80 Gwendoline has the eyes green

"This damn door again, why is the mechanism broken … wait. It is opening?" A quite audible male voice resonated through the small opening of the stone door. Like the woman before him, he tried many things to open the hidden path toward the room, to no effect. So when the door magically opened, he was quite perplexed and hesitated a bit. The completely dark room in front of him was not reassuring at all, and quite creepy for him. Normally, he arrived late and a few others would already be inside, talking in a relatively lightened environment.

"He-Hello? Is-is … no, no one is inside right? RIGHT?" His voice slightly shook while he was nearly shouting the last word. It was not enough to truly be audible from afar, but it resonated in the room, allowing everyone inside to hear it distinctly. Since no answers were made and the room was still as obscure as before, the man just waited outside. Seeing this, Davion shook his head. Apparently, not everyone was as curious or foolish as that woman.

The moment he made his first step, he didn't try to be discreet at all. The loud sound produced immediately reached the unfortunate man outside, sending shivers in his back. Turning around, the latter tried to see through the darkness but to no avail. Inside the mind of the human, he was debating with himself between running away in fear or enter the room to inspect what made that noise. Normally, it should have been empty…

Thomp

The sound of a second step immediately finished convincing the skinny man. "RUN AWAY!" He screamed as much as he could and buggered off more quickly than a rabbit at full speed. Not expecting that reaction from someone supposedly trying to not be found, both Davion and Meridiana looked at each other, a little bit lost. Was this someone trying to kill others? Past that small moment of surprise, the orodil pursued the man without waiting any further.

After his first scream, the man then remembered that it would be bad for him to be found inside the sewers. But while he was thinking this, he failed to see one small pile of garbage on his way. Stumbling on it, he nearly ended up inside the putrid water that was carrying even more things. However, he lost his torch in it, turning the entire area dark. Using his hand to stand up and then navigate inside the labyrinth of corridors, he couldn't see the thing standing right behind him.

Snap

"wwwwwwwwhat?" The weak voice barely escaped the lips of the now terrified human. He could have sworn to have heard a metallic snap behind him. But even if he was offered thousands of gold, he will definitely not turn around. Robotically raising his legs to walk away from that sound, he tried his best to remember where to go.But whether it was his instinct or not, his head was only filled with the idea of seeing what was behind him. He could felt not, even if it was irrational. He felt that something was extremely dangerous and that something was right behind him.

The moment he finally turned around, a dark gauntlet suddenly left the darkness and grabbed his own throat. Seeing the dark veins on the hand that was grabbing him, he couldn't help but shudder at that sight. Only one man had something like that, someone so powerful, so terrifying, that no one dared to even try to attack him. Linking that man with the immense faction behind him, the human realized that maybe death will be better. In that moment of panic, he preferred to die than ended in the hands of those lunatics.

Feeling the mana inside the body of the man running amok, Davion was extremely perplexed. What was happening to this coward for him to turn like that? Even if he couldn't use mana inside his body or even outside, he could still feel the extremely strong force rampaging inside the poor human. If that kept going, he would die. Shaking a bit his victim, that only reinforced what was happening inside the human body. In the end, he saw blood pouring out of all his orifices, and when he released his grip, a lifeless body fell on the ground.

Even after he came back inside the room, Davion was still a bit surprised by what he just experienced. What kind of misunderstanding provoked this? If it had been a normal situation, no one would voluntarily give up their own life when encountering a danger. Helplessly, he put it aside but didn't forget to bring back the body.

"Where is the man? Wait, why are you carrying him like that? Is he dead?" Meridiana looked at the spineless corpse that was hanging weirdly. Because Davion was so tall, only the head of the man was touching the ground, making it quite weird.

"Yes, he … killed himself?"

"Huh? You, tell me why?" The employee was immediately questioned and she easily recognized the man. He was also working inside the City Hall but as an accountant. Even if he was not one of the main treasurers, he was not insignificant either. At least, this man had an extremely good grasp about the entire finance of many of the forces in Archet. At the same time, he rarely had any conflict with anyone and often submitted without even fighting back.

"I don't know, Mistress. He is not really a coward, but will not actively seek a fight or danger. I don't know a lot about him since he was usually very quiet, but he had immense hate and fear about the poor area, never entering it once. Except this, I have no idea why he will kill himself without proper motivation."

The gaze of the former employee was as calm as a lake, even when she looked at the bloodied corpse. Like it didn't affect her at all, or it was the same as an ant dying on her path. Not really feeling satisfied by this answer, Meridiana had nothing else to say. She knew that unlike Kardel or even Ymir, Davion will never do something useless or detrimental. And killing a potential snitch was definitely not good for them.

