Chapter 93: The Promise

Yet that wasn’t enough.

BOOM!

Trish, who had been waiting outside for five minutes, watched as the two guards came flying through the walls of the building.

Through the holes they left behind, she saw Lord Aurion. Golden lightning arced across his arms, his eyes glowing with the same brilliant hue.

He was one of the richest men on the continent. That meant enough artifacts and education to make himself a top-tier mage.

"I wonder if I’ll finally get a break once I kill you. The Duke may be smart, but you’re another thing entirely. So I wonder what he’ll do once you’re gone."

He shot a bolt of lightning, expecting it to kill her outright.

Instead, it was immediately blocked by a wall of darkness. When the wall receded, it revealed Trish, smiling with her arms crossed.

"I know we’re in a remote location, Lord Aurion. But do be more discreet."

He finally lost it. Lightning traveled through his feet as he launched himself toward Trish like a literal bolt of lightning. It was as if the mana across the entire street had electrified and merged through him.

Even Trish was taken aback, surprised by the speed and already preparing her defenses.

But then, suddenly—

A faint black sphere of light manifested in the middle of Trish’s ribs. And she knew, by instinct alone, that it was the pill awakening.

And along with it came the knowledge to use it.

So instead she smiled.

It wasn’t the same Fate Erasure ability I had expected her to obtain.

"Bang."

Trish said, gesturing with a finger-gun.

And Aurion stopped. His hands were literally an inch from her neck. He didn’t know why, but his instincts were screaming at him to freeze.

"What?"

He looked down.

There was a deep hole in his chest. No, it wasn’t even a hole. It was a void, a black circle that encompassed his entire chest and reached through to his back.

But it was strange. If it was a hole, then he should have seen blood, guts, or even the light coming from the building behind him.

But it was just... darkness. As if she had opened a portal to the void on his chest.

"Stay still for a moment."

Trish said, reaching her arm toward the dark circle. With a quick pull, she held a heart.

His heart.

"So this is the kind of power Reyn was trying to get from that dark elf."

She seemed to hum, then looked back at Aurion, whose hands were still inches from her neck. But he couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

Both from fear, and from the sheer fact that all the organs in his upper body had disappeared into nothingness.

"Y’know, this actually gives me an idea. What do you think about being reborn?"

She giggled.

? ? ?

"And that was the entire story."

Trish told me everything while we both sat on the bed. All of it had happened in the span of a single week.

Honestly, I expected that from a villainess of her caliber. She was the third major antagonist, right after the Federation, after all. Of course she’d be able to achieve this much, especially after I accelerated her timeline.

Although the pill was a completely different thing entirely.

"The pill gave you stronger dark magic?"

"Pretty much."

"Then what about the stuff about being reborn?"

"Well, I said I wiped out the Aurion family, but that isn’t entirely correct. But don’t worry, I gave them a fate worse than death. Whatever was in that pill, it allowed me to skip almost three whole categories of dark magic. And with that came..."

She raised her hand, her veins turning dark as smoke and dust suddenly rose from the floor in front of us. Bones and flesh came with it.

Something was knitting itself together from the debris. And it was none other than the patriarch of House Aurion himself.

But now he was nothing more than a zombie.

"He was strong, useful. So I kept him like this, his body entirely mine to control, but his mind... I left his mind completely intact. He’s still conscious in there somewhere, but he’s just a prisoner."

I stared at the zombie. At the vacant, slack-jawed face that had once belonged to one of the richest men on the continent. The eyes were still there, still intact, and I could see something flickering behind them.

Awareness. Horror. The desperate, muffled screaming of a mind trapped inside a body that no longer obeyed it.

"Terrifying..."

She beamed at that. Actually beamed, like I’d just paid her the highest compliment imaginable.

"Thank you."

It seemed she had taken my preference for crazy women to its absolute literal extreme.

I let out a breath that was half laugh, half sigh. The zombie Aurion stood there, swaying slightly, its empty eyes fixed on nothing. A puppet with a living mind trapped inside. I couldn’t decide if it was the most horrifying thing I’d seen since arriving in this world or the most impressive.

Probably both.

"And the rest of the Aurion family?"

"Scattered and being hunted as we speak. They were the ones who were smart enough to flee before I finished the takeover. The ones who weren’t..."

She gestured vaguely at the zombie.

"Well. They’re in various states of the same situation. I didn’t keep them all. Only the useful ones."

"And the bank?"

"Like I said, fully under Brimstone control. Your father’s already drawing up the paperwork to make me the official head. Though I suspect he’ll want to discuss the details with you first."

She tilted her head, silver hair catching the candlelight.

"He was... surprisingly agreeable about the whole thing. I think he’s just relieved someone else handled it. He’s been sleeping for almost two days straight. Only waking up when I give him more paperwork to sign."

I could picture that. My father, the man who’d spent decades navigating court politics with cold precision, finally collapsing from exhaustion after a week of Trish’s relentless planning.

He’d probably woken up, signed whatever she put in front of him, and gone right back to bed.

"I’ll talk to him tomorrow."

"You should." Trish leaned forward, her violet eyes bright. "But tonight, I believe there’s something else we need to discuss."

The shift in her tone was unmistakable. The satisfaction of a job completed, the predatory confidence of a villainess who’d just proven exactly what she was capable of.

"You remember what we agreed on, don’t you, Reyn?"

"I remember."

"Then you know what I’m going to ask."

She rose from the bed, the violet dress swaying around her legs. She moved toward me slowly, deliberately, each step measured.

"I proved I can be useful, that I can be dangerous, that I can stand beside you without being a burden."

She stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell the faint perfume she’d started wearing. The same one from the mornings in the estate.

"And more importantly, I’m not just doing it anymore because I failed to protect you from one feeble assassination attempt. I kept my end of the bargain."

She placed her hands on my shoulders, leaning down until her face was inches from mine.

"Will you keep yours, Reyn~?"