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I didn’t go to meet Cornelia like some dog waiting for his owner. Instead, I sat in bed naked as Madison got dressed. She gave me one more kiss before leaving the room. I then proceeded to sit in the dark, my feet hanging over the edge. I was curious how long it would take Cornelia to come to me. Would she stubbornly wait hours? Would she just leave the mansion and expect me to beg for a ride home?
A slight knock on the door sounded only a few minutes later. Only a few minutes? I was surprised. I didn’t bother to answer. As if waiting to be welcomed was something an agent would care about. A moment of silence was all I got before she turned the knob and walked in. The light in the hallway was enough that I covered my eyes, but she closed it a moment later.
“I will leave when I want to leave,” I said simply.
“Okay,” she responded after a few seconds.
“Okay?” I let out a sneer.
She let out a low sigh, readjusting herself and lying against the wall. “Whatever you may be thinking, Clyburn, I’m not the bad guy.”
I snorted, but after another moment of silence, I glanced up at her. “You’re not my ally either.”
“No…” She responded. “I suppose I’m not. However, I’m about the only advocate you have, so if you don’t utilize me, then you’re going to end up locked in an apartment in the male district with cameras watching your every move.”
“You say that like the cameras could stop me.”
“You’re… more capable than I originally thought,” she said hesitantly. “Shit… I’m not sure how you do half the things you do.”
“I use magic… plain and simple.”
“Magic doesn’t work that way. It requires calculations and a great deal of chakra.”
“I do the calculations in my head… as for the chakra, I have no limits on that anymore,” I responded, feeling a bit tired.
She nodded, but despite my words, she looked completely unconvinced. It had been like this in the MPA education center as well. This was a world where magic existed, but they truly had a strict understanding of how magic worked. Most magic seen in the movies, the flashy stuff where people leaped into the air, cast fireballs at each other, or transported to other locations were purely fictional. It was like cars exploding or people shooting from a gun without concern for bullets in my old world.
So, any time I exuded my magical ability, most skeptics believed I had done some trick. There was a time I had teleported in front of a woman, and she had been convinced I had merely used light to distract her while disappearing like a street magician in a puff of smoke. It didn’t help that this world had street magicians who combined magic with optical illusions and could truly pull off spectacular feats when actual magic was mixed into it.
It looked like Cornelia was the same. She had convinced herself I was using smoke and mirrors to trick people. Although she had seen the sound trick, part of it had been prepared ahead of time so she could at least accept the possibility. However, when it came to leaving the apartment through teleportation, that was something she couldn’t accept. She also hadn’t seen me leap up to that building. She probably assumed I used the ladder that the girls had used, or maybe parkour if she was desperate for a reason.
“I can make an appointment for you to see your sister.” Cornelia’s words caused me to glance in her direction once again. “I still have enough pull that I can manage something like that.”
My excitement diminished nearly as quickly as it began, and I lowered my head with a sigh. “Don’t bother.”
She seemed surprised, her eyebrows raising questioningly. “You don’t want to see your sister?”
“Do you think she did it?”
“This murder… things would point to that being the case. As for the previous murders, it’s hard to say. Naturally, it isn’t easy getting permission for you to go see her, especially since it’s possible that you were her target from the beginning.”
“She didn’t kill anyone,” I responded. “She’s innocent.”
“She was covered in his blood.”
“She had her reason for being there. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it was her plan, and she won’t tell me because she thinks she’s keeping me safe. They all are. There is something bigger going on. I can feel it. After I… died… I think they’re afraid I’ll put my life in danger, so they’re cutting me out of it.”
“There are several things off about what you just said, but I think you’re becoming paranoid. There may be a certain murderer who has some obsession with you, but it might be someone who has nothing to do with you. You were very famous a few years ago. Some people become infatuated with someone they see in the news all the time and then do awful things. Nothing indicates it’s a conspiracy.
“I saw the person who shot Dia.”
She jerked for a second and then sighed. “I suppose you won’t tell me who?”
I stared at her, carefully looking at her eyes. “Can I trust you?”
“Yes,” she responded immediately, but when I narrowed my eyes she blushed. “Clyburn, I swear I will not tell anyone what you tell me here. E-even if I think it puts your life at risk.”
“You’d risk my life?” I smirked.
“I will put my life on the line to make sure that happens. This doesn’t mean we won’t still use security and I won’t try to advise you to be safe. However, I will keep this secret, and any others you wish to share.”
I leaned back, letting out a long sigh as I put my hands on my bed. “Even if I did tell you, I could always deny it to the police later. If this conspiracy goes as deep as I think, even if the cops know the name of the person who did it, this probably won’t change anything. She’s a ghost anyway.”
“Who?” She took a step forward.
