Johann Demas

Later in the evening, the family of Michael Vale, joined by Lena as well as the much talked about Prince Gannon Ren and his older brother, Prince David Ren, sat down for a dinner that was to be served by the Vale family’s servants and maids, among which included Victoria. In the kitchen, the workers all congregated as the food was finished, with the head servant of the Vale family, an older man named Richard Tass, giving out orders to everyone. “Okay, so the first things to go out will be the bread. We have a total of eight people to serve, so we need four total bread baskets. Victoria Kristen and Julia Tass will go out and serve them first. We also need water and wine distributed among everyone, since everyone will be having both tonight. Keep up on those glasses and make sure no one goes too long with an empty glass of either drink…”

As Richard continued to go over the game plan, Victoria, who was tightening the string holding her maid outfit together after having to loosen it a bit earlier. Her partner in serving the bread baskets to start the dinner, who was indeed Richard Tass’s daughter and a few years older than Victoria, asked her, "Which side of the table do you want?”

“Huh?”

“I said, which side do you want?”

“Oh, uh,” Victoria replied, having been caught off-guard by her question. “I’ll do the side closest to the kitchen door.”

“The same side as the Duchess, I see,” Julia replied. “Interesting…”

“Hey, come on,” Victoria sighed. “We may be friends, but even I know that I have to act like a good little maid to a noble every now and then. It’s been a while since I had to put one of these on for work, though.”

“You’re lucky. The Duchess is really nice to you. If we talked about her uncle in such casual way, we would never hear the end of it from him or my father.”

“It’s whatever. Lena always tells me she considers me to be her friend first, and then her maid.” The two then picked up their respective bread baskets. “You ready?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Both maids then emerged from the kitchen out towards a table of eight, with several candles having previously been lit by waitstaff prior to arrival dotting the table along with electric lights in a very expensive chandelier above. As Victoria set down her baskets, she set one down right in front of Lena and told her, “For you, Your Grace.”

“Thank you very much,” she replied. The two girls then looked at each other and snickered, finding the whole thing unusual since they had been just regular friends for so long as opposed to strictly a master and servant relationship. Their snickering stopped, however, when Michael shot a glare at Victoria. Both immediately went back to more serious looks as Victoria bowed and then turned to head back into the kitchen, not wanting to incur Michael’s wrath.

Once Victoria re-entered the kitchen, she asked Richard, “Is it me or does Master Michael have a stick up his ass?”

“I wouldn’t describe it like that,” Richard replied. “Lest he hear us. That said… He has been a bit more on-edge recently. I’ve overheard some rather… Spirited discussions between him and Lena. He’s trying to get her to agree to an arranged marriage with Prince Gannon, and I think he wants her to sign away the title of Duke to him upon such a marriage taking place.”

Victoria was not happy to hear of this arrangement one bit. “He’s trying to make her do what?!”

“You heard me right. As someone who has worked with the Duchess since well before she was orphaned, I’ve noticed that while she normally acts very refined and like a proper young lady, she can also be… Well, more like her father in his youth, too.”

“Trust me,” Victoria assured him with a chuckle. “I’ve heard the stories. I would have never guessed her father was like that when he was our age.”

“Becoming a husband and a father really straightened him out,” Richard explained. “That said, he still had his moments, even well after his adolescence. He was always more open to new ideas than his younger brother. In a way, you could say that Roderick was more like his mother, while Michael was more like his father. The family found it controversial enough when their father married the daughter of a Baron rather than a higher-ranked noble, and they practically had a collective heart attack when Roderick married a non-noble altogether. I can only imagine what would happen if the Duchess tried to marry a non-noble man.”

“I can tell Lena has zero interest in going along with an arranged marriage scheme, but I can’t really think of any boys that are nobility or royalty that she would consider marrying, at least not yet. I’m sure she’s got her eyes on someone, but the question is who.”

As all of this was going on, Michael’s wife, a noblewoman named Beatrice Vale, tried to make small talk with Lena by asking her, “So, I heard the military police paid us a visit earlier. Is everything alright, Lena?”

“It’s not about me,” Lena assured her, a bit bothered by the fact Beatrice had brought it up at the dinner table. “They were just asking questions about someone I had met.”

“I heard it was some girl from Wanta,” then said Prince Gannon Ren himself, who was seated next to Lena. He was about three years older than Lena, and had grown rather interested in her. “I’m surprised you went to such a run-down area of the capital, Miss Vale.”

“I did not go alone. I went with a few friends to see someone one of them knew. It was for something important.”

“I’d prefer you not to venture in such areas,” Michael then informed her before sipping on a glass of wine. “You never know what could happen. The city residents are starting to get more and more restless by the day. Truly mad things may happen when you’re down there, and you’ll get caught in the crossfire.”

