Free Web NovelChapter 6: How to Survive a Yandere: Pay Your Taxes
For quite some time now, Cain had been acutely aware of it...
There was a unmistakable aura of a Celestial-level entity lingering within the premises. No matter how desperately she tried to suppress and conceal her presence, it was entirely futile; because Cain himself possessed sensory capabilities that had reached the absolute peak of the Celestial Realm, he could easily detect her, regardless of how flawlessly she attempted to hide the truth.
He instantly realized that the owner of this aura was watching him. However, he deliberately avoided turning around, making sure not to tip off the watcher that he knew he was being monitored.
Even so, cold sweat began to pool on his back from the sheer tension as the intensity of that gaze grew heavier.
She wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore. This wasn’t a casual peek; she was staring at him directly, completely unashamed.
Damn you, Lucy... You really don’t intend to give me a single moment of peace, do you? he thought bitterly.
He was so deeply trapped in his own tactical calculations that he failed to notice the little figure by his side had vanished. When he finally glanced down, Amelia was gone.
His jaw nearly hit the floor.
Don’t tell me...
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!
As his gaze swept backward, he saw his daughter running on her short legs straight toward a certain woman. The look on her little face was one of absolute, unyielding determination.
Cain could not afford to start a fight here in the middle of this massive crowd. Two of the absolute strongest entities on the entire continent clashing in a building packed with mortals would be an apocalyptic catastrophe.
If he unleashed his true power and compressed spacetime to its absolute limit, he could practically move at the speed of light. He could reach Amelia and pull her back in less than a billionth of a second before anyone could even blink..
But making a move of that magnitude would instantly alert the world’s Guardian Deities, who would descend to seal his existence completely.
He was screaming internally as he watched Amelia close the distance, oblivious to the eyes of the crowd.
On the other side of Line, Lucy had also realized that Amelia was marching straight toward her. This was disastrous; it would blow her entire cover. She wasn’t ready yet. She hadn’t even figured out his favorite color or his favorite food!
You foolish brat, stay away...! Lucy panicked internally.
To the two powerhouses, the sound of Amelia’s small footsteps echoed louder than the entire din of the Tax Administration Bureau. It felt as though everything was on the line.
"Lord Duuuuke! Do you have a moment?!"
Suddenly, a young journalist shoved his way through the crowd from the entrance, pushing past people with all his might. He was lunging desperately toward Duke Oster, who stood calmly in the queue.
The journalist was shouting at the top of his lungs, completely blind to his immediate surroundings.
"Aaaargh!"
He collided violently with something...an obstacle so solid it sent him flipping completely through the air before crashing hard onto the floor under the stunned gazes of the crowd. freewebnσvel.cøm
The man clutched his stomach, groaning in agonizing pain.
Everything in the hall ground to a screeching halt. Amelia stood dead in her tracks under everyone’s stares. The man had crashed into her and fallen, yet she hadn’t budged an inch.
When she looked around and realized that dozens... no, hundreds... of eyes were locked onto her...
"Waaah... Waahhhh!"
She instantly collapsed onto the floor and burst into tears, wailing and sobbing like any ordinary child who had just been hurt.
"Amelia!"
"Amelia!"
In a flash, two shadows blurred through the crowd, materializing simultaneously right in front of the crying girl.
It was Cain and the disguised Lucy, arriving at the exact same fraction of a second.
They both knelt at the same time, their hands reaching out to check on the weeping Amelia. But as they did, their hands accidentally brushed against one another.
The moment their skin collided, they reflexively snapped their hands back as if struck by lightning.
They froze, their eyes locking onto each other in that suspended fraction of time.
In that singular moment, Lucy completely forgot she was wearing a disguise. She lost herself entirely as she stared into Cain’s eyes, drowning in a tidal wave of her own emotions until the rest of the world felt entirely surreal.
As for Cain, he felt like crying. He could feel the piercing gaze of the yandere villainess examining him, as if scanning his very soul. He was on the verge of tears, silently begging her not to draw her sword and start a bloodbath right then and there.
However, as he locked eyes with her...staring past the magical disguise that made her eyes appear a mundane brown...he realized they weren’t brown at all. Suddenly, a blissful memory from five years ago flashed vividly across his mind: a breathtakingly beautiful woman on a hotel bed, and a single night of passion unlike anything he had ever experienced in his entire life.
Beneath the illusion, those deep, violet eyes made his entire being freeze for a fraction of a second.
Yet, that stolen moment was abruptly shattered.
