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With the shouting outside as a backdrop, a man in fine clothes and spectacles—shifty by nature and smug by habit—wore a self-satisfied smile inside the familia compound. This was the Soma Familia's captain, the Keeper of the Wine, Zanis Lustra.
Taking advantage of Soma's disappointment in his followers—who had sunk into addiction to the Divine Wine—Zanis had seized the moment and made himself the true puppeteer of the familia. Under his hand, the Soma Familia had been remade into a flawless money-squeezing machine.
As a Lv.2 adventurer, he'd built up a tolerance to the Divine Wine and could drink it "without issue". He lifted his glass and took a light sip, crafty eyes sliding toward the sounds outside while his mind busied itself with how to wring even more valis from the crowd.
"This month's take is up another twenty percent. That pallum girl really can rake it in. But she didn't come back today… ran off again? Kekeke. If she did, then we clearly haven't taught her enough of a lesson!"
He tossed back the rest of the glass with a few cold laughs—then froze from head to toe.
Where the room had been empty a heartbeat before, a handsome boy now stood as if he'd always been there. The boy casually picked up a bottle of finished Divine Wine Zanis had set on the table and drank down more than half in a single go.
The sight made Zanis's heart pound raggedly. The single small glass he had just taken already brushed his physical limit—any more and he'd drink himself into unconsciousness. Yet this youth had swallowed down dozens of times that amount in one mouthful.
While Zanis stared, dumbstruck, Takumi smacked his lips once, savoring. "Mm. It really is delicious—better than anything I've drunk or eaten."
His expression hardly changed. Delicious, sure—but to the body he now possessed, it was harmless. Getting him drunk? Not happening.
Just from that taste, a complete blueprint of the wine took shape in his mind. When I get back, I can just brew a few dozen bottles for fun.
Even without divine power involved, the energy in this wine was far from ordinary. A typical adventurer who drank it mostly had the energy overflow right out of them—it was miles away from the hard stuff in the truest sense. Those whose minds were seized by the wine were, at the end of the day, simply too weak in physique to bear it.
Takumi finished that line of thought and turned his gaze on Zanis, who was drenched in cold sweat by now.
Nothing. The boy before him was completely fine.
At that point, the crafty Zanis had already realized the boy's strength far outstripped his own. He tugged a smile onto his face and feigned composure. "Honored guest, why come so abruptly? If it's Divine Wine you're after, I can send you a few bottles—free of charge. As for anything else, I am the Soma Familia's captain. I'm sure we can discuss matters… properly."
The more he spoke, the steadier he sounded, slipping back into the easy patter he used to control a room. The kid didn't seem like he intended to strike. If it wasn't an assassination, there was room to talk.
Takumi ignored him and shifted half a step to the side, opening a line of sight.
In Zanis's blank stare, Lili appeared before him.
"Lili?" He recognized the surname at once.
Lili lifted her small chin and met him with a hard stare. Perhaps the root of everything lay with Soma, but the butcher was Zanis—no question. If not for the chain of policies he'd pushed through, the Soma Familia wouldn't have become this cesspit—this hell on earth.
Takumi glanced at Lili and said, even-toned, "Revenge is more satisfying done with your own hands. Lili, he's your prey."
A short blade took shape in his palm under Alchemy and he handed it to her. Her slender hands tightened around the hilt. All the misery of her past years kindled now into flame.
"Zanis—I am here to take my revenge!"
She shouted, then charged, knife raised high.
Zanis understood at once. The once-despised pallum, led by some man, had come to kill him? Seeing Takumi make no move to interfere, a vicious light flashed in Zanis's eyes.
"A puny pallum thinks she can kill me? Die!" He ripped out his longsword and chopped down with blinding speed.
Clang!
Sword met knife—sparks burst in a blinding spray. When her blade held, disbelief twisted Zanis's face.
"Impossible. You're just a Lv.1 adventurer—and a frail little pallum at that. How could you—ugh!!"
He didn't finish. Lili's knife lifted and split his blade in one clean cut.
With the Divine Envoy Piece fused, her raw physique alone already matched a mid-tier demon. Zanis, a Lv.2, spent more time being a profiteer than an adventurer. And the short blade in Lili's hand was Takumi's work under Alchemy.
Whether strength or weapon, Zanis was lacking—in every way that mattered.
In a single exchange, he was on the back foot.
"No. No way!!" He couldn't accept being beaten by a pallum. Face contorting, he flailed with his fists and swung wildly at Lili.
A white arc flashed.
His hand flew.
Blood sprayed; rage drained from Zanis's expression in an instant, leaving only a stark, sudden clarity. He clutched the stump of his forearm, fell to his knees, and begged. "Don't kill me! Don't kill me! I have money—a lot of money! It's all yours!"
"And you can't kill me—you can't kill anyone here. It'll get out. You'll be exposed."
He threw every card on the table in a rush for life.
Lili hesitated—not from fear of killing, and not for valis. Purely because she didn't want to drag Takumi down, didn't want him implicated as an accomplice to murder.
Sensing her thoughts, Takumi said mildly, "You're hesitating for me. Good, Lili. But you're underestimating me. Your master controls everything here."
He tapped the air with a fingertip. Dim light misted out, sheathing the whole Soma compound at once.
"[Nightmare Magic—Enter the Dream]."
Yawns began to ripple through the compound. The guards at the gate slumped down where they stood and fell into a deep sleep. In moments, the place was silent.
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