“I understand, Uncle Michael,” Lena replied, remaining polite in front of company despite being deeply annoyed by his response.

…

Meanwhile, out near a park in the city of Chanan’s far more upscale North Side, three hooded men all stood next to an unmarked military police car, both of the men inside dead despite having no obvious external wounds. Their skin was as pale as a sheer, almost as if life had been sucked out of their bodies. One of the hooded men, who bore a striking resemblance to Kana in terms of his eyes and facial shape, looked over at the bodies and remarked, “You’d think they’d notice us sooner, but I guess not.”

“That was too easy, sir,” replied one of the other two hooded men. “Those two bastards in the car never knew what was coming when you cast that spell.”

“Tell me about it,” he replied with a chuckle. The man in question was named Johann Demas, and as he looked at the bodies one more time, he told the other two men with him, “Light the car up and let’s get out of here before someone spots us. I’ve already marked their souls for collection.”

The other two men nodded as one of them pulled out a small box of matches, struck a few on the side, and tossed them into the car. After tossing five of them inside, all three of them ran away from the scene, eager to not be seen before the fire they had set became noticeable. With that, both Reed Onner and Saburo Yates were dead, their bodies soon being consumed by a raging fire that reduced their car and themselves to ashes. Besides them and their car, all the information Lena had given them also went up in smoke, as their notes had been in the car and they had been on their way back to their assigned military police barracks to drop off what they needed.

As the three men turned back towards the car when they had made some significant distance from it, one of the two other hooded men asked Johann, “So, Master Johann, what’s next?”

“We’ll implant their souls in a monster or an animal and let them loose near Rimnan,” he replied. “Let’s give my daughter another reminder of our presence.”

…

Back in Rimnan, Sarah and Werner were walking along the village streets together, enjoying their time alone. “The marching band held its first practice of the year today,” said Werner, who happened to play the drums in the school marching band and was its drum captain. “We got some pretty decent new students in the band, which I’m surprised about because usually a lot of the new first-years kinda suck before we do more practices. Maybe this year, we’re just lucky.”

“Maybe so,” Sarah replied. “I’m not doing any after-school activities this year. I’m just gonna focus on school work if anything. I ran myself ragged the last two years doing various club activities, so this year, I want to take a break.”

“Given what your schedule was the last two years,” Werner chuckled. “I don’t blame you. You juggled literature, calligraphy, and photography all at once. I certainly didn’t envy your schedule.”

“Well now you can since it’s all clear this year.” The two then walked past a small restaurant that was still open in the village. Curious, she asked him, “Are you hungry at all?”

“You know what? Yeah, a little.” Werner turned his head and looked through the windows to find a small casual restaurant with some tables still open. “Screw it, why not?”

As the two walked into the restaurant, the two bartenders up at the front saw them, with one of them telling the duo, “Sit anywhere you like. We’ll be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” Sarah replied to him. The two then sat down across from each other at a small table. Of the twelve tables inside the restaurant, there were now only two that were empty, with about half the bar filled as well. The restaurant itself was a rustic one, the wooden walls mostly barren and the smell of food from the kitchen permeating throughout the building.

Sarah and Werner grabbed menus from the table, with the latter telling the former, “I can cover the bill. I’m sure it won’t be too much.“

“Oh, uh, thank you…” Sarah blushed slightly, not expecting Werner to explicitly tell her that he was going to pay for it all. “Have you been here before?”

“No,” he shook his head. “But I was in this building before. There was a clothes shop here in my first year at Rimnan Castle School. It closed in September of Year 702.” He then looked around the dining room, beginning to recognize the restaurant based on what others at school had said about it. “This place only opened a few months ago. Now that I think about it, I’ve heard some people at school say this place is actually pretty good.“

“That’s good to know. I haven’t heard anything about this, so I’m going in totally blind.”

Then, a waitress stepped up to their table, ready to take their order. However, when they both looked at said waitress, they were shocked. “Hello there, may I take your or-?”

Sarah remained silent, staring at her waitress in disbelief for a few seconds and blinking several times, before finally asking her, “Mrs. Danro?!”

Yura looked at the two of them and sighed, remarking, “Well, it was only a matter of time before I wound up waiting for some of my students…”

Werner asked her, “You work here, too?”

“I began working here a few weeks ago,” Yura explained. “It gives me a second source of income. The idea is to work like one shift a week right now, and then work full-time here when school is out for an extended period of time. There’s not a lot of opportunities for a teacher at Rimnan to make money when there’s a break going on in the academic year, after all.”

“Ah, I see,” Werner nodded. “That makes sense when you think about it.”

“Exactly.” Yura then pulled out a small notepad and pencil to begin writing down their orders. “So, with all that out of the way, what would you two kids like to order?”

