Faced with his curiosity and persistent questioning—
Petra didn't bother playing coy.
She chuckled and said bluntly:
"With your looks and physique, if you went into the male escort business, your yearly income would be at least 300,000 US dollars."
Just like many wealthy men indulge in escorts once they make it big, rich women often have similar fantasies.
Though she'd never dabbled in that world personally, Petra had heard plenty through friends to know the general market rate.
After she finished speaking, she even tossed Orsaga a flirtatious wink and teased with a smile:
"If you ever feel like trying out the lifestyle, I wouldn't mind being your first client~"
"!"
Orsaga was stunned on the spot!
It felt as though his mind had been struck by divine revelation—his thoughts suddenly clear as day!
This was a path he'd never even considered!
Up to now, he hadn't realized he was holding the key to such a lucrative opportunity!
But just as he started getting excited, another thought hit him.
He was a Greater-Rank Demon, someone capable of shattering stars with a single hand—
To go to another plane of existence just to fuck?
That was more than a little beneath him.
If word got out, how would he ever show his face again?
So, facing Petra's playful offer, he thought for a moment, then solemnly shook his head and responded firmly:
"You'll have to pay more."
"?"
"??"
"???"
Everyone in the restaurant who had been eavesdropping on their conversation froze.
As for Petra, the target of Orsaga's reply—her smile stiffened instantly.
Her first instinct was to ask, "Are you serious?"
But when she saw the dead-serious expression on his face… that perfect, godlike face…
All the words in her mouth twisted into:
"Fine! Double it!"
She was genuinely afraid that if she questioned him, Orsaga would say he was joking after all.
"Transaction initiated."
As a man of integrity and business-minded spirit, Orsaga didn't hesitate. He stood up, grabbed Petra by the collar—
—and kissed her.
"?"
At that moment, Petra's mind went completely blank.
Her thoughts rocketed out of the atmosphere and soared straight to heaven, while her intelligence nosedived at a right angle—
Falling faster than the Dow Jones during a market crash.
By the time Orsaga let her go, she was still dazed, clearly unable to process what had just happened.
After a long pause, she looked around at the stunned bystanders, cheeks flushed, and asked somewhat hesitantly:
"Was that… a little too fast?"
"Was it?"
Orsaga looked confused.
Was his technique lacking?
Or… was the escort business in this world different? Was it really just about talking with clients?
Seeing the puzzled look on his face, Petra quickly waved her hands, flustered:
"No, no! You… you can do whatever you want!"
Satisfied that his skills weren't lacking, Orsaga nodded confidently, casually slipped his arm around her waist, and muttered:
"Alright then. Back to our original plan. Let's get food first."
He added seriously:
"Just so we're clear—you're paying."
As he pulled her close, Petra felt the firmness of his chest pressing against her.
Her already-shaken intelligence collapsed once more, crashing straight through rock bottom and into the Earth's core.
"Okay… whatever you say."
And so, right in front of the entire restaurant, the two of them walked out, hand in hand, and got into Petra's luxury sports car.
They drove off toward the best restaurant in the area.
---
The next day. Early morning.
Still in London.
After all, no one had needed to travel the globe overnight.
In a certain luxury residential district in the City of Westminster, black-suited security guards with sidearms spotted a sleek sports car approaching.
Recognizing the license plate instantly, they rushed to open the security gates.
Regardless of whether the occupants could hear or would respond, they lined up and called out respectfully:
"Welcome back, Lady Petra Osborne—Hereditary Countess."
Even in modern society, it was clear that nobility with power and influence still enjoyed certain privileges.
The sports car didn't bother acknowledging the guards.
Under the guidance of its smart driving system, it steadily cruised toward its preset destination.
Upon arrival—
Orsaga stepped out, gazing at the lavish, classical English-style mansion before him.
He nodded approvingly.
"Not bad."
He didn't know the exact price tag, but judging from the statues flanking the gate alone, each could probably buy two average homes.
