The man almost couldn’t believe his ears, involuntarily gawking at Gabriel for a few moments. After a few short moments, be it due to the ridiculous statement or the adrenaline rushing through his body, he started to laugh.

“HAHAHA…Ah… Did you give the people outside the same offer? What did they respond with, eh?”

He could still smell the fire, the almost suffocating scent of smoke that rose from below, the unmistakable scent of roasted flesh. But there were no screams, no coughing. He knew what people sounded like when they were being burned alive, he knew the groans and screams that they couldn’t hold back.

But there was just nothing, an eerie silence barely broken by the crackling of fire.

“I did not harm a hair on their bodies.”

Yeah, the man expected an answer like that. A cold expression, a calm expression. Yeah, Gabriel probably hadn’t hurt a hair on their body as he killed them, he probably went for a hairless body part, or just tore them up from the inside out. Looking at that expressionless face, he felt that Gabriel was a person who could do something like that without batting an eye. A real good killer, a nightmare of a person to deal with.

What a shit-show.

“But you see, why should I tell you anything?”

The lips of the man curved up as he looked up at Gabriel. Thankfully, the situation sent loads of adrenaline pumping through his body, to the point where even his torn off legs were little more than a persistent throbbing at the back of his mind. It made him braver, allowed him to act more casually.

“I either tell you things and die, or don’t tell you anything and die. See, I die no matter what avenue I pick. So. Should I die while screwing over the one who’s helping me, or should I die while screwing over the person who’s killing me?”

Death was breathing down the man’s neck, he could feel its warm and comforting touch creep up his spine. Like a lover gently caressing you in bed. Yeah, he was going to die here, his legs torn off and his body trapped in this mud-like darkness that nipped at him every chance it got. He was being killed, so why would he tell his killer anything?

“That’s a fair point.”

Contrary to his expectations, and possibly his hope, Gabriel simply gave a short nod as he agreed with the man. He rose from his seat and strolled through the office, his gaze sweeping through the papers and documents that were scattered about.

He was naturally also looking out the window occasionally, keeping an eye on the burning carriage. Few people dared to get close because so much fuel had caught fire, the flames had even spread to the entrance of the store and were making their way up the walls. But some guards were rushing over in the distance, he wouldn’t be surprised if they had a water mage among them that could slowly suppress the fire. Well, he wasn’t planning on staying here for that much longer, quickly finding what he was searching for.

“Ah, here it is. Heywood Eltain, oh, you’re a baron?”

He picked up a document from among those scattered on the desk. Since this man was working as the owner of this shop, he obviously had to do business using his name. All the official documents would have his name.

“It’s good that you’re a noble, it makes this easier.”

Normally, having the man’s name would only serve as a start, but him being a noble made it much simpler. Gabriel had memorized the family names and locations of the various nobles in the empire, or at least those that lived in the area around whatever their current location was. Thus, he knew where the Eltain estate was located.

“Follow this street then take a left at the end, follow that street and then take a right halfway through, then another right after following that road until the end. And voila, at the end of that road you find the Eltain Estate, it probably wouldn’t take more than 15 or so minutes to get there if we left now.”

Gabriel strode over to the man as he spoke, picking him up by grabbing his neck. The shadows around them stretched out as he stood there, creeping up their bodies as they were slowly swallowed.

“A wife, two concubines, six unconfirmed lovers among the maids, five legitimate kids, and an assumed three illegitimate. Shall we go pay them a visit?”

Gabriel’s voice sent a shiver down the man’s spine, pushing aside even the gentle touch of death. Gabriel had done his homework, he used the Night Pack to investigate anyone that they might interact with in the future, anyone that might end up being an enemy. There were a lot of barons in the empire so it wasn’t anything in-depth like strengths and weaknesses, but he knew the general gist at least.

They sank into the darkness, one of Nergal’s tendrils curling up within the man’s mouth so that he couldn’t speak, or close his mouth for that matter. He didn’t have the darkness affinity so traveling through the shadows was extremely uncomfortable, even if you ignored the fact that he couldn’t breathe within them. Naturally, his torn off legs were also irking him more and more as the adrenaline wore off, but Nergal blocked the stumps so that he wouldn’t bleed out too quickly.

Gabriel popped out of the darkness at certain intervals so that the man could catch his breath, but he didn’t give him the chance to speak in the slightest. They always just sank back into the darkness, rushing through the shadows until they eventually reached their target, the Eltain estate.

“Now then… Where would you be hiding them?”

Gabriel’s voice felt like sticky slime as it reached Heywood’s ears, slowly sliding down his spine like a bony finger. Hiding in the shadows, literally, they could just walk past the guards and enter the mansion. Heywood saw the familiar maids and servants mill about, going about their business as usual.

