The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 499: BACK!

“So, now that you know my story, lead me back to Ismeralia!” Emira commanded Victor as she carried him like a bag of trash. Usually, she wouldn’t have bothered with all of this, but for some reason, she felt that she could trust him.

She knew that this was caused by her soul merging with the young Emira, and didn’t like it one bit. But she truly couldn’t bring herself to hate Victor…

“Are you really just going there to kill Zendo… You seem too eager… “

“...”

“I need to know this!” he said. “I have a few scams going on there, you know!”

“Fine… Other than getting revenge, I need to grab the spark there!” she said after a little pause as she set him on a roof ledge of the tall building they were on. He didn’t recognise the scenery below, so it must have been in another city.

“A spark!?…. Wait… The one in the death gorge?” he asked, remembering the area he couldn’t approach at all! He could easily connect things.

“Yes… That death spark is the same as the exhausted one I have, so combining them would allow me to immediately regain most of my power!” She told the truth.

“OH…” He swallowed. He should really give up on that spark… For now, at least.

“To reach its area without dying, though, you will need to understand death itself… Not going to happen to you, so give up…” she added, as if reading his mind.

“Ah… It must have been tough on you…” He said, remembering her state when he found her.

“Shut up…” She smacked his head. “Stop trying to affect my feelings… And give up on escaping, I am not letting you go before you open that gate!”

“Didn’t you send that guy Rain to collect sparks for you?”

“How did you know that? Wait... Don’t tell me… You must have scammed him out of him!”

“... Kinda… “ he lied. He read that guy's fate!

“What an idiot… Will smack his head later…” she spat. “Let me tell you this, sparks are not that easy to find, especially ones with core concepts! If Rain was not a scion, I wouldn’t have even bothered asking him about this!” she sighed.

“Oh…”

“He managed to help me collect some death energy, though, so taking him as my disciple was not a bad deal!” she said. “How about you become my disciple like him? I can give you some power…” she suddenly asked as if it had never occurred.

“.... I already have one master…” he said, although tempted, he didn't want to be controlled by anyone for now!

Bam! She smacked his head. “Stop with the bullshit! I know that there is no master! Idiot….”

“... You are really observant!” he sighed. He wasn’t really that cautious when using his skills next to Emira earlier, leading her to figure many things out on her own. DAMN IT!

“Flattering me up will not do you any good!” she said arrogantly.

“...” he wasn’t flattering her! “Then… Before sending you to Ismeralia, can I ask you a few things in exchange?” He asked, “Once you leave, who knows when you will return?”

“Bargaining for some info now?”

“Aha…” he nodded. He could tell that Emira seemed to want to make him her ally, so he decided to play along for now. As she was a variable, he didn’t mind sending her away to Ismeralia for now, but milking her out of some info first wouldn’t hurt!

“That would be fine, I guess… But let me tell you this, I don’t know a lot!” she sighed.

“ It’s okay… Tell me what you know…” he nodded.

Smack…

“Ouch…”

“I am the boss here! You can ask me questions, and I will tell you what I know!” she spat angrily.

He sighed. “Fine… First of all, are you by any chance eyeing my authority points? The moment that storm lord realized I had a lot of them, she flipped almost immediately and tried to grab them!” he said.”You being nice to me and not caring about those makes me feel a little suspicious…”

“Having too much authority is not a good thing… It is no use to me and I just don’t want to bother with the trouble…” she said, looking away.

“... Just that?” He raised one eyebrow.

“And I don’t have a way to extract your authority points… Is that the answer you want?” she asked, pitching his thigh hard.

“Ouch…. No… Just wondering…” he said. “Maybe you like me…Ouch!”

She smacked him. “In your dreams…” she spat loudly as she looked away angrily, not sure about her feelings. It was clear that the short memories of spending time with him were affecting her, but she didn’t want to admit it. “If you need to ask something, just do it and stop wasting my time!”

“Fine… “ he sighed. “You said that we were sent back in time, was it because of the demon’s device?” he asked, feeling her sincerity. Well, trusting her a bit would not hurt.

“No… The device merely allowed me to ride along with a time travel ceremony that was already initiated by that bitch… To tell the truth, the dispatch back then happened very suddenly as the demons launched a full frontal attack… It was kinda suicidal. Back then, that demon seemed to be aware of something while fighting me! It was as if he were ready to use the device at any moment and was trying to get close to the Imperial palace at all costs… I just felt something was wrong at the right moment and managed to take his place!”

“Oh…” Victor frowned. “You said that you only had your soul afterwards, not your body… Do you know why?” He already knew the answer, but felt the need to ask her.

