Death's Door

Apparently, Camilla overused his ability to produce poison resulting in him losing his consciousness shortly after giving Lukalis half a barrel"s worth of potent poison to be turned into elixir.

"Well, I am certainly feeling better after drinking the elixir and while the maids were taking care of me, I made sure to steal a little bit of their mana without them noticing"

By stealing tiny fraction of the mana of his servants, Runfar managed to recover enough to be able to walk, albeit while using a cane.

It will take a while before he would be able to run, but Runfar had time, too much time in fact.

Entering into the room Camilla was sleeping in; Runfar closed the door behind him and proceeded to lock it.

None must see what he was about to do.

Runfar proceeded to take off his mask and the fake skin underneath it.

Now, on the right side of his face, the lidless demon eye was shining pure white with eerie glow.

Demon eyes apparently have a pa.s.sive ability to see mana within living beings, so Runfar used his sole demon eye to inspect his servant"s body.

"Hmm, what a foolish servant, you have nearly completely depleted your mana reserves and without your horns, your body has hard time restoring such a large amount of mana being used up. You could have easily perished had your body given out…."

"What a fool…" Runfar ended up saying out loud.

But looking down at his servant, Runfar smiled.

"But I can"t say I dislike that kind of fool"

A single horn now grew out of Runfar"s forehead.

Making sure that Camilla"s head was directly underneath him, Dark Lord had his horn directly touch Camilla"s forehead.

Their foreheads were very close, almost touching, separated only by a distance of Dark Lord"s single horn.

After a few seconds, Dark Lord withdrew his horn away from Camilla"s forehead.

The deed was done.

Now, he proceeded to examine Camilla again, now noting that his vitals were back to normal.

He should wake up soon enough.

It seems like transferring mana was possible not only through the usage of his undead side but also by using his horn as conduit of mana, in fact, it required far less time.

After stealing mana of his caretakers, Runfar acc.u.mulated some excess mana, which he transferred to Camilla, making it easier for his servant to recover after losing consciousness.

Sitting down upon a chair, Dark Lord calmly stared at his servant"s face.

Camilla looked extremely androgynous, from the way he held himself he could be perceived as a male, but he looked too charming to be one.

Apparently snake type demons are well known for their beauty and allure; due to this they were attractive to both genders.

The fact that Snake type demons could become either gender at will made matters even easier.

They were as beautiful as they were deadly.

However, Dark Lord did not feel any s.e.xual desire for his servant, in fact, to him, whose first love was an Angel of Death, beauty standards of mortals were a little too hard to grasp.

In fact, while many who saw Camilla, men and women alike, thought of him as an extremely attractive person, to Dark Lord, Camilla looked no different from his other servants.

After all, all of his servants were objects….tools to be used.

And when they have outlived their usefulness, they will be discarded.

"The only reason I took the pains of restoring Camilla"s mana is due to the fact that I still need his aid, he still has a lot of potential to be of use to me. But if there is ever a time I must sacrifice him or anyone else, I will do so without hesitation."

"Meros, Kyra, Lake, Morphus, Jun, Lukalis…they are no different. All are p.a.w.ns for me to use for the sake of accomplishing my goals."

"As long as they have use for me, I will keep them at my side."

"After their service to me is finished, I would need to make sure they are out of the picture, for good. They know too much. Though it might be unnecessary to kill them, I can just modify the memories of each Shadow Lord that leaves, making them forget all about me."

Still, this servant"s devotion to him was rather strange.

Even in previous loops, he would follow all of Dark Lord"s orders without question, even if that order was for Camilla to kill his master on the spot.

Though Dark Lord did notice that every time Camilla did so, he was crying.

"I thought I made it perfectly clear to him that he is just a tool for me to use…. nothing more, then why did he push himself so far?"

While as a servant of a Reaper, Dark Lord spent long time in her library learning many concepts including human etiquette.

One of the books stated that a kiss could be used as form of grat.i.tude. Though it seemed to apply mostly to females.

"Maybe the books had a good point" Dark Lord thought.

"He may be a tool, but not expressing my thanks would be rather rude of me."

Dark Lord leaned in and placed what remained of his lips upon Camilla"s forehead.

Unfortunately, that was exactly the moment Camilla woke up.

"M-M-M-Milord!!!Wh-wh-wh-what are you doing?!"

Apparently Camilla freaked out due to the fact that at the moment he opened his eyes, Dark Lord was giving him a kiss to his forehead.

His entire complexion looked flushed red.

But Dark Lord was not embarra.s.sed in the slightest.

"Is expressing grat.i.tude something to freak out over? Well, might as well explain myself."

"Don"t worry Camilla, it is exactly as it seems."

Dark Lord a.s.sumed that everyone in this world thought of receiving a kiss to the forehead as form of grat.i.tude.

However, what he did not realize was the fact he read a book t.i.tled "Woman"s Guide to Romance".

Instead of realizing what romance was, Dark Lord simply thought it was a simple and common etiquette guide which applied to anyone.

He did not realize that same facts did not exactly apply in his current situation.

"Milord, does it mean…."

"Of course, I would never do it in jest."

"Camilla understands, milord"

"While you are my servant, I thought it would be appropriate to express my grat.i.tude. By the way, you don"t need to worry about losing consciousness again, I restored your mana."

"Milord did? Why? Camilla wanted to be useful to Milord!"

"Yes, you were very useful….however, think, I still need your aid in the future, after all, without my p.a.w.ns, Operation Darkness, cannot commence."

It was a secret plan which was going to be unraveled after a while; however, for it to succeed, Camilla"s input was essential.

"Camilla understands. If it means I can be useful to Milord"s cause, please feel free to use Camilla as Milord sees fit."

"I am glad we perfectly understand each other, my friend."

Looking towards the window, Runfar asked of Camilla.

"After you are done serving me, where do you wish to go?"

Camilla was taken a little back with Runfar"s question before sadly smiling.

"Camilla was hoping to be able to follow Milord for the rest of Camilla"s life."

"Aren"t you being a little unreasonable to yourself? While I do appreciate the sentiment, don"t you have somewhere to go back to, loved ones to return to?"

"Camilla has none left like that. Knight of Wind had made sure of it when she attacked Camilla"s village with her spell of Wind Warriors. They killed many of Camilla"s clan members who lived in peace within Camilla"s village, and those who were captured were taken to the dungeon you had found Camilla in."

"I see, but what if I were to ask you to give up your life?"

"Then Camilla will gladly do so"

"I don"t understand, why?"

"Because Milord is the only one Camilla has left"

Now to that statement, Dark Lord didn"t know how to answer.

Luckily, he was interrupted by the noised outside.

"SERVANTS OF THE SEVILLES HOUSEHOLD!!! YOUR MASTER IS DEAD! SURRENDER NOW!!"

Apparently someone was shouting so loud outside that the sound was audible even within the room Runfar was occupying.

"Oh, what now?"

Runfar could only sigh as he proceeded to use his cane to stand up and go towards the entrance of his mansion, where apparently the commotion was occurring. His servant followed after him.