The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 514: Chew toy

“How have you been doing lately?” Victor, who finally got a chance to sit down, asked Iris after finishing his task of showering the little girls with his charm. “How are you adapting to the family?”

“It’s fine, I guess…” Iris scratched behind her ear; she really felt glad Victor cared about her, as she had long discovered how cold and ruthless their family could be. “Father had given me a few businesses to run back then, and now, with the new team being formed, he tasked me with overseeing a few of our half-brothers,” she explained.

“So he is working you to the bone…”

“Kinda… But I like the feeling of being useful!” Iris chuckled. 

“Yeah… Don’t let him find that out, or he will dump some more onto you!” Victor sighed.

“I will keep that in mind,” she nodded. 

“That guy is on your team?” he asked, turning to look at Roy, who was busy discussing something with Lyra. They seemed to be having fun. A fate thread was also slowly forming between them… Interesting… So he was into heroic-type girls after all…

“Father plans to make him form his own, but for now I will have to supervise him…”

“What do you think about him ?” he asked, squinting his eyes.

“He is not bad at all… In a way, he feels a lot like you!” Iris told the truth, not aware that her brother was secretly spying on the guy’s fate.

“...” Victor nodded, secretly glancing toward Melody. This was likely why she was drawn to him in her past life. “You said you will be surprising him… going dungeon raiding?”

“Yeah, Father found this F-ranked dungeon. We will be leaving in three days with the plan that the best performing ones will be able to attend the tournament!”

“Oh…” Victor nodded absentmindedly as he was busy looking at a little girl. No one could see that, though… He made sure to disguise his eyes!

“Do you plan to come?”

“The dungeon?”

“Yeah…”

“Havenʼt decided yet... “ he lied. He would not go, Axel might though...

“OH…” Iris nodded, “Can we go talk somewhere private?” she suddenly asked. 

“Ah…. Sure…” Victor said, hesitated for a moment before standing up. He quickly ushered her to follow after him.

Leaving the balcony, he walked through one of the corridors, then, out of nowhere, he opened the door of a completely random room, pulled her in, and closed it behind them.

“What’s wrong?” Iris asked nervously as she looked around. They were in a guest bedroom.

Did her brother finally decide to go the incest route? A wild idea crossed her mind, and she couldn’t help but blush as she remembered that certain night at the family island……

“Nothing… Just being extra careful…” Victor said as he threw himself onto a chair and looked at her. “What did you want to ask me about?”

Iris sighed in relief as she sat opposite him, right beside the invisible Serina. “Well…”

“What?”

“How was that… otherworld?” she whispered.

“...” Victor raised one eyebrow. “Father told you about it?”

“Yeah… Yesterday, he needed my help to get along with our new half-sister, and he told me the truth… I was a bit surprised!” She told the truth. She had no idea that Victor, whom she had met before, was in fact not the real one but a fake. Well, she felt there was something wrong around him. And now that she had met the real thing, she could immediately tell!

“Not as surprised as I was when I found myself there…” he chuckled. 

“Is it dangerous in that other world?” she asked again.

“Yeah… Extremely! Unlike this one, everyone over the age of 10 is a player, and demons are everywhere!” Victor said. “I almost died a few times…” he sighed, telling the truth. All because of those damn Lords!

“Oh…” she frowned.

“Why are you asking?” He noticed something strange in her tone.

“Well…” she hesitated. “You remember about my mother, right?”

“The real one or the fake…”

“My adoptive mother, Biranna…”

“Oh, the phantom thief! Didn’t you say she passed away on some mission back then?” he asked. Serina needed to understand what they were talking about after all, and he didn’t want her to come to ask him to explain late at night…

“Yeah… This was a lie that my father… my adoptive father made to protect us…” Iris confessed. “In fact, lately, after I secretly told him the truth about me being a player, he revealed it to me!”

“Oh…” Victor nodded. People were not forbidden from telling others about players, as he did with his grandpa. But the other party better be trustworthy because if they were discovered, both of them would be implicated.

“You see… My mother was in a job to steal a newly excavated treasure back then, but during it, she was betrayed…” Iris said. “We know that because she usually recorded her missions and set it to upload to my father’s private cloud account… It was the standard procedure they agreed on if she felt that something was wrong!” she said, talking on her phone and giving it to Victor.

It was a video…

At first, the recording phone seemed to be carried by someone who was sneaking through a window of an old museum with a few masked individuals. There were 5 thieves, including her, in total.

