The Young Master in the Shadows

Chapter 317: Elise’s Problem

Reaching his mansion at long last, Victor was welcomed by some very frustrated brides and a nervous bald cross-dressing one. They had been waiting for hours in their wedding dresses… Even Lily, who knew that he went to kill someone earlier, was a little nervous.

Oops, he forgot to tell them that there would not be any ‘action’ tonight.

“Welcome, young master!” Hilda quickly welcomed him with a slight bow. “Congratulations on your wedding!” she said.

“Yeah.. yeah, whatever… Where is Hana?” he asked.

“She already moved her stuff to the staff building as you instructed her to do… She said she was going to sleep for three straight days before she takes care of that ‘stupid egg’ for yours….” Hilda said, taking a box from her storage ring. “She left this for you.”

Victor quickly grabbed it and looked at it, confirming that this was the blood pill he asked for.

Perfect!

“Good… Tell the girls when they return from the party to stay inside the walls for three days after they return from the party at the hotel… Now go out and close the door. This building will be out of bounds for next week!” Victor said as he pushed the surprised Hilda out. “And no matter what screams you hear, you are forbidden from entering! This young master wants to enjoy his wedding night…Week… whatever!” he said as he closed the mansion’s door and then activated a talisman.

The entire mansion shone with golden light for a moment before it returned to normal.

“Now you can’t escape!” he turned to the amused girls and said. “He he… The entire mansion is ours to….” he paused as he looked at Alex.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Victor gasped and asked in shock as he pointed at her.

“I will leave…” Alex said, feeling a little angry but didn’t know why. She attempted to go out, but couldn’t open the door. It was as if it was frozen in place.

“You can’t leave!” Victor said angrily. "This entire place is entirely locked for three days! I already activated the space isolation talismans!” Victor said angrily.

“Ahh…”

“Don’t Ahh me! Damn, it… You were definitely planning to peep on me and my girls!” Victor threw some baseless accusations.

“Not at all!” Alex said defensively. “They are not my type anyway!”

“That’s the point! You want to peep on me, not them!” Victor yelled.

“Ah….” Alex hesitated, “No I wouldn’t do that…” she said.

“Whatever…. Don’t even try anything funny and keep to your room for this week, or I would make sure to castrate you… This day keeps getting stranger, first a ghost bride, then a hot potato, and now this…”

“A ghost bride?” Margret who was watching the show couldn’t help but ask. She had no idea what Victor left them to do earlier.

“Yes… After the wedding, I checked my status and I had 10 brides!… As far as I know, I only married the nine of you! Where did the 10th come from?” he said. “Could it be a ghost from the wedding hall?” he pondered making the 10th bride look to the ground nervously, not daring to say a thing.

“Status?” Monica asked.

“Ah… I will explain to you about this later!” Victor quickly replied.

“Doesn’t the system list the brides' names?” Mira, who like the others only knew about Lily being the secret bride, asked.

“It does, but for the additional one, it is question marks…. Like the system itself can’t decide…” Victor lied, making Alex look away as she secretly touched the gender-changing ring on her finger. She didn't know that it had that feature.

“Can’t you use the system to connect to her?” Lin asked.

“It is not working… Strange…“ Victor lied. “There must have been some glitch in the wedding…”

“Probably it was that priest… Maybe he was a female in secret! Or he could be gay…“ Margret said with a smug smile. She totally knew.

“That stupid priest is already dead…. So it is not him!” he said, giving Lily a nod. 

“Dead?” Monica asked, a little horrified.

“Yes, alcohol poisoning,” he lied. “No matter what, I will investigate the strange things later… I will get my hands on that 10th bride and then fuck her out … Ghost or not!” Victor said, licking his lips and sending a shiver down Alex’s spine.

"What if she was a male?" Margret asked.

"Regardless!" Victor yelled angrily.

“Then she better watches that sorry ass of hers!” Margret said.

“Definitely…” Victor nodded. “Now… Why are you girls still awake anyway? Isn’t it way past your bedtime?” he asked the girls some bizarre questions.

“Are you really asking that! Don’t you have some big job tonight?” Margret asked. “We were waiting for you to finish it!” she said, making the girls blush.

“Ah… True!” Victor said as he slowly walked toward Elise, who was sitting nervously to the side totally unsuspecting and carried her in his arms.

“Ah…” she yelped in surprise.

“I will take Elise to heal her now… I am sure she already told you her story.“ Victor said. “Lin and Lily will come with me too…”

“A threesome? No, a foursome!” Margret asked a little excited for no apparent reason.

“You will know in the morning… Now go get some dinner and go to sleep.” Victor said to the disappointed girls. “And no matter what you hear from below, ignore it!” he added mysteriously again, making Elise in his hand shrink a little.

