Chapter 62: It is the night before the Engagement party, Miss Villainess

The Grandmaster of the Abyssal New Gate was the last Boss the protagonist’s party had to face in the game. He showed up right after Ahlia defeated Tizmilly with his Half-demon and Demon Legions.

He was the first figure who could turn the world upside-down, initiating a new world war. An embodiment of the true terror a mortal could achieve to do. One of the most memorable traits of him was his cautious, almost cowardly nature.

He developed this trait after he grow close to Jahreon in the game. Jahreon’s scholarly mindset greatly influenced how he grew as a person in the end. That trait might make him dangerous if him in this world also grew the same mindset. However, it also meant that I could predict the bigger line of how he would do. Otherwise, what could I do to know what kind of twisted thoughts that man had in his crazed mind?

"The Grandmaster is a cautious man, yes. However, he is also a vengeful person. Once you become his enemy... He will chase you to the end of the world, ignoring any risks he may have to face in the process."

I analyzed how Jahreon described the Grandmaster of the Abyssal New Gate. His cautious triat remained, but because he was not that close to Jahreon, I didn’t think it would be at the same level as he was in the game. His vengeful nature was the same. But the degree of which how far he would go to fulfill his resentment had became drastically multiplied. If his description was true, then it wouldn’t be long before the Falling Feather Incident occurred.

That night, my dinner lost its favor. My mind was too focused in pondering how I should face the change of situation to taste my mother’s cookings.

Maybe because she noticed my condition, my mother reached out to pat my head. "What the matter, Theo? You look distressed. Is mom’s cookings not good?" She asked gently, her eyebrows knitted in concern.

I immediately shook my head. "No, no, it is not the food!" I replied.

The other’s attentions shifted onto me. Their curious and concerned gazes were directed to me. My mother also tilted her head, her eyes inquiring me without a word.

I couldn’t ignore their gazes. After hesitating, weighing the pros and cons of telling them the truth, I decided to speak up. Not everything, of course. Telling them about the end of the world would only scare and made them panic. I had to make that I would only tell the surface of the matter to them.

"Well... I am just realized, Mom," I said, looking at my mother, Tizmilly, Gyllena, Carole, and the other’s faces. "That from now on, the world will become much more dangerous. And that makes me worried about—"

"About me?" Before I finished, however, my mother interrupted me. "Or Tizmilly? Or the others?"

"Theo, oh my Theo..." With an exaperated smile on her face, my mother shook her head, her hand was messing with my hair.

"I can protect myself," She said, sighing. But her eyes were looking at me gently, reassuring me. "Tizmilly is also strong."

"She can protect herself. Even Gyllena, Carole, and the others... Right?" She asked the others at the end, which responded with strong nods from everyone.

Tizmilly offered me a smile as she reached out to grab my hand. "I know that I am still not strong enough. But I will continued to train myself, Mr. Roost! Some day, I will become someone that can fight alongside you!"

Gyllena snorted. After she wiped her lips off the soup, she smirked mockingly at me. "How laughable. To think that a man who is able to flattened my back garden onto the ground to show such a pathetic face. Your concern is needless! I will increase the military power of my Family. Surely, no one will be able to stepped into my territory after that."

Carole opened her lips while she was chewing her dinner. "Thhe wurrld s ways aplass fild withh dangrr. As luung as wee curefull, nothin iss goinng to go dat bat, raight?(The world is always a place filled with danger. As long as we careful, nothing is going to go that bad, right?)"

Timmy smiled gently and scrathed his cheek. "Don’t worry, sir. We won’t be as careless as our father."

Gerena only gave me a glance and a nod before she back to her book. She used her left hand to keep flipping the pages, while the right hand was to hold the spoon and kept eating.

Sirry blushed embarassedly and looked like she was hesitating whether to speak up or not, but in the end, she encouraged herself. "E-everything will be o-okay! I-I b-believe!"