"Lord Duke! I am Antoine from the Royal Union Newspaper...!"
"Lord Duke Oster! Ralph from the Heart of the People Daily...!"
The waiting hall of the tax bureau was instantly flooded with a deafening uproar.
"Please, Lord Duke, just answer one question! Mike from The First Day...!"
The journalists pressed forward, crowding them tightly from all sides, their questions raining down relentlessly.
"Is it true that the Duke wishes to experience the exact same struggles as the common citizen?! Does this move on your part aim to reform government facilities for faster and smoother public service?!"
The barrage of questions escalated, growing louder by the second. Lucy glared at the reporters surrounding them—the absolute pests who had just brutally interrupted her perfect romantic moment.
A suffocating aura began to slowly leak from her body. An aura of the Celestial Realm.
Cain, still surrounded by the oblivious journalists who had no idea they were actively courting death, was the first to detect her rising energy. He knew they had to get out of there before Lucy’s wrath peaked, or else everyone in this building would end up dead.
Amelia, who was squeezed tightly into the commotion, wasn’t in a good mood either. The reporters had formed a human wall, completely blocking her path to her mother.
She wanted nothing more than to unleash her true power and crush these insects one by one. freēwēbnovel.com
In the nick of time, the building’s security detail finally arrived before Lucy’s anger could detonate, forcefully shoving the journalists back.
"You cannot enter here without a queue number! Even the Lord Duke is waiting his turn, so who do you think you are to skip the line?!"
The reporters reluctantly backed off, grumbling as they retreated. But who cared about them? They immediately rushed to grab queue numbers of their own.
As the crowd dispersed, everyone returned to their spots. For a few lingering moments, the three of them stood locked in a silent, tense gaze, before Cain grabbed Amelia and retreated back to his place in the queue. Lucy, too, backed away as she watched the father and daughter withdraw.
She had no choice but to return to her spot with an empty heart, her mind completely consumed by that intense eye contact.
There was no point in denying it anymore. As she looked into those pitch-black eyes just moments ago, memories from five years ago had come rushing back... the memories of her very first night.
The vivid recollection sent a profound shiver running straight through her core, making her tremble as she remembered...
She was so utterly entranced that she didn’t even realize she had placed a delicate finger against her own lips, a soft, dreaming smile spreading across her face.
"The Duke is incredibly handsome, isn’t he?"
A woman standing right behind Lucy chimed in, giggling warmly.
"Any woman would be utterly charmed by his charisma... It is said that he is a bachelor, but that little girl looks exactly like him. Whichever woman managed to be with him must be the luckiest soul alive."
Lucy’s eyes flared with a flash of possessive anger for a split second, but as she processed the woman’s words, she realized it was a direct compliment to herself. Her hostility instantly melted away.
"Yes... she is indeed a very lucky woman," Lucy murmured, nodding in quiet agreement.
Time flew by in a blur. Hours ticked away as the queue numbers rolled over one by one. Finally, the citizen standing right in front of the Duke finished processing his paperwork at the counter. The moment Cain stepped up to the window, the surrounding crowd erupted into cheers.
"Congratulations, Lord Duke! Congratulations!"
"What a truly magnificent man, to stand and wait among us like this...!"
However, the second Cain reached the counter, ten separate clerks immediately scrambled forward, seizing the Duke’s massive stacks of documents and reviewing them at lightning speed.
It was a blatant display of preferential treatment, yet not a single citizen in the hall felt an ounce of resentment. In fact, they were thrilled. Within twenty minutes, the clerks had officially stamped and finalized his entire tax file, handing it back to Cain before bowing in unison.
"Thank you for your immense patience, My Lord."
Once again, the hall erupted into thunderous applause and frantic congratulations.
Cain walked out through the main gates with Amelia by his side. Just before crossing the threshold, his eyes met Lucy’s one last time for a fleeting second before they both averted their gazes.
Outside, the sun was already dipping below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of twilight. The relentless journalists hadn’t given up; they swarmed him the moment he stepped into the open air.
"How was your experience, My Lord?! Are you satisfied with the government’s procedures, and will this be the next step toward administrative reform?!"
The questions rained down mercilessly, but right on cue, Matthew materialized from the darkness. Wrapping Cain and Amelia within his shadow, they vanished from the scene in a heartbeat.
The reporters groaned in deep disappointment, but the one who was truly devastated was Lucy. She stood at the exit gates, her shoulders slumping slightly as she stared at the empty space where he had just been.
