The Young Master in the Shadows

“WHY DID YOU KILL HIM!” the policewoman hit the stainless steel table angrily. “CONFESS!”

“... I INVOKE THE FIFTH!” Axel spat. He already called Olaf and the latter told him to remain silent and await a family decision. The situation had become too public to keep under rags.

“Like that will ever help you!” she spat. “He is his ex-lover ha? I bet you two had a fight!”

“I know nothing about that… I am innocent!“ Axel said, sighing.

When he saw it was a policewoman who came to int storage him, he was pretty amused, that was until this annoying bitch started to throw around baseless accusations and conspiracy theories…. How the hell did she live this long with that screwed mind of hers?

“Stop lying! We got it all in film! Even your all-powerful family will not be able to help you with all the public outrage!” she spat. She clearly had a problem with powerful families.

“I am not counting on them, I am counting on the truth!” he lied. “Can I ask you something though… Why do I feel like you hold some grudge against me?” Axel asked.

“...” she squinted at him. “Now you act like you don’t remember ha… Don’t worry, I will make sure you will pay for what you did, both to him and me….!”

“... What do you mean? What did I do to you?” Axel frowned. The way this crazy chick was acting was as if she had a crush on him before then he went and cheated on her. Could that be what happened?

“I confess, the last time you were here, I was fooled too by you and your cousin’s acts, but my intuition that you are a crooked scum was not wrong after all… An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree!” she said with determination. “Let me…”

BAM

The door of the interrogation room opened, it was the police chief.

“Lea…Didn’t I forbid you from coming here?” he spat directly. So her name was Lea, ha…

“I am not going to sit still as the incompetent guys here ruin this!” Lea said.

“Lass, you have to understand! You are on paid leave! You are going to get married soon, damn it! Stop bothering with police stuff!”

“But father! I was away for two months, and this department had turned into a den of corruption! I am not leaving ever again…”

“Ah… What are you talking about?” the chief who turned out to be her father, and the reason she was alive until now, frowned. “Is there a problem between you and Archi?” he asked.

“He wants to create a fucking HAREM!” she spat, looking hatefully at Axel as if he was the reason why all young noblemen in this country went harem crazy lately. No, not just the noblemen, many normal young men started to have such delusions!

“And? It is legal! He is a noble!” her father replied as he shook his head. “After what you did to him, it was very generous of the royal family to not only forgive you but accept you as a full-fledged wife!” he added in a seemingly glad voice. He clearly wanted this marriage to happen.

“Like hell, I want that!” Lea spat in a troubled voice.

“Well, it is too late now! You have to pay for what you did!” the chief spat. Clearly dissatisfied with his daughter’s mentality. “You were the one who forced Archi into bed in the first place after all!”

“I didn't do it on my own accord! I was drugged by some scumbag!” Lea yelled as she glared hatefully at Alex who was watching the drama…

This chapter is updated by freēwēbnovel.com.

What did he do now? Ah… It must be that imposter!

“Then You should have clarified things back then instead of arresting Prince Archi and making a public scene!”

“I… I had no idea he was drugged too…” she pouted.

“Regardless… The deed is already done! There is no going back now!” the chief sighed. “At least think about the royal baby you are carrying!” he said, making Alex look at Lea’s stomach… Was she pregnant? Did that have anything to do with her nasty temper?

“Dad! I don’t want it!” she spat angrily. “It will ruin my career!”

“Is being a police officer that important!” the chief flared. “That baby is of Nobel royal blood! You can’t ‘NOT WANT IT!’” he spat. “Do you want to commit regicide and rot in jail!” he hissed.

“But…” Lea didn’t know how to answer that.

“It is the law! You should know better!” the chief said. “I thought the law was what you respected most of all!”

“...” Lea looked away as she clenched her fist in a clear defeat.

Axel who got the gist of their heated conversation signed… Wait, why were they discussing this here? Weren’t such things very private?

“Young master Victor…” the police chief, finally noticing he was there said. “I am sorry about bothering you with our family matters… “

“It is fine…” Axel said dismissively. “Did the family respond?” he asked. Olaf had already told him that his family should be able to easily fix everything.

“Yes, we just got news from your esteemed family and talked to the lawyers they hired. Unfortunately, due to the public pressure and all those annoying journalists camping outside…” the chief slowed down and gave his daughter a glare before continuing…”Because of all of this mess… You will have to stay with us for a day or two...”

“Ah… Ok… I don’t mind. Just hope that you give me a clean cell,” Axel said. As someone who spent his life sleeping in a sect dormitory with 7 other filthy guys, he didn’t mind sleeping in a cell, as long as it was clean and tidy that is.

“Don’t worry, we already prepared the best one, we even found some cellmates whom you might enjoy…” the chief winked as he said in a low voice.

“Ah… What?” Axel didn’t get that right.

“This way young master Victor…” the chief winked as he opened the door.

“...”

…

It had been three hours as Victor slowly made his way through the dim underground tunnels.

