Was it shock? No, what Navin felt the moment the strange man in a mask walked into the room was nothing so flimsy as meer shock. He felt terror, the world he had built around himself over these past two days came crashing down like a pile of rubble. Was he not chosen by god? Was this place not gifted to him so he could spend the rest of his life in bliss.

“I was wondering why there wasn’t anyone here and thought I had wasted my time when I heard a noise up here and came to check it out. So, who permitted you to use the properties of the organization?”

The masked man walked casually towards him as he remained mounted on the dark elf below him. He stared at him with those cold yellow eyes that felt like a monster was eyeing trash they spotted at the side of the sidewalk.

The strange and tense mood in the air drove Nevin out of his fear-stricken paralysis as he immediately tried to rise and head for the door. He had heard the rumors about this person and knew if he stayed still and remained unmoving, even begging or groveling would not save his life and his will to survive that had kept him— who was too weak even for a lesser demon— alive for so long told him that he needed to get far away from this man immediately.

However, Mr. 99 moved faster than he could think.

A thwap resounded in Nevin’s ears, and then his vision shook wildly as he almost lost consciousness but managed to stay lucid.

A beat later, Nevin’s right cheek caught fire as burning, stinging heat radiated out from it and his entire body was lifted off the bed and the dark elf as he tumbled on the ground and slammed the wall.

He had been struck — no, in this case, it would be more appropriate to say he had been slapped. Yet, the force of the slap had been so evenly distributed that it sent his entire body flying without taking off his head.

“Awk! Wait! This place was gifted to me by god—”

A ringing thwap resounded off Nevin’s face. He had been slapped again as the so-called Mr. 99 had suddenly appeared crouching before him and the slap that was less powerful than the last rang out in his ears. It was soon followed by many more.

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right—

“What—!”

Why was this happening to him, he had done nothing wrong, only what god had blessed him with. Was this a punishment for abusing the little power he had or was this a cruel joke from someone? Sure, after realizing god’s blessing he had immediately taken out his pent-up frustration on the only remaining people that had been locked up in the underground cell.

He raised his hand to protect his face as he stumbled back in retreat it was pressed against the wall.

His cheeks throbbed with pain, as though they had been lit on fire.

“Prwes shup, o didh nothin Wong.”

“Is that so.”

“Thws waz tde wyll of gud.”

Mr. 99 slowly stood up and watched him struggle to crawl away without a shred of emotions in his eyes. He ignored the figures of the naked young ladies on the ground and bed almost as though they held no value in his eyes.

Walking slowly towards the crawling Nevin, he asked: “So, why are you here and what happened to this division.”

Nevin’s mind, however, could not focus and thus did not understand the question he had been asked which in turn was detrimental to his health as he suddenly felt a stinging pain in his back. A blade had pierced his back before he had realized it and with a light tug, the Kusarigama-like weapon flew back to the hands of the masked man as he proceeded to then spin it around while staring at the agonizing Nevin.

Nevin stammered several times in pain but he still could not find the strength to form actual words and thus the same process repeated itself again and again until he was on the brink of passing out, and just when he was about to escape this hell the masked man spoke again.

“Oh no you don’t, I still need you to answer my questions pig.”

Je then reached into his coat and pulled out a bottle. It was a transparent glass bottle that contained a slimy green liquid within it. Tossing the bottle at Navin it smashed into his face and although he had thought it to harm him further, the moment the contents contained within the glass bottle splashed on him, his skin absorbed the liquid and his wounds immediately began to heal.

In less than a minute, he was completely restored and before he could even comprehend what had happened, Mr. 99 had already arrived before him and crouched down to face him.

“Now then, I won’t ask again, what happened here.”

His menacing metallic genderless voice sent a thrill of fear down his back as he still felt the pain from every single time the blade had pierced his skin. Not wanting to be hurt further, he hastily explained everything he knew including what he had done after the disappearance of the members of the organization.

“O see, so you were worthless after all Huh.”

Those cold words that were said so casually to his face made him wet his pant and hastily tried to make himself useful. However, Mr. 99 hadn’t given him the time as the last thing he saw was the flash of a blade followed by the ceiling as his head rolled on the floor with his eyes still wide open.

