My body, which had felt heavy as lead from being tense all day, felt distinctly light.
When I clenched my fist, I could feel my power returning.
After much struggle, I had finally regained my original strength.
‘How long have I waited for this moment!’
I almost let out a loud shout, unable to control my emotions, but I barely managed to suppress it by clenching my teeth.
I had only regained my ability, and I needed to move quietly until I rescued the people in the basement and those trapped in the cages.
“What, my item pouch is here too.”
While sweeping up the S-Rank antidotes, I was lucky enough to find my item pouch.
It was right in front of me, just as I was wondering how I was going to carry all those antidotes.
Besides mine, item pouches that had lost their owners were shoved into a transparent container like garbage.
They were probably the belongings of the people who had been captured over time.
Fortunately, my item pouch had a unique material and color, so I recognized it immediately.
Since they were useless without the owner anyway, they seemed to have been casually tossed aside, allowing me to find it easily.
‘Luck is on my side today.’
But whenever I thought this, the outcome was always bad.
Misfortune inevitably followed when good fortune came.
It was just as I was hurrying to grab my item pouch.
“Return to your room.”
I was so excited that I failed to notice the approaching footsteps.
I turned around late, and Rod was stretching out his hand as if to grab me.
I was surprised, but of course, I didn’t let him grab my hand.
If it had been a minute ago, maybe, but now, I snatched his wrist and twisted it back.
It was an instinctive action that came out without my conscious thought.
Yet, Rod didn’t even wince in pain; instead, he strongly gripped my shoulder with his other hand.
I took a step back at the formidable force, letting out a faint sigh.
It was because I knew it wasn’t Rod’s intention, and I was reluctant to knock him down.
“Rod, move aside unless you want to get hurt.”
“…”
Despite my warning, Rod showed no sign of backing down.
He seemed entirely focused on blocking me, with not the slightest bit of interest in the fact that I had regained my ability.
There was no benefit to continuing this standoff here.
For Rod’s sake, too, I had no choice but to choose the method of quickly resolving it myself.
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you.”
With those words, I knocked away Rod’s hand gripping my shoulder and immediately struck his side with my knee.
His body shook violently from the impact, which contained considerable force, and he momentarily staggered, losing his balance.
‘He’s tougher than I thought.’
Still, as long as he possessed a human body, he couldn’t be completely devoid of pain.
As proof, the blank, stiff expression on his face flickered with tiny spasms.
In any case, I didn’t want to prolong the fight here.
Before Rod could stumble and regain his posture, I slammed the back of his head with my elbow.
It was a calculated, decisive blow.
Rod’s eyes rolled back white, and he soon collapsed onto the floor with a loud thump.
Since his body was so massive, the items displayed nearby scattered in all directions.
‘Huh?’
And among the things that fell to the floor was a flower with a familiar shape.
It looked like a beautiful purple pansy.
It was none other than the poisonous grass that made abilities disappear.
I had thought he might have stored a large amount, but unexpectedly, only about a handful remained.
“It would be annoying if he chased me… Should I feed him some of this?”
With his level of endurance, he might wake up quickly.
I would tie his arms and legs before leaving, but given his physique, that might not be very effective.
Since I had plenty of the antidote anyway, if his consciousness returned after I dealt with Igor, I could restore his ability then.
“Gloves…”
I took out a pair of latex gloves from my item pouch and put them on.
It might be a slight overreaction, but I couldn’t rule out even a small possibility right now.
I didn’t want to waste the valuable antidote unnecessarily due to my complacency.
‘Is this fine?’
Considering that the unconscious Rod couldn’t chew, I mashed the flower as finely as possible.
Fortunately, the flower was thoroughly dried, and the result was a perfect powdered form.
Without waiting, I pried open Rod’s mouth and sprinkled the powder in.
Since the amount was small, it dissolved instantly in his mouth.
Since brewing it into tea was also very effective, this direct method would surely work instantly.
“I’ll be back later, so sleep well.”
As soon as I left the grocery storage room, I sped up toward the parlor.
My heavy, sluggish body felt so incredibly light.
Thanks to using the Evasion skill for rapid movement, it felt like it took less than 15 seconds to arrive.
But the moment I stepped into the parlor, one strange thing caught my eye.
The fireplace, which should have been closed, was ominously wide open.
That meant someone had gone down to the basement.
“Damn it, did he notice already?”
I naturally thought it could only be Igor.
