”ZOEMI?!”

The black-haired boy launched himself at the dark-blue-haired butler without as much as a peep of a warning, causing his chair to hit the ground and Reo to cry out in terror.

”WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?! ONE OF THE GHOSTS OF BELLCEPHORA?! HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT MY MOTHER ALWAYS MESSED UP THOSE FUCKING APPLES?! DO YOU THINK I WILL FORGIVE YOU FOR MAKING ME REMEMBER HOW SHE SUFFERED WHEN THE DARKNESS MANA WAS MELTING HER INTERNAL ORGANS, KILLING HER FROM THE INSIDE, YOU FUCKING SCUM?!”

Whether that was Benevirau’s intention or not, Zoemi had flown completely out of the handle, encasing himself in the murky-black armor, and picking him up by the shirt, letting out a deafening roar that made the windows in the entire mansion tremble.

”…wha… what did you…?”

While Zoemi was completely consumed by anger, Benevirau was pale as a ghost – but not because of the attack.

The dark-blue-haired butler didn’t try to run or defend himself, even though he was more than capable of doing so at any given moment.

Zoemi’s beastly shadow armor had no effect on the blind man in the first place, but what horrified him were the boy’s words.

”Wha-what do you mean darkness mana melting her organs…?”

Benevirau trembled on the verge of tears.

”…**ing…! Reo!”

The black-haired boy growled through his teeth and glanced over to the green-haired boy powerlessly watching the scene play out from the side whit a horrified expression.

”Y-yes…?!”

Reo gasped, straightening his back at the attention without even realizing it.

”I don’t give a ** about this territory anymore. You do whatever you want, I don’t care, I’m teleporting back to the royal capital.”

”Wha…?! EEHH?!”

Zoemi deactivated his shadow armor, and dropped the dark-blue-haired butler, before shrugging his shoulders and disappearing into a flash of a murky light – to a shocked outcry of the green-haired boy.

”Y-young master…? YOUNG MASTER?!”

Benevirau reached out his hands to Zoemi but was a split second too late and he grabbed onto a thin air where the black-haired boy should be, which caused him to falter and almost fell down.

”Young master?! Where… where are you? Where did you go?!”

The misty-gray-eyed man looked truly pitiful and lost, reaching his hands as if expecting that Zoemi had only stepped away from him, but alas, that wasn’t the case.

”What was that about his mother slowly dying and you being one of the ghosts of Bellcephora?! What did you do to Zoemi?”

As if that wasn’t enough, Reo also seemed to forget himself and jumped over to the dark-blue-haired butler grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him in panic, despite knowing about the strength the man was holding.

”…the apples… the caramelized apples…”

”What about the stupid apples?! What’s wrong with them?! Besides being bitter as all hell…!”

Benevirau muttered to himself, literally trembling from worry, making Reo lean away in confusion.

”One day young lady Learn asked me to teach her how to cook, so she could surprise Neramis the next time he would be passing through the city… She could always do everything, but couldn’t grasp the correct timing for taking the apples off the flame… I… I didn’t want to make young master remember any horrible memory…! I just wanted to know whether the young lady had… had…! What have I done…?!”

It really looked like Benevirau’s world had collapsed and the dark-blue-haired butler had absolutely no clue what to do with himself.

”Umm… Sir Benevirau… I’m sorry to ask that even though I was the one who brought Zoemi here, but… How are you so sure that he is lady Learen’s son? I expected that you would want to put him through a test or something, but you just… seem completely sure that he is the person you were waiting for… How…?”

With the black-haired boy loudly and clearly expressing his loss of interest in the Banamor territory before disappearing, the green-haired capture target couldn’t help himself and asked in a curious voice, trying his best to not anger the thousand-year-old servant.

”What question is that?! Of course, I would recognize Learen and Naramis’s son! Not only does he sound exactly like his grandfather, but he also looks like his parents!”

Benevirau scoffed, greatly annoyed by the suggestion of being mistaken.

With a mere flick of his wrist, three water spouts erupted right from the floorboards and froze into ice sculptures of two males and a female.

”!!!”

Seeing the highly detailed faces of the ice-sculptures Reo was left speechless as his jaw dropped.

The middle one, was Zoemi – no doubt about it, although the details of the body and clothes were different than what the black-haired boy actually was wearing, every single detail about his face matched.

As for the sculptures on right and left, although Reo could swear that he had never seen either of those people in his life, but even so, he could point out the similarities between them and Zoemi.

Similarities that were too numerous to be written off as mere coincidence.

”You are his friend, aren’t you?! I beg you, please help me bring him back…!”

Benevirau grabbed Reo’s hands and pleaded with a desperate expression.

——

In one of the dormitory rooms, a dark-haired girl was staring blankly at her reflection in the mirror on top of her desk.

”Miriette… you really should just contact him already.”

A big-breasted blond girl who took over the bed to cast her spells on the short brown-haired girl in a maid’s uniform sighed and looked at the unresponsive girl.

”…Burushi…! You don’t understand…! He caught me mas… doing indecent stuff by myself…! How am I supposed to talk to him after that…! He always kept me in such high regard and then… How is he even able to use message spell in the first place?! And why he has perfect timing for the worst situation?!”

The heroine’s words certainly did have an effect on the villainess, as she suddenly leaned down, pressing her forehead against the desk, and cried out in a mournful voice.

”Aren’t boys into that though…? You were playing with yourself while thinking of him after all, didn’t you?”

The blond girl shrugged her shoulders and asked, making Miriette flinch.

”H-how would you know that…?!”

”I don’t know. Because of that maybe? Alright so, the other hand now.”

The dark-haired girl gasped but instantly blushed even harder when the blond girl motioned with her chin at the crumpled male shirt hanging off of the side of the bed as it must have fallen from under the pillow, and continued Veo’s treatment letting go of her left arm.

”Sh-shut up…”

Miriette cowered and grumbled in defeat, looking away from the mocking smirk of the blond heroine.

”Mistress… Sir Zoemi would not stop liking you because of something like that. If it was that easy then my prince would have seduced him ages ago.”

Veo raised her right hand and deactivated the enchantments letting her control it, so that Burushi could work on it without any obstruction and used the chance to point an obvious – in her opinion – fact to Miriette.

”…that… does make sense…”

”Or Zoemi is just dense as a rock.”

The dark-haired girl nodded her head with a realization, but the blond-haired girl merely scoffed and shrugged her shoulders at that.

——–

”Ughh…”

The black-haired boy had depleted his mana by a lot by subduing the shadow of Ludier Galaroze, so even though he normally could have teleported right where he said he would go – that being the Bellcephora’s kingdom capital – but his mana reservoir emptied out and he was thrown out of the murky light right into a bush growing beside the magnificent lake glowing with a myriad of mana crystals half-buried in its muddy depths.