Hearing his words, Petra—who had just stepped out of the car—immediately latched onto his arm and smiled sweetly:
"As long as you like it. If you ever get tired of this place, I've got a few other properties in Mayfair Court—you can pick whichever one you want."
Yes, after spending half a day together—
That very morning, when Orsaga tried to sneak out—
Petra mustered her courage and handed in her "conversion application," hoping to upgrade Orsaga from a temporary employee to full-time.
And considering that he was currently low on power and living humbly. Sleeping with a beautiful woman didn't seem like such a bad option.
After a few seconds of agonizing internal debate—
Orsaga agreed.
And so, he followed Petra back to her estate.
The moment they stepped through the gates, two mechanical maids approached and greeted them:
"Welcome home, Master."
The sports car, meanwhile, returned itself to the garage and plugged in to charge—
After all, it was already a fully independent vehicle.
Ignoring the robot maids, Petra beamed and said,
"Let me introduce you to someone."
She led Orsaga through the doors into the villa.
Inside, a teenage girl sitting in the living room gaming instinctively turned her head as the door opened.
Upon seeing Petra, she called out without thinking:
"Mom, last ni—"
She didn't even finish the sentence before spotting the man Petra was clinging to.
That casually arrogant expression froze her in place like she'd been struck by lightning.
"!"
Her mind exploded with countless possibilities.
Before she could speak, Petra blushed and said shyly, still holding Orsaga's arm:
"Elsa, this is my new boyfriend…"
"WHAT?!"
Elsa screamed as she shot up from the couch.
"Are you insane?! He can't be more than four or five years older than me!"
Petra's smile faded as she replied sternly:
"Sweetheart, this was a carefully thought-out decision."
Seeing her mother's serious expression, Elsa's tone softened a little. She thought about Petra's lonely life over the years and decided to hear them out.
"...Alright, how long have you two known each other?"
A deadly question.
Petra glanced at Orsaga and, face flushed, replied quietly:
"Since… about 9 PM yesterday."
"!"
Elsa sprang up again, roaring:
"You call that carefully thought-out?!, I don't care! It's either him or me!!"
---
Ten minutes later—
As robotic maids helped pack her bags—
Elsa clenched her fists, biting back the words: "I didn't mean it literally…" but found herself unable to speak them aloud.
Her face twisted in frustration, she clutched her chest and shouted bitterly:
"Mom, are you seriously kicking out your biological daughter for some guy you've known for half a day?!"
"..."
Petra wavered a bit.
But when she looked at Orsaga, casually inspecting the house layout, she hardened her heart and said:
"I'm sorry, Elsa. You're always welcome back when you're ready. For now, go stay at Mayfair Court for a while…"
Elsa was so furious she nearly coughed up blood.
She took a deep breath and glared at Orsaga.
"You bastard! Breaking a mother-daughter bond like this—you'll get what's coming to you!"
"Pfft."
Still examining the place, Orsaga let out a disdainful chuckle.
Then he reached out, pulled Petra into his arms, and looked her straight in the eyes.
"Since you're my woman. That means everything you have belongs to me, doesn't it?"
Though confused by the question, Petra gazed into his crimson eyes and answered with blind devotion:
"Yes. Everything I have is yours."
With her answer confirmed, Orsaga turned to Elsa and declared smugly:
"You hear that?. Everything she owns is mine now. Which means all those years she spent raising you—she was using my resources. You should be thanking me for raising you!
As for breaking your relationship? That's not even a thing anymore."
Petra: "!!"
Elsa: "!!!"
In an instant, Elsa felt her heart ache from sheer rage.
Clutching her side, she snarled:
"You… you damn demon…"
Demon-Orsaga, completely unfazed, gave a sincere nod:
"Thanks. I really am one~"
Those honest words were like gasoline on fire.
Elsa's eyes rolled back—and she passed out cold.
Three days later.
In the villa's living room.
While attempting to hack through the outer firewall of the Ministry of Defense, Orsaga glanced at Elsa, who was sitting across from him watching the news.