And Gabriel’s gaze stalked them all from the darkness, those calm and unfeeling eyes inspecting each and every one of them. Nergal’s tendril still prevented Heywood from talking, but Gabriel could tell by his movements that he was desperately trying to speak. Still, he ignored the man and slowly made his way through the mansion until he found what he was looking for.

“It’s nice that she’s taking a bit of responsibility for their education, it’s the sign of a good mom.”

He commented as he gaze up from the darkness. Heywood’s legal wife was currently with two of their legitimate children, as well as someone who seemed to be a teacher and two maids. Gabriel raised an arm, the darkness around them twisting for a moment as ice gathered in his palm.

“I’m going to kill them now. But don’t worry, they’ll die quicker than you.”

Heywood couldn’t breathe as the words struck him, but this time it wasn’t solely because he was trapped within the darkness. He didn’t feel any falsehood in Gabriel’s voice, just a cold emptiness, like words you just read off a page without caring about them.

“…”

He struggled in Gabriel’s grasp, trying to chew on the tendril in his mouth to force out the words. But he couldn’t break free and was simply met with Gabriel’s eyes for a brief moment as he lowered his gaze to look at the struggling man.

“Don’t think it unfair or cowardly. You tried to lay your hands on my wife-to-be so wouldn’t it just be fair if I return the favor by laying my hands on your family?”

Heywood couldn’t speak, but Gabriel had been in similar situations, done similar things, enough times in his past life to know what most people tended to shout out when he brought them to this point. But well, it wasn’t like he ever listened.

The ice that had gathered in his palm wriggled for a moment as he angled his arm, pointing it at the woman. His finger twitched and the ice moved in tune, jolting forward.

“MHMPH!”

Heywood groaned in utter panic for a moment before strength left his body, his tears finally falling. But just then, the ice also stopped, just before it shot out of the darkness. It hung there quietly, looking as if it could fly forth again at any moment.

“Well, Eltain? Are they dying today or not? I’m not very patient, so you’ll have to be quick.”

Gabriel’s fingers twitched a few times, the jagged lump of ice moving in tune with his motions each time. The limp man in his grasp could only nod his head weakly, his tears already refusing to stop when the tendril in his mouth finally disappeared.

“If I tell you everything, can you at least promise that I’ll be the only one here to die? None of them have anything to do with this, you’ll gain nothing from taking them down with me.”

How foolish it was, to suddenly beg the man who was about to kill you to not hurt the others. Especially after he had made such a big deal of it being better to die while spiting the one who was about to kill you.

“There is little point in killing the uninvolved, it doesn’t even help with venting.”

Gabriel’s answer, if it could even be called that, at least served as a measure of comfort. There was still that coldness, that calm and unfeeling emptiness. But perhaps that was why it felt a bit more trustworthy. The emptiness, the calm mind, had no need to do things that served no purpose.

Then again, in this situation, what choice did Heywood have other than to just believe?

“Silvanos, it was an order from Silvanos De Earhart. Sedate Alice De Vritara and hand her over to the men of Duchess Giselle so that they could work out a deal at a different location, do so and you can ensure the continued peace between our nations.”

Defeated, the man could do nothing but spill it all. Silvanos De Earhart, the third prince of the empire, exactly who Gabriel had expected. But Duchess Giselle… He hadn’t expected the royal faction of the Kasarias Kingdom to be involved. If it was Duke Quinterius of the noble faction, he could understand it, Gabriel was currently in the process of actively working against him after all. But if it was Giselle…

“So that’s the game we’re playing.”

He unconsciously let out a mutter as he pieced things together. He could already guess that Alice would be overjoyed once she found out who had kidnapped her. The royal faction that had ties to the third prince, the noble faction that had ties to the Sorin ducal family, if they played their cards right then they could cut down a whole lot of annoyances in one go. And better yet, they could do it in a justifiable manner.

Gabriel’s hand clenched around Heywood’s neck, jagged thorns of ice sprouting from his palm and digging into the man’s flesh. He died with one last surprised, and pained, groan, his last words drowned out by the bubbling blood that pooled in his lungs.

Gabriel let go of him, dropping him into the darkness, where Nergal eagerly rose up to swallow him. The man’s bones crunched as he was shredded to pieces, Gabriel dissipating the shard of ice that was supposed to kill Heywood’s wife.

“Now then… How to blow it all up…”

He turned and walked away while muttering to himself. Alice would probably not make a move until she was confident that things had reached a proper breaking point, when the proverbial kettle was about to boil over. Gabriel’s job would be to make that happen.

He was quite eager to get it over with quickly, something lurking in his depths seething so quietly that even he couldn’t really notice it.

Well, the most important reason he wanted to get things over with quickly was actually painfully simple. The last thing Alice said to him was that she would be waiting. He did not want to keep her waiting. So he had to drag out all the little gnats so that they could stomp them as quickly as possible.