“In that case, the person on that rooftop was Brooke.”
“Brooke…” She scrunched her brow for a second. “You mean, the security guard?”
“Yeah… her.”
Her eyes stared at me widely for a minute, but she finally managed to calm down and look away. “Your… secret is safe with me.”
“That sounded almost painful.”
“Shut up.”
“If she had been aiming for me, she would have killed me on that rooftop. She has the ability. She had some other goal, and it wasn’t to kill Dia either.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, as in you believe me?”
“Okay, as in I believe that you believe it.”
I gave a dry chuckle. “Well, whatever is going on, I’m not going to stand on the sidelines and let it happen. I think it’s all connected and I want to get to the bottom of it.”
“What are you saying?” She asked, still distinctly looking away.
“I need to get to the bottom of this,” I said. “It’d be a lot easier if you worked with me, rather than worked against me.”
She let out a light snort. “I’ve been trying to work with you from the beginning.”
“Not to do what I need to do.”
She shook her head slowly. “What you’re asking me to do… it violates everything I stand for. I’d be letting you walk into danger.”
“How much danger have you successfully kept me from so far?”
“…”
“Ever since I came to… for my entire life on Gaia, I have been protected and coddled. Even before the MPA act, I had a mother who kept me at home for the majority of my life, and sisters who felt the need to push me away, lie to me or wear masks to hide what they thought was too dangerous. I’m done sitting back and letting things happen. I’m done watching them put their lives on the line and doing nothing. I was there the Day of Wrath. I was there at the world consort. I’ve survived plenty. It’s time I take my life into my own hands.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself more than me.”
“Will you help me?”
She bit her lip, finally looking back. “If I don’t help you, you’ll just run away and do it anyway, right?”
I nodded.
“Even if I wasn’t your agent, you’d be running some other poor girl through the wringer. She’d underestimate you even more than I did.”
“At least you admit it,” I muttered.
She closed her eyes, took a breath, and then nodded. “Fine. I will help you get to the bottom of this. But, there will be rules.”
“What kind of rules?”
“You will listen to my advice, and if we can do something safer, we will do it safer.”
“That’s simple.”
“You won’t run off on me, or hide things from me anymore.”
“…”
“I demand it!”
I sighed and nodded. “Very well. Anything else?”
Most of the things I was hiding from her were things she wouldn’t believe even if I told her. Besides, she wanted me to not hide any more things from her. That didn’t mean I had to tell her the things that had already happened.
“Yes, one last thing.” She paused for a second. “Once we find proof one way or the other… once the mystery is solved, even if it’s proof that you’re just overreacting… then you’ll drop it and start producing offspring as you should.”
“That’s fine…”
She walked over and grabbed my arm. “I mean it. They need to be your offspring.”
The look she gave me seemed to glance right through my secrets. Did she know I was impregnating women with someone else’s offspring? The look in her eyes seemed to suggest that, but I wasn’t going to confirm her suspicions by speaking. What? This was something that had already happened. It didn’t count regarding things being kept from her.
“I will,” I promised.
Only then did she let go of my arm and take a step back, patting off her pants. “Okay, in that case, where are we going then?”
“I do have someone I want to talk to,” I responded after a moment of thought. “Someone who might know what is going on.”
“Who is it?”
“The only girl who can’t tell me no.”
She looked slightly confused, but when I explained who I was talking about, she gave a subtle nod. “I had heard that you ended up having a relationship with her. There are a lot of rumors going on about you two.”
“Mostly lies,” I responded.
I went and bid my children goodbye, although most of them were asleep and it was just a kiss on the forehead. I kissed Madison too and then left the mansion that felt both too empty and too full with all of those babies.
Sylph and Brianna were waiting at the entrance. When they saw me, they both lowered their heads. At some point, I’d have to apologize to them. I likely had gotten them in a lot of trouble since they had started working for me. I was a bit guilty that I couldn’t be an easier client. However, I wasn’t dead yet, so at least they didn’t have something like that to tarnish their records.
When I left the mansion, I encountered two other familiar faces. “Charlene, Grace… you’re part of my guard now as well.”
“Master Bonholdt, I was told that you requested me,” Charlene spoke in her typical no-nonsense voice.
Grace put on a big smile and waved excitedly, her breasts bouncing slightly despite being contained in her police uniform.
“Hey, Clyburn! You know! You shouldn’t have taken off like that! If I reported that to the detective, she’d be furious!”
“You didn’t report it though?” I smirked.
She puffed out her cheeks and turned away. “Ooo… you’re a bad influence. This one time, I decided to keep it a secret.”
“Watch it, I’ll think you have a crush on me.”