The process from the climb to the opening of the window went very smoothly. This was clearly a professional job!

After entering the museum, and after some sneaky maneuvers to go past the cameras and ignoring the most secure parts, they headed toward the back of the facility and entered a room that looked like some kind of a warehouse.

“This is some university museum?” Victor asked as he watched them check the shelves as if searching for something.

“Yeah, in Trolas, the royal academy… This should be their archeological department!” Iris nodded. “It should have been an easy job, that’s why Mom went on her own!”

Victor nodded as he watched with Serina, who was poking her head from behind his shoulder.

Soon, the thieves seemed to have found their target, a huge wooden box with the words. ‘EXPEDITION 5532/G SAMPLES’ painted on it.

Opening the box, it had all kinds of old jars, probably old wine jars that the thieves began to take one by one and uncroak to check what’s inside.

They found the one they wanted on the 6th one. Flipping it upside down, an old golden necklace with a red ruby fell down from it. 

Vector can immediately guess the inside story. Probably one of the archaeologists had second thoughts when he found this, so he stuck it inside one of the jars before transporting it out of the high security site… All he needed to do was send someone to steal it afterwards!

‘This is it?’ one of them asked.

ʼAffirmative… let’s leave…’

‘Wait… why is that jar glowing?’ one of them asked, making the camera holder look up and notice that indeed one of the jars that they just opened was faintly glowing.

‘No… There is nothing in it…’ a masked, burly man said, grabbing it and flipping it upside down before checking it.

‘Probably it was painted with some kind of phosphor glaze…  ’

‘Should we take it too?’

‘No, remember the orders… we are not to take anything that would cause an investigation!’ the woman who was holding the camera warned.

‘Fine… ‘ the man put the jar back.

‘Let’s wrap up…’ someone said as he began to pack the wooden box again, but then…

WOW WOW WOW….

A security siren sounded.

“Damn it… They already found that the Cameras are rigged… Letʼs move…”

BANG

The glowing jar fell when one of the guys accidentally knocked it over.

‘Idiot…You….’

Someone wanted to complain, but before he could do something, something strange happened as the entire room lit up in a red light and then… The recording ended abruptly.

“This is…” Victor frowned.

“My mother vanished there… Afterwards, her identity was revealed due to one of her associatesʼ family members making too much noise, and Dad had to fake her death to protect us!” she sighed. “What I wanted you to see is this… One second…” she quickly manipulated the phone, scrolling back to the scene right at the end and stopping right before the recording ended, when it brightened up.

Pausing at one certain frame…

The red brightness was originating from the corner of the frame, right where that jar should have broken. It looked like some kind of fire was lit there…

Iris forwarded to the next frame.

The brightness had filled most of the frame…

The next one was different, as what spread was no longer just a light, but what seemed like a vortex that, inside of it, had a scene from an ominous, different world! Many volcanoes and desolate fields could be seen underneath a red sky… And far up in the sky, in the place that there should have been a sun, there was a blurry thing that resembled a giant reptilian Eye!

The next frame… There was only blackness… Then the video ended.

“This is…”

“Yeah…”

“You think this is another world?” Victor asked nervously. He knew what this place was, as he saw it in murals and reports in the imperial library…. It was really another world! The fallen world of the Giants, Barvigan. The one connecting straight to the abyss and connecting to this world through the Western gate that he was not sure of its exact secrative location! The only thing he knew about it was that it was guarded by that Light lord.

“Yeah… Is it?”

“It might be, but from experience, this might be a dungeon…” he lied as Serina was right beside him.

“A dungeon can have a sky?” Iris frowned.

“It can…” Victor said. In his past life, he had heard of such huge dungeons, encompassing mini worlds. In a way, they were like his cauldron!

“But in that location…”

“Dungeons can have false gates,” Victor said. “It can also be something else…” he said as Serina was shaking his head. She clearly also knew what this place was!

“That place… It’s not that other world you were in?” Iris asked as if hanging on one thread, hoping that the world her mother was lost in would be really Ismeralia!

“Sadly, no…” he sighed.

“Then… What should I do?” she bit her lip.

“Did you ask dad?”

“Yes, he said that the family has no manpower at the moment…” Iris sighed. “Without the gate’s location or more info, such an investigation needed a lot of work!” she pouted. Since she was not an elite heir, she didn’t have a lot of power in the family.

“Did you manage to get that jar?” Victor asked.

“Yes, it was a totally normal one… All the samples were normal….” she pouted.

“Since when did your mother disappear?”