“Young master … What should I do?” Alex suddenly said nervously. 

“Oh… I almost forgot about you… We will talk in the morning, this young master has a young master's work to do for tonight!” Vector said as he carried Elise downstairs to the basement ignoring the girls’ questioning gazes. 

He paused…

“Margret… Take Alex and stay on the upper floor for tonight…” he said apologetically.

“Why?” she asked. She planned to eavesdrop on him.

“Your presence might disturb the… ritual…” he didn’t elaborate as he left. Lin and Lily quickly followed with a smirk, making the girls sigh in frustration. Especially Monica who had been breathing heavily all night in anticipation.

“Don’t look at him like that!” Aria scolded. “This was what we expected would happen. And Elise deserves to be the priority. You heard her story!”

“Um…” Mira nodded. “What a poor girl.”

“How about we find something to eat then?” Mina said, trying to liven the atmosphere a little.

Mana nodded, “Let’s go…. Aunt Hilda already prepared a lot of things in the kitchen!”

“Then that only leaves the two of us…” Margret said, looking at Alex. “And I am going to have my fun tonight no matter what!” she added, dragging the poor newly married dark scion upstairs.

…

“Victor… I need to talk to you privately too…” Lin said as soon as they reached a simple soundproofed office in the basement, where Victor carefully placed the nervous Elise on a couch.

“Is it about the parasite?” he asked.

“Yes….” Lin nodded. She knew that Victor already knew everything about it. In fact, he had been watching the ritual she underwent through her eyes while calming her down.

“Did you learn something new?” he asked.

“Before the wedding… Aunt Martha gave me another mission and told me to hide it from my mother…” 

“Oh… What?” Victor looked at Lin with a frown.

“The parasite eggs they gave me were not for the zombie parasite as my mother and I were informed… “

“What are they?” Victor turned serious as he looked her in the eyes.

“I don’t know… But that aunt Martha told me to perform a ritual when we….” Lin blushed. “You know…”

“What ritual?” Victor asked.

“It is a strange incantation…” Lin said as she took out a piece of paper and gave it to him. It contained a summoning spell.

Victor only needed to look at it for a second before his face changed.

“What is it?” Lily asked, giving Lin some very hostile looks.

“This is a demon summoning ritual… They want to replace me with a demon…” he said, squinting his eyes. The Von Rosen Patriarch must not be aware of this… They were infiltrated too! That woman Martha was a Von Zwei agent!

“What? What should I do?” she asked nervously.

“Don’t worry… Now that you told me, we can prepare some nice surprise for them…” he said, squinting his eyes as he patted her hair. 

“Um…” Lin nodded as she enjoyed his touch.

“Now… Are you reading to do some summoning for me?” he asked.

“Yes…” she already knew that he wanted to make her summon something on their wedding night, but she had no idea what.

“Then go to the other room with Lily and follow this….” Victor said, taking out a small booklet and giving it to Lin.

Lin nodded as she quickly leafed through it. “A summoning?”

“Yes… It is important to upgrade our bloodlines before we lose our virginity!” he said.

“Oh… “ she nodded. “But this summoning is not for a servant… It is just an invitation to come to our world… That thing doesn’t need to follow my order. We only have the power to send it back to its world!”

“Yes… You don’t have the power to make that thing your servant! We are just inviting a guest to help us… It might need some convincing though…”

“Oh… Is that why you want me to summon it in the cage?”

“Yes!” Victor nodded.

“Lily is coming with me?” Lin finally asked, a little annoyed.

“Yes… she will make things way easier…” Victor said as he took out a jade box containing the red feather he got from the auction. “Use this as a catalyst… And make Lily stand by your side at all times without her veil!” he added, looking at Lily.

“Um….” she was not convinced, “What is this thing called DAVITOTHAK? I have never heard of such a creature before?” Lin asked with a frown. 

“It is a very rare creature from a higher realm… Very tricky to summon, but if you follow the instructions and the contract I provided it should succeed on the first try!” Victor said. “This is Vital for our next plan! You must succeed…”

“Can’t you be with us?” Lin asked nervously, summoning powerful otherworldly creatures is a very hard thing to do, especially if it is a smart one.

“No way! I will monitor you, but that’s the only thing I can do… Don’t even mention my name inside that room. That thing hates men and sluts!” Victor said. “I will have to use my disguise skill around this room to avoid any problems!”

“Oh… So that’s why you sent Margret and Alex away! ”

“Exactly,” he said… he sent Alex away for another reason. “Now go… the faster you finish with this, the faster we would be able to… consummate our marriage…” Victor said with a dirty smile.

Lin blushed a little then quickly left with Lily who gave Elise then Victor one last glare before closing the room’s door behind her.

Elise shrank a little as she heard the door close… She was alone with him. It was the moment of truth, was he scamming her all day or was he telling the truth.