The third person that arrived was a bit braver and actually entered the dark room. Facing Davion and Meridiana, the man was shaking from head to toe. Especially after seeing the poor state of his former peer. They had hidden the converted woman from his sight with the perfectly still ratman, to not influence him. After gathering everything they could from the man, they killed him and Davion ate his brain. The gruesome spectacle didn't even make the two brainwashed prisoners blinked.

The same routine was applied to everyone after. Some retreated while others entered. That was more or less the only difference. No one was as fierce as the first woman that entered, even if the reason for her lack of fear was a complete misunderstanding. No one else thought that Davion was a friend of their cult or invited by someone else. Well, the pile of corpse near him was probably the main reason for this.

After nearly half of an hour, the orodil had already killed 5 man and 2 women. All of them had jobs in some strategic locations. One was even a true guard while a woman was a waitress in the most renowned establishment for adventurers inside the city. Just with that, the two foreigners realized that it would take a lot of efforts and preparations to achieve all of this. But from the looks of it, they all had different motivations in the first place.

For example, Gwendoline, that was the name of the employee, as for her last name, no one truly cared. She only joined this sympathetic little cult a year ago, but harbored a huge grudge way before that. When she was not alone like right now, she lived with her mother and her sister. They were not wealthy, but they had no problem having a roof and food. Her mother was also working at the same location where she currently was working. One day, she never came back. Her sister desperately tried to find her, only to went missing instead. A few weeks later, their two bodies were found nearby.

Fortunately, she was already an adult and because some friends of her mother were pitying her, she easily managed to find a small job inside the City Hall. But the more she stayed at that location, the more she understood what probably happened. Even if her mother should have been protected, the precedent Mayor was not as strict as the current one. The building near the garrison was also his idea, but that didn't make her forgot about what happened to her family. Because of this, one day, while she was currently buying food, an old man grabbed her arm and told her that other people suffered the same fate.

At first, Gwendoline didn't believe it, but this idea turned in her mind the following weeks. And when she saw the same man one day, she asked who they were. Instead, he led him toward the cemetery outside the city. In front of an unnamed grave, he asked her who was buried there. She tried to guess and said that it was a criminal. Usually, people with a family or appreciated by others would not have an unnamed grave. Instead, it was his entire family, his only daughter, her husband and her three children.

He was a magician that was extremely close to becoming a true magus. One day, his family that was traveling to see him were attacked near Archet and were all killed. He entered a state of fury and sought the culprits himself. The bunch of thugs and brigands that were supposedly arrested for that crime all died before he even arrived to interrogate them. Because of this unexplained event, he became suspicious and investigated more. In the end, the only thing he managed to uncover was the fact that a secret operation made by the White Hand happened the same day his family died.

Asking for an answer, as a magician of the 4th Circle, all he received was useless excuses and fabricated lies. Even his friends told him that he could only blame bad luck for what happened to his family. Getting more and more isolated, he ended up reaching a truly dark cult that was predicting the return of the Dark Gods. The former lunatics and fanatics that would have been killed immediately by him ended up comforting him more than his own friends. Instead of focusing on the massacres that happened, they talked about an alternative reality.

When they first heard that, both Meridiana and Davion raised an eyebrow since all they heard was that they were a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters. But apparently, the Dark Gods did try at the beginning to convert people toward their cause. Promising many miracles and extraordinary objects, some that could even make magic looked like a trick made by a street artist. At those words, Merdidiana began to laugh.

"But mistress, aren't you doing the same thing?" The innocent sentence pronounced by the already converted Gwendoline turned the laugh into a violent cough. It was at that moment that the succubus realized that they were actually trying the same thing, and she stopped interrupting the tale, a bit embarrassed.

But it was not the only thing that the Dark Gods assured. They promised peace, security, and freedom for their new Empire. Even if that didn't convince a lot of humans, this did bring the idea of creating a separate entity from the Synnada Empire. And even if at the beginning it was a good thing, in the current days, the corruption and greed inside the Republic of Avenio were no less than the arrogant and dominating behaviors of the noble families of the Empire.

After this wonderful story that nearly brought the ratman to tea… no, nothing happened. In fact, the ratman was gradually being forgotten, in his dark corner.Instead of being concentrated on the useless rodent, Meridiana and Davion were more concerned about the sudden flux of mana outside of the room. Like someone was casting a spell and ready to unleash it whenever it was deemed to be useful.

"Finally, the master." The succubus licked her lips, feeling that it was finally time to meet this strange old man.