Chapter 175: The Beginning of the Real Start

The morning sun hung bright over the villa, casting a golden glow across the manicured green lawn and the small pond.

I leaned against a thick wooden pillar on the patio, while watching the chaotic scene unfolding on the grass.

On the lawn, Leo and Mia were running around in circles. Both of them were holding small wooden toy swords, wildly swinging them at each other while making loud dramatic shouting noises.

"Take this! Ultimate Vampire Slash!" Leo yelled, lunging forward with his wooden stick.

"Double block!" Mia giggled, crossing her tiny wooden sword against his with a loud CLACK.

"Not bad, little miss!" I called out from the patio, acting as their official referee. "Point goes to Mia for that clean defense!"

"Hey! No fair, Big Brother Woo Jin! She used her small size to cheat!" Leo whined, turning around to pout at me.

"A wins a win in battle, kiddo!" I laughed.

Underneath my amused expression, however, my brain was still trying to process the absolute absurdity of the situation.

I glanced toward the center of the yard.

Aunt Elena was sitting comfortably on a high-backed wooden chair beneath the shade of a wide parasol. She was wearing a simple white dress, holding a cup of hot black tea in one hand while lazily watching the kids play. Behind her left shoulder stood Raymond, completely poised in his dark blue suit, his arms folded behind his back with absolute perfection.

’Wait a second...’ I thought, my eyebrow twitching slightly as I stared at my aunt.

’Why is she even here right now?!’

In the original story lines, Aunt Elena’s entire character setup was built on being an extreme workaholic! She was the Director of the Hunter Association! She was supposed to be buried under mountain-loads of paperwork, high ranked gate raids, leading emergency healer teams, and living inside her office twenty-four seven!

How on earth was she taking a random paid leave on a sunny weekday just to sit in the backyard and watch vampire kids play with wooden swords?!

Did something happen? Or is she just secretly lazy when she’s at home? I shook my head, deciding it was safer not to ask her directly.

Near the edge of the small pond, Carmilla and Viora were sitting side-by-side on a thick, dark tree bark that had been placed near the water.

Suddenly, a tiny pebble bounced off the back of my foot.

TAP.

I blinked and looked down. Then I turned my head toward the pond.

Viora’s hand was extended outward. She had just flicked a small stone straight at me. When she saw me looking, she raised her hand and made a subtle, urgent gesture with her fingers, telling me to come over.

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, but walked over toward the pond anyway.

"What happened, Viora?" I asked, bending down slightly.

Before I could finish my sentence, Viora reached out, grabbed the collar of my shirt, and pulled me down toward her level. She leaned close to my ear, her voice dropping into an extremely low, serious whisper.

"Woo Jin..." she whispered, her gaze remaining fixed on the water in front of her. "I can sense someone watching us. High up... on the rocky hill behind the villa. There are hostile eyes on this house."

I froze for a fraction of a second.

My eyes instinctively drifted upward toward the steep, rocky forest hill that overlooked the back of Aunt Elena’s private property. It was a perfect spot for long-range scouts or snipers.

’Hostile eyes?’ I thought. ’Are they assassins from the Black Faction Guild? Or maybe scouts sent by the some other evil organization?’

Before I could even reply to Viora, I noticed Aunt Elena quietly taking a slow sip of her tea under the parasol. She didn’t even turn her head toward the hill. She just gave a subtle, almost invisible nod of her chin toward the man standing behind her.

Raymond instantly caught the signal.

His grey eyes flickered with a cold, terrifying glint for a second before returning to his usual polite, soft expression.

He stepped forward with fluid grace and clapped his hands together once, attracting everyone’s attention.

"Pardon the brief interruption," Raymond spoke with a warm, gentle smile. "Young Master Woo Jin, Master Leo, Miss Mia... I must temporarily step away for a brief moment to tend to a quick personal matter in the back storehouse."

"Aww, okay Mr. Raymond!" Leo shouted, waving his wooden sword in the air. "Bring back some cold juice when you come back!"

"Certainly, Master Leo," Raymond bowed smoothly.

He turned on his heel and began walking toward the side of the villa with calm, steady steps. The moment his figure passed around the corner of the stone wall and out of our direct line of sight, his presence completely vanished into thin air.

Seeing Raymond leave, I turned back to Viora with a relaxed expression.

"Don’t worry about it," I whispered into her ear. "It’s already being taken care of."

Viora’s head snapped toward me. "Already?! But I just felt them a few seconds ago! Who is taking care of it?!"

"The butler," I replied plainly.

"The... butler?"

"Yep. So just relax and act normal," I gave her a small pat on the shoulder, straightening my back. "Alright kids! Back to the match! Leo, keep your guard up! Mia, watch his footwork!"

While the loud, cheerful laughter of the kids resumed on the lawn, a completely different world was unfolding high up on the dense, rocky hill overlooking the property.

High up among the thick pine trees and heavy grey rocks, four men in pitch-black tactical gear were lying flat on their stomachs.

Each of them wore high-tech camouflage cloaks that bent the surrounding light, rendering them practically invisible to the naked eye. They carried heavy, dark-metal sniper rifles equipped with anti-mana silencers and heat-seeking scope lenses.

