"He’s watching us."
I kept smiling and maintained eye contact.
Being alone probably would’ve made me panic, but with a beautiful woman sitting in front of me, my natural instinct to look cool somehow overpowered my fear.
Not that I was actually calm. My heart was beating way faster than I wanted to admit.
But if that guy really was watching me, panicking would only make me look suspicious. Acting like some idiot trying to flirt with a pretty girl was probably the safest thing I could do.
Luckily, I had plenty of experience with that.
"Who?"
"The man behind Pastor Samuel."
So she knew about him.
Her Intelligence stat made a lot more sense now.
But why was she warning me when we barely spoke earlier?
"How long has he been watching me?"
"I don’t know. Just don’t look for him."
Easy for her to say. Knowing I was being watched made every cell in my body want to check where he was, and I almost turned without thinking.
"Stop. I’m serious."
The look on her face made me pause.
That was also when I noticed just how pretty her eyes were. Dark and round, with double eyelids that made them look even bigger.
"Okay. I’ll just pretend I really like looking at your beautiful face so he’ll think I’m trying to win you over."
"What?"
A faint blush spread across her cheeks.
"Wait. My best friend wasn’t actually right, was she? You didn’t come here because of me?"
"I’m joking." I laughed it off. "Except for the beautiful-face part."
"Can you be serious for one minute?"
"My bad."
I leaned back and kept looking at her.
Not exactly difficult.
My attention started drifting toward her soft and glossy lips.
’Focus, you horny dog. Your life is in danger, and you’re thinking about this stuff?’
"Can you stop staring at my face like that?" She looked away. "You’re making me nervous."
"Where do you want me to look, then?" I slowly looked down.
"Stop." She sighed. "Just look at my face."
"Your wish is my command." I chuckled. "So why are you warning me?"
She glanced past me.
For someone telling me not to look around, she was doing a pretty good job of making me want to.
"I overheard him talking to Sister Miriam earlier. He told her to make sure you joined."
My smile stayed in place.
"That’s not exactly unusual."
"He said to do it no matter what."
Now that was bad news for me.
The Demon Contractor became interested in me right after catching me staring at that monster. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.
"Maybe he just took a liking to me. Can’t blame him. I’m filled with positive energy."
Elaine didn’t laugh.
"I don’t trust him. He just joined us last year, and ever since then, my father’s been listening to everything he says."
"Your father?"
"Pastor Samuel," she admitted.
Holy shit.
They shared the same last name, but I figured he was her grandfather or some close relative.
"Isn’t he a little too old to be your father?"
Elaine looked down at our hands.
"It’s complicated. My mother was his twelfth wife."
"Twelfth?"
Damn.
And here I thought juggling multiple girlfriends was impressive.
Wasn’t a cult basically the perfect setup for a guy who wanted multiple wives?
Don’t tell me the System looked at my dating history and decided all those years of being a cheating bastard somehow counted as job experience.
’System... that’s not actually why you chose me, right?’
No answer.
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.
"So when did your father start listening to him?"
"Not immediately. But after a few months, he stopped making decisions for himself."
That explained why the Contractor stood in the background.
Why bother becoming the face when he already had someone doing it for him?
It was basically the same plan as mine, but with a different flavor.
"Thanks for telling me—"
I stopped.
The hall was completely silent, and my smile slowly faded as I looked around.
There was no one else in the hall except us.
’How the hell did I only notice this now?’
Her lips started trembling, and I could see her breath in the air.
"I... I feel cold."