"Bye Ren, see you later"

"Bye bwudda!"

"Bye"

Smiling as I waved at my parents and Nola who were waving back at me as they stood at the front of the house, I turned around and made my way towards the entrance of the compound.

As I turned around, the smile that was on my face faded away.

Taking out my phone I dialed Smallsnake's number.

-Ring! -Ring!

A couple of seconds after I dialed Smallsnake's number, answering the call, Smallsnake's voice traveled through the speakers of the phone.

[Hello, Ren? Are you coming?]

Walking towards the exit of my parent's compound, I cut straight to the chase.

"Smallsnake, make sure you alert me if anything happens during the time that I am traveling to the destination. I'll be there in thirty minutes"

[Understood]

Pausing for a second, frowning slightly I asked.

"By the way, how much did you spend?"

[For the information gathering?]

"Yeah, the information gathering"

I had previously asked Smallsnake to gather as much information as he could get for the upcoming operation.

I didn't specify the budget, and therefore I was unaware of much money was spent.

[The amount of money that I used to gather all of the information that you had asked totals around a couple of million U]

"Tsss..."

Hearing the sum of money that was spent on information gathering, I couldn't help let out a small hiss.

That was a lot more money than I had expected, but in all honesty, it was necessary.

From past experiences, I knew that information was key.

Therefore, to thoroughly crush Matthew, I had to gather as much information as possible.

From his past, habits, and everything that was known about him...I had to know everything.

Although I knew a bit about Matthew from the previous Ren, I still didn't know everything about him.

To know everything about him, I had to dig a lot. Hence the large sum of money spent.

...however, as I said before, it was worth it.

Thanks to the information I've learned a lot of new things about Matthew.

They were extremely helpful in helping me get a better idea of who I was dealing with.

With the information, I've also learned about his whereabouts of today a month prior to this day. This helped me thoroughly plan for today's upcoming operation.

"Hotel Dellamorca"

That was where Matthew was staying today.

Holding onto my phone with my shoulder, I tapped on my watch and looked through the information Smallsnake sent me with regards to the hotel.

Apparently, the hotel was a very prestigious hotel that housed celebrities and highly ranked heroes.

The building was worth over a billion U and was considered as one of the most luxurious hotel places in the whole of Ashton city. It had 88 floors, and each room cost an astronomical amount of money.

Naturally, because of its fame and prestige, the security was pretty tight with many guards and security measures installed in the place.

Fortunately, as I had invested my money wisely and have learned of this place from Smallsnake, I managed to book a room in the hotel a month back. One that was close to Matthew's.

...this time I didn't need to infiltrate.

Needless to say, I've also had Smallsnake thoroughly analyze the hotel as well.

From there I managed to learn how many security guards and staff worked in that place, who their strongest individual was, the layout of the building, and so on.

I made sure to know everything.

This was so that nothing could go wrong.

Only by having a solid idea of who I was dealing with and what environment I was in that I could thoroughly be able to crush my enemy.

Although it was expensive, money was merely a number that could be grown later.

...at the moment my priority was getting rid of one of my enemies.

Thoroughly at that.

[Hey, Ren can you hear me?]

"Huh, yes? I can hear you"

Snapping me out of my thoughts, was Smallsnake's voice as he asked.

[Good, I wanted to ask, from the way that you've been speaking for a while, it seems to me that Matthew isn't your only target. Is there perhaps someone else we should be looking out for?]

Without hesitation, I confirmed.

"Yes there is"

[Do you have any idea of who he/she is? Any info on them?]

Hearing Smallsnake's question, I shook my head.

"Unfortunately not"

Regarding the demon that Matthew was contracted with, I wasn't sure of what rank he/she was, however, I was fairly certain that it was at most Viscount rank.

From what I have gathered after thoroughly investigating Matthew thanks to Smallsnake, I was able to find out that Matthew's talent was in fact A rank.

This was excellent.

This sort of talent could definitely attract Count ranked demons, however, the reason why I was sure it wasn't a count-ranked demon he had made a contract with was because a count-ranked demon would've never have coveted my parent's guild.

That sort of play couldn't be something that a count-ranked demon would do as they were usually members of the main clan and were extremely proud.

Knowing this, I knew that they wouldn't stoop to the level of manipulating humans to gather resources for them.

I could be wrong and this could be an elaborate setup by the demons, but the chances of such a thing happening were low.

Either way, it didn't really matter.

Right now, whoever the demon backing Matthew was he/she had no other choice but to give up on the notion of being able to battle me.

With the curse having been forcefully broken, the extent of his/her injuries were severe.

Extremely severe.

Knowing this information, I was somewhat reassured about the whole operation. Of course, I did in fact have backup plans in case things went south, but I highly doubted that I would be forced to go to that extent.

But you never know, there was a chance for everything, and I thus I naturally had to make countermeasures for those events if the possibility ever presented itself.

Thinking along those lines, I softly said to Smallsnake as I switched the topic.

