We finally arrived back at House 132, the familiar oak door a welcoming sight after the long, grueling trek through the city districts. Renny carried the heavy laundry basket and the overflowing container of canned meats all the way up to the porch, setting them down carefully.
"There you go, Eirene, glad I could help a hero out. Take care of yourself, and congrats again on your sister making the Knights!" Renny said, wiping a bit of sweat from his brow and giving me a friendly tip of his guard helmet.
I gave him a deep, grateful bow of my head to thank him for his incredible kindness. Once he turned and marched back toward the 3rd District gates, I quickly unlocked the door, stepped inside, and shut the heavy wood tight behind me.
Before doing anything else, I rushed around the living room and pulled all the thick window curtains tightly closed, plunging the house into a safe, dim sanctuary away from the prying eyes of the high noon sun. Only then did I let out a massive sigh of relief.
Walking over to the coat rack, I finally unclasped my heavy canvas cloak, letting it drop alongside my leather purse. I unstrapped the heavy iron Death Chant Shotgun from my spine and mounted it securely on its hooks. Stripped of the heavy layers, I was left in just my black-and-white Victorian maid dress… and my massive, midnight-black blood wings, which unfurled slightly in the dim room, casting long shadows across the floor.
It was time to put everything away. I carried the heavy basket of groceries into the kitchen, neatly organizing the variety of pork, beef, and stewed canned meats onto the pantry shelves until our dried-out food stock looked completely replenished. Next, I took the basket of our freshly washed, floral-scented regular clothes up to my master bedroom, folding each garment with precision and tucking them neatly into my dresser.
Lastly, I picked up the lightweight basket containing the three new outfits I had bought from Alice. I walked up the stairs to Evelyn's bedroom, carefully taking out the two charming commoner dresses and the breathable linen dress. One by one, I placed them on hangers and slid them into her wardrobe, imagining how wonderful she would look stepping out of her slime identity and into the life of a proper human woman.
With that, the household chores were officially finished. My body was completely exhausted from balancing the heavy loads with just my right arm, and the midday heat had taken its toll on my sensitive skin.
I practically threw myself toward the living room, jumping face-first onto the plush fabric of our large sofa. The moment I collapsed into the cushions, my massive blood wings relaxed, spreading out completely across the length of the couch. A deep wave of pure, unadulterated comfort washed through my wings as the tension melted out of my feathers, letting me finally rest in the quiet, safe shadows of our home.
The quiet of the living room was absolute, broken only by the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock and the soft rustle of my blood-red feathers as they settled against the plush cushions of the sofa. For a long moment, I simply lay there, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. My mind drifted back to the Magic Tailor Shop and the crimson trench coat currently sitting on Olive Oil's workbench. It irritated me slightly that my past victory over the Neospider Queen in Karama Village had come back to haunt my wardrobe, but the promise of a custom-fitted, fire-resistant coat for free was worth the impending hunt at the Capital Knight Bureau Association.
Then, my thoughts shifted to Evelyn. By now, she was likely deep within the Bureau's grand halls, standing before Captain Friedrich and the high-ranking officials, demonstrating the incredible magical prowess that had bypassed her technical six years of existence. I smiled faintly, taking comfort in the knowledge that her new commoner dresses were waiting for her upstairs… a quiet promise that no matter how high she soared in the ranks of the Luminous Knights, she would always have a grounded, safe home to return to.
As I shifted my weight, stretching my single right arm over the edge of the sofa, my jade-green eye caught sight of a thick, cream-colored folder resting on the mahogany coffee table. It was the exact dossier Nautilus Cotton had slipped into my hands after I cleared the Caria Mines. It contained the complete family profile and psychological breakdown of Cameron Gal… the very man I was currently tracking. He was a dangerous ghost slipping through the sectors, and the Bureau had placed a staggering bounty of 10 gold coins on his head.
With the household chores finally finished and the soothing coolness of the dim room easing the ache in my missing limb, I decided to use this brief pocket of relaxation to study my prey. I leaned over, grabbed the heavy folder with my right hand, and flipped it open under the faint light filtering through the edges of the curtains.
My eyes scanned the neatly typed parchment, diving into the dark history of the man I was contracted to kill.
Character Profile: Cameron
Family Background:
The descent of Cameron into a broken villain began not with a grand scheme for power, but in the suffocating dark of a ruined household. Raised under the shadow of an unnamed, violently abusive father, Cameron watched for years as his family was systematically destroyed from within. The breaking point arrived on a rain-slicked night when his father came home deeply intoxicated, his rage fueled by cheap liquor and a failing estate. In a drunken fit of fury, the father attacked Cameron's unnamed mother, delivering a fatal blow that left her lifeless on the cold kitchen floor.
Something fractured inside Cameron that night as he stood over his mother's body. The grief instantly curdled into a cold, transactional pragmatism. Realizing that his family's lineage was functionally dead and that survival in a cruel world required capital, he picked up a heavy iron fire poker and struck down his incapacitated, drunken father in the very same room. To Cameron, it was not just revenge; it was an execution to secure what little remained of his inheritance money before the state or creditors could seize the household assets.