Rod was unconscious, and even if a housekeeper had noticed the secret space, they wouldn’t take such a dangerous action.
However, after stepping into the basement a moment later, I had no choice but to stop at the unexpected sight.
There was a completely unexpected person there, not Igor.
“Who do you think you are to be next to Lord Igor! You scum like a rag.”
At first, I was confused about who it was since I only saw his back, but the orange hair was an unusual trait in this mansion.
The person raging with an extremely agitated voice was clearly Ilya.
He was continuously kicking the man who had given me information, completely unaware that I had entered.
“Look at yourself if you have eyes. You’re just a broken toy. That’s why you were abandoned like this.”
“Cough…”
His rank was A-Rank, I think.
Such a high-grade Awakener was violently assaulting an ordinary person without hesitation.
Even if he held back his strength, it wasn’t a level that an ordinary person’s body could withstand.
The man, covered in blood, was limp as if he would lose consciousness at any moment.
His condition was already poor, so he looked extremely precarious.
I was momentarily frozen by the brutal sight, but I firmly set my mouth and walked inward.
Even so, Ilya didn’t notice me at all.
“I’m different from trash like you.”
Instead, he roughly grabbed the hair of the man collapsed on the floor and pointed toward the other rooms.
His eyes were heavily bloodshot with excitement, and he exaggeratedly curled one corner of his mouth upward.
Outwardly, he was completely mocking the confined people, but I could sense the core of the emotion he was pouring out.
Jealousy, inferiority, and, most of all, a strong obsession with Igor were deeply embedded.
The odd feeling I had during our first encounter was exactly this.
I hadn’t noticed it then, but now I could clearly tell.
Even if it stemmed from a twisted possessiveness and some perverted desire, Ilya was clearly jealous of the people who received Igor’s attention.
Just by seeing Igor’s indifferent reaction yesterday, I could guess how Ilya was usually treated.
An invisible man or a useless existence.
He was taking out his fury over not receiving proper attention on innocent people.
Moreover, seeing the people instinctively crouching down as if to avoid his notice, it seemed this wasn’t a rare occurrence.
Perhaps some of the bruises on the people were marks left by Ilya.
“P-please save that person! He’s going to die at this rate!”
At that moment, Mateo, who had been quietly holding his breath and watching the scene, spotted me and shouted urgently.
He must have just noticed the item pouch that hadn’t been there earlier.
Ilya, startled by the loud shout, belatedly turned to look in my direction.
He seemed quite flustered, as if he hadn’t noticed any presence at all.
“You bastard, how did you…”
But his widely opened eyes soon narrowed and stared intently at my upper body, which was only covered by the gown.
Specifically, the area of my neck that Igor had bitten repeatedly.
Although I hadn’t checked myself, there must have been significant teeth marks left.
“To pretend you were so valuable, how dare you.”
Ilya gritted his teeth and clenched his fist as if he couldn’t contain his rage.
His blazing eyes looked ready to pounce on me at any moment.
Absurdly, he seemed to have jumped to a ridiculous conclusion just by seeing the marks left on my body.
“I have enough potions, so the marks won’t show.”
“…”
I quietly held my breath at his twisted, upward-curling lips.
It seemed his intention was to beat me until I was on the verge of death and then fix it with a potion, but of course, I had no intention of playing along.
The moment I stepped into this place, my mood had been significantly soured.
Swoosh.
Ilya soon lunged at me, but every single one of his movements looked incredibly slow to my eyes.
His wide strides, and his fingers tensed as if to grip my neck.
At this speed, his skill wasn’t very good even for an A-Rank.
He seemed to have tried to move quickly to show an overwhelming display, but the result was utterly pathetic.
Of course, if my ability hadn’t returned, I would have been taken down in the blink of an eye.
That was probably why Ilya was so self-assured.
CRASH—!
I immediately grabbed the back of his head and slammed it into the iron door.
As I slammed it hard two, then three times, broken teeth and blood rained down from his mouth.
“Gah!”
After slamming him about five times, his straight nose was abnormally bent, and he gushed blood.
When his eyes started to roll back, I threw him onto the floor and climbed on top of him.
I wasn’t going to let him pass out easily, not when the fight had just begun.
“Did you hit Salim too?”
SMACK!
Although I clearly slapped him with my palm, it sounded like a punch.
Ilya, whose cheek swelled up instantly, had his head turned and couldn’t seem to regain consciousness.
His expression showed that he completely failed to comprehend the current situation.
