Viktor’s gaze moved from the glittering gold to the other contents of the trunk.

  He picked up one small, round object. He had only seen it once, and very briefly, but there was no mistake. This was the explosive Blondie had used to decimate his merfolk and froglings. And there was not just one. He could count at least a dozen simir bombs nestled among other items in the trunk.

  Did Rhea know? That she was sleeping every night next to something that could vaporize the entire house, along with everything inside it?

  He examined the firebomb in his hand, hoping that he wouldn’t set it off by mistake. The sphere was perfectly round, its surface smooth except for some crude symbols clumsily scratched into it. There was no fuse, no ignition mechanism, nothing to indicate how it worked. How the hell did Blondie detonate it?

  Should he take one and bring it back to the dungeon for his gremlins to study? These creatures were clever and curious, but safety was always at the bottom of their list of priorities, so he wasn’t sure giving them something that could blow up was a good idea.

  Putting down the explosive, Viktor’s attention shifted to the strange gauntlet-glove things that Blondie had always worn. They were covered in metal ptes, but they didn’t seem to be for protection. After all, she had no armor. It was strange to wear gauntlets while leaving the rest of the body exposed.

  He had seen her metallic birds flying through the air, following the movements of her fingers. The gloves moved them, he was sure. But how exactly? Once again, he couldn’t figure out the mechanism. Not unless he broke them apart to see their inner workings.

  There were also other items that caught his eye. Or rather, one item. They varied in size, but it was obvious they were different versions of the same thing. It was a metallic object, shaped like a cylinder, with a rod passing through its axis.

  What the hell is this? Viktor narrowed his eyes. If Blondie kept so many of these, they had to mean something. He turned the rod between his fingers, half-expecting a hidden compartment or trigger to snap open. But nothing happened.

  As he searched through the trunk’s secrets, while his eyes were busy with the oddities, his ears did not stay idle. In fact, they were on full alert, straining to catch any hint of movement elsewhere in the house. Blondie could return at any moment after her bath, and it would be very hard to make excuses if he were caught red-handed. She might think he was trying to steal her gold. Thankfully, the woman seemed to take her time in the bathtub, giving him a comfortable window to poke around uninterrupted—

  Wait a minute.

  Was it a bit too long for a bath?

  If she started before Rhea left the house, the bathwater should have gone cold by now. Something was wrong.

  He didn’t give a damn about the woman, but he had accepted this job, and any failure was unacceptable. His pride wouldn’t allow it. So he closed the trunk, stood up, and left the bedroom.

  He made his way to the back door, pushing it open and stepping into the backyard. As soon as he was outside, a chill breeze washed over him, making him shiver.

  Finding the shed was embarrassingly easy. As expected, it was an old and dipidated structure. No, more like a skeleton of a structure, barely holding together. The thing provided absolutely no protection from the elements. Was Blondie really in the shed? Maybe the cold had knocked her unconscious?

  He walked toward the door, keeping his eyes straight ahead. The st thing he needed was to accidentally peer through one of the many splintered cracks in the half-rotted pnks and catch a glimpse of the naked woman supposedly inside.

  “Hey, are you in there?” he yelled, knocking on the door. “You’ve been in there too long. Is everything alright?”

  No response.

  What was he supposed to do now? He was not going to barge in. That was for sure. Maybe he should run to the Guild and ask for help? Or, more accurately, pass the problem off to someone else?

  Viktor was just about to turn when it hit him. The scent of iron.

  What?

  He couldn’t believe what his nose was telling him, so he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, slowly. No, there was no mistake. This was the smell he knew all too well, the smell of blood.

  “Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. He stepped up to one of the wider gaps in the wall and leaned in, peering into the shed. Now was not the time for courtesy.

  He saw Blondie, half-submerged in the tub, her face eerily still. Her right arm hung limply over the tub’s edge, fingers curling inward. Beneath it, a knife y on the floor, its edge smeared with red.

  Fuck!

  He flung the door open and rushed to the bathtub. The water rippled crimson around the woman, tendrils of red spiraling upward. He plunged his hands into it, grabbed her left arm, and pulled it out. Her wrist bore a jagged cut, blood still oozing from the wound.

  If you want to die, then die in my dungeon! Viktor cursed as he hauled the unconscious woman onto the straw-strewn floor.

  Her wrist continued to seep. He grabbed the dress lying nearby and tore a strip of fabric, knotting it above the wound. But now what? He still needed a healer. No, wait. Petra was a healer. She should have known other ways to treat wounds without using magic. Yes, that was right. He had seen some herbs in the house. So he sprinted back to the main building.

  It didn’t take long to find what he needed. He used to be an adventurer, after all. He had used these leaves himself before.

  Viktor quickly got back to the unconscious woman. He packed the herbs against the gash, then held them in pce with another strip of cloth. That would do, for now.

  He draped the dress over the pale body, then dropped down to sit beside her, breathing heavily. Minutes passed in silence. Then, he heard a cough. Blondie’s eyelids fluttered, and with a groan, her eyes opened. She blinked a few times, her eyes wandering until they settled on him. At first, her gaze was unfocused, but as recognition slowly dawned, her lips parted.

  “You...” she croaked, her voice breaking. “Why... did you save—”

  He spped her on the right cheek.

  “Wha... Why—”

  He spped her again, this time on the left cheek.

