Glenn felt increasingly bewildered as her words drifted further and further into absurdity, until she simply froze mid-sentence, as though her mind had suddenly crashed.

  He could still understand overthrowing a regime—but what did dragons have to do with any of this? And expeditions? God-born beings? Was the Mayor truly so formidable that he led an entire village to rampage across the continent? …Staring at the girl who looked as if she had short-circuited, Glenn fell into deep thought.

  A few minutes later, just as he was about to rouse her, the girl abruptly returned to normal. With a puzzled expression, she asked:

  “What did you just say?”

  Glenn narrowed his eyes. “You do not remember anything?”

  “You did not say anything at all!” Sissili replied with absolute certainty.

  That only made Glenn even more suspicious.

  It seems I will not be getting much more out of her—any mention of crucial information triggers either memory loss or deliberate evasion… He shrugged lightly and said:

  “I was asking what we are doing next.”

  Instantly, she perked up and pulled Glenn into her room.

  After that, nothing particularly special occurred. Glenn simply gritted his teeth and accompanied Sissili through an entire day of childish, house-play games.

  By nightfall, she even tried to use the late hour as an excuse to keep him there longer.

  But even Glenn’s patience had its limits. He stood firm and left.

  Passing Bor's house, Glenn noticed the second-floor window was still lit.

  At this hour, everyone should already be asleep—especially Bor, whose routine was normally strict and predictable. The irregularity immediately caught Glenn’s attention.

  He paused, focused his hearing, and listened closely.

  Inside, there were sounds of frantic rummaging, accompanied by the old man muttering incoherently—words impossible to make out.

  Acting on the principle that good neighbors should help one another, Glenn lightly leapt up to the window.

  His fingers hooked onto the outside ledge without a sound.

  He slowly leaned toward the gap in the shutters to observe the room within.

  Bor had his back to the window, digging frantically through something resembling an oversized trunk. His movements were hurried, panicked.

  Occasionally, black tendrils slipped out from the old man’s chest area—slithering shadows that caught Glenn’s eye.

  Is the demon he contracted with losing control? …A possibility formed in Glenn’s mind. Using a small trick, he quietly unlatched the window and slipped inside without a sound.

  But the moment his foot touched the floor, Bor whipped around, rasping:

  “Who!?”

  Glenn froze—then frowned in shock.

  The old man’s entire face was covered in water-logged wrinkles, his sagging eye bags drooping so low his eyeballs seemed ready to fall out. As he spoke, his lips flapped grotesquely, both comical and horrifying.

  “Old man, what happened to you? Did the contracted demon turn on you?” Glenn cautiously asked.

  Recognizing Glenn, Bor scowled. “Who told you to barge into my house!? This has nothing to do with you—leave, now!”

  “Oh, spare me. You have never knocked a single time when entering mine.” Glenn rolled his eyes and stepped forward. Pointing at the mass writhing beneath the old man’s ribs, he added, “That thing is practically crawling out of you. You are telling me you are fine?”

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  Knowing Glenn wouldn’t leave easily, Bor stopped trying to chase him out. He turned back to his frantic search and muttered:

  “This isn’t the first, nor the second time it has happened. I can handle it.”

  “I just hope you are not bluffing.” Glenn’s tone was casual, then he paused. “What exactly are you looking for?”

  “Heart-sand of Krol, the root of Joygrass—do you even know what those are?” His tone dripped with disdain for Glenn’s academic ineptitude.

  Glenn, of course, knew neither.

  So he simply found a place to sit and waited as the old man dug through the trunk.

  The trunk was packed with oddities and artifacts of all sizes—even looking at it made Glenn’s head ache.

  “It was right here… Where did it go? Not this… not that… come out already…” Bor muttered nonstop as he searched.

  But as time dragged on, the tendrils from his chest grew more numerous, yet he still found nothing.

  Growing irritable, his hands thrashed through the items with greater force.

  Glenn grew anxious as well, itching to simply upend the entire trunk onto the floor.

  Suddenly, the old man let out a muffled groan. The black tendrils under his skin braced themselves against the ground like spider legs, lifting his body into the air.

  Glenn shot to his feet. “Old man! If I cut those tendrils off, will it save you?”

  “No! They are… part of my body now… do not you dare…” Suspended and violently swaying, he struggled to speak.

  “Then tell me what I can do! Preferably something I can do right now!” Glenn hovered nearby, ready to intervene but not daring to attack blindly.

  “Your curse… might suppress it for a moment. Can you release your Wolf Venom?”

  “No problem.”

  Glenn exhaled a heavy cloud of cursed black smoke, enveloping the old man. He could feel the tendrils greedily devouring the curse, eventually settling down.

  Bor seized the brief respite and scrambled back toward the trunk.

  Glenn stepped up and quickly laid everything out on the floor.

  But in the end, the old man suddenly whispered, “It is gone…”

  “What?” Glenn’s gaze sharpened.

  “It is gone. The emergency reagents and tools I always keep here… they are missing…”

  His eyes were filled with bewilderment as he tried to recall what had led to this crisis.

  Then suddenly, his expression twisted into vicious fury.

  “I know it! That fat bastard must have taken them! He has the ability—this is retaliation for what I said to him last time. Next time I see him, I am killing him!”

  “Maybe think about surviving this first. Do you even know how awful you look right now?” Glenn pointed at his face.

  Bor bared his teeth. “This is a cyclical phenomenon. It will not kill me—but without intervention, the pain will surpass death itself.”

  Glenn snorted. “If it were truly just that, you wouldn’t be panicking this much. I am guessing there is a far more serious consequence you are not mentioning.”

  The old man closed his eyes, touching the writhing black tendrils beneath his ribs.

  “What other consequence could there be? After a few more episodes like this, I will turn into a real demon. I could accept that—…but I cannot accept that the man who destroyed my family is still alive and well.”