“It should be about 9 months now… I just thought that you might know something about other worlds and such…” she whispered in a low voice. She was feeling really desperate as she had no idea what to do. 

“...”

“...”

“...” he really had no time for this, too, but looking at his sister. “Fine, I will see what I can do,” he said after some thinking. ”But donʼt get your hopes up... We both know that she didnʼt return until now means... ”

Her motherʼs chance of survival was a mere 1%. That place was not somewhere humans could survive! The expeditions that went there all had very high casualties despite being composed of very skilled players!

“I know... I just want an answer... A conclusion... For me, for Dad, and for Mia...” Iris said, looking down.

“Fine... This might take a while, but I will have to ask my master, the one I met in the other world… That old man knows a lot, and if my guess is correct, he should know something!” Victor said after pausing for a moment. “In the meantime, send me those sample boxes!” he said, fully aware that Serina would get to them before he could… Yeah, maybe she would take care of this problem.

But still, if he managed to investigate this, he might learn a few things... It wouldn’t be a bad thing to find that place in case he needed to send Tom or Axel on some mission far, far away for a while…

“I will!”  she nodded, feeling a little relieved for some reason. Victor might really be able to help her!

He nodded as he stood up. “Now let’s go spend some time with each other, lest they think we are doing some unspeakable thing!” he chuckled as he headed to the door.

“...” Iris sighed, shaking her head as she followed behind him. 

***

After finishing his talk with Iris and spending some more time getting to know the girls who were having a blast, the day quickly came to an end.

Roy had to literally drag his reluctant sisters back home. 

“Miss Lara… We will take your mantle with honor!”

“Don’t worry! We will be waiting for your return from studying abroad to form one huge band together!!

“Miss Mira… Can I have your autograph…”

“Goodbye! REN... EL... YIN... MISS LARA .... WE WILL MISS YOU....”

The moment they got into the car outside, Roy, who had been on his guard all the time, could finally sigh in relief! He was now sure of it. Victor had a thing for one of his little sisters. The way he kept glancing toward them was not pure at all. 

Damn it! He felt truly helpless; his sisters were not listening to him at all!

He had to probably ask his mother for help, she was the only one who could rein them in! Yeah.. His mother would surely be able to put some sense into them, after all, she had been through a lot in her youth, and she wouldn’t want her daughters to follow her own footsteps!

***

After that, Roy and his group left; it was Lara and her groupʼs turn to go back home.

“So… You are really leaving…” Victor sighed, not knowing when he would get to meet Lara again.

Not really,  if things went smoothly, he would meet her in a few months when he infiltrates the heavenly sect, but he couldn’t say that!

“Yeah…” Lara hugged Victor hard. “I will miss you, brother…”

“I will miss you too…  Take care of yourself and the girls there… You should do your best to become strong, then come back!” Victor said as he hugged her back, rubbing her head. “And…” he looked around, making sure no one was listening. “If you encounter any nice girls there, make sure to make them your sisters in law…”

“Sisters in law?…. AH! Brother!” Lara stepped back, blushing a bit as she smacked Victor’s arm lightly. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t show it. “You can’t say such things in here…” she whispered, looking worriedly toward Mira and Monica. They just chuckled.

“Fine…. Now go say goodbye to the others…” he said.

Lara nodded, then went to say goodbye to his wives.

“El… Ren.. Yin… You girls take care of her, and take care of yourselves!” Victor turned to the three loli’s and said.

“Yes, young master!” the three nodded.

“Check the gifts I left with El for you when you are home… Make sure to put them to good use!”

“Um!”

“Young master…” Ren hesitated.

“I know, I will tell Aria to look after your parents!” Victor said.

“Thank you!” Ren bowed politely. Her snobbish parents had been very glad about her recent success, so when she told them that she was going to study abroad with Lara, they were a bit taken aback… Especially her mother, who felt that pursuing her career in media was more important than some stupid education! Sadly, with the contract Victor made them sign, they had no say in this!

“Yin… Did you tell your new master about your past?” Victor turned to Yin and asked.

“Ah…. No… Not yet… ”

“Tell her about it, about the island where your parents got possessed… I know I promised to help you myself, but I didn’t have the time…“ he said before sneakily looking around. Yeah, Serina was right behind him.

“I… I understand!” Yin nodded nervously.

“I know you plan to get revenge by yourself…” he said, making her shake a bit as he saw right through her. “Let me warn you, you are still weak…. Demons are not something you can face yet!  Don’t do anything stupid! Promise!” he said. 

