden chain appeared in Zayne's hand.

"When we have this." Zayne's grin grew deeper as he raised the chain and shook it lightly. Despite its obviously metallic composition, it didn't produce any sounds at all. "It's a contract spell. We'll just have to promise each other the proper terms. You will show me the way to the chief's hidden stash, give me everything else I want without hiding anything, and not divulge any information about me or my wife. In exchange, I will not harm you, bind you, and for as long as you live, I will not tell anyone about your secrets."

"..." Olivia gulped as she admired the chain's golden radiance.

"Unlike actual contracts, the spell does not acknowledge loopholes, and anyone who breaks it will die before they even defy the terms." He walked up and kicked Olivia in the stomach, flipping her over. Zayne also freed her hands' bindings. "You'll either agree to this..."

Zayne knelt down and let the chain touch her hand.

"Or die." Zayne's smile vanished as he fixed the cannibal with a frosty glare. "You saw me cast magic after all. If anyone informed the empire, they would doggedly chase me down to the ends of the earth to torture the words I know out of me. I can't let you live unless you agree."

"..." Olivia bit her lips in hesitation.

"Make your choice. But don't take too long." Zayne pointed upward, in the direction of the room they rented. "I want to get back in bed with my wife. She's prone to nightmares, so she needs me to be next to her."

He downed the rest of his drink and threw the cup away, controlling it with telekinesis to make sure that it landed firmly on a nearby table.

"Tick tock, Miss Ainda."

With no other choice, Olivia grabbed tightly onto the chain and closed her eyes as it glowed with brilliant light and dissolved into her and Zayne's arms.

Seeing this, Zayne smiled as he nodded in satisfaction. He stood up while simultaneously willing the darkness that bound Olivia to free her.

"A wise choice."

Announcement
Chapter Word Count: 3424
Last Edited: Sept 25, 2022

Jan jararan ran ran ran~!

Chapter over! Did ya like it? Lemme know in the comments!

If that's too much trouble, give the chap some hearts! Or maybe even give it a rating!

I'm rapidly running out of stockpiled chapters... and because of life stuff, it doesn't seem likely to fill up anytime soon. I have to work, after all. Otherwise, I can't eat! (Well, I probably could, if I just fully depended on my relatives, but that's way too embarrassing! I'd die mentally before I die of hunger!)

My answer to an inquiry about a Patreon:

Spoiler

Someone messaged me, asking if there was someplace they could read advanced chapters — like a Patreon — even if they had to pay. And although it flattered me, I just laughed. I don't really have enough material to build a Patreon! Lol. There are only about four chapters left until Arc 1 is finished. And although I have plans for the continuiation, I don't have time to write it out atm.

But the idea really got me thinking, y'know? If most of my readers are westerners, and they pay for chapters using dollars or euros or something... since the cost of living in my country is pretty low, I could probably live off of quite a cheap amount; from a Westerner's POV.

Heck, I only need around 200$ a month to live decently, as long as I don't need to pay rent. A meal here costs a dollar, three dollars max if you want something really filling. You could lower it further if you just buy ingredients and cook it yourself! (Which I can't...)

But then I quickly abandoned the dream. I mean, looking around other people's Patreons, the only people who earn that much have thousands of readers, y'know? I got reality-checked instantly.

So, if anyone had the same question as that beloved reader-slash-question-asker, here is the answer: I probably won't make one.

want to, I just don't have enough material at hand. Not enough fans. Lacking skills. Also, no time to write a whole lot.

And since I don't like gambling, I can't do the thing where I take a couple of months off from working just so I can build a backlog, then hope that story makes bank. I have neither the confidence nor the skills to pull that kind of shit off.

Sorry to disappoint, but no Patreon for the foreseeable future.

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