“According to that bitch it was because time travel only sends souls back, I wasn’t born yet at that time frame… The only reason I survived was because I had the power of death, and my soul managed to survive the initial shock…. It was not easy, though, I had to rebuild my body using my spark energy, severely damaging it! After that, when I was locked up, I had to sleep for a very long time to regenerate…” she pondered. “Well, I managed to get a new Aspect out of all of that!”

“Aspect?” Victor asked, feeling a little surprised that Emira was totally open to telling him a lot of things. He was now sure that the soul of her young self might have a huge effect on her.

“Lords have a major concept… a core Spark connected to their souls. For me, it is Death!” Emira explained. “When we want to level up, we need to introduce a new aspect of the main concept and connect them… In the past, I had three concepts, Death, Corruption and Oblivion, making me a Triangle Lord, but when I was captured, they were all stripped away from me, leaving me with only an exhausted Death Spark that they couldn’t remove….” she said with annoyance, he could also feel the anger in her voice. “After being locked up, I managed to create a Sleep Spark and barely fixed the Death Spark before connecting them!”

“Oh…” That explained her rank. “A sleep spark….”

“Yes, it is what I am using to immobilize you!” she smirked as she ruffled his hair.

“How does this work?”

“I can’t really explain it… If one day you manage to become a lord, you will get it!” Emira said. “Knowing you, it is a possibility, maybe Scamming lord or something…” she squinted her eyes as she pinched him again.

“Ouch…. Do I look like some kind of a scammer to you?” he asked, feeling a little hurt.

“... You are the definition of what a scammer is!” she spat. Why was she humoring this guy?

“...” Victor sighed. It seemed like his scamming efforts were being seen, though. He needed to up his game. “Wait… Oblivion spark?” he asked as he remembered what she said earlier.

“Yeah…”

“Could that be used to create a lord.. An Oblivion lord, for example?”

“Sure… But not only would you need to find a suitable body, but also someone who understands the concept itself to a certain extent!” she said. “You have some info on that?” she asked as she rubbed his purple silky hair with her hand like he was some puppy.

“In this world, there may be a guy calling himself Oblivion Lord… He is stuck outside, though, not able to enter!” he said.

“...” She squinted her eyes as if she remembered a few things. “Noted… Stay away from that guy, Oblivion power is very tricky, makes people forget things, and might affect the world itself… There is no sure way to protect against it!” she warned.

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“Oh… I understand…” he nodded. “Let’s discuss something else… What can you tell me about the other lords in this world?” he asked.

“It told you… I don’t know much,” she sighed. “I only met two lords in this timeline, the Void lord and the Fire lord… Both of them came to this world for various reasons, but were captured by that bitch like me and were locked up somewhere after that to use their energy!” she said. “There should be a few other lords, though, according to Huahua, they seemed to work for that bitch, but I never met them…”

“Huahua?”

“The void lord… “

Victor nodded. “Any idea about the others' identities?”

“I heard about a Blood lord, but that’s it!” she replied.

“How about a light lord?” he asked.

“Never heard of him…” she pondered for a second. “I told you, though, there were others…”

“What can you tell me about the blood lord?”

“You met him?”

“... Not face to face….”

“Oh… I don’t know a lot… He seemed to be collecting all kinds of bloodlines for a grand project,” she explained. "That's what Azil, the Fire lord, tricked him to reveal when he extracted her Phoenix bloodline!” she said.

“Phoenix?” Victor asked as the image of a certain jinx appeared in his mind.

“Yeah… She came from some other world, escaping from her family, who wanted to force her into some kind of forced marriage… Too bad she was captured by that bitch right after entering this world and ended up being plucked like a chicken…” she smirked for some reason.

“Oh… Do you know where she is locked up?” he licked his lips.

“No idea…” she shook her head.

“The blood lord didn’t come to extract your bloodline?”

“No, my body I had in this world was a reconstruction, it didn’t have any bloodlines!”

“Ah… Right…”

“Now… Are you satisfied? Do you want to ask about anything else?”

“Oh… Then, do you have any info about Lords not being able to leave or enter this world?” he asked.

“ Oh… I know this one…” she sighed. “This world’s Node has a rule forbidding Spark holders from leaving or entering,” she said. “I am not 100% sure, but this might have been set by that bitch to stop the invaders and other powers from entering… She must be cooking something here and doesn't want other powers to intervene!"

“Can this rule be removed?”

“No idea… But don’t worry, it will not affect your gate, I should be able to leave freely... It's all thanks to your authority…!" she said, pinching his arm.