He could tell that this place was built long long ago. The stone walls here were way older than any of the structures above. If he were to compare it to something, it would be the way structures were usually built in dungeons… This place might have been a dungeon itself at one point in time!

The more Victor walked the more he came to this conclusion.

Those similar passages that he passed, again and again, were built purposely to disorient whoever was crossing them. It was like a maze. A defensive maze maybe that was meant to keep intruders out… Quite the opposite from the structures above were made to keep prisoners in.

With both of those, this place could be described in two words. “DEATH TRAP”

Well, it would not be his death…

He expected it to really be full of dangers and such, but other than a few lousy traps that he could easily spot with his appraisal skill, there were no unexpected things. No wait… Considering that none of the nobles could use their skills after touching that pillar, this place might be a little tricky for them. Also, this world seemed to not have many dungeons so most of the guys didn't really have any experience with such places.

Soon, Victor reached an intersection, the 20th since he entered. He frowned as he began looking around, Victor could see that there were three passageways in front of him, two were normal while the other was hidden and disguised as a plain wall. If it were not for his skills he would have completely missed it.… It was the effect of a strange array that had been changing things around him for a while now.

Interesting…

This was not a contest, but a rigged execution ground. Whoever was in the control room was purposely guiding the participants.

He sighed. “What path do you think we should go through?” he asked the little girl who held his hand as she curiously looked around. She was Emira who refused to stay in the cauldron with Meril and Macil and insisted on following him around.

He had no choice but to let her do as she pleased on the condition of her staying beside him where he could easily disguise her presence.

This girl was getting more and more mysterious and he had long decided to dig the truth about her.

One of the things he was now intrigued about was how his fate-weaver skill seemed to be completely oblivious to her. It was as if she didn’t have a destiny at all! That was except for one thread that connected her to him, a thread of dependence and trust.

“There!” she said, pointing to one of the two open passageways. “It smells interesting…” she said.

“Death?” Victor asked. The girl seemed to be very sensitive toward that. It was as if she had the power to absorb this ‘Death’ energy for some reason. But it was not clear to him yet, whether this was good or bad for her.

She didn’t really display any anomalies when he killed a few demons in front of her, she just took a few breaths and said that she felt refreshed.

“Um… A lot…” she nodded.

Victor frowned, looking at the ominous passageway going down. Yeah… It smelt of death and decay… Still, he could feel that demonic bloodline he felt from before was in its direction, so he quickly headed toward it, making creaking sounds all along using his armor.

One might think he was using this to ward away the ‘demons’ who were supposedly here, but the truth was it was meant to lure in other participants. Getting them to attack him and then kicking their asses was the best way to collect those flags.

Since the morning, he had been attacked by some idiots five times, forcing him to use the family sword art to repel them. He couldn’t use his skills after all, as he should be cursed, and couldn’t really use his powers for the next two weeks after all.

Thankfully the same was true for his attackers. Those idiots stupidly attacked all the walls around Victor instead of swinging their swords at him. Allowing him to swiftly decapitate them and take all the flags they gathered.

After removing their masks he discovered four of them were nobles and the other, who was the third to attack him, was a commoner and for some strange reason was not cursed like the rest.

It was after killing that commoner that the array seemed to have started trying to interfere with his journey, sending more and more guys at him and guiding him deeper and deeper into the tunnels. It was probably where all those people would ‘be eaten’ or something.

Victor, who didn't encounter anything after that for the last hour or so, was getting really bored. He did consider using his full power to hurry through the tunnels, but It was just that he was worried that some Lord might be watching, and he really didn’t want to stand out, choosing to act low-key.

“Attackers…” Emira warned.

BAM!

Two guys finally appeared! One from the front and one from behind. They jumped from obscure notches in the walls and pinned him between them.

“HEY! LOOK WHO WE HAVE HERE!” one guy said pointing at Victor with his rapier “LOOK AT THAT ARMOR!” he added with a sarcastic tone... Probably... The mask was obscuring their real voices, but that was how it sounded.

“CLEARLY A DAMN COMMONER!” the other said as he glared at Victor. “THROW YOU WEAPON TO THE FLOOR AND GIVE US YOUR FLAGS AND WE WILL SPARE YOU!” he said as his friend blocked Victor’s escape from behind.

Victor couldn’t help but appreciate those two, they were able to cooperate without knowing each other. Not bad. They were clearly either nobles or some professionally trained commoners.

He quickly appraised them…

They were both commoners, Victor could tell from their surnames which lacked the ‘De La’ prefix all nobles seemed to have. He could also tell that the second one, who was behind him, was a female, and she was possessed by a demon. By using his demonic bloodline on his eyes, he could see the shadow hovering behind her.

Wait… Weren't the students tested by that demon-busting pillar? Now he was sure of it. They didn’t have that curse, so probably not, they wanted them with their entire skill sets to survive this place… They would probably test them in secret after the competition…

“HEY! DID YOU HEAR US?’ the one who was behind Victor demanded. They were clearly waiting for his response to decide if he was a noble or a fellow commoner.

