Chapter 224

"Looks like I won't be short of targets to 'heal' from now on."

After Vice Chancellor Bonaparte had finished his introduction and the Alchemy class let out, Rowan muttered to himself, scooped up the round Kuriboh, and made his way to the spacious rooftop with practiced ease. He was going to eat lunch up there.

As for the luxurious bento, his vampire maid Camula had naturally gone ahead to buy it from Ms. Dorothy's shop!

By the time Rowan arrived, even his familiar lounge chair was already set up. This time, though, Camula had added something new: a beach umbrella, planted firmly beside the chair.

"This woman's learning..." Rowan grumbled.

He didn't believe for a second that the vampire maid had prepared the parasol for his sake. Obviously, it was mainly for herself...!

He immediately began weighing the possibility of switching to a new form of punishment.

Once he had settled onto the lounge chair with a satisfied sigh, he ate his bento, mouth open and waiting to be fed, and suddenly remembered the matter he had been mulling over during Alchemy class.

A "deal" with old man Kagemaru.

Chancellor Sheppard, that bald man, was leaving the Academy's island today to report to the board. If he waited any longer, it would be too late.

With that thought, Rowan turned his eyes to the Shadow Charm ring on his hand. Faint ripples of red energy were flickering across its surface, as if it were anxiously calling out to him, desperate to talk.

"Looks like Chairman Kagemaru couldn't bear the deathly silence after being sealed in there for one night," Camula said knowingly, still holding the luxury bento and fork.

Rowan even caught a gloating smile on her face. After all, when you got right down to it, old man Kagemaru was the mastermind who had exploited her wish to revive her clan and tricked her into working for the Seven Stars for free. Now that she was watching him get "tortured" by a certain devious fellow as well, she felt much of her resentment ease!

"Hum!!"

Rowan took control of the dark ring and let Kagemaru out for the time being.

Before long, a familiar, balding old man's figure drifted out of it in a flash of red light and hovered in the air a short distance ahead. Just like the round Kuriboh, he was now entirely in the form of a Duel Spirit.

"At last, I can see the wonderful world outside again!" The moment he emerged, Kagemaru nearly burst into tears.

The voice was as aged as ever, but all trace of the bearing he'd had as a proper villainous boss was gone. All Rowan could say was that solitary confinement really did work miracles...!

A villain boss locked away for a little over a night, and this was how he turned out. Though time inside the ring seemed to flow a bit differently from time outside.

"Boy... Let us have a proper talk about a deal!" Before Rowan could even open his mouth, Kagemaru had already recovered himself and proposed it first.

"You can start by telling me what you've got." Rowan nodded at once. He liked people who got straight to the point!

"As someone who still has a young life ahead of you, you must be quite interested in things like wealth," Kagemaru said quickly. "I can trade you that."

"You want to use your fortune to buy your way out of there?" Rowan frowned, stroking his chin as he considered it. If that was the offer, he could just about consider it. Still, leaving someone like Kagemaru loose with nothing to restrain him didn't seem entirely wise. Who knew what trouble he'd stir up next...

But a moment later, he heard an unexpected request.

"No. I would like you not to release me from the seal completely. Let me stay in my present state, like Camula's situation."

Kagemaru explained, his expression grave and earnest.

"In the time I spent sealed inside, I thought carefully about whether eternal life was truly possible. And I came to this conclusion. Now that I have lost the power of the Sacred Beasts, to be sealed inside this Shadow Charm, existing like a Duel Spirit that can materialize... is that not a form of eternal life as well?"

"..." Rowan stared at him, stunned.

He very much wanted to say, You absolute genius, you. How did you even come up with something so outrageous...

Still, when he thought about it, it really was another kind of "eternal life." It was just eternal life without freedom.

"In exchange, you may decide how my wealth is used whenever you need it. The rest of the time, I will keep managing it under my own name and standing. How does that sound?"

Kagemaru's old face glowed with hope as he asked. He was quite confident in the feasibility of his own proposal!

"Hmm... As ideas go, it's actually not bad," Rowan said thoughtfully.

For him, it would be nothing but a benefit. He'd not only gain plenty, but also eliminate the worry of letting Kagemaru loose for good. With the Shadow Charm ring, won through a Shadow Duel and holding the old man sealed within, he could pull him back in at any time. There was no need to fear losing control of him.

The only real drawback was that part of the fortune would end up spent by Kagemaru himself. Rowan didn't believe for a moment that, after achieving his "eternal life," the old man would keep working hard to earn more money.