A Changed Start

Reunion

Cale dressed himself up as he waited for Hans to come back.

He just wore a long black coat, brown pants and shoes today. While still fancy, it was simple and not as complicated to wear as most of his outfits in the wardrobe. He supposed that this was because Raoul encouraged him to wear modern clothes that were a lot more comfortable and Cale had gotten used to wearing that kind of clothing in the entirety of the killing game.

Hm. Perhaps he should wear simpler clothes from now on.

Just as he finished changing, he hears several knocks and Hans came in, an envelope in his hand. The butler looked a bit surprised at Cale's simple clothing, but didn't voice his opinion.

"Young master, here is the money from the Count."

Cale took the envelope from the butler and checked the amount inside. To any normal person, they would probably faint in shock at seeing the amount of money, but to Cale, this was his normal allowance and the redhead simply nodded in satisfaction. He placed the money inside his coat pocket and just as he was about to leave the room, Hans' nervous voice stopped him.

"Um, young master..." Hans was still bowed, afraid to look at the redhead in the eye because of what the butler was about to say, "Because of the... incident yesterday. The Count advices you to refrain from drinking too much for your health, even if you had already been recovered from your physical injuries."

Cale glanced at Hans, his expression completely blank.

Before the killing game, he heard these same exact words from Hans the day after he had been beaten up. Hearing it again for the second time was... unpleasant, to say the least.

"...So after all these years, it took me getting beaten near to death in order for Deruth to finally say something?"

Another reason why he acted like trash besides taking the brunt of all the harsh insults and rumors that were supposed to be directed at Violan and Basen was because well... he also wanted to see how Deruth would react to his firstborn becoming a disgrace, as childish as that may have sounded.

But unfortunately, instead of acting like a responsible parent and reprimand his child over resorting to alcoholism at such a young age, Deruth just let it be and enabled it.

The only proved to Cale how much of a coward Deruth truly is.

"Don't follow me. That is an order."

"Huh!? But young master—"

Cale didn't bother to listen Hans' protests as he exited the room. He immediately pushed away any thoughts about his family and wondered about how Raoul and Raaz were doing.

While Cale awoke in his room, the two of them instead were teleported somewhere in the county. However, the Henituse Estate has the largest building in the area and Cale knew it would be easy for them to locate this place on their own even without asking any directions from civilians.

Knowing those two, they're probably just enjoying their time in the county just hanging around and learning more about this world.

He ignored the scared gazes and whispers from the staff as he walked through the hallway. He may have felt hurt if he was still very young and sensitive, since he was only a child when he began acting like trash and was more susceptible to the hate back then, remembering how he used to cry silently in his room. But now, he had grown used to it as it was part of his life for a decade and didn't care the slightest bit over how others viewed him.

"...He's going to cause a ruckus again..."

"...Seriously, hasn't he learned his lesson?..."

"...I wish that guy comes back. One beating wasn't enough..."

In all honesty, Cale had pretty much forgotten that he had gotten beaten up in the first place while he was at the Dimensional Archipelago. But he supposed that the stress of the killing game made him and some of the other participants forget matters of the past to focus on being very cautious over who is going to kill who.

It was in the afternoon so there were many people in the streets at this point in time. However, Cale wasn't in the mood to deal with the attention right now, especially since rumors flies fast and the entire county was mostly likely talking about the incident yesterday.

Once Cale found a secluded area outside of the estate, he pulled out a small cloak from his coat and wrapped it around his shoulders.

As he walked through the bustling streets, Cale was glad no one noticed him. Besides the infamy of his trash behavior, Cale was also known to be the only one in the Henituse County to have red hair, making his identity very easy to identify.

Unfortunately, after several hours of walking around the entire county, Cale didn't find a trace of his fellow killing game survivors. They should've been teleported somewhere in town. While there may have been some accidental fluke in the teleportation process, Cale knew those two well enough that instead of him finding them, they're the ones that must've already found him.

And he was proven right. As Cale stood in front of an abandoned building near the slums, the area free from civilians since it was a barely used street, a pair of arms crept from the shadows and grabbed him by the waist while the other covered his mouth, muffling the redhead's cry of surprise as he was pulled into the darkness.

"Surprise~!"

The playful tone Cale was all too familiar with echoed in the building. He turned his head and let out an annoyed groan that was still muffled by the hand that was still covering his mouth. He turned his head to see a playful grin of Raoul that was still holding him by his waist along with an amused Raaz just next to them.

These annoying fools.

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Dimensional Archipelago is the name of the pocket dimension where the killing game takes place. It's honestly a lazy name but whatever.

The ending is kinda... suggestive, don't you think? Hehehe... Will there be harem? Hmmm.... Maaaaybe... 😏