“YOU WANT MY FLAGS?” he asked with a sigh.

“YEAH!” the one in front responded. Jake said.

“What do you think?” he asked Emira whom the attackers didn’t see.

“That one is smelly… " she glared at the demon-possessed one at the back. “This has no smell at all…” she said pointing to the one at the front.

“Oh… Do you mean that he did not kill anyone before?” Victor asked, raising one eyebrow.

Emira frowned and shrugged. She had no idea.

Victor sighed.

“WHAT?” the one in the back asked. “HURRY UP! WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY!”

“Fine…” Victor said as he threw the sword from his hand to the side, then took out 2 flags and threw them at the man in front of him.

“IS THAT ALL?” the female in the back asked.

“Yeah…”

“SEARCH HIM…” she spat.

“AH... CAN'T YOU DO IT?”

“... NO… I am not touching a guy’s pants!”

“OH… Fine… If he tries anything funny, stab him!” the one in the front said, probably realizing that his friend was a female for the first time.

The guy slowly approached Victor, and as soon as he was about to touch him, he jumped at the female in the back with his sword drawn. He saw her getting ready to strike him.

“Bastard!” she attacked him.

“Bitch..”He responded and began to battle, allowing Victor to swiftly grab the sword and the two flags and run into the darkness.

“HEY!”

“YOU HAVE TIME TO LOOK…”

BAM

BAM

Victor ignored them as he ran forward with a little girl in hand. Since these two didn’t know each other’s true identity, they must have always had their guard and their alliance was very fragile. It was broken by a simple illusion.

Victor was not interested in fights right now. Winning against two skillful opponents at the same time would make whoever was watching him have some doubts after all. He was just…

BANG

A large dog-like demonic creature lunged at him trying to bite his head off.

It bit the wall and then had its head rolling as the startled Emira grabbed onto Victor’s pants.

“Don’t worry… The demons here are all idiots, but you must always be wary in dungeons… Don’t put your guard down!” He reassured her by rubbing her head as he knelt next to the demon and checked it. It was not a real demon, but a demonic beast. A normal creature that had been transformed by demonic energy.

Emira nodded as she inspected the demon with him. The girl was a fast learner.

“Nothing here… Let’s continue…” he said as he stood up, taking out a lollipop from his ring and giving it to Emira before they continued their path down.

…

In a certain room far below where Victor was walking, a group of knights were busy working at a large stone tablet that was engraved like a maze. On it, small colored and numbered pawns were moving around. They were using strange brushes to write symbols around it as a way of control.

The maze was the tunnels and the pawns were the contestants. The red ones were the ones meant to be used as targets and get killed, and the white ones were the real contestants being tested.

“HOW THE FUCK CAN THIS GUY BE THIS LUCKY?” one guy spat in frustration, suddenly alerting his friends. “Sorry…” he quickly said.

“WHAT GUY?” the warden who was watching the process from behind, and getting bored, asked.

“Ah… This one… Number Red 45, was taking thighs too easily… He killed one of the commoner candidates very swiftly,” the knight paused there. That candidate was his cousin, but he couldn’t say that. “... So I decided to make things a little difficult for him…” he planned to kill him.

“And?” one of his friends asked.

"The traps are not working on him at all! The contestants I guided toward him were either dead or fighting with each other…. Even a DemonHound failed to kill him!” the knight complained. He couldn’t tell what was happening downstairs other than what was being displayed on the board. All he saw was the demon biting toward the wall next to the participant and then getting killed. “I think that there is something wrong about him…” he trailed off.

“Oh… Is he using some kind of skill or artifact?” one female knight asked with a frown.

“That’s the point… Look, even the energy level being emitted by him is nearly Zero, no real skill executions are being detected!” the knight complained. “He is a noble, so he should be cursed, right?”

“THIS COULD ONLY MEAN THAT HE IS VERY SKILLED IN MARTIAL ARTS…”The warden said in appreciation. “WHO IS HE?”

“I don’t know…” he said looking at the knight in the back. The participants' names were supposed to be kept a secret, to avoid someone helping his relative like he was doing. The only way he recognized his cousin was through certain movement patterns that they agreed on beforehand.

“SIMON? DO YOU KNOW HIM?” the warden asked the knight who stood at the side, making all the knights suddenly aware of his existence. Despite this knight not having any high ranks, everyone knew that he was Princess Lyra’s right hand. And he was very skilled!

“We don’t know! His name is Victor White, so probably not a noble.” Simon replied. “Lady Lyra caught him trying to scam his way into the capital and brought him here…” he added.

“Oh, it is that guy…” the female knight nodded. “The one who oiled the armor…” she reminded the warded.

“OH….” the warden nodded.

“Ignore him for now, he is meant to reach the end and become food for her…” Simon said.

“Understand..” the knight said, hiding his anger as he returned to his work. He had made up his mind, even if this guy were to survive HER, he would make sure to find a way to kill him later.