"Make sure you report to me if you see anything suspicious. If something does happen, just report it to me and do not, and I mean do not do anything else. Are we clear?"

Hearing my voice, Smallsnake reassured.

[Yes, I'll make sure to inform Leopold about it]

"Smallsnake, I can't stress enough the do not part. Please don't do something stupid, understood?"

[Understood]

With Smallsnake agreeing, I could rest assured.

"Good, I'll see you soon"

[Okay]

-Clank!

"Huuu..."

Exhaling as I ended the call and put my phone back into my pocket, I looked at the darkening sky in the distance and raised my hand.

"Taxi!"

-Screech!

A short moment after I called out for the taxi, a white car stopped before the road I was on.

-Clank!

Opening the door of the car, I quickly got in and thanked the driver for stopping.

"Thank you"

Although I could've used a simple app to get a taxi to come to me, I was old school and so I preferred getting taxis this way.

Lifting his head up, the driver looked at his rearview mirror and asked.

"Where to?"

Without hesitation, I glanced at my phone text and casually responded.

"Hotel Dellamorca in Avenue street XXX"

"Understood"

Nodding his head, the driver didn't ask any questions and directly pressed the gas paddle as the car slowly drifted towards the distance.

"haa...I guess this is it"

Leaning back and sitting comfortably on the seat of the car, I looked at the window and stared at the ever-changing scenery before me.

Today was the day I washed away the previous Ren's regrets.

...

-Spurt!

"Gahhh...huff...huff...."

Panting heavily, with his elbow on a small glass tea table that only reached the height of an adult's knees, a handsome youth gagged as droplets of sweat kept pouring down from his body.

"Khh-How did it happen?"

Everything was going perfectly fine for him for the past few months.

From almost bringing Galxicus to their knees to receiving awards after awards and helping his father's company, Matthew's life was sailing as smoothly as a newly sewn sail that operated with perfect winds.

Everything was just perfect.

....However, all good things must come to an end as out of nowhere Matthew found his body flung all the way to the other side of the room crashing onto the side of the wall.

Weakly wiping away a drop of blood that was dripping from the corner of his mouth, turning around, a black humanoid creature appeared not so far from where Matthew was as the glass of the building he was on was completely shattered.

Standing on top of the glass, the black humanoid creature's eyes were dyed in a deep crimson color as endless bloodlust exuded from his body.

As he stood there with his bare feet on top o the glass, the demon's eyes were fixated on Matthew who was on the ground panting heavily.

Weakly pointing at Matthew with his skinny black hand, the demon, which was in fact the demon that Matthew contracted with, glared at him and shouted.

"You useless insect!"

As he spoke, his croaky voice which made it seem as if though it was about to break at any minute drifted around the room.

Noticing the demon's presence, flustered, Matthew spoke.

"Viscount Avelon?! What happened?"

Ignoring Matthew as his skinny hand pointed towards him, Viscount Avelon once again angrily shouted.

"You insignificant insect, it's all because of you! What have you done!?"

Taken aback, Matthew was slightly flustered as he raised his hands and said.

"W-what? I have no idea what you are talking about"

"The curse! I am talking about the curse on the people that you told me to curse"

"What about the curse?"

"It's gone"

Opening his eyes wide, Matthew exclaimed.

"What?!"

...the curse he had placed on Ren's parents was gone?

How was this possible!?

Wasn't the curse supposed to have no cure?

What could've possibly have happened?

"H-how is that possible, didn't you tell me that the curse was incurable?"

"It was...at least on earth"

Deeply staring at Matthew who was sprawled on the ground, Viscount Avelon understood that Matthew was indeed telling truth about the matter.

...however, that did not mean that he would spare him.

"It seems that you really don't know, but it does not matter..."

Had he never have cursed those two people, he would've never have faced such a huge setback.

Regardless of who did it, someone had to pay, and Matthew was his current victim.

Usually killing a contractee would lead to a backlash, however, this only applied if the terms in the demon contract were fulfilled.

However, in this case, with the curse having been broken, the chances of Matthew succeeding in the takeover of Galxicus were now lower albeit by not much.

This was enough for Viscount Avelon to use as an excuse to get rid of him as it was an indirect breach of contract.

Knowing this, staring at Viscount Avelon who had just raised his hand and was just about to stab him, Matthew moved backward with both his arms and legs and pleaded.

"W-wait, no, think about this rationally, this had nothing to do with me...don't kill me until I've achieved my goal that you've promised me!"

"You can kiss your goal goodbye, now die!"

-Spurt!

Just as Viscount Avelon was about to attack Matthew, his body suddenly froze as a black hand directly pierced through his body and black blood spilled all over the ground.

"Pfttt..."

Spitting out even more black blood from his mouth, Viscount Avelon could barely muster any energy as he weakly muttered.

"Kh-who?"

Slowly and weakly turning his head around to see who had attacked him, Viscount Avelon soon spotted a black humanoid creature with two horns on his head and a large twisted smile on his face.

With an amused smile, the demon chuckled.

"Ku ku ku, peekaboo!"