Death's Door

One of the estates was the Sevilles estate. But now, tragedy has struck.

The head and the only known member of the Sevilles family, Augustus Sevilles had pa.s.sed away. His servants found him dead, leaning on his table. Apparently his heart had stopped, he died of natural causes.

But that was not the tragic part.

In fact, his servants, maids, and butlers of the mansion were secretly thrilled that their master had pa.s.sed away. All of them were bound to his will by a master-slave contract they were forced to sign, with his pa.s.sing, they thought they were finally free of him.

He was infamous for his cruelty and lack of mercy, especially towards his subordinates, many of his workers knew it firsthand.

However, when they found the contract, a doc.u.ment they have all signed, they discovered, to their horror, a clause that could doom them all.

The piece of paper that bound their souls had a condition. If the holder of the master portion of the master-slave contacts pa.s.ses away, his heir and successor has to take his place within thirty days of previous master"s pa.s.sing, otherwise, all of the ones contracted under slave portion of the master-slave contract will inevitable die.

This was beyond horrible. Not only was Augustus Sevilles the only known member of Sevilles n.o.ble family, he had no blood ties to the other n.o.ble families. As far as they knew, he had no next of kin.

Yet, apparently he did have an heir. While desperately digging through his doc.u.ments and paperwork, his servants came across a paper t.i.tled "Runfar".

Within it, it disclosed the ident.i.ty of Augustus"s illegitimate son, who was born from an affair many years prior. It also contained a hand drawn picture of Runfar, and statement that Runfar was within Tracoa territory.

The workers of Sevilles mansion quickly made copies of the picture and organized to spread them along with a request of searching for the person in the picture.

They had to find this Runfar person quickly; otherwise, their lives might as well have been lost.

For three weeks they organized searches, scouring through the entirety of Tracoa territory, but so far there was no progress.

Head butler, Mordon Myers, was extremely exhausted from the search.

He already gave up upon finding Augustus"s illegitimate son, at this point, he already had less than nine days left to live. There was nothing wrong with coming to a pub and drink himself to an early grave, after all, he did not have much to live, might as well make the process quicker.

But there, in the Stink Eye"s pub, he made an unexpected discovery.

There sitting next to him was a young man with a half mask over right side of his face, concealing almost entirety of his right side of his head. His hair was golden blond, and the only left eye that was visible was blood red.

Hesitantly, Mordon Myers took out the last of the posters out of his pocket. Without the young man noticing, Myers compared the picture and the young man sitting next to him, it was the exact match.

Furthermore, it was obvious this young man indeed was of Sevilles blood. Augustus Sevilles had a rather uncommon appearance, his golden blond hair and red eyes made him stand out in a crowd. This young man, not only did he resemble Augustus, but he shared Augustus"s uncommon appearance.

It couldn"t have been coincidence.

"Well then, Camil, we should get going now." Young man muttered to the person to his left.

"Yes, master."

Two of them were about to leave before being stopped by Myers.

"Please wait! I beg of you, give me a moment of your time!"

Person named Camil, his appearance was rather androgynous but Myers a.s.sumed Camil was male. Camil looked alarmed before calming down as his master said "It"s all right."

"How can I help you, fair sir?" young man said with a courtly bow.

"Forgive me if I am wrong, but is your name Runfar, per chance?"

"That is correct. But I do not recall meeting you before, how come you know of my name?"

"Well, you see, I am employee working for the Sevilles family, its head, Augustus Sevilles had recently pa.s.sed away. Our entire estate has been searching for his successor. In his doc.u.ments, he had information of you, his son. And this…" he showed Runfar the picture that matched Runfar"s own appearance down to a tee.

"Father has pa.s.sed away?"

"Oh, you knew him?"

"I met him only once, I cannot say it was a memorable experience."

"I am sorry to hear that. Would you be willing to come with me and become the new master of Sevilles estate?" Myers bluntly asked, his and the lives of others were at stake after all.

"Let me ask you this, if he has died, then why are you looking for a new master? Isn"t it easier for you to take his possessions for yourselves and start a new life? Why should I become the new master of Sevilles estate?"

"I wish it was as easy as that, but the contract we have bound our souls to will kill us within nine days if new master is not found. I humbly beg you, I may not value my life, I have lived a long life, but the others, the oldest of the staff is only 24 years old, none of them had lived long and experience joys of life, to me, they are like my own children, please, for their sake, I beg of you."