  Ugh. His palm hurt. Should have kicked her instead.

  Blondie stared up at him, her lips trembling as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. Expressions chased themselves across her face: shock, disbelief, and finally, anger.

  “I... I didn’t ask you to save me!” she snapped. “Why didn’t you just let me die?”

  “I don’t give a fuck whether you live or you die. But don’t kill yourself in someone else’s house. Those people have taken care of you. You think about how they’d feel when they come back here, only to find your dead body? If you want to die, just go to the dungeon and rot in there.”

  Yes, that was the best outcome. Win-win for everyone.

  “I didn’t ask them to help me either!” she yelled. “Why should I care about their damn feelings?”

  “If you don’t care,” Viktor replied with a smirk. “Then why don’t you use that knife to stab yourself in front of them? Don’t hide here and die alone like a coward.”

  Blondie stared at him, her eyes widening in shock. Her mouth trembled open, but no words came out. Then, tears began to swell in her eyes.

  “You don’t get it,” she whispered, sobbing. “You don’t understand. I didn’t ask for any of this. I...”

  Of course I don’t fucking get it.

  She had been acting like a broken doll in the past few days. That he could understand. Witnessing your entire party get brutally killed while you yourself barely escaped death was certainly a traumatic event. But suicide? Seriously, why? Just why?

  As though she could read what was going through his mind, the woman leaned closer, locking eyes with him, her breath hot against his face. “Of course you don’t understand,” she said, her voice dripping with venom and contempt. “You’re just a fucking kid! And you’ve got a loving sister, don’t you?” Her lips curled into a cruel smile, her eyes narrowing as she searched for his reaction. “Tell me, what are you going to do if someone kills your sister?”

  That was the easiest question someone could have ever asked Viktor.

  He shrugged. “Well, I’ll capture the man responsible, and his whole family. His wife, his sons, his daughters. And I’m going to impale every single one of them. You know how impalement works, don’t you? A pointy stick that goes in your ass and comes out of your mouth. I’ll do that to all of them, one by one. The man goes st, of course, after witnessing his loved ones’ agonizing death. By the way,” he said casually, as if he had just recalled a random piece of trivia. “Do you know that an impaled person could stay alive for hours, or even days?”

  Blondie froze.

  Her breath caught in her throat, and her eyes grew so wide they seemed ready to pop out from their sockets.

  Then, she ughed.

  “Kids these days,” she said, shaking her head, “really fantasize about the edgiest things, don’t they?”

  That’s no fantasy, girl. It already happened.

  From the woman’s words, Viktor could deduce that she had decided to kill herself because she had lost someone important. And that was... Manfred? Seriously? Was that pompous man that important to her? It didn’t look like he cared much about her. She was merely a convenient pything he was keeping around. Besides, she literally had to share him with two other women.

  But as people said, love was blind. Well, whatever. Viktor didn’t have the patience for such nonsense. This was not his problem. He only saved her once. If she tried it again, then so be it. His role ended here. The rest was for Jeanne and Rhea to figure out. After all, this was their mess, the one they had brought upon themselves.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

  Blondie y there for a moment, her eyes unfocused, staring off like she was somewhere else. Then, she finally spoke, voice soft and shaky, “I’m a bit cold. Can you help me get into the house?”

  Looked like the suicidal thoughts had faded from her mind. For now, at least. So he nodded.

  “Alright.”

  He moved closer, pced his hands on her shoulders, and helped her to her feet. She winced as she stood up, but it seemed she still had enough strength to keep herself steady, and he guided her slowly toward the door.

  As they reached the threshold, she turned to him, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Can you keep this a secret from Jeanne and Rhea?”

  What?

  “Are you serious? How the hell are you going to hide that?” Viktor said, pointing at the pool of blood inside the bathtub. “And the wound on your wrist?”

  “For the wound, I’ll... manage. As for the bathtub... can you clean it up for me?”

  “No,” he said ftly. That’s your mess, not mine.

  “Please,” she pleaded. “I can pay you. I have a lot of gold.”

  Do not tell a stranger that you have a lot of gold, girl.

  But then, he realized an opportunity. Yes, an opportunity. A hint of something worthwhile, at st, in this whole ridiculousness. So he shoved his irritation aside.

  “I can help you, but in return, you have to teach me how your gadgets work.”

  Blondie blinked. “You’re... interested?” she said, staring at him as if she was trying to gauge how serious he was.

  “Yes. When I saw you controlling your metallic birds, I was impressed. I really want to know how they work,” Viktor said, and it wasn’t a lie.

  She nodded slowly. “I see. I can teach you, but...” Gradually, her brow unfurrowed, and the tight line of her mouth eased. Then she chuckled softly. “That makes you my apprentice, doesn’t it?”

  Ugh. Becoming this woman’s apprentice? Her, of all people? The idea really left a bad taste in his mouth. But fine, whatever. As long as he got what he wanted, this was a small price to pay.

  “I’m not calling you Master.”

  “Just call me by name. Yours is... Quinn, right?”

  “Yes. And you are...”

  “Alycia,” she replied, before raising an eyebrow. “I thought either Jeanne or Rhea should have told you my name already.”

  They did. I just didn’t bother to remember, Viktor thought. But he guessed from now on he should stop calling her Blondie.