They were top-tier assassins from the notorious "Shadowfang" Syndicate—an elite mercenary group that specialized in silent high-ranking Hunter assassinations.

"Target confirmed," the spotter whispered into his low-frequency comms device, adjusting the focus on his heavy binoculars. "The Saint of Life is sitting in the backyard. She appears to be completely unguarded."

"What about her nephew and the unknown kids on the lawn?" the lead sniper asked, his finger hovering steadily over the heavy trigger of his rifle.

"Collateral fodder. Ignore them," the spotter replied coldly. "Our contract is simple. Load the S-Rank Dark Poison bullet. The moment she takes another sip of that tea, fire through her mana barrier. Even an S-Rank Healer cannot purge black-venom if it hits her heart directly."

"Copy that. Locking on target..." the sniper murmured, aligning the red crosshairs of his high-tech scope straight onto Elena’s chest.

"A truly impressive setup," a quiet, extremely polite voice spoke from right behind them. "High-density dark alloy bullets, thermal distortion cloaks, and a low-frequency mana suppression field. You gentlemen certainly came prepared."

WHAM!

The four assassins went completely stiff. Cold sweat instantly erupted across their bodies, freezing the blood in their veins.

They were master stealth operatives. Their light-bending cloaks suppressed every single trace of heat, sound, and mana. How could someone stand directly behind them without triggering a single warning sensor?!

The lead sniper didn’t even hesitate. Driven by pure survival instinct, he whipped out a dark mana dagger from his waist and spun around, thrusting the blade straight toward the intruder’s throat.

CLINK!

The dark dagger stopped dead in mid-air.

Raymond stood there calmly in his crisp suit. He had casually caught the high-frequency combat blade between the tips of his finger and thumb.

The lead sniper’s eyes widened in sheer, horrifying shock as his gaze traveled up the intruder’s face.

The grey hair... the perfectly tailored suit... the piercing, cold grey eyes that looked down on them like an god standing above mere insects...

"R-Raymond..." the assassin choked out, his voice shaking so violently his teeth chattered. "The... The Lightning Emperor..."

"Ah, so you recognize me," Raymond smiled faintly, his tone polite yet bone-chillingly cold. "Then you should also know the first rule of this mountain."

BZZZZZZZZZT!

Before any of the four mercenaries could scream, a single spark of pale blue lightning flickered at the tip of Raymond’s fingers.

The volume of pure, compressed lightning mana didn’t explode. It didn’t make a loud thunderous noise. It was so perfectly controlled, so insanely condensed, that it instantly enveloped all four assassins in a quiet dome of terrifying electrical force!

ZIP!

In less than half a second, the light-bending cloaks, the high-tech rifles, the dark poison bullets, and the four elite mercenaries were instantly turned into grey ash.

Not a single drop of blood hit the dirt. Not a single blade of grass was burned.

The pale blue lightning vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the rocky hill completely silent once again.

Raymond calmly pulled out a clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket with his gloved hands, wiped the faint specks of dust off his face, and placed them neatly back into his pocket.

"Attempting to disturb Lady Elena’s morning tea..." Raymond murmured softly, adjusting his necktie with a smooth brush of his hand. "How utterly rude."

Back in the villa yard, less than two minutes had passed.

"Ha! I got you!" Leo cheered, lightly tapping Mia’s shoulder with his wooden sword.

"No fair! My shoe got stuck in the grass!" Mia pouted, puffing her tiny cheeks out.

Suddenly, the soft sound of footsteps crunching against the gravel path echoed from the side of the house.

Raymond walked out smoothly, holding a small tray with small glasses of chilled berry juice balanced perfectly on top. His crisp suit didn’t have a single wrinkle.

He walked past me, giving a small, polite nod, and stepped right up to Aunt Elena’s side.

"It has been taken care of, M’Lady," Raymond reported in a quiet, low voice, bowing his head respectfully. "Just some stray pests on the upper ridge."

Elena didn’t even lift her eyes from her cup of black tea. She simply took a light sip and gave a calm, satisfied hum. "Good work, Raymond."

"Thank you, Lady Elena," Raymond smiled gently. He then turned toward the kids on the grass. "Master Leo, Miss Mia, fresh juice has arrived!"

"YAY! BERRY JUICE!" the two vampire kids shouted, dropping their wooden swords and sprinting toward the patio.

I stood there by the patio pillar, watching Raymond casually hand out the juice glasses while chatting politely with Carmilla about the weather.

’I... I really live with these people now, don’t I?’ I thought, my mind going completely numb as I rubbed the back of my neck.

An S-Rank Saint of Life who takes random tea breaks... The world’s third strongest hunter who uses Legendary-Rank lightning... And a house full of vampires drinking berry juice.

I slowly looked up at the bright blue sky, letting out a long, quiet sigh.

Why am I slowly getting surrounded by absolute peaks? Is there really no suffering of losing battles in my life even in this world?!

"Woo Jin!" Viora’s voice called out from in front of me, snapping me out of my inner monologue. She was holding two berry glasses. "Aren’t you going to drink your juice?!"

I blinked, looking at the warm, chaotic, and completely ridiculous scene in front of me, before a faint smile crept onto my face.

"Yeah," I replied, taking one of the glass of the juice. "I will, thank you."