The first person to speak up was my father, Phillip Inferesse.

"Oh…"

Tom Bluelet stood there like a statue.

Behind him, his useless son, James, stared at his father with wide eyes, frozen in place.

"This... is quite an interesting recording."

Tom Bluelet's eyes twitched.

His face filled with wrinkles.

He clenched his fist.

"The idiot... couldn't just die quietly."

"Ah, so that's what he meant..."

As we've discussed many times before.

That was the sentence Harrison Reross uttered when he saw Tom Bluelet.

I didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone; I would tell my father when we were alone...

But the truth had come out sooner than expected.

"A father who planned to kill his own son, huh. Just like a drama movie."

My lips curled upward involuntarily.

I wasn't very concerned about our safety.

I didn't think Tom Bluelet would try to do anything to us anyway.

Even if things got a bit… messy, I didn't think it would affect our alliance much.

It was just an interesting piece of information.

"Let's go. We'll talk upstairs."

Tom Bluelet continued walking, his temper flaring, when…

"F- Father…"

His son's voice echoed down the hallway.

"Did you... try to kill me...?"

"Tch."

Tom glanced back at his son standing behind him.

"You're nothing but a useless, functionless moron who wasted his entire life on meaningless things. At least you would have had a use that way."

He turned back to face forward.

He would move on without caring about him.

"Shut up and follow us. Like I said, we'll talk upstairs. Besides... there are some things I will ask you there."

Another thought came to my mind.

"Ah, could it be that question about how he's still alive?"

Harrison Reross had mentioned something like that.

About how he had killed James with his own hands and watched as the body was carried away.

"Franz Martin Inferesse."

Tom Bluelet's deep voice echoed throughout the corridor. His eyes, which had begun to sparkle again, were fixed on my father and me.

"Don't stick your nose into matters that are none of your concern. Just like the fool behind me, shut up and leave things to your elders. We'll talk about this when we get upstairs."

I glanced at my father.

His blue eyes were shining too, but not to attack, more to defend in case of an emergency.

He shook his head from side to side when our eyes met.

Tom Bluelet was stronger than him.

"Okay…"

I looked away from him and bowed my head slightly.

"As you said, I apologize for meddling in a matter that I should have left to my elders."

It would be better to step back…

"Tch."

Tom Bluelet clicked his tongue again, the sparkle in his eyes fading.

He began moving forward again, paying no attention to either his son behind him or us.

It was just that…

"Huh?"

He suddenly stopped, while continuing to walk toward us.

Standing there in the middle of the silent corridor... his eyes slowly widened.

"W-what?"

His gaze, like ours, drifted downward.

Toward his chest.

And he saw what we saw.

"A-ah..."

He saw a hand that had pierced through the area where his heart should have been, covered in a strange, transparent layer, gleaming; it looked much sharper and more dangerous than it should have been.

Warm blood trickled down from his lip and the wound on his chest, his eyes turning blood red.

He forced himself to turn around and look at the owner of the hand that had pierced his chest.

What he saw was one eye that looked quite familiar, the same green-colored eye he himself possessed… and another eye that looked completely unfamiliar, glowing with an ominous, purple light.

"J- Ja… mes…?"

James didn't open his mouth; he casually pulled back the hand that had pierced his father's chest.

Tom Bluelet collapsed to the ground.

As his blood spread across the floor where he had fallen, his body trembled uncontrollably.

The culprit, James, tore his eyes away from his father lying on the ground.

He turned toward us.

He began to walk toward us slowly, without once looking back at his father lying on the ground.

Blood flowed over the strange layer covering his hand as if it were an invisible sword.

*******

The person who killed James Bluelet was his own father.

Well, he wasn't exactly the one who killed him... but he was the main person responsible for his death.

He was going to use the death of his useless son to pin the blame on someone else and try to rise to power by collaborating with the Reross Family.

Most likely, he would pin the blame on the Inferesse Family.

And he would have succeeded.

The only problem was me.

I was the one who had taken on the guise of his son, appeared before him despite being dead, and complicated matters by working with the family he intended to frame.

That's why he was surprised to see me alive when he first saw me; he probably thought I had somehow learned of the Inferesses' plan and was trying to confuse him.

That's why he seemed so uncomfortable here all the time.

