Chapter 176 Understanding The Reasons Behind The Changes

"Send in 2 Class B and a team of Class Cs to investigate the matter with the adventurer's guild.

As for the boy..."

He paused for a moment as a pensive look appeared on his face, his eyes widening as the light of remembrance flashed through his eyes.

"Is 'she' still in the 'Mansion of the Damned'?"

Knowing who the 'she' the old man was referring to was, the red-robed young man nodded in affirmation.

p "Good. Send the boy's details to her, even better if you can send a magical copy of his image, though I doubt she took her receiver with her.

Even so, send the details to her guild card and tell her to make an attempt to scour the first thirty floors for him on her way out.

It should be a walk in the park for someone like her. When she finds him, tell her to bring him to me. As a guest, that is."

The red-robed young man wondered just who the boy was for the old man to take him as a guest but he kept his questions to himself and bowed before leaving the room.

**CLACK!

After the door closed, the grey-haired old man, Chief Grand Magus, Gavin Josey, heaved a sigh to himself as he turned around and stared at the skyline through his office window.

"All this work, it's too much for an old man like me. Perhaps I should consider retiring, I have been at this for more than a century, after all."

He watched the sunset in silence as he thought about the appearance of the red-eyed woman in the picture he just saw.

"Let's hope I'm wrong, because if I'm not, then the world might be in real deep shit."

◇ ◇ ◇

Mansion of the Damned, 11th Basement Floor

City State of Magic, Kasteblum

December 30th

Year 1051

Evan was finally on the long-awaited eleventh floor! But he could not feel any joy at this moment as he was still thinking through the events of the previous day.

Needless to say, all of his companions, both spirit, human and demon were all pissed off since he had wrecked the entire boss room.

From the scale of that attack, if Evan had even used a bit more aura or magic, then it was possible that the attack would have affected them too.

However, despite Pride also not liking his actions just as Eliza did, she did not say a single word to reprimand Evan.

In fact, she even helped calm Eliza before sitting Evan down and analysing his behaviour for the past week.

Initially, he was confused about why she did this, but as they went on, he finally realised that something was wrong.

Throughout the week, he had been acting a bit more on the haughty side of things.

Settling down to think about the 'offer' he had made to the blade wraith, he understood why the monster ended up flipping out and attacking him in rage.

He also discovered a few things odd, like how he had so many chances to end the blade wraith before it could even have the chance to think about going in his companions' direction.

'When it started randomly firing the blade cannons, I could have just teleported behind it and stabbed it or hit it with using combo attack with Kayla.

I could also have used Kuro or Kayla's magic if I didn't want to consume mine, there was also the option of using my own magic power and simply downing a magic potion after.

However, I didn't do all that, instead I was wasting time, even getting lost in my thoughts and disregarding my opponent, multiple times at that.

The time when I slashed at its shoulder, I could have cut off its entire arm but I thought it would be fun to see it struggle with just a single arm.

And most of all, I... enjoyed it.'

Evan felt a chill down his spine the moment his thoughts reached that point.

'That feeling of having its life in the palm of my hand, like it was an ant I could squash anytime I wanted.

I was relishing in it.'

His facial expression darkened as he realised something was wrong with his thought process, even now, there was still a part of him that was saying that he had every right to play with the monster's life.

Shaking his head, he thought back to when he saw it rushing towards Pride and Eliza and remembered the things that crossed his mind.

To put it in simpler terms, he was thinking something along the lines of;

'What gave you lowly monster the gall to dare to turn your back on me in a fight?!'

'How dare you go after my companion??!!!'

Evan was sure that the first line of thought was something he would not think of on a 'normal' day. The second, however, was quite understandable.

With this and a few more things, Evan concluded something was indeed wrong somewhere, but didn't know where.

Pride's later suggestion to check his status, told him what and where.

A single line in the condition tab that went like this;

[Condition- Status Effect (Arrogance)]

And with his game knowledge and personal experience, Evan instantly figured out the source of that status effect, thus, his reaction;

"What the fuck, Pride?!"

In contrast to his agitated state, the demon went on to calmly explain the reason for that effect suddenly appearing on his status board.

"It is a side effect of contracting with a member of the demon race. The contracted person is usually affected/influenced negatively by the nature of the contracted demon.

The system attributes my influence as Arrogance, a status effect."

Eliza looked at Pride with a raised eyebrow after hearing this and questioned.

"Wouldn't that mean that you're the 'Arrogant' one here and Evan is an idiot who got influenced?"

"Hey!"

She waited for Pride's response without paying attention to Evan's small protest.

"That is indeed the case."

"But you don't seem all that arrogant to me..."

"Girl, the woman's name is LITERALLY 'Pride'!"