He casually asked,
"The luggage in your room was packed by the smart maid three days ago. Why haven't you left yet?"
After all, he was still planning to take over the room entirely.
"Drop dead!"
The response came in the form of a flying pillow hurled at him.
Initially, Elsa had genuinely intended to move out—especially after Orsaga kept teasing her like one would a pet—but there was one major issue that stopped her.
If she moved out now, there was a real risk that this despicable and shameless man might manipulate her love-struck mother with sweet words and deceit.
If that happened...
She, the legal heir-to-be, might find herself completely cut off and thrown out of the house.
Who could tolerate that?!
So despite all her frustration, Elsa ultimately chose to stay.
She had no illusions about Orsaga's lack of morals.
Effortlessly dodging the incoming pillow, Orsaga kept typing away at layers of encrypted code, not even bothering to lift his head.
"Don't you have any new tricks?"
"At least give me something entertaining. That act from a couple of days ago was kind of fun."
Hearing that, Elsa immediately thought of something unpleasant. Her anger surged so violently that she nearly suffered a stroke.
Realizing she couldn't handle him on her own, Elsa had turned to her friends for help.
After a lengthy discussion, two plans emerged:
1. Ask one of her friends—an elite-level seductress—to seduce Orsaga, then secretly record all his shameful behavior and present it to her mother to get him thrown out.
2. Send one of her MMA champion friends, along with some backup, to physically "persuade" him to leave—with their fists.
One soft approach, one hard. Both sides covered.
However, things didn't go quite as planned.
The seductress, originally intending to toy with Orsaga a bit, fell head over heels for him the moment she saw him. By the next morning, she was suffering from back strain and could barely crawl out of bed.
This left Elsa baffled.
Still, they managed to record everything and pass the footage to her mother.
Her mother had confronted Orsaga in tears, video in hand, demanding, "How could you do this?"
'Bet you didn't expect that, did you…' Elsa had thought proudly as she watched.
Despite the pain of seeing her friend try to rekindle things with Orsaga, Elsa had still put on a triumphant expression.
As her mother's voice trembled with fury, Elsa was already imagining calling security to toss both Orsaga and everything he touched out of the house.
But instead, Orsaga calmly stood up, wrapped his arm around Petra's slender waist, and said with complete composure, as if stating a universal truth:
"I like her. Is that a problem?"
"?"
Before Petra could respond, he kissed her right in front of Elsa.
Elsa was stunned. She rushed forward, intending to pull her mother away.
But before she could move, Orsaga had already let go, looked straight into Petra's eyes, and repeated in a flat tone:
"Is that a problem?"
Though phrased as a question, it carried the weight of a declaration.
In the end, under Orsaga's overbearing presence, Petra blushed and lowered her head.
With her daughter staring in disbelief, she replied softly:
"…No, it's not…"
Satisfied, Orsaga smiled and said:
"Good. Go make me a steak. Medium-well."
"…Okay."
Elsa, witnessing all this, felt her worldview collapse.
The look she gave Orsaga said it all:
"You actually said that out loud. Are you even human?!"
From that moment, Elsa understood just how shameless and vile Orsaga could be. His audacity was beyond her comprehension—like a abyss.
It was clear that talking wouldn't work anymore. Only force would.
Any hesitation she had about calling in backup disappeared entirely.
She contacted one of her admirers—or rather, one of the many guys hopelessly chasing after her—and had him gather his friends to give Orsaga a solid beating.
To teach him a lesson.
To show him that the future Countess Elsa is not to be trifled with.
The battle that followed was brutal. Elsa's admirer and his team of martial arts fanatics, some of whom were professional fighters, gave it their all.
Their assault was so intense that even the security personnel who arrived to break it up had to look away—they couldn't bear to watch.
By the next evening, the attackers finally woke up in intensive care.
And as for Orsaga?
Despite only having the strength of an ordinary man, he emerged completely unscathed.
The only real damage was to the house—he broke two metal chairs while using them to beat people down.