Mr. 99 clicked his tongue as he had failed to obtain any useful information that would help him find out more about who that hooded man was. He thought for a moment and decided on his next course of action. It was a long shot, but he would have to start his investigations from scratch.

He turned around to see the two motionless girls on the bed and floor and just casually tossed the same mid-grade healing potion he had used at them which quickly fixed their wounds.

Healing potions were rare in the demon continent so even the low-grade potion was very expensive and could not be so casually used. Yet for someone to so casually toss away three mid grad potions to the story of their financial backings.

Mr. 99 felt no attachment nor sympathy for the slave girls and had only done what he did because he felt obligated to at least provide them with their health back f they were going be survive on their own.

Since there was nothing in this place, he was just about to leave when he suddenly heard a faint knocking sound at the large metal door downstairs. Walking by the dead unmoving body of the bony man before him, he exited the room and went downstairs.

Just as he walked into the room that contained the large door, he heard a creaking sound and the metal doors slowly swung open.

Five lesser demons carefully walked inside the room as they awkwardly open observed the room while calling out for someone to respond. They didn’t look like they bling in this part of town.

“Hello! Anyone here!”

“We’re here to fulfill the agreement we have with Corno!”

Ignoring their shouts, 99 silently watched the group for a while to observe them a bit more. Judging by their features, there was an ogre, a succubus, a lesser demon, and two immature imps. The metal-plated bracelet they had on their sea told him they were from the Hunter guild but it didn’t seem like they were here on any type of quest against the organization.

In fact, it seemed more like they were here seeking to do business with this division. Perhaps the division had once housed something of theirs. Well whatever, Mr. 99 smirked under his mask as he thought of how unfortunate this bunch was to be here at this moment in time.

••••••••••

••••••••••

—Back at the Underground Mine.

Tyler stared at the five short burly men in utter shock. While they struggled to escape the webs of a Lesser Djieien while arguing amongst themselves. He felt dumbfounded how someone could get caught in such a trap much less five people.

He almost felt like a headache was about to storm him but fought hard to hold it back. He was just about to check out and ignore the five when a certain detail about them caught his attention and he took a step towards them instead.

Their short and burly bearded figures reminded him something, he had never seen dwarfs before but if the fantasies from earth were to be believed, these five had to be dwarves right. Their outfit was a set of coarsely designed coveralls with mining equipment scattered all around them.

Tyler’s mind finally calmed down as he wondered why there were dwarfs mining in the demon continent but he wouldn’t be able to find out if he let them be spider food. He could clearly see a Lesser Djieien slowly crawling towards them from the ceiling so it was best if he acted now.

The dwarves were all backing him so it was logical they saw the monster coming which was why they struggled so desperately to get themselves free. One of them held tightly to a large pickax but his limbs were stuck and he could not swing the equipment. Not that Tyler expected the item to be of any use against an intermediate monster even if it was a magic item.

The Lesser Djieien finally lunged at them after finally being able to completely restrict their movements. It would seem it had been wary of that pickax which made Tyler think it was really a magic item but not one that was geared toward fighting apparently.

Still, just at it was about to tear the screaming dwarves apart, Tyler used spatial distortion to change the monster’s target and strolled forth. It was a good thing he didn’t normally exude any presence as the monsters would’ve run off immediately it sensed him.

He walked by the frightened bunch and easily avoided the Lesser Djieien desperate swing at him while countering with •Uppercut Slash• and splitting the monster in two shocking the dwarves speechless as they stared at him with an, even more, tightened expression than when they had faced death only a moment ago.

While Tyler wondered why they were so easily scared he was still interested in talking to these bunch so he decided to speak politely to them to calm their nerves while also freeing them from their bondage.

“Well hello there.”

“Hello” Nadine echoed his greetings from behind the dwarves and that only served to scare them more as it looked as though they had boxed them in.

Being freed from the webs, the dwarves were a little disoriented as they scattered all around, trying to get themselves together as they hastily picked up some of their stuffs and before Tyler and Nadine could even say another word, they hurriedly banded together and disappeared from Tyler’s sight.

“Well this is interesting, a camouflage spell is it. Combined with the silence spell no less.”

Tyler said chuckling as he watched the hazy and translucent figures of the five slowly try to crawl away from him in amusement.