The cunning NPC and his reincarnated villainess

"Boss, you wouldn't.. ah... I mean, Mede..."

"It's okay. No need to keep up the facade anymore~"

Gerard gulped down his saliva and misspoke – as he hurriedly tried to correct himself, the black-haired boy raised his hand and patted his shoulder reassuringly while standing up from his seat.

"Wanna come with me?"

The friendly smile on the boy's face grew to a grin as he stopped in the doorway, glancing back at the utterly terrified copper-haired man.

"C-can I stay here...?"

Gerard asked pleadingly as his face became ghastly pale.

"No."

"!!!"

The black-haired boy shook his head and started walking really fast, causing the copper-haired man to rush after him with a horrified expression.

Gerard passed Medea right before the staircase and rushed towards the secret passage to open it for him. Once the boy moved through, the copper-haired man closed it and full-on sprinted to free the way ahead, including climbing the ladder and hurriedly knocking on the hatch, to the surprise of the muscular woman on the other side.

"Gerard, what you doing he..."

"Nentilear! Boss is coming!"

The brunette started asking, but the copper-haired man gasped and rushed passed, climbing the stairs as she flinched and backed off from the hatch.

"Hello, big sister~"

"!!!" *THUMP*

Before Gerard managed to reach the door upstairs, Medea already emerged from the hatch with a friendly smile which caused Nentilear to back off so fast that she slammed her back against the wall as he passed by with a happy greeting.

The black-haired boy was already halfway up the stairs when Gerard knocked on the door in utter panic.

*CLICK*

"What the hell are you doing...?!"

The thugs on the other side knew full well what to do and opened the door immediately, recognizing the pattern and tempo – even though the dark-blond-haired man sitting by the table certainly didn't like that.

"The fuck do all three of you, imbeciles, think you are doing, HUH?!"

Oliver stood up from his seat and cursed, glaring down at both the bodyguards and the potion maker, who hurriedly stepped aside with a ghastly pale expression.

"The fuck?! Say something when I...!"

None of them related to the dark-blond-haired man's shouts, making him even angrier.

"And who the fuck called you here, you...!"

The anger got amplified even more at the sight of the black-haired boy storming into the room with a friendly smile plastered all over his face.

"WHAT THE...?!"

Medea didn't stop or say anything and just moved towards Oliver without slowing down, causing the man to realize something was wrong and shout as the boy shook his arm and a knife popped up in his hand.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO...! HURGH...!"

*STAB*

Oliver took a step back and reached out his hand, but Medea slid right under it, embedding the knife's blade in his guts all the way to the handle.

"YHOU...!"

Oliver grasped the boy's wrist to stop him from twisting or sliding the knife any further and winded up a punch too, but before he could pull off the counter...

*crack*

Medea already had his fist around the yellow marble at the end of one of his earrings and crushed it without giving Oliver a chance.

*ZAP*

"GHHH..!"

The unleashed spell failed to penetrate the boy's body due to the protection charm he had on him, but the stabbed blond-haired man owned nothing of the sort, and his muscles contorted painfully, rendering him immobile to the point of petrification.

"..."

Medea didn't say anything; he didn't even stop smiling – instead, he shook his other hand and brandished another knife.

He then put the knife against his trapped arm and jerked it strongly...

*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump*

"GHKGHHHHH!"

...freeing his hand by cutting off Oliver's fingers that fell to the floor and bounced off while the dark-blond-haired man wheezed in pain, and his eyes became bloodshot.

The black-haired boy didn't try to do anything with the blade within the stone-hard contorted muscles of the man's abdomen, and instead, he simply threw the other knife from his left hand to his right one, moving it up and...

*STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB* *STAB*

"GHHHHHHHH...! ... shhh...! ... shhh..."

... riddling Oliver's chest with dozens of kife-blade-shaped holes while his powerless victim could only watch it and wheeze in pain as the light of life was slowly fading from his eyes with each new spout of blood that followed the blade being pulled out of his body.

*STAB* *CRUNCH* *THUMP*

For the final hit, Medea stabbed at Oliver's corpse's heart and twisted the knife, shattering the body's rib before putting his left hand against Oliver's forehead and pushing so it would fall to the floor with a hollow sound as the paralysis effects haven't even started to subside.

"Haaaa..."

The bloodstained boy breathed out in relief, stepped over the corpse, and sat on the place of honor behind the table as his expression turned to the normal serious one.

"Our problem is that there are no traces of Tee's body anywhere. He wasn't buried around the farm, and unless the people at the Crownhorn farm ground up and fed him to the cows, this might spell trouble."

Medea pulled out a handkerchief and started speaking casually while cleaning his face and hands from the blood.

"It is possible that Kenneth took the body with them in order to hide it, but that's almost impossible to confirm at the moment. Hence it would be best for us to start the preparation for..."

*squelch*

"Hurgh...!" *splash*

The black-haired boy reached down and yanked out the knife from Oliver's corpse, which produced a nauseating sound – and pushed Gerard past his limit, causing him to vomit on the floor.

"Please, you were the one to mix the solution that we dissolved that merchant and his mercenaries' bodies in, and THIS is making you sick?"

"HURGH!" *SPLASH*

Medea raised his brow and threw the bloody handkerchief on the course with a gory mess in place of a chest and asked, causing the copper-haired man to tremble and vomit even more violently as if stirred up by the unwanted memory he tried so hard to bury in the depths of his mind.

"Speaking off, prepare another batch of that mixture, mister. Please~"

"...!"

The black-haired boy smiled in a friendly manner, and Gerard immediately closed his mouth and gulped down whatever tried to continue to escape his stomach out of sheer anxiety.