“Eh…” he nodded, answering his question before he asked it. “Then, what is this world Node you mentioned? What is this? ” he asked directly, changing the subject.

“You don’t know about that… Ah.. right.. You are not a lord!” She said, “A world node is like a glorified addict shard that has a domain over the entire world,” she explained. “It allows its controller to use the system to do all kinds of things like issuing missions or setting special rules about what skills can be used!”

“Can it be used to go into and exit dungeons?”

“The concept of the Dungeons themselves is a part of the Node! So yeah… Definitely. It might also allow you to unlock and lock them back!” she said. “Access to it is not easy though as it is granted according to each world’s rules….” she said as if reading Victor’s mind.. “In this world, you have to be a follower of that bitch!” she said with clear annoyance.

“So you can’t access it?”

“No… I can’t even see its menu…” she spat. “A system lord might be able to get superficial access as he is a part of the system, but that’s just in theory, though…”

“Oh… you are not a system lord?”

“Of course not… Those weeklings, although they have many perks when it comes to doing things and upgrading their powers, also have too many limitations on them! If you want to take advantage of the system, you would have to follow its rules, and those are usually set by the world’s Emperor!” she said. “You will also have to follow an already charted path and keep increasing Authority to level up, which is stupid!”

“Oh…”

“If I were a system lord, my sleeping skill might have struggled to affect you…” she said as she slapped his butt. “Anything else?”

“Ah… “ he understood a few things. So that’s why the system didn’t give him a notification about her power affecting him! Damn it… Non-System lords might be his natural enemies!

“Yeah…” she slapped his butt again, reading his mind.

“Can you tell me about the difference between this timeline and your original one?” he quickly asked. This girl was getting braver with her moves and might be beginning to enjoy spanking him, so he knew that he needed to wrap this up before she got any new ideas.

“You mean about your world?” she asked, looking at the lively city below.

“Yes!”

“... This one is way more peaceful… In that world, Lords were plenty as cabbage with myriad forces fighting each other for hegemony… Most of them came from other worlds… But the strongest forces were the Sp… ‘Bitch’s’ Empire, the Heavenly Empire, and the Demonic kingdoms,“ She pondered. “There were a lot of others too, some small, some big, each one with a different goal or something…. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time there before it all ended, so that’s also all I can tell you!”

“Does the heavenly empire have anything to do with the Heavenly sect?” he asked.

“Oh… Well... I am not sure, but I think so…” she pondered. “The heavenly empire is by itself a multi-world empire, the one here was just a branch… If my guess is correct, the bitch returned in time to control this world before the other forces arrived, so they might have made a deal with her to create just a sect here to act as an embassy or something in exchange for forcing their way in… This is just a guess, though,” she said. “She might have given them a leeway with some rules imposed by the Node in exchange for some rare artifact or some other benefits.” She made a guess.

“Oh…” he nodded.

“I don’t plan to go anywhere near them this time… And I advise you to keep clear too, those guys can be very resourceful," she added with complex eyes. She was definitely scammed by them!

“I understand!” he said, not changing his plan, though, but instead doubling down on wanting to go see what they have there! The scariest enemy was not the strongest, but the one hidden in the darkness! In the other timeline, the Heavenly sect suffered greatly after Caspian revealed that he was a demon and tried to conquer the world, but even after that, they still remained with the Empire, not trying to completely eradicate them, proof that they really had a deep background!

“That’s all the info I can tell you for now,” she said. “Now that should be enough… Let’s go…” she said as she pulled him up like a bag.

“Wait… Wait!” he screamed again.

“What now?” she asked with annoyance.

“Where are we now?”

“Lioras Kingdom…” she said, looking around. This city was in the middle of the continent, so she was using it as a hub lately.

“Oh…” Victor’s eyes immediately sparkled. This place was good enough for his plan! “Before leaving, I think this would be a good place to let the guys in the cauldron leave… Would you mind helping me?”

“... You…” she frowned for a moment. “I know a good place,” she nodded after some thinking, grabbing him and pulling him toward a park to the south. It was a nice place beside a lake, but at this late hour, it was mostly empty… Well, except for some homeless people and a few perverts who thought that doing it behind the bushes would be a good idea.

The moment Emira landed there, they all fell asleep.

“Be quick…” she said as she threw Victor to the ground.

“Can you at least let me move?”

“No…”

“We made a deal…”

“ No, we didn’t! It is just an ‘understanding’...”

“...” he sighed. This girl was not a fool.

“Come on, I don’t have all day!”

“At least let me use one hand!” he said. “I need to move things around!”