It was quite... an interesting series of events, actually.

If I hadn't been involved in it, of course.

The part that concerned me was quite significant, after all.

Tom Bluelet had probably seen his son's body because he had planned it with the Rerosses.

I had thought that he had not a single doubt that the person in front of him was his real son, but I was wrong.

He was aware that something was wrong, but he had hidden it well.

Too well, in fact.

He wanted to investigate the person who had taken his son's place.

That's why he had remained silent until now, just watching me.

Now, after the Rerosses attack and the truth about his son came to light... things would speed up.

Soon, just as his plan had been revealed, my true identity would also be exposed.

Everything was intertwined.

All the plans I had made before were now rendered invalid to a certain extent.

In short, I had to make a decision.

And I did.

I took a deep breath, one that no one would notice.

Since things were speeding up...

Then I would speed up my own plans.

The moment Tom Bluelet turned his back and took his focus off me, I touched the caora.

I wrapped Durandal's aura around my left arm, used all my speed to get behind him, and stabbed his heart.

He couldn't even react.

Even though we were almost equal in strength, that was the effect of a surprise attack.

Now...

I walked toward the two in front of me, ignoring Tom Bluelet's trembling body.

Philip and Franz Inferesse stared at me with wide eyes.

"H- hey… James."

Philip, being weaker than Tom and therefore weaker than me, smiled awkwardly.

"If you have such skills, why did you hide th—"

"No, father!"

But Franz interrupted him.

"That's not the real James! The real James was killed in the Rerosses ambush. That's someone else pretending to be him! Harrison Reross said so!"

Philip's eyes widened even more as he looked at me.

He gulped and glanced behind him.

He was thinking of running away.

But I didn't let him.

The sheet of ice moving across the floor beneath my feet stopped when it reached them.

Countless ice spikes suddenly blocked their escape route.

Blue flames rose behind them as well. If they managed to get past the ice spikes, they'd have to deal with it too.

I continued advancing toward them.

"H- hey, stop! I don't know who you're working for, but I can give you whatever you want!"

I kept walking.

"Whatever you're going to get in return, I'll give you three, no... five times that!"

I didn't care.

"Ten times that!"

When I reached them, I stopped.

"THIS ENTIRE MANSION AND EVERYTHING IN IT IS YOURS!"

I raised my left hand, covered in Durandal's aura.

"DAMN YOU!"

Philip Inferesse pointed his hands at me; he was probably going to use a skill.

His son, standing right next to him, had pulled a gun out of his jacket.

But I was faster than both of them.

My left hand pierced Philip's chest just like Tom Bluelet's had. But it didn't stop there—his entire body also suddenly burst into blue flames.

"Ah- AAAAAARRRRHHH!"

His agonized screams echoed through the corridor as every part of his body was engulfed in blue flames.

~BAAM!

Franz's gun, aimed at me, fired.

He had taken advantage of the opportunity while I was dealing with his father.

"..."

The bullet hit the Mana Barrier I had created between us and fell to the ground, bent out of shape.

He looked first at the bullet on the ground, then at the Mana Barrier between us.

Then, at his father's body, which was burning fiercely.

His eyes trembled with horror and fear.

"N- no...!"

But then, he felt my right hand on his chest and looked there.

"A- ah…"

And just like Tom Bluelet and Philip Inferesse, the last thing he saw was my hand piercing his heart.

*******

The flames engulfed the entire corridor, blocking the view from outside.

I pulled caora back, glanced around, and thought to myself.

There are probably a few people who know we are here, and they will rush here soon to put out the flames and 'rescue' us.

I have to act quickly.

I turned my eyes to one of the bodies lying on the ground, Franz's.

I knelt down, opened my mouth, and forced out one of my teeth.

When I crushed it in my hand, a brief flash of light appeared, and a device materialized in my palm.

It was exactly the same device we had used when Alex and I set up that fake shootout scene. Only this time, the data hadn't been preloaded into it.

I scanned Franz's body using the device.

Every detail of his body, including his DNA, was scanned.

Then a blue light began to flash on the device.

It was ready.

Without hesitation, I pressed the button on the device, and the flashing blue light turned green.

The disgusting transformation I had experienced a few days earlier happened again.