As Yura took the two’s orders, Sarah thought back to how she and Werner had met all those years ago as children. She had met Yuna first and the two had become friends despite their two-year gap, and then she had met her brother. For the longest time, Sarah had held strong romantic feelings for her best friend’s older brother, feelings that she had kept hidden for the same amount of time, fearing that revealing them would strain her friendship with Yuna. As she got older, what had previously been the crush of a little girl had turned into a desire to be with him and even potentially marry him one day. In this moment, she felt closer than ever to achieving her dreams.

…

Meanwhile, in a warehouse that was secretly owned by the Order of the Shining Light, a badly beaten and bruised Serena was being dragged out of a holding cell where she had been chained up ever since she had awoken following her kidnapping two days prior and sat down in a wooden chair, with two hooded girls around her age then strapping her arms and legs in. Once they were finished, Johann emerged from the darkness, having just come back from killing Reed and Saburo. He told Serena, “It looks like you’re a popular woman. We had to take care of two military police detectives who were asking a few too many questions about you.”

“Well, well, well,” Serena scoffed. “Look at what the cat dragged in. What the fuck do you want?”

“Now that we’ve held you for two days,” Johann told her. “Why don’t we start talking about what you do for a living? Does that sound good to you?”

“I’ll tell you what I want to tell you. Good fucking luck trying to get anything more than that out of me.”

“We have ways to make you talk more.” Johann then told the two hooded girls, “Make her talk. Start off light and turn up the heat as you go along.”

“Yes, Master,” replied one of the girls before she put her hands together and chanted a spell. “Let the burning binds of Lord Timnak of the Shining Light be cast upon Serena Tull’s arms and legs. May they hold her in place and imprint their marks on her. Amen.”

As soon as the last word escaped her lips, four new binds appeared on her arms. All four of these binds were blindingly bright and rather hot, causing Serena’s skin to burn as she screamed in pain. “Agh, fuck!” The scent of burnt flesh filled the warehouse as Serena continued to let out wails of sorrow and agony.

“Tell us about your relationship to our Master’s daughter! Tell us!” The girl then kicked the chair, knocking it over and causing Serena to break her nose upon hitting the ground. “Come on, tell us, bitch!”

Resisting despite the pain from her facial injuries and the burns, Serena shouted back through clenched teeth, “Fuck you!”

“Looks like the Binds of Lord Timnak aren’t working,” said the other hooded girl. “Let’s do something different.”

The first hooded girl then pulled the chair up and snapped her fingers, getting rid of the magical binds and leaving behind significant burns on her lower arms and legs where the binds had once been. She then put her hands together and chanted a new prayer, with the other hooded girl doing the same. Together, they said, “Let the eyes of Lord Timnak of the Shining Light see into the mind of Serena Tull. Let they see all her secrets and reveal to us what we must know. May her efforts to resist fail. Amen.”

Upon the last word being uttered in the chant, Serena felt a sharp and intense pain in her head as her eyes glowed a bright yellow. When she could finally take no more, she screamed again, the same yellow light shining through her mouth. “Stop! Get out of my mind! Get the fuck out! Don’t go into my mind! Get out! Get the fuck out of my mind! Stop! Stop! Stop!” Finally, she let out one more scream that echoed throughout the warehouse and forced both of her torturers to cover their ears with how loud it was.

When the scream ended, a new voice emerged from her mouth. This voice, however, was not that of a young woman at all. This deep and foreboding voice was the voice of a god. “Serena Tull was the friend of Master Johann Demas’s daughter. His daughter, Kana Demas, is a student at Rimnan Castle School, and has connections to the folllwing people based on the memory of Serena Tull: Yuna Miller, Sarah Grisha, Lena Vale, Victoria Kristen, and Maxim Ranka. All of these individuals are also students at Rimnan Castle School, and all of them possess the power to use magic. Yuna and Maxim in particular have vast untapped potential, while Sarah has less, but still a decent amount. Do what you wish with this information.”

With that, Serena fell unconscious, finally breaking from the torture she had been put under. The two hooded girls nodded to each other and unstrapped her from the chair, the smell of burnt flesh still filling their nostrils as they took Serena’s body off and began to drag it back to the cage she had been kept in. Johann, who had observed all of the proceedings, told the girls, “I’m shocked you two had to resort to doing such a risky spell like that one at the end. I’m even more shocked she didn’t die.”

“She’s still breathing,” remarked one of the girls. “But I doubt she’ll wake up for a while. What do you want to do next, Master?”

“We’ll keep her for now. She could be the perfect soul to implant in a monster, but I want to save it for something with a lot of potential for destruction. Treat her burns the best you can and chain her up in the cage.”

“Yes, Master,” both of the hooded girls replied in unison.