“Now… “ Victor said as he sat beside her on the couch. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked Elise.

“... Aren’t you the one who is supposed to tell me that?” she asked.

“Not really… I only know three things!” Victor said mysteriously. “The first is that your ritual is not over yet…” he said.

“Oh… Really?” she seemed to have not been aware of that.

“Yes … I can tell from reading your status with my appraisal skill! This leads us to my second point…your condition is definitely caused by the ritual, it is some kind of a test!”

“Um…” she also figured this out the moment he told her that her ritual was not over.

“The third thing is that you smell nice…” he said. “Do you wear perfume?” he asked as he took a deep breath.

“..N…No…” she stuttered as she blushed. “Can we return to curing me? You said you would be able to do that!”

“Yes... Yes… You have to tell me exactly what happened at your ritual though…” he asked.

“Ah… Well… I was really nervous back then…” Elise knotted her cute eyebrows trying hard to remember. “I was brought to the ceremony room by my uncle. A cube-shaped stone was placed in the center…”

“The awakening artifact!” Victor nodded.

“Um... My uncle explained to me that the stone would ask me a question and that I should answer it the best I can… He ordered me to touch it after that…”

“The stone?”

“Yes… What else was there?” she frowned, not getting his joke.

“Nothing, just a random thought… You were left alone after that?”

“Yes… It is the tradition, as I must solve the question alone by myself…”

“That makes sense…”

The idea behind the Von Geldstadt family's artifact is that it would ask a question, then monitor the way the candidate thinks about it… The answer was not important, but the thought process is what determined the results… The more mental energy someone spends, the better. 

The candidate only needed to reach the answer in his mind, he didn't even need to say it!

If the thought process was completely wrong or the candidate took too much time, the test would fail. 

This was a strange thing, as Elise didn’t fail! Why was that?

“What happened after that at the ritual?”

“A strange question appeared in front of me… it was totally incomprehensible no matter how I thought about it… I gave up and tried some random answers, but nothing happened… After an hour it disappeared and I was blasted away from the stone…”

“Did your grandfather investigate what happened after that?” Victor frowned. This was not what he expected.

“Yes… Other than that my uncle didn’t explain things more clearly, he found nothing…no foul play…”

“Oh…” Victor frowned, at first he presumed that it was someone from her family like what happened with him, but if someone was good enough able to fool Harvey, the Von Geldstadt family wouldn’t have disintegrated a few years after his death.

“Oh… What was the question..”

“I can’t tell you!!! What if I failed the test?” she asked. After knowing the test was not over she had been feeling a little edgy.

“You already told your grandfather… And telling others will not make you fail as long as they didn’t solve it for you!”

“Oh… “ Elise frowned, then took out a piece of paper she was keeping in her pocket and gave it to Victor. She must have written it before with the twins' help.

Opening it Victor frowned as he looked at it.

Despite being blind, Elise's strokes were clear and beautiful, she must have studied calligraphy.

Other than that Victor had no idea what the hell those symbols meant… What the fuck, he had never seen those before, despite them looking familiar.

No wonder she didn’t fail her ceremony or pass it… The girl couldn't simply answer a question she didn’t get. So no matter what she tried, the system was still waiting for her to read the f*cking question!

Victor just sat there looking at the piece of paper for the next 30 minutes. Flipping it around and looking at it from a different angle. Elise who was sitting beside him said nothing.

Damn, they looked very familiar… But where did he see them?

It was a feeling similar to looking at your own glasses… you always look through them that you forget they are on your eyes… something like that….

What could those mean?

If this was not a trick played by her family then what?

And how was the blind Elise able to solve this after the reckoning… If Elise was able to solve it, he should be able to do it too. 

Victor refused to think that she was smarter than him!

What could have changed after the reckoning?

It could be just a time thing… The question simply timed out after so long. Very possible. Elise would automatically be turned into a player by the world after the reckoning after all.

It was also possible that the scion who met her helped her in some way. Scions were good at fixing little girls’ troubles.

Victor sighed. He had a complex look in his eyes… Elise would definitely lose faith in him if he failed to solve her problem. The scam he prepared to steal her loli heart would fail.

No, he refused to give up.

He must start from the beginning… 

He took a deep breath. And began to ponder.

If Elise could see what he looked like now, she would be shocked as he no longer looked like a perverted young master, but like a scheming fox deep in thoughts… A very charming fox.

He was considering all possibilities.

Why would the system ask Elise an impossible question? It never did that before, even the symbols it usually used were something everyone could read regardless of their race or language…

Wait… Victor quickly remembered what happened earlier at the wedding. Something that he ignored and intended to investigate later….

“HOLY SH*T!” Victor suddenly shouted as he stood up looking at the symbols on the paper.

He got it!