Chapter 81: The Price of Provocation

Wham!

Using the progress of the anesthetic commissioned by Moore Corp from Cloud Corp as a pretext, Bliss had summoned Enoch. The moment Enoch entered, Bliss’s fist flew.

Caught entirely by surprise as he was about to take a seat, Enoch stumbled backward. He crashed into the chairs arranged in the meeting room within Bliss’s private residence, sending them askew before he finally collapsed.

“Well now…” Enoch grimaced, a hand rising to his throbbing cheek. “Is it really appropriate for a soldier to strike a civilian?”

Despite his words, he didn’t appear surprised, almost as if he had anticipated such a reception. Nevertheless, the blow had clearly stung.

“I held back that much *precisely* because you’re a civilian,” Bliss retorted.

Noticing the hemostatic tape already wrapped around Bliss’s knuckles, Enoch spoke with caution, careful not to further ignite his anger.

“Ah. So, when considering the pressure I put on the Guide of our sponsor’s owner, I suppose I should view this as a rather lenient punishment, shouldn’t I?”

It seemed this brief exchange was only the tail end of Bliss’s fury, as if he had already vented the bulk of his anger somewhere else.

Enoch walked over to the washbasin, a small fixture in the corner of the room. He spat out the metallic taste of blood that had gathered in his mouth, then turned on the faucet.

“…The owner of Moore Corp is still His Excellency, Marquis Douglas,” Enoch stated.

“That amounts to the same thing,” Bliss scoffed. “Correcting it to ‘the Guide of Marquis Douglas’s terribly cherished grandson’ merely uses different words for the identical reality.”

“Then, after uncovering that information,” Enoch pressed, “why did you approach Ethan first?”

Enoch continued to wash his hands, offering no reply. Yet, he was soon compelled to raise his head. The stream of water cascading from the faucet had abruptly halted, suspended in the air as if frozen in time.

“Because it was an intensely personal matter,” Bliss explained, his voice low. “If I intended to achieve my objective, Ethan Prescott seemed a far simpler target than Bliss Moore, who had been raised in this cutthroat world. But, as you can now plainly see…”

He irritably snatched a towel, drying his hands with unnecessary force before flinging the cloth aside.

“I’d completely forgotten that Ethan Prescott is rather unlike any ordinary country bumpkin,” Bliss continued, a hint of self-reproach in his tone. “I certainly didn’t expect him to immediately run off and report it.”

“…Because Ethan trusts me,” Enoch replied simply.

“How utterly cruel,” Bliss murmured, his voice laced with venom. “Considering my current predicament, this hardly seems the opportune moment to boast about a romance.”

Bliss’s eyes, cold as glaciers, fixed on Enoch. Ethan, it seemed, had already been aware of his ability to Guide almost all Esper types.

However, the revelation that his very presence influenced other Guides around him appeared to have left him utterly stunned.

And that wasn’t all. For Maxon Ancaster, Ethan’s Guiding manifested as ‘ability amplification.’ Given its similarity to stimulating and enhancing Guiding capabilities, Maxon too had been plunged into shock.

Bliss, having dispatched both of them to Doctor Sera, was seething. It was precisely his fury that had compelled him to summon Enoch, explicitly leveraging his noble title and their contractual agreement.

Despite the plausible pretense, Bliss’s expression remained utterly impassive. Enoch inwardly clicked his tongue, noting that Bliss’s anger over Ethan’s situation hadn’t been overtly displayed since the initial punch.

Enoch had heard countless tales from Bliss’s unit members: when asserting their hierarchical relationship over their friendship, Bliss could become as imperious as even His Highness Herace. He had always dismissed such warnings with a laugh, never truly believing such a display would be directed at him.

“Report, Enoch Cloud,” Bliss commanded, his voice sharp.

‘What?’ Enoch wondered, but before he could voice it, Bliss began toying with a box on the table.

A sense of foreboding about its contents prompted Enoch to stall, yet his gaze met Bliss’s blue and gray eyes, utterly devoid of warmth. He instantly resigned himself.

He had known from the moment he stepped into this room that Bliss wasn’t inquiring about the smoothly progressing pipeline of the improved new drug department. They were, after all, in this together, two indispensable allies. Surely, Bliss wouldn’t go so far as to kill him.

“Initially, I was investigating Baron Rex, trying to uncover anything he might be hiding,” Enoch began. “However, a significant portion of the data was deliberately jumbled, like pieces of a scattered puzzle, yielding nothing substantial. The most recent files, in particular, were heavily encrypted.”

“Meaning you only managed to retrieve older data, where the security patterns had been analyzed,” Bliss deduced. “In that case, when did Devon Green actually begin conducting that experiment?”

“For three years,” Enoch confirmed. “No, more accurately, direct data has been accumulating for three years. He must have recognized the actual phenomenon far earlier than that. As the center chief, he would have been surrounded by Guides.”

“…When did you become certain that Ethan had Guided you?” Bliss asked, his gaze piercing.

Enoch offered a faint smile. “Well, if I had to pinpoint a moment, it’s ambiguous, but I harbored suspicions from the very beginning. Scott was merely a compatible Guide, which made me wonder if another Guide had truly calmed my A-grade manifestation seizure.”

“Ethan Prescott, who was also present, seemed a strong possibility. Yet, I couldn’t sense him as a Guide at all, which was incredibly perplexing. Even his declaration at the Cloud family banquet, proclaiming himself Bliss Moore’s Guide, struck me as an unnatural performance, given my memories of Bliss Moore and Ethan Prescott in Morapolio City.”

