房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

Chapter 284 – A Meeting At The Execution Ground (part 3)

Zoemi, Raun – and Raun's men keeping a certain distance – walked over to the podium in the center of the execution ground.

It wasn't a gallows, just a wooden structure that would elevate the criminal and the executioner for the cheering crowd to see.

The execution itself would be done with magic – ice magic- whenever the appropriately strong ice magician would be available, and if that option wasn't available, a magician confirmed to be stronger would be tasked with delivering justice to the criminal.

Although there wasn't anything special about the podium at the first glance, the atmosphere surrounding it was indeed quite eerie as if the countless lives that met their end on top of it had changed the rather simple construction into something threatening.

"How about now? Did actually seeing the place where you will end up had opened your mind to the weight of your sins?"

The vice commander of the Light Order has clearly dropped the subtlety, or maybe he wasn't actually one for them in the first place – either way, the words he used left very little to misunderstand.

"…"

"Hmph~!"

The black-haired attendant didn't respond, standing motionless in front of the podium, seemingly overtaken by the inevitability – which pleased Raun enough to scoff triumphantly.

|After all, that kid is nothing much.|

The armored man thought to himself with satisfaction – although he couldn't stop himself from feeling relieved.

After all, from the research he had made himself, the black-haired boy seemed like an absolute nightmare to deal with, completely different from what the queen had offhandedly shared with Raun.

Thankfully, it turned out that the queen's informants were far better than the ones the vice commander of the Light Order could afford…

"…"

Meanwhile, Zoemi was squinting his eyes glaring anxiously at the unique shadow of Ludier Galamroze, the nobleman turned murderer, who was in fact on his quest for revenge on the head of the Deizno family for the death of his family.

"…"

Zoemi furrowed his brows and glanced over at the armored man escorting him, who was keeping a safe distance at any time while obviously cautious of him.

There was no doubt that Roun Vevesti Lutroan wasn't seeing the same thing that Zoemi did.

Funnily enough, after some closer inspection with more and more shadow magic spells Zoemi came to a rather unusual conclusion.

The unique shadow of the scruffy pale-blue-haired man wasn't actually a shadow at all.

The most obvious clue to that was that it wasn't connected to anything at all, simply hovering a foot above the podium itself.

This discovery was problematic…

If it wasn't a shadow, then, what was it…?

Since no one else seemed to notice it meant that only the black-haired boy could see it…

…and that's about it…

What could be the trigger…?

"You are the lucky one, kid. This time you would be able to leave this place – usually, it's impossible for criminals to leave this place alive."

"…!"

The armored man encouraged by the boy's silence openly snickered at him, pinning him as guilty even without the official verdict of the case that was still very much open – and his words shook also seemed to shook the black-haired attendant to the core, which made Raun even more confident.

|…no way… but, if sir Ludier was killed, there is no way that the queen would be interested in using me as a scapegoat – she would have the main culprit…!|

Unfortunately for the vice commander of the Light Order, Zoemi wasn't actually stunned because he suddenly started fearing for his life – instead, the words of the armored man had given him an idea about the apparition itself.

"…"

So instead of answering to, or even acknowledging Raun, the black-haired boy breathed out and closed his eyes, diving into the world of dancing shadows – and as he began to suspect, he realized that one of the closest one – a shadow basically pushing itself onto him as if it had a will on its own – was the death attribute mana, fueling Aspakeony necromancy magic.

Zoemi didn't really want to use it, as he really didn't want to learn that Ludier Galamroze was actually dead…

"…shadow theater… corpse puppet…"

Still, he couldn't just leave that place without actually checking up on the apparition that very well might have been the ghost of the ice magician, so the black-haired boy sighed and muttered under his breath so that his incantation wouldn't be picked up on.

"!!!!"

The moment that his mana turned into the death attribute one and the spell activated, Zoemi became ghastly pale and faltered, barely able to keep himself up.

Although recently his mana increased to a ridiculous extent, the spell he was using at the moment was draining it out with such a ridiculous speed as if Zoemi's mana reservoir broke apart – and if not for the steady flow of the mana that he was siphoning out from the present members of the Light Order, there would be nothing left in it.

"Haha! My, oh, my – I haven't expected you to be that weak-spirited!"