“... I do…” Yin’s eyes shifted a bit. She was not telling the truth, but with Serina keeping an eye on her, things should be fine! That old woman might be nasty, but she really protected Alice for years in his past life before going missing. She was the kind to look after her own cubs!

“Make sure to stay safe, ok!” he said again, before turning to the others. “I will be waiting to see you again as a fine young woman in the future!”

“...” the three little girls nodded, but then paused as Victor went on one knee and hugged them all together. “Ah…” 

“Take care!” he said as he let go of the blushing little girls and then stood.

“Um…” they didn’t dare look up as their faces were blushing heavily.

Victor secretly chuckled, ignoring Serina, who was about to kick his ass, and turned to face Lyra.

“... Take care…”

“Same to you…” she coldly replied, taking a step back to avoid Victor just in case he planned to hug her.

“Use diplomacy and try not to make them fight a lot… ” he said, disappointing her by staying still.

“Diplomacy? Fight? Who are you talking about?” she asked.

“You harem!”

“What harem?” She didn’t get him at all. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You will understand in due time…” he sighed as he turned to the side.

Aerith!

“I will miss you…” He said softly, ignoring Lyea, who didn’t get what he was talking about at all.

“You already have a lot of wives…”

”They are not as horny as you...” he whispered.

”....” She looked away. Somewhat annoyed, and somewhat amused.

“We never got to do it another time…”

“Um…” she bit her lip.

“Don’t fall for any other guys…” he said, holding her hand softly and rubbing her palm with his fingers.

“Um…”

“I will be waiting for you!” he added, activating his charm.

“Um..” she nodded and looked down, blushing a bit.

“How about we try it one last time?” He added a bit of demonic bloodline.

“... Um….” Aerith, whose breathing slowly became unnatural, nodded.

The two turned and walked upstairs under the other’s questioning look.

“Where are you going?” Lyra asked.

“I need to tell her a secret…  we will be back in a bit…” Victor said as he dragged her into a side room. 

As soon as the door was closed, his lips touched hers.

Then…

…

20 minutes later, the two went down.

Aerith, who was blushing heavily, was wearing a totally different garb while Serina, who followed behind, had a pale face and a very strange look on her eyes… She had just witnessed something beyond her wildest imagination…

At first, she planned to watch how Victor scammed her granddaughter, but what she saw was the exact opposite!

A young man getting assaulted by a demoness…. Damn it, Victor didn’t even get to do anything at all… He just lay there and let himself be tossed around with an evil grin on his face. Adding to that, it really felt strange that that thing of his, despite its size,  did not break under Aerith Abuse! The room upstairs, in contrast, was no longer fit to be lived in!

The entire scene felt like watching a hunting mastiff abusing a poor chew toy, and the only surprising thing was Victorʼs stamina and endurance... Managing to stay alive after being thrown around like that... She had to confess, although she hated his guts, this guy had some real tough bones...

Her plan to match Aerith with her eldest disciple disappeared just like that… She wouldn’t want him to go through that! The poor kid would die… He might even come to haunt her as a ghost…

Anyways…

“Let’s do it again when you come back!” Victor chuckled and told Aerith as soon as they returned to the drawing room, where the others were waiting for him. All of the little girls were blushing, especially Lara, who, despite being raised in a very conservative environment, was no longer naive and clearly realized what had just happened.

“I… I will…. Let’s go!” Aerith told him, then turned to Lyra and added, quickly walking toward the gate as if she was having difficulty constraining her impulses…

“Call me if you need anything… “ Victor called behind her with a smirk.. “I will wait for you every night…”

“Brother… There are no phones in the Heavenly sect!” Lara hesitated for a moment, then reminded him.

“I know… “ He said as he roughed up her hair. “We lovers have our own way!”

“...”

“Bye…”

“Bye…”

…

“Had fun?” Margret asked as she watched the guests leave.

“Yeah…” he nodded. 

“Then let’s go… It is my turn!” she said, grabbing him from his new shirt. Yeah, he had to change his clothes too, but lately he decided to buy a few sets of the same thing so as not to make others notice.

Anyway, Victor was dragged upstairs again. His wives naturally followed quickly after. Leaving poor Elize all alone!

As for Serina… 

Watching Victor and his wife do it for 5 straight hours, she decided that there was nothing more to see and finally left after confirming that he was a total pervert when he whispered to Mira to groom that girl Melody well…

Yup, she was now sure of it… This guy was a total piece of shit! Nothing more, nothing less.