“But then, after returning from the Veliki and Riga territory war, he began to act like a ‘multi-Guide,’ perfectly tailored for Bliss. He constantly muddled the understanding of what a multi-Guide truly was, didn’t he? ‘Shadow compatibility,’ he claimed. It made me question if a Guide with such a rare compatibility could genuinely possess no other common types.”

“Oh, and I continued to keep a close eye on him afterward. Honestly, Ethan is quite handsome…”

“Just the conclusion,” Bliss interjected, his voice cutting.

Enoch, noting the slight furrow in Bliss’s brow, instantly condensed his elaborate explanation.

“Well, to put it briefly,” Enoch stated, “it’s the culmination of my persistent suspicions and meticulous observations, I suppose.”

As he spoke, Enoch defiantly pulled out a small red pouch, a nervous, almost hysterical, laugh escaping him.

“But there’s still one unresolved mystery,” Enoch continued, his voice tight. “Even if he is a multi-Guide, going back to the moment of my manifestation seizure, how on earth did he manage to Guide me with *this* — this paltry pouch?”

A faint, dismissive sound, like air escaping, seemed to emanate from Bliss’s lips.

“Since you’ve uncovered that much,” Bliss said, a chilling undertone in his voice. “There shouldn’t be any further complications.”

“What do you mean…” Enoch began, a sudden unease settling over him. “Wait, why are you coming so close…?”

His face rigid, he hesitated for a brief moment before quietly adding.

“…Chilbok Guiding,” Bliss whispered.

“Urgh!”

Thud! A localized psychic silence swiftly enveloped Enoch. Bliss watched as Enoch’s body, already deteriorating from a prolonged lack of Guiding, began to crumble.

From the box, Bliss retrieved a tattered pouch, roughly the size of a human head, and placed it over Enoch’s head. Then, with a decisive motion, he pulled out a tablet.

“Report that it’s finished,” Bliss instructed into the tablet. “Tell Kyle and Maxon to move Enoch to a room. And then…”

Enoch, his face a mask of extreme discomfort, tried to back away, only to collide with the table, halting his retreat. Bliss then leaned in, muttering ominously.

“Tell Ethan to come to my bedroom.”

****

Standing before Bliss’s bedroom door, Ethan took a deep, steadying breath. His declaration, expressing a desire to Guide Enoch in the same manner as Huey, had clearly provoked Bliss beyond measure.

Doctor Sera, her face etched with anxiety, had warned him over a dozen times on the way up, repeating that Bliss had summoned him to his bedroom.

– “My fervent hope is that things don’t escalate to imprinting just yet,” Doctor Sera had cautioned, her voice hushed. “But Lord Bliss’s tone right now is colder than liquid nitrogen.”

– “It’s alright,” Ethan had reassured her. “A promise is a promise, after all.”

– “Oh, why on earth did you declare you’d Guide Lord Enoch?” Doctor Sera had exclaimed, frustrated. “You could have simply arranged for some private Guide to be assigned to him!”

– “Do you truly believe he wouldn’t have known that all this time?” Ethan had countered.

– “Well, no, but…” she’d trailed off.

Ethan had offered a wry, bitter smile.

– “I thought that if Lord Enoch experienced my Guiding, he might finally harbor a little fear toward me,” Ethan had confessed.

– “What exactly do you mean by that?” Doctor Sera had asked, puzzled.

– “If an indirect Guiding, received through a mere pouch, grants him a state of recovery he could barely achieve through a relationship with Scott,” Ethan had begun, “then imagine if he were to have mucosal contact with me…”

At the mention of ‘mucosal contact’ between Enoch and Ethan, Doctor Sera had hastily moved to interject. Yet, upon seeing the sly upward curve of Ethan’s lips, she simply gestured for him to continue.

– “The fear that the imprinting phenomenon Lord Enoch despises most could occur instantly, and quite futilely,” Ethan had elaborated, his eyes glinting. “And of course, that’s a very real possibility, isn’t it?”

– “…!!” Doctor Sera had gasped, wide-eyed.

Ethan had smiled, a distinctly wicked curve to his lips, his eyes crinkling mischievously.

– “For an Esper to be forcibly bound to a Guide, abandoning a beloved lover brimming with human emotion,” Ethan had explained, his voice low and deliberate, “that is not entirely impossible.”

– “…!!” Doctor Sera had exclaimed again, utterly stunned.

– “Of course, the likelihood of me actually doing such a thing is incredibly low,” Ethan had continued, a calculating glint in his eyes. “But I must ensure he doesn’t underestimate me. I have no choice but to leverage the very thing Lord Enoch detests most to unsettle him.”

– “I just got chills,” Doctor Sera had admitted, rubbing her arms.

Doctor Sera had dramatically swept her arms up, laughing boisterously. Then, patting Ethan’s shoulder, she had added playfully,

– “Your explanation, Lord Ethan, was certainly convincing enough to completely persuade me. But still, even if you and Lord Bliss have roughly settled things, he’s in a rather dangerous state right now. How about I tell Mr. Maxon to handle a double workload?”

– “Sera!”

– “I’ll say it again: even if you go all the way, do not attempt direct Guiding. And keep your shield up. If Lord Bliss loses control, your life could be in danger.”

Ethan was still scratching his flushed ear, unable to bring himself to open the door, as he recalled his conversation with Doctor Sera just before coming up.

“What took you so long?”

True to Doctor Sera’s description, Bliss’s voice, cold as ‘liquid nitrogen,’ accompanied the sudden swing of the door. Ethan was pulled inside, as if snatched by the waist, and vanished into the room.

Slam!

[Wow! That was faster than a ghost!]

With a loud bang, the door slammed shut. Dongja and the raven, flustered, scurried through the closing gap, chasing after him.