Raun openly laughed at the staggered boy, mocking him for what he himself assumed to be fear over the end that the queen had in store for him.

"Say, why don't you try getting onto the podium yourself? You know, as a rehearsal for the real…"

*GRAB*

*SCREECH*

"!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!????!"

The vice commander of the Light Order confidently approached the faltering black-haired boy and boldly tried to get him up on the pedestal – but that didn't end up well for him as the pale boy slouched and grabbed onto his arm to support himself – completely crushing the ornamental part of the armor that his bare hand got ahold of – which was followed by the ice-cold stare of the completely lifeless eye that reflected no light and seemed to have pierced right through the armored man's helmet as the young attendant turn his face to him.

"…lord Lutroan… thank you for showing me this place – I will be eternally grateful for the mindfulness you showed me… Now, could you please take me back to the carriage as it seems I have been struck by a sudden weakness…"

"…!"

The ice-cold voice that came out of the boy's barely opened lips sent chills down the backs of not only Raun but all of his men too.

Actually, it seemed like the temperature in the surrounding area had in fact gone down by a significant margin without any apparent reason, which added to the eeriness of the place to a disturbing degree.

"Wh- wha… I…"

The vice commander of the Light Order mouthed in confusion, both shocked and mesmerized by the lifeless eyes that seemed to be sucking him in like a bottomless abyss – then suddenly a glimpse of pale blue light shone through the darkness!

"Please."

"Yes!"

Despite the seemingly polite choice of words, it clearly was a straight-up order given by a seasoned leader that gave power to all of what was previously spoken, and even someone with a difficult character who had trouble following orders – like Raun – obeyed immediately and supported the black-haired boy without even realizing what he was doing.

Without the moment of delay, Zoemi was escorted back to the carriage and sent off by the armored man – who even ended up bowing his head towards the carriage as it was going away.

"…that kid is dangerous…"

"…yeah…"

The other members of the Light Order standing behind Raun whispered to each other while trying to get rid of the chill.

—–

*pomf*

"Z-Zoemi…?!"

Inside the carriage, as soon as the door closed the black-haired boy swayed and leaned on the shocked green-haired boy with all his weight, dropping the crushed piece of metal on the floor, causing him to let out a confused voice.

"…sorry, Reo… I… need some mana…"

Zoemi breathed out, doing his best to cling onto consciousness, and reached out with his shadow to the greatest aggregation of mana available to leech off of it as his connection to the group back in the execution ground was severed…

"…"

"Zoemi…?"

…but ended up losing consciousness regardless, while somehow still maintaining the drainage, confusing Reo to no end.

"Geez… what was all of that…?"

Seeing the peaceful face of the unconscious boy, the green-haired capture target breathed out and smiled.

After a few seconds, Reo ended up blushing and ended up moving the black-haired boy so that he would end up with his head on his lap.

"Waah…! I am so bold…!"

Reo gasped with his face bright red and…

*BOING*

"!?!?!?!?!??!"

Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, Reo's body shrunk – with the exception of his chest that increased in size dramatically enough for his shirt's second and third buttons to straight-up break unable to withstand the added volume.

"Wh-wh-wh-whaaaat?! Why now?! I just changed the mana crystal too…!"

The brown-haired green-eyed person gasped in a higher-pitched voice, and hurriedly reached for the difficult to access now vest's inner pocket, and took out a small crystal box covered in intricate runes.

"…seriously, this one was supposed to last longer…! I barely have any spare ones left… what If I run out before I could buy some new ones…?"

They complained with a pitiful expression, pouting their full lips and reaching out to their pant's pocket to take out a glowing green crystal the size of a peach seed.

"What a ripoff, I definitely never going back to that shop ever again… this could have been really bad…"

The brown-haired green-eyed person breathed out in disbelief and anger and changed the dim blue crystal inside the box for the brightly glowing green one, and closed the box…

*WHOOSH*

Which caused the box to light up with white light and in turn changed the person back into the green-haired boy whom Zoemi knew as one of the capture targets, Reo.

"Sorry for lying to you about the real reason why I want to gain the recognition of my father…"

Reo sighed, making a sad expression while gently patting the unconscious Zoemi's head.

"I don't want to take over the family – I just want to prove to them that I can be trusted, so they would let me live free…"

He murmured as his hand trembled.