南瓜影院

It was noon but the day was moody. Sunlight was unable to break through a thick collection of clouds and with a few rumbles of thunder and some streaks of lightning, rain began to fall.

The rain washed away the drying blood of the many dead Newbies in the Hadron Mansion\'s courtyard and the sounds of raindrops were all there was to be heard.

And then came the sound of horse hooves thudding against the ground. Multiple of them rode hard and fast and came to a stop when they entered the courtyard and found the scene of death of destruction.

Shattered walls. Scattered bricks. Melted stones… Multiple Dead.

The one at the very front of the riding party was a brown-haired, grey-eyed man who looked to be in his late forties and was dressed in a black robe that shimmered ever so slightly with Arcane symbols that warded off the rain droplets and kept the fabric dry.

The man had his palm open and facing upward. On top of his palm, a couple of circles were projected with the one at the very top depicting a crude description of a landscape and two dots; One blue and one red.

The blue dot marked the location of the tracker and the Red dot was for the tracked.

The Lord of the Black Manor, Maude Aleric, had come for his Item.

"My Lord, we\'ll go on ahead," said a hard-faced man whose horse trotted until he was side by side with Maude before then riding slowly ahead.

"No," Maude said and got down from his horse with the tracking spell held out in front of him.

This Squad of Vykers had made it back to Saint Claret just in time to join him in this retrieval but Maude believed that the mere fact that he needed to be here personally spoke heavily of the failures of Vykers past and none of them could be trusted to lead.

Besides, capable as they were, Angus believed that whatever enemy he could not defeat, the Vykers would fail against too.

He walked through the hole in the damaged Mansion\'s wall and walked past two more bodies as he followed the tracking spell into the room that looked to be the epicenter of the fire damage the Mansion had suffered.

He spotted Angus\' body quickly enough and he knew it was Angus\' despite how badly burnt it was because of the Arcane Symbols glowing bright now the Tracker was near.

\'It\'s gone,\' Maude noted. He didn\'t even have to pay attention to Angus\' charred chest to know the Vinculum was missing.

The Vykers trooped in after him but they just stood in place while their Lord released an aura so intense, it seemed to smack their faces with its intense disappointment.

"I was too late," Maude Aleric mumbled as he canceled his Tracking Spell.

He had seen with his Tracking spell as Angus rode back to the countryside and had believed, especially based on the Gang Leader\'s display at the Black Manor, that there was nothing that would rob Angus of the Vinculum.

Surely, there could be no one in the Countryside with enough strength and Magic to wrestle the item from Angus\'s grip.

Maude now realized how wrong he was and now his precious item was gone.

Then Maude\'s eyes began to roam and, for the first time since he had entered this room, he realized there were others present.

He had been so focused on Angus that he had not had eyes for anything else.

"That boy," Maude said with a frown.

He recognized Henry from the assault on the Manor.

Henry\'s upper body was bare and his pants looked smoldered by flames and were hanging by a thread. The slightest pull would rip them. Despite the apparent burn of the clothes, the boy appeared mostly unharmed.

Of course, Maude Aleric couldn\'t care less about the thief that had stormed his Manor with Angus Dionisio, however, someone else caught his eye;

A beautiful lady lay just an inch away from the boy\'s unconscious body. Also unconscious. Her clothes were not burnt like his but they were ripped.

The lady\'s skin was pale, her long tangled hair was a peculiar grayish white. The sort of hair you\'d find on the elderly and not on a lady in her twenties but Maude knew magic could do incredible things and this lady certainly had a lot of talent for it.

Maude stretched out a hand and passed it over her unconscious body as he released Mana that radiated all over her form and his eyes widened.

\'I might not be precise but her Intelligence is at least twice mine,\' he thought and let out an incredulous chuckle,

\'Incredible.

Mmm, there is a deficiency in her Mana. It\'s much too weak for this much talent. But that can be corrected with enough training.

I wonder— How did she end up here?\'

The Vykers stepped forward now.

"My Lord," one of them called out tentatively.

Maude ignored the call and his eyes went all over the girl\'s ripped clothes as he produced a cloak seemingly from out of nowhere and covered her with it.

"Carry her. And be gentle," Maude said once he was sure the lady was properly covered.

The Vyker lifted the grey-haired lady in a bridal carry while Maude eyed Henry\'s unconscious body,

"Take him too," he ordered suddenly and another, slightly larger Vyker stepped forward and grabbed Henry off the ground to throw him over his shoulder with incredible ease before stepping back.

