'Who...?!"
Luke gasped, struggling to break away from the chokehold that the silver-haired gentleman had put him in.
"Oh, I'm no one important, just a lowly servant of lady Cranberry Pride – Carambola Loyalty."
Carambola spoke in a tone of peaceful after-meal conversation while lifting up the healer forcing him to climb his tiptoes.
"On behalf of my master, I ask of you to cease the hostile actions towards the first prince... at least until my master is known to be in contact with him, kind sir."
The silver-haired gentleman added, politely bowing his head while Luke's face was getting red as he struggled to break free.
"And just before you will do something unreasonable..."
Carambola continued without waiting for whatever reaction to his words the healer might have, and his hands began shining with white light.
"...I must warn you that I possess three powerful inborn skills. One of them is a mana drain, which I'm using right now... Do I have to remind you that you won't be able to use any of your healing skills?"
The old butler asked politely, without ever releasing the pressure from the young man's neck.
"M-mana drain...?!"
Luke gasped, using enough power to dislocate all of his fingers trying to break free from the chokehold but failing miserably – even with the ability to heal himself, there was no way that he could compare the physical strength stat of himself and a man who could be his grandfather and spent his entire life training.
"Yes. Mana drain. Is your brain already suffering from the lack of oxygen?"
Carambola nodded, furrowing his brows in consideration – yet instead of releasing his grip, he strengthened it even more.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"My second skill is close combat – it means that you will not get away from me unless you can teleport. That's why you will heal the prince from whatever damage you've dealt him, then you will heal miss Mary's griffin, and we all will be able to go about our night with no hard feelings. Doesn't that sound good?"
The silver-haired gentleman made a proposition that was impossible to refuse.
"M-mister Carambola... I- I think that I'm okay... he doesn't have to heal me if he doesn't want to – but as compensation make sure that he will heal Anry...!"
Roan crawled back up on his feet from the ground, massaging his bleeding and most likely cracked jaw.
"...!"
His selflessness made the brown-haired heroine's heart flutter, as she looked at the blond prince form over her barely conscious griffin's head.
"You heard the first prince, boy. You need to learn to pick your battles if you wish to live a long life. Just surrender and everything will be alright, how about it?"
The silver-haired gentleman looked between Roan and Mary and nodded to them both before propping the healer even higher and repeating his proposition.
"H-how about I say – fuck you, you old fart?!"
Yet instead of accepting the outcome of the encounter, Luke growled, grabbing onto Carambola's elbow with both of his hands and pulling on it with all his might!
*crack*
"...what the...?!"
But since the old gentleman's grip was like a steel binding and did not budge, the only thing that Luke achieved was breaking his own neck as he rotated his body full one-eighty degrees making it face Carambola while his head stayed back – causing the shocked butler to gasp in disbelief that the young healer would choose the most outrageous way out of the situation, as the young man's body hung down limply.
"Wha...?! What a crazy bastard?! Did he not hear that you are using mana drain?!"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Roan gasped, stumbling back in horror after witnessing the horrible scene.
"HMPH...!"
*thump*
All of a sudden, the silver-haired gentleman acted in a completely not gentlemanly way and threw the corpse away as far as he could, causing it to crash far behind Roan's head and tumble even farther back.
"Mister Carambola?! It is upsetting, but throwing away Luke's body will only show our position to the other sla..."
Mary added, clenching her fists so hard that her fingernails had punctured the skin on her palms as she realized that there might be no saving her tamed monster anymore – unless Luke was lying about the complexity of the injury that he had caused the griffin...
"The system message about defeating a player character didn't show up..."
The silver-haired gentleman frowned and adjusted the white gloves on his hands, staring at the corpse in the distance.
"...same with my mana drain – his mana should be diminishing, but instead it was my skill that reached a limit of how much it can drain – and I didn't even know that there is a limit on that."
"Huh?!"
"Eh...? It can't be...!"
Carambola revealed, causing the blond prince and the brown-haired runaway bride to gasp in shock – before hurrying over and picking Roan and rushing over to grab Mary, carrying the tow like pieces of luggage."
"M-mister Carambola – what are you doing?!"
"Noo! I can't leave Anry!"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})The blond prince gasped and the brown-haired heroine cried out, struggling to escape the old butler's grip which should have already been proved to be an almost impossible task.
"No. We need to run."
Carambola merely shook his head and turned around, eyeing the closed gate as well as the wall surrounding the Druian's estate.
"Aww... leaving so soon?"
"!!!!!"
"!!!!!"
"!!!!!"
Roan and Mary hand a clear view on the speaker while the old gentleman had to glance back.
Luke, very much alive and completely healed up from the deadly wound he inflicted upon himself - was dusting off his clothes and smirking at the three of the escapees mockingly.
"Why don't we...?"
"LUKE! Where were you? There's some crazed-up monster rampaging throughout the mansion!"
Before the young healer could finish his sentence, another person came running towards him from the mansion.
It was a man clad in an expensive-looking armor made out of multiple metal and ceramic plates, wearing a helmet finished with something akin to an insect's horn, making his overall appearance similar to a giant armored bug.
"Sir Kabuto...!"
Luke gasped, flinching and looking between the newly arrived man and the trio that was unable to use that chance because of Mary's adamant refusal to leave without her tamed monster.