From that day on, Elsa was convinced:
Orsaga was no ordinary human. He was immune to both kindness and violence.
With that, she changed strategies again.
She secretly hired multiple private investigators to dig into Orsaga's background and find his weakness.
That day marked the third day since they had met.
The investigators had yet to return with anything.
But Orsaga's provocations had already resumed.
Absolutely intolerable!
Just as Orsaga was about to tease Elsa some more, he suddenly felt something odd stir inside him.
He stopped and turned to the TV.
On the screen, a gorgeous female presenter was reporting the news.
"This is BBC News."
"According to recent reports, the spaceship Horizon, the focal point of the mysterious 'Horizon Disappearance Incident' from the year 2040, has resurfaced near Neptune after a seven-year absence. The ship has been broadcasting distress signals for the past fifty days."
"Dr. William, the vessel's original designer, has joined a recovery team aboard the spacecraft Lewis and Clark and is en route to the location. They are expected to arrive within the next few days."
"We sincerely hope this long-unsolved mystery will soon find an answer."
"The Horizon Disappearance Incident?"
At the mention of that name, Orsaga's innate ability triggered a warning.
He could sense it clearly:
This was not good news.
T/N: Any guesses which movie world is this?
After watching the news report on TV—
Orsaga turned to Elsa, who was still glaring at him, and casually asked,
"Do you know anything about that so-called Horizon incident?"
Elsa's expression remained unpleasant, but after a brief moment of hesitation, she replied nonchalantly:
"I've heard a bit. Supposedly, it was some kind of experimental spacecraft. But then there was an accident, and the whole ship—along with its crew—vanished mysteriously near Neptune. I don't know many details though. I was only seven at the time. Like I had the attention span to care—cartoons were way more interesting."
After answering, Elsa frowned and shot a suspicious glance at him
.
"Wait… you really didn't know about that incident?"
"Nope."
Without looking up, Orsaga closed the browser tab and opened a search engine, typing in the keywords: [Horizon Project].
Seeing his computer screen, Elsa yawned and stretched out on the sofa, grumbling:
"You look a few years older than me. How do you not know?
Were you too busy chasing women to care about the news?
It was a big deal back then. That ship cost more than the entire GDP of some small countries. After it disappeared, people even rushed to the Neptune region hoping to salvage debris for profit. But nobody found anything useful. And now—after all these years—it's suddenly back in the same place? That's creepy..."
As she spoke, Elsa recalled some old legends and muttered uneasily:
"It's starting to sound like a ghost ship…"
Still browsing the data online, Orsaga replied calmly:
"If it really is a ghost ship, then it's not much of a threat."
Even in his current weakened state, Orsaga didn't take so-called ghosts seriously.
In his eyes, they were just spiritual entities—edible ones.
"Snackable souls with a bit of kick."
That was how he classified spirits in general.
After all, as a soul-devouring Abyssal Demon, why would he fear mere ghosts?
Back on Talandra Star, he'd done exactly that.
Braised spirits, pan-seared Spirits—
He had even attempted a full Haunted Banquet featuring every spirits flavor.
But this time… something felt off.
Based on his instincts, whatever was tied to this Horizon incident was likely far more complicated than a few wandering spirits.
Elsa rolled her eyes at his smug attitude and stuck out her tongue.
"What a load of crap."
To her, Orsaga was like one of those overconfident movie characters—
Bravado on the outside, but the moment a ghost ship really showed up, they'd be crying, pissing themselves, and dying horribly.
"Believe it or don't."
Orsaga didn't bother explaining.
Instead, he focused entirely on the computer screen, where he had just located the database belonging to the Horizon's original manufacturer.
If he could hack into it, he'd be able to uncover what this supposedly "experimental spacecraft" was really about.
Noticing he had tuned her out, Elsa tilted her head and peeked at the screen. The rapidly scrolling lines of code nearly blinded her.
She had no idea what she was looking at.
"Hmph."
With a scoff, she grabbed the remote, switched to a channel she liked, and leisurely continued watching TV.