With both parents dead in a single night, Cameron looked at his weeping, unnamed younger sister not with familial love, but as a final, liquidable asset. Desperate to amass enough coin to flee his past and establish a new life of absolute control, he detached himself from his remaining humanity and sold his sister into the underground slave trade for an incredibly high price. The good money he acquired from her sale, combined with his stolen inheritance, funded his rise into villainy. Now a broken shell of a man, Cameron operates with the absolute conviction that everyone has a price, that love is a fatal liability, and that the only true security in life is bought with blood and gold.
I slowly closed the folder, the heavy paper snapping shut with a muted thud that echoed in the quiet living room. I rested it against my lap, staring blankly into the shadows of the hallway as I processed the disturbing dossier.
There was no denying the objective truth, Cameron Gal was an absolute monster. He was a cruel, detached transactional psychopath who had brutally executed his own father and, worst of all, looked at his own weeping younger sister as nothing more than a piece of property to be sold into the horrors of the underground slave trade. As an older sister who would willingly tear the world apart to protect Evelyn, the mere concept of selling a sibling for gold made my blood run cold, my wings flaring slightly with an instinctive, predatory anger.
Yet, as a battle-hardened survivor who had seen the darkest corners of this world, I couldn't help but feel a grim, clinical understanding of how he became this way. Cameron was utterly broken. The boy he used to be had died on that rain-slicked kitchen floor, watching his mother get brutally murdered by the very man who was supposed to protect them. His mind had fractured under the weight of that trauma, forcing him to shed his humanity just to survive the immediate collapse of his world. He had traded his soul for blood and gold because he believed that weakness and love were the very things that had gotten his mother killed.
He had a reason for his madness, a deep, bleeding wound that had rotted into villainy. But pity wouldn't change the contract. A broken history didn't make him any less dangerous to the people of Caria, nor did it lower the 10 gold coins attached to his name.
I leaned back against the sofa cushions, my single eye hardening as I looked over at the Death Chant Shotgun hanging on the rack. When the time came to face Cameron Gal, I wouldn't hesitate. I would give him the exact same cold, transactional execution he had given his father… not out of malice, but because a monster born from tragedy is still a monster that needs to be put down.
I reopened the folder with my right hand, turning the heavy parchment pages to look for any tactical advantages or connections. My single jade-green eye locked onto a section labeled Known Associates and Unholy Matrimony.
There, staring back at me from the paperwork, was a detailed sketch of his spouse and lover: Vanessa Katt.
A bitter taste filled my mouth as the memory hit me. Vanessa Katt was no stranger to me; we had clashed in a devastating, blood-soaked battle back in the jagged peaks of the Caria Mountains. She was an absolute nightmare to fight, possessing a lethal synergy of Tar Creation and Fire Magic. When she combined the two, she didn't just create fire… she generated a sticky, suffocating, blazing napalm that coated everything it touched. I had nearly lost my life in those mountains because of her volatile magic, and the agonizing burns she inflicted were the exact reason I had just spent seven gold coins to commission the fire-resistant crimson trench coat from Vladimir.
But the next time we crossed paths, the outcome would be entirely different. I am fully prepared now. I had the Death Chant Shotgun mounted on my wall, my drake-scale coat waiting for its final magical resize at Olive's shop, and a cold, calculating strategy forming in my mind.
My plan against House Cameron and their syndicate was brutal, efficient, and simple:
My tactical plan for the upcoming hunt was beautifully simple. I would track down and corner the vicious Immoral Knight Commander's wife in an isolated sector. I would break her defenses, neutralize her napalm magic with my new gear, and subject her to a merciless interrogation. The moment she broke under pressure and spat out the exact location and security details of their hidden headquarters, I would put a permanent end to her life. From there, I would strip her of her official armor and uniform, utilizing my shapeshifting magic to perfectly clone her appearance, voice, and biometric signature.
Disguised as Vanessa herself, I could easily slip past the perimeter guards and infiltrate the deep interior of the Immoral Knights' primary base completely undetected. It was a flawless strategy. Not only would it allow me to catch Cameron Gal completely off guard and claim his lucrative ten-gold bounty head, but it would also give me the perfect opportunity to map out their entire stronghold and expose the base's coordinates directly to Nautilus and the Bureau for a full-scale military raid.
This masterstroke wouldn't just guarantee me Cameron Gal's head and the 10 gold coin bounty. By infiltrating their inner sanctum, I could map out their entire infrastructure, document their numbers, and expose their main base directly to Captain Friedrich and the Capital Knight Bureau Association.
I leaned my head back against the sofa cushions, my blood wings twitching with a dark, anticipatory thrill. For years, the corrupt, malicious faction known as the Immoral Knights had plagued this realm, leaving a trail of broken families and ruined lives in their wake. They were the apex predators of Caria's underworld, but they had finally crossed paths with the Crimson Phantom.
With the Bureau's backing, Evelyn's rising influence as a Luminous Knight, and my own lethal arsenal, I was finally in a position to fulfill my lifelong goal: to systematically hunt down, expose, and eliminate every single last member of the Immoral Knights until nothing but their ashes remained.