He now got slightly emotional and started crying.

Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder. The hand was completely bandaged up, but he could feel that the hand was very emaciated and skinny, almost bony.

It was Runfar"s hand.

"Alright, if it means it will save your lives, I will become your master, however, I am not my father, and so I would appreciate if you did not treat me as such."

"Of course, young master!" Myers nodded.

Along with his servant Camil, Runfar was lead to the Sevilles mansion by Myers.

There, after giving a short introduction he presented himself.

The staff consisted of about ten maids and two butlers, Myers included, and there were other servants as well.

They were all shocked to see Runfar up close.

He could hear their whispers.

"He is definitely his son. That"s for sure."

"The resemblance is uncanny…"

"Are we going to be ok?"

Apparently, they were panicking. Runfar could tell that Augustus did not treat them very well; they seemed to have been conditioned to accept fear.

Myers introduced everyone, but two staff caught Runfar"s attention.

A maid by the name of Mirabelle Siros, or Mira as they called her, a tall woman with blindfold over her eyes, she was the head cook of the mansion.

And then there was Landon Myers, who apparently was Mordon Myer"s nephew.

As for others, Runfar chose to memorize their names later.

Then, with a sense of relief they brought the contract to be signed by their new master.

With his own blood, Runfar signed the master portion of the master-slave contract.

Now he officially was the new master of Sevilles estate, Runfar Sevilles.

Then, after the crisis was averted, the staff went back to doing their jobs.

Camil, Runfar"s servant, was given uniform, joining the mansion as its third butler.

Runfar however, could not avert his eyes from Mira, the maid wearing a blindfold.

"Is that really ok? Would she run into a wall with blindfold on her eyes?" Runfar asked of Mordon Myers.

"I don"t believe that is going to be problem, young master. Mira has already gotten used to navigating without her eyes. After all, it has been a while since she had lost her sight."

"How did that happen?"

"Your father, Augustus Sevilles, one day was dissatisfied with a dish she made, so he chose to punish her by burning out her eyes with magic flame."

"Oh goodness. Is that why all of the staff is scared of me?"

"Young master, your father was not exactly a kind man." Myers tried to put it in the nicest way.

"I see, I suppose it will take a while for them not to be scared of me. But until then, I will be in your care." Runfar smiled.

* * *

"Young master, young master, why you wear that mask over your face?" one of the maids, by the name of Elian asked of Runfar.

Her red hair and warm yellow eyes made her seem one of the least fearful of the staff. Others seem to be afraid of even talking to Runfar.

"Well…" Runfar proceeded to take off the half mask that covered right side of his face except for the nose.

Elian yelped in shock.

Right side of Runfar"s face was missing eye; it was all a scar tissue. It was obvious he had a ma.s.sive injury on the right side of his face, now skin was replaced by large amount of scar tissue.

"That is why. You see, when I was a child, my friend and I were attacked by a monster. My friend managed to escape unscathed, but I was not so lucky."

He proceeded to put on his mask.

The maid gulped.

"I do not wear it for fashion, but out of necessity."

"I understand! Please excuse me!" she proceeded to run for it.

"Oya oya, I wonder if showing that to her was a good idea."

Soon rumors spread about secret of Runfar"s mask and the face hidden beneath it.

* * *

Runfar entered his chambers. As the new lord of the Sevilles estate, he had many matters to take care of.

Meeting the villagers, taking over what Augustus Sevilles left him was not going to be easy.

With a knock, someone entered the room.

"I trust none followed you."

"None, milord."

"Is this room secure?"

"I placed soundproofing spell on the entire door. We should be safe to converse in private."

"Good. Now then…" Runfar proceeded to take off the mask as well as the fake skin underneath it, revealing a skeletal right side of the face with a glowing white demon eye.

Fake skin was created by Camilla using earth magic, at first Camilla thought it would be a good idea to have an illusion but illusion can be seen through by touch, so instead he chose to make something more tangible.

Camilla released the illusion he placed on himself to appear human. His tail and scales were now visible, but he largely looked the same.

"Everything went exactly as planned. We have acquired a base. Now, my scheme can finally begin." Dark Lord stated with a toast of gla.s.s of wine, he handed the other gla.s.s to Camilla.

"Everything moves in the palm of your hand, milord."

Their gla.s.ses clanked against each other in cheers.