---
Two days later.
Those days passed uneventfully—no incidents, no major developments.
Everything was calm.
Orsaga remained comfortably entrenched in his position of dominance within the household.
Meanwhile, the would-be rebel leader—and only member of the resistance—Elsa, had slowly slipped into despair.
She had fully realized one thing:
She was absolutely no match for Orsaga.
Resigned to her fate, she lay in her room like a puppy, playing video games.
Orsaga, on the other hand, sat in the living room, still focused on the files he'd extracted.
He had successfully cracked the company's main database.
The core of the Horizon Project had been something called:
[Gravitational Displacement Drive]
Its primary purpose was to manipulate gravitational forces to enable spatial jumps—essentially faster-than-light travel.
To Orsaga, this was just passable technology.
Nothing too impressive—decent but not exceptional.
Many other worlds had developed more advanced systems.
For instance, the Stellar Empire had far superior versions.
There, FTL travel was considered a basic requirement for any interstellar civilization.
And since Orsaga had once plundered the data vaults of the Stellar Empire, he naturally had access to comparable tech.
After comparing it to this so-called "Gravitational Displacement Drive," he found no glaring flaws.
The technology was simply immature, still in its early stages, and in need of refinement.
However—
Due to the differences between World, Orsaga couldn't say for certain what side effects the drive might produce in this particular world.
Perhaps the Horizon's disappearance was just a one-time malfunction.
But it could also be something systemic—
Something tied to the very nature of this reality:
Any attempt at using that tech here might always result in disappearance. Just like how, in some worlds, E=MC² was an absolute truth—
And in others, it was utter nonsense.
Orsaga knew he'd need far more data before drawing any conclusions.
---
Meanwhile—
After 56 days of long-distance travel, the space rescue ship Lewis and Clark finally reached Neptune's orbit.
"Hissss..."
With a sharp hiss, the cryo-chambers opened, and the crew slowly awakened from stasis.
A few of them, however, had distinctly odd expressions.
[Punishment World: Event Horizon]
Role: Rescue team member aboard the Lewis and Clark
Mission: Resolve the incident aboard the Horizon
Reward: None
After reading the mission info, a burly man among them scowled and whispered just loud enough for the others:
"Damn it. Punishment mission? I knew I shouldn't have farmed points in that last world..."
A beautiful young woman shot back:
"You farmed the most, you greedy bastard!"
A middle-aged man furrowed his brow and cut in:
"Enough. Who knows what this world's all about? 'Event Horizon'? Sounds heavy on the sci-fi. Are we fighting aliens or running into cosmic anomalies?"
Another crewman pulled out a tablet.
"Who knows? Let's check the intel first. I just hope those damn info-brokers didn't scam us again."
He started entering keywords for a search.
The others all gathered around, eager for any clues.
"Hm… found it. It's… an old movie?. Wait… it's a horror film?"
"That name comes from a horror movie?"
—
Ten minutes later—
They had fast-forwarded through the whole film.
The team leader spoke up grimly:
"According to the movie, the Horizon passed through some anomalous space and became something like a ghost ship. It supposedly affects the minds of those who board it.
So we'd better prepare ourselves mentally…"
He pulled out a compass-like device.
"The artifact we got from the last world should come in handy. It can measure the approximate strength of whatever's aboard that ship."
He pointed the needle toward the now-visible Horizon.
The dial had multiple markings—each corresponding to an enemy's strength.
It wasn't perfect, but it was generally reliable.
Then—
As soon as the compass was aimed at the Horizon—
The needle didn't even move in a regular spin.
Instead, it snapped upward like a spring-loaded trigger.
"?"
Before anyone could react—
POP!
The needle launched itself into the air, breaking clean off.
Then—
FOOM!
A burst of flame erupted from the device, instantly incinerating it.
"..."
Everyone fell into stunned silence.
After a long pause, the team leader finally roared:
"DAMN IT, MATRIX PURGATORY! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US?!"