“...” She glared at him. “Fine…”

The next moment, Victor felt that his hand, which was totally numb, regained power.

He didn’t try anything funny, deciding it was not worth it. He just pulled out the cauldron then… He hesitated.

“Come on… It will dawn soon!” she ordered.

“Do you think they will create some kind of a phenomenon when I pull them out?” he asked, looking at her.

“You mean a dungeon?”

“Aha…”

“Of course not! They came through the gate and area already in, so the rules for outsiders shouldn’t apply to them… They only stop those who force their way in!” she explained.

“So Macil would not suddenly be vaporized?”

“No, that idiot should be fine… Most likely…” she said. From her memories of being with Victor, she was 100% sure that Macil was not the smartest guy out there.

“What about Aerith?”

“She is a half-demon, so this might be troublesome… But… She is your system wife, so I guess you should be able to protect her!” she said, but she was still not sure. “The system might treat her like a summoned creature!”

“....” he nodded, moving his hand to pull people out one by one. First was naturally Aerith.

Bam…

She landed unconscious on the grass.

SYSTEM SCAN

WARNING: ELEMENT IS DEMON….

STATUS: ROOTED.

DESCRIPTION: SYSTEM MARRIAGE

ALLOWED!

After a tense moment, he sighed in relief. Was this like getting citizenship? He had no idea, but thankfully it worked!

Quickly, he pulled Macil.

SYSTEM SCAN

FOREIGN ELEMENT DETECTED.

ELEMENT IS HARMLESS.

ALLOWED!

So it had no problem with elves… Maybe if they had some high fate, it would raise an alarm, though Victor was not sure.

After that, he tried Meril.

Not even a warning. She was naturally being treated as an element of this world, it seemed. Well, his father and mother were both from this world.

Feeling relieved, he quickly let the others out: Rosette, Ariana, and her disciple Mirai.

“Don’t you want to let the elf girls out too?” Emira asked.

“No… Those are for private use only…”

Spank!

“Ouch… Watch it!”

“Idiot…” she said. “Come on, do what you need to do!”

He just glared at her for a moment, then turned and moved his hand, creating an illusion of two people standing, one of whom was himself and the other was of a mysterious master.

Emira watched him with interest. It was clear she wanted to see how he was going to pull this scam.

“Ehm…. Can you wake them up for me?” he said, wanting to test the extent of her power.

“Sure!” she smirked, flicking her finger.

Moments later, everyone opened their eyes and naturally sat up.

“What… Where…” Aerith, who was the first to wake up, sat up and asked nervously as she looked around, only calming down when noticing Victor.

Meril and Macil, who woke right after, were also shocked, looking around the foreign environment and finally realizing that they were no longer in Ismeralia after looking up to the sky!

“This is….”

“WE ARE FINALLY BACK!” She was interrupted by Mirai, who jumped upon seeing the sole moon in the sky. “BACK! YEAH BABY! NO MORE MEDIEVAL TOILETS! ... VIDEO GAMES.. I AM BACK....”

BAM

“Ouch…”

Ariana, who also stood up, smacked her head before turning to Victor’s master, who stood there, his face shrouded by his dark robes.

“I sincerely thank you for helping us…” she said, bowing down. “If there is anything…”

“I only did it for Victor…” the mysterious master interrupted her. “I have just one thing to tell you… Keep my involvement out of this, only tell people that you returned due to the Storm lord’s help…”

“Oh…”

“And don’t tell anyone about Victor going there, I need him for a bit, and I don’t want people to realize that he was in another world...” the master said, turning to Victor. “Come, we need to go!”

“What? Master A, I have to return home and check on my harem…”

Smack!

“Ouch…”

“You can do that later, I need you to check a few things about the Poison lord…” he said. “We made a deal…” he said, making Rosette, Ariana, and Aerith look at him with a frown.

“Ah… Right…” he scratched the back of his head. “Can they at least tell my father about me… He must be worried sick!” Victor pleaded.

“Fine… You may tell his father… I will return him in two months… “ the master said before grabbing Victor and flying into the sky, disappearing in seconds.

“Eh…”

“...”

“Did they just leave us here and leave?” Macil asked.

“Where is this place?” Macil asked.

“What should we do?” Meril asked nervously as he began to look around.

“Let’s find a payphone…” Ariana sighed. “Don’t worry, everything should be fine… I am sure he is waiting for you! ” She turned to Rosette and said as if she was reading her mind.

“Ah…. Right…” Rosette nodded nervously as she bit her lip, thinking about meeting a certain guy that she really missed.