Marie pinched her chin, pondering over the matter, before she said casually. "The guards of the Dungeon City are considered strong globally, so I don’t think worry too much about world is healthy. Focus instead to what you can and cannot do or control."

Yona was the only one who pondered over my words seriously. At least her face implied so. Maybe the others also thought about it seriously, but only not as easy to see. "If that is true, then let’s start saving our money, everyone!"

Ivandel, on the other hand, didn’t look too worried about my words. Or rather, he didn’t even looked like he even thinking about anything. He focused solely on his dinner, his face a mask of pure bliss. "I am blessed to be able to taste this blessing of an art!"

Davina didn’t say anything. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she was talking.

Rasa... Suddenly appeared behind me, shocked me. She gave me a fried shrimp while flashing a peace sign with her usual expressionless face. "Eat, Manager."

"T-thank you?" I received the fried shrimp, then she returned to her seat.

Karr’s reaction, however, was the most unexpected out of all. "Was it the nobles? WAS IT THEY!?" He growled.

Ivandel, who was sitting beside him, had to calm him down. He didn’t stop cursing the nobles, though. He should be hated nobleborn so much. That was surprising to see someone who born in this city to hate the nobles as much as him. After all, they were considerably better than those of the other countries.

Their reactions were all differed. However, it was enough. Enough to make me realize that worrying the uncertain was nothing but a waste of time. I had to focus more onto what was important at the moment. Which was to become stronger, and to collect more and more powerful weapons and artifacts we might need in the future.

The fog in my head disappeared, but that made me recalled about how my mother had beaten the mind-controlled servants easily, while being an unarmed person at that. I forgot to ask her because I immediately rushed to Jahreon’s room after Carole told me that their target was Jahreon.

"Wait..." I turned to look at my mother’s eyes. "Why does mom so strong? I mean... How?"

My mother blinked her eyes. "Eh?" She seemed to thought of it for a while before she could remember what I was talking about. "Oh, about that..."

She shrugged casually. "I was a traveler before, Theo. Travelling around the world, I was often forced set up a camp at the middle of forest or any kind of dangerous places, all filled with feral monsters and animals. You wouldn’t born if I am weak."

Our conversation seemed to attract other’s attentions again. They listened to my mother’s story intently, seemed to curious about how my mother could become so strong. In truth, I was as curious as them. But plus shock value. I had lived with her all these years, from the very moment I was born into this world, yet it was the first time I learned that my mother was skilled in fighting.

"O-okay..." I nodded, receiving her story, but it still felt too hard to digest for me. "Still, why... Uh... Why didn’t you tell me about it all this time, Mom?" I asked her.

I was having a hard time when I was still figuring out how to fight properly inside the Dungeon. If only I had knew that my mother was a skilled fighter and had her as my instructor, then maybe these hard times would become somewhat easier to the younger me.

My mother patted my head in response. "It’s because I had promised to your father, Theo. He told me that he didn’t want you to get involved into any kind of dangerous and life-threatening activities before he... Left."

She then chuckled. "Well, it turned out to be of no use, however. Since you had became a Dungeon on your own... Your father would be angry and scolded you if he heard that you had always been sneaking into a Dungeon everytime I went to work since you were 6s."

After that, she continued to eat her dinner.

"Mom..."

Everytime I heard she talked about my father, I always felt complicated. I had never seen his face. I had just born when he was executed.

Somewhere inside me, I felt sad, wondering what kind of life I would experiencing if my mother had never forced to left the Tarram Kingdom. Would I live happily there? Like a normal children? Didn’t aware of the approaching doom?

There, I would grow normally, loving my Family normally, and then maybe also falling in love normally.

Then, as the ultimate doom came, I would die like others. Powerless, untrained, but unburdened with the knowledge that I could’ve prevent this from happening or something.

That thought made me wondering.

Which one was the better?

Knowing when and how the world would ends but didn’t have the power to prevent it?

Or not knowing it, then ended like others?