As Henry was lifted, Maude Aleric made to turn away when something caught his eye. He reached down and picked it up. It was a dull, partially shattered purple gem surrounded by silver tentacles. All that was left of the Vinculum. It\'s Bond-Making/Breaking magic all gone.

Maude frowned deeply as his fist gripped the gem while the silver tentacles spilled out of the gaps between his fingers.

As Maude thought back to the cost of acquiring the Vinculum, his heart ached and he gripped the powered-down Vinculum so tightly that the rest of its broken gem shattered into tiny bits before he let it drop to the ground.

"Let\'s go," he told the Vykers and led the way out of the room, out of the Hadron Mansion. Ready, in some part, to put this entire experience behind him.

Well, almost.

With a glance at Henry\'s limp body, Maude Aleric was reminded he still had one last bit of this experience at hand and his mind worked quickly to determine just how best to use it to assuage some of the losses he had suffered.

-

About half an hour after Maude Aleric and his party of Vykers left the Hadron Mansion with Henry and Yelena\'s limp bodies, three horses trotted over.

"Holy—" Charles said at the sight of the many dead bodies in the courtyard as well as the damaged Mansion.

"What happened here?"

"Guns…" Dana said as she blinked raindrops from her eyes to study the corpses,

"They were all shot."

"I\'ll search inside," Devon said and got down from his horse to walk into the Mansion.

Dana and Charles followed after hitching the horses to Hitching Posts. There were pouches of gold attached to all three horses but neither thought to worry about that. Not now at least. Not when they feared the worst.

With most of the floor caved in, they focused their search on the lower floor and it didn\'t take long before they were inside the only room with a body.

Devon knelt beside it,

"It\'s Angus," he said.

"How can you know?" Dana asked which was valid since the body was quite badly burned.

"I just do," Devon said in a grave voice.

Charles walked around the room and found a broken trinket with silver tentacles,

"Dana, I think he\'s right," he said, "Look, isn\'t this the item Angus used to have on his Chest."

Dana took it,

"It\'s lacking the gem but it does look like it," she said.

"Here\'s the gem," Charles said as he held up broken pieces of a purple gem he had found on the ground next to the damaged item.

Dana let out a sigh,

"Then it\'s confirmed then," she said, "It *is* Angus."

"Henry," Devon said suddenly.

"What?" Charles asked with a raised brow.

"Henry did this," Devon said and pointed at bullet holes all over Angus\'s chest with one in his head.

"Come on, you can\'t be serious," Dana said, "Have you forgotten who we robbed?"

"Please, Vykers don\'t fight with guns," Devon said.

"And the City Guards that chased us?" Charles asked.

"Yes, them," Dana said, "They could have followed them here."

Devon snorted,

"Please, those guys were worthless. I could have taken them if the plan wasn\'t to get away. They could never have beaten Angus. Not before he got that thing on his chest and certainly not after.

Henry did this."

"Devon—" Dana started.

"Dana, he did it," Devon insisted, "Look around, do you see him?"

"I don\'t see Yelena too, does that mean she was in on it?" Dana asked, her tone clear she meant to be sarcastic.

Devon took it seriously though,

"Someone had to burn the Mansion. Who better than a Witch?"

"My gods!" Dana let out exasperated.

"Enough, you two," Charles said, "There\'s nothing left for us here, we need to go."

"What about Stefan and Triss?" Dana asked.

"Will you return to the Black Manor for them?" Charles asked and she went on quiet.

"Face it, there\'s nothing we can do for them," Charles said and then waved at Angus\' burnt body,

"There\'s not even really a \'We\' anymore. The Dionisio Gang ended with Angus."

"So what now?" Dana asked as Devon bowed his head and observed a personal moment of silence for Angus. A final tribute.

Charles shrugged,

"We move on," he said, "We try to survive."

Charles shrugged and walked out of the Hadron Mansion and loosened his horse from the hitching post to get into the Saddle.

Dana and Devon walked out to see him turn his horse around, ready to ride away.

"Where will you go?" Dana asked.

"Away from here. Find a town to lay low and try to make something of myself from there. I mean, I do have gold."

"We\'ll ride with you," Dana said and glanced at Devon with a raised brow.

Devon shrugged,

"That sounds alright. We might as well stick together until we don\'t have to," he said and then his brown eyes flashed an intense red as he vowed,

"But if I ever come across that little shit again, I\'m going to rip him apart with my bare hands."

And so, in a few minutes, all three were back on their horses and riding away together under the pouring rain. Leaving their Gang-banging life behind while burdened with the massive loot they were no longer obligated to share.

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~End Of Volume One~

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