“Looking sharp, Otto!”
Leon’s eyes lit up when he saw Otto dressed in a well-tailored suit.
Because of Otto’s somewhat deceptive appearance, people instinctively tended to think he was very thin and frail.
But in reality, he was close to 1.8 meters tall.
And because he worked in business, Otto had kept his body in good shape.
Although he wasn’t built like a hulking brute, he was tall and well-proportioned, practically a natural clothes hanger.
Once he put on one of Leon’s high-end suits, his entire aura changed.
He went from someone who looked easy to bully into a refined social elite radiating confidence and presence.
“This is my first time wearing something like this.
I’m not really used to it.”
Otto turned around in front of the mirror as he spoke, his awkward tone instantly shattering the image of the cool and aloof handsome man.
Leon was speechless.
At least let yourself look cool for three seconds!
“Just make do with it for now.
After we eat, I’ll buy you some clothes.”
“Okay!”
“Then let’s go!”
Leon called out and headed downstairs first.
It was a two-story building with two storefronts.
The first floor contained the convenience store warehouse and the place where they usually ate, while the second floor contained their bedrooms, study, and bathroom.
The front of the building faced the main street, while the back opened onto a narrow alley.
During the daytime, whenever Leon had nothing to do and didn’t feel like wandering around, he would open the front door and sell things from the convenience store.
At night, he would open the window at the back and accept commissions.
Of course, Leon was a rather easygoing person.
Whether he opened for business or not depended entirely on his mood.
And right now, he needed to go to Manhattan to buy Otto some daily necessities, so he planned to leave through the small back door.
However, just as he unlocked the door, turned the handle, and pulled it open a crack, the cry of a stray cat suddenly came through.
“Lord Leon, be careful!”
Otto’s expression suddenly changed drastically.
He shoved Leon aside while using the recoil to retreat backward himself.
The next second, a grenade was thrown through the crack in the door.
Bang!
A blinding flash erupted.
The entire room was instantly flooded with white light.
Leon and Otto’s vision was completely consumed by the brightness, leaving them able to see nothing but a vast expanse of white.
A flashbang!
Leon immediately realized that they were under attack.
His mind raced as he tried to determine the identity of the enemy.
Kingpin?
S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Or perhaps Hydra?
Bang!
The sound of the front door being kicked open interrupted Leon’s thoughts.
He was about to act when Otto’s voice reached his ears.
“Eight people.
Fully equipped!”
“Close your eyes!”
Without the slightest hesitation or doubt, a grenade suddenly appeared in Leon’s hand.
He pulled the pin, armed it, and threw it.
The entire sequence was completed in one smooth motion.
The attackers who had just kicked their way inside were raising their guns when they suddenly noticed a grenade rolling toward their feet.
They immediately shouted and dove back toward the doorway.
BOOM!
A violent explosion erupted, accompanied by flames and a powerful shockwave.
The three people closest to the grenade were blown away on the spot, while the others were thrown off balance by the blast and could no longer aim properly.
Leon took a Sun-Blade from the system space and prepared to charge out and slaughter them.
His vision hadn’t fully recovered yet.
He could only make out blurry silhouettes with afterimages.
But he was extremely familiar with the alley behind his building.
Using the sounds and vague outlines, he could still accurately determine the enemies’ positions.
“Open fire!”
“Rat-tat-tat-tat…!”
These people were clearly elite soldiers who had undergone rigorous training.
Even though they couldn’t aim properly, they knew this was their enemy’s opportunity to counterattack, so they unleashed indiscriminate gunfire toward the doorway.
It had to be said that their decision was quite smart.
It successfully prevented Leon from taking advantage of the opportunity to rush out and slaughter them.
But they had overlooked someone else.
Otto was hiding behind the wall.
He pressed both hands against the ground, activating the Mana within his body.
“Al Dena!”
Dena was an earth-element magic spell from Re − Starting Life in Another World.
“Al” referred to the second level of magic.
There were four levels in total, from lowest to highest: Basic, Al, Ul, and Al Shamak.
And the magic Otto was using was a second-level earth-element spell.
The ground immediately began to tremble slightly.
The attackers lost their footing.
In the end, they were unable to maintain their balance and fell to the ground.
Leon seized the opportunity and rushed out.
“Pfft!
Pfft!
Pfft!
Pfft!
Pfft!!!”
The sounds of blades piercing flesh rang out.
Blood splattered everywhere, staining the walls and ground red.
But Leon didn’t kill them.
Instead, he severed the tendons in their hands and feet, preventing them from making any underhanded moves.
As for why there was so much blood…
Naturally, he had cut their major arteries and let them bleed out!
Thud!
Leon stabbed the Sun-Blade into the ground beside one attacker’s head.
Standing over him, Leon looked down with a cold smile.
“At the rate you’re bleeding, you’ll be dead in less than three minutes.”
“So answer my questions.
Once you’re finished, I’ll stop the bleeding.”
“I won’t tell you anything!”
“What about the rest of you?”
Leon turned his head toward the others.
No one answered.
The attackers responded with silence.
But sometimes, silence was also an answer.
Leon already knew what he wanted to know.
A smile appeared on his face.
“Then I’ll send you all on your way.”
His hand rose.
The blade fell.
There wasn’t the slightest hesitation.
His hands didn’t tremble even once.
Every strike accurately hit a vital point, taking a life with each blow.
Leon flicked the blood from his blade and turned toward Otto, who had arrived at the doorway.
“Looks like we won’t be going out together today.
I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”
“I understand, Lord Leon.”
Otto’s voice had become cold.
His expression was equally indifferent, no longer displaying even the slightest trace of his previous timid demeanor.
Leon frowned slightly.
But ultimately, he said nothing.
Puppets were beings who reproduced everything about their original characters except their self-awareness.
This wasn’t limited to their behavior.
Their talents, growth, and even the changes in their mentality after experiencing major events were all faithfully reproduced as well.
And Otto was fundamentally a kind-hearted person.
He wasn’t so kind that he would hesitate to fight back after being attacked.
But after already subduing his opponents, continuing to kill them—and not simply killing them, but first severing their tendons, then cutting their major arteries to make them bleed out, and finally finishing them off…
That was something Otto would normally find difficult to accept.
But he was Leon’s puppet.
His loyalty to Leon was greater than everything else.
Therefore, he had no choice but to abandon the kindness in his heart.
Just like in the original story’s Pride route, where Otto never met the protagonist.
After his business failed, he became Russell’s slave and spent his days dealing with souls destined for Hell.
Yet through his own abilities, he eventually became Russell’s right-hand man and earned the title “Merchant of Death.”
The Otto standing here now was already beginning to show the makings of that Merchant of Death.
But…
“This might actually be a good thing for me.”
After briefly thinking it over, Leon reached this conclusion.
He wasn’t a good person.
Although the people he killed were all deserving of death, he wasn’t acting out of some noble desire to eliminate evil and uphold justice.
He did it because doing so brought him benefits.
And there was no guarantee that one day, his blade wouldn’t be pointed at an innocent person.
That was why he had never tried to portray himself as righteous.
The people and events he would encounter in the future would be extraordinarily dangerous.
If Otto continued to maintain his original kindness forever, that might actually become unsuitable.
With that thought, Leon smiled slightly.
“Being called ‘Lord’ feels a little awkward.
Just call me Boss.”
“Understood, Boss Leon.”
Otto’s voice became even colder, and his entire demeanor followed suit.
“Then I’ll leave this place to you.”
Leaving those words behind, Leon returned inside, cleaned himself up, and then left through the front entrance.