Her face turned completely red. “That’s not… I mean… if I applied for a baby and Clyburn excepted, I’d be quite… but…”
“I’ll be taking charge of your detail.” Charlene stepped over the flustered Grace. “She’s merely here as an advisor and deterrent.”
“You think she can deter a serial killer from striking?” I raised an eyebrow of disbelief.
“C-Clyburn! I’m a trained policewoman! If there is anyone you’re safe by, it’d be me.”
“Where are the other two guards?” I asked, noticing it was just the four of them.
“They were… reassigned,” Charlene responded, hesitating slightly.
“They asked to be transferred.” Brianna snorted. “Said you were too much trouble-ow! Don’t pinch me, Syph!”
Charlene shot both girls a severe look, but otherwise remained silent and left it at that. I ended up with Charlene as my driver, Syph in the back with me and Cornelia, while Grace and Brianna followed behind in her cop car. I suppose the appearance of a police vehicle was a bit more intimidating than a nondescript SUV.
“Oh, and one more request,” Cornelia suddenly spoke up.
“What’s that?”
“Let’s try to keep our encounters with the police to a minimum. I don’t want to have any more confrontations with that woman.”
I instantly understood who that woman was. She had a history with Roxanne and seemed to not want to relive that history. Roxanne, on the other hand, seemed almost critical and hostile in everything that Cornelia did, only creating even more tension. I could understand that much, but I still gave her a dubious look.
“That’s going to be difficult with Grace following us, isn’t it? She’ll be reporting anything she sees to the good detective.”
“You have my permission,” she said quietly, almost sounding like a pout.
“Permission.” I blinked.
She looked irritated. “You know… do… what you do… to her.”
“What I do?” At that moment, I was genuinely lost and had no clue what she was talking about.
“You know…” She leaned closer, even though Brianna could still hear us while pretending she didn’t. “Seduce her.”
I smiled helplessly. “I’m not really…”
“Oh, don’t act coy now. I’ve seen how you flirt with other women. I’ve even seen the effect you have. That woman you played with last night wouldn’t stop raving about you. She even had delusions of staying in the morning and cooking you breakfast. Like some actor who hasn’t had to make a meal for herself in a decade could make a suitable meal. I had to kick her out.”
“…”
“Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that if you make Grace yours, then she won’t report anything to Roxanne. What? What’s with that look?”
“It’s just… I can’t believe that I’m hearing this from you of all people.”
“What? This is simply a means of self-preservation. You have my permission to diddle her on your knee. You can play with her as much as possible, as long as pregnancy doesn’t happen.”
“I can’t just make any women fall in love with me,” I responded after realizing she was being serious and wasn’t just trying to tease me.
“That’s not what I’ve heard.”
“There are plenty of women my relationship is completely platonic toward.”
“Who?” She demanded.
“You.”
“Well, obviously, but I’m the exception that proves the rule.”
“Well, also…” My eyes darted to Syph, whose back straightened as her cheeks grew red. “Um… the bodyguards who switched.”
“They left because they felt compromised with you. Besides, that had only been a day or two. Who knows how they would have felt in a week?”
“I… can’t believe you’re even suggesting this,” I replied. “I mean… Charlene. She has no feelings for me and she used to work for me for years.”
She rolled her eyes as if she was convinced, but I crossed my arms like I had won the argument and put a nail in it. It wasn’t like I couldn’t seduce Grace. She was a beautiful woman, and she looked great in a uniform. I’d love to peel it off of her. However, when it came to seducing women, I always used the fact they wanted something from me. Grace didn’t appear to want anything except to do her job. Plus, by doing it, I’d jeopardize that job, which put a bad taste in my mouth. I tried to make it a habit of not ruining too many women’s lives.
I had grown up being told that my dad had died by playing with the wrong woman, so I had tried to be a bit careful picking women who weren’t likely to kill me, my immediate family not included. Well, it wasn’t like Mom would ever hurt me, and Hannah wasn’t guilty, I was certain of that! Alright, maybe my taste in women wasn’t the best, but I stood fast on trying to leave women I took on as lovers happier after we part. For some reason, I didn’t see a relationship with Grace and I going in a direction that would lead to that, although that could have just been my imagination.
“Why do you think I left my previous job and took this one after all these years…” A voice muttered in front so quietly that I probably wouldn’t have heard if we weren’t quiet.
“What was that? Charlene?” I said loudly, hoping that Cornelia across from me didn’t hear those words.
“M-master! N-nothing!”
For the first time, the straight-laced Charlene was acting flustered. I decided I would take what she meant as mutual respect and love, like that for a distant family member. I’d say any family member, but considering the relationships I had with my family in this world, it was best if we kept it distant. It was the love for a friend, nothing more. She liked guarding me. There were no moments in our lives where we had any kind of closeness that could grow anymore. She was just a friend, like Brooke.