My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 17

Chapter : 33

"Fancy meeting you here," Lloyd replied, his tone deceptively mild, almost conversational. He stopped a few paces away, projecting calm indifference. "Lost again? This really isn't the scenic route."

"Smart mouth!" snarled the crony on the right, taking an aggressive step forward. "Think you're tough without your daddy's guard dog?"

"Guard dog?" Lloyd tilted his head slightly. "An astute observation. Though I believe 'apex predator' might be a more accurate descriptor for Ken Park. You wouldn't like him when he's annoyed."

"He ain't here now!" the leader countered, stepping closer, trying to loom over Lloyd. "Just you, pretty boy. And us."

"Indeed," Lloyd agreed softly. "An imbalance I intend to correct."

"Gonna correct us?" the third hoodlum laughed nervously, glancing over his shoulder as if half-expecting Ken to materialize from the brickwork. "Think again!"

"We're gonna teach you some manners, Lorship!" the leader growled, lowering his voice, gesturing towards a dark, recessed alcove halfway down the alley. "Private lesson. Just us."

"Sounds dreadfully dull," Lloyd replied, letting his gaze drift past them dismissively. "I have actual lessons to attend. With marginally better conversationalists."

"Enough talk!" the leader roared, his patience snapping. Humiliation and anger boiled over. "Get him!"

They lunged. Not with skill or coordination, but with raw, clumsy aggression, fueled by bruised egos and the perceived safety of numbers against a lone, seemingly unprotected noble. They aimed to overwhelm him, drag him down, inflict pain.

Lloyd didn't retreat. He didn't flinch. As the first thug reached for him, as the leader swung a wild punch, the cold switch inside him flipped completely. The detached calm of the assassin took over. Time seemed to slow fractionally. He saw the trajectory of the punch, the grasping hands, the hate-filled eyes. He felt the familiar thrumming deep in his blood, the Void power answering his silent call.

Pest control. The thought was cold, clinical. Deterrence. Consequence.

His hands remained at his sides. No overt movement. Just pure, focused will.

Three impossibly fine filaments of steel erupted from the air around his hands, near-invisible threads in the grimy dimness. They didn't gleam; they pulsed with a dull, internal cherry-red heat, warping the air around them with shimmering waves, absorbing the feeble light. They moved with the speed of striking vipers, silent and deadly.

Before the leader’s punch could land, before the crony’s grabbing fingers could make contact, the wires found their marks with brutal precision.

One wrapped snake-like around the leader's punching arm, tightening just below the shoulder. Sizzle.

Another coiled around the second thug’s torso, cinching tight across his ribs. Hiss.

The third lashed whip-like across the face and neck of the third attacker as he lunged. Snap.

The alley exploded with sound. Not the sounds of a fight, but the raw, primal screams of absolute agony. It wasn't the indignant yell of a bully getting hit; it was the sound of flesh meeting incandescent heat, of nerves overloaded beyond comprehension.

The leader’s punch dissolved into a shriek as he collapsed, clutching his arm, the fabric of his sleeve instantly blackened and smoking where the wire bit deep, searing muscle and tendon. He writhed on the ground, eyes wide with shock and unbearable pain.

The second thug buckled as if poleaxed, air forced from his lungs in a strangled gasp, clawing uselessly at the glowing filament constricting his chest, the smell of burning cloth and flesh sharp and acrid. He stumbled back against the wall, sliding down into a whimpering heap.

The third youth staggered wildly, hands flying to his face and neck, screams tearing from his throat as blood mingled with blistered, blackened skin where the wire had laid its fiery kiss. He tripped over his own feet, crashing hard onto the cobblestones, curling into a fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably.

The entire confrontation, from the lunge to the collapse, took less than three seconds.

Lloyd stood perfectly still, observing the aftermath. The alley was filled with the sounds of their agony, the stench of their scorched flesh. The red-hot wires held for another agonizing second, burning the lesson deep, ensuring the message was received without ambiguity. Then, as quickly and silently as they appeared, they retracted, dissolving back into nothingness, leaving behind only the horrific burns, the trembling victims, and the lingering, sickening smell.

He looked down at the three broken figures. Their aggression was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated terror and pain. They weren't threats anymore. They were simply… wreckage. He felt nothing. No pity, no anger, no triumph. Just the cold satisfaction of a necessary task completed efficiently. This was the language they understood. Fear. Overwhelming, unforgettable fear.

Chapter : 34

He adjusted the cuff of his tunic, the fabric pristine, untouched. He stepped carefully around the moaning figure closest to him, avoiding a patch of something unpleasant on the ground. His face remained a mask of calm indifference.

Without a backward glance, without uttering another word, Lloyd Ferrum continued his walk down the alley, leaving the symphony of suffering behind him. The sounds faded as he turned the next corner, rejoining the flow of the city as if nothing had happened.

He knew Ken had witnessed it all. Every detail. Every scream. Every flicker of heat. Let him report it. Let his father analyze this data point. Let them understand that the 'drab duckling', the 'mediocre heir', possessed teeth, and fire, and the utter ruthlessness to use them when provoked. Some lessons weren't learned from books. Some required a more visceral, more permanent form of instruction.

The afternoon sun slanted through the tall windows of the Ferrum Estate, casting long shadows across the polished marble floors as Lloyd walked back from Master Elmsworth's lecture hall. The drone of logistical theory still echoed faintly in his ears, overlaid by the much sharper, much more recent memory of searing flesh and agonized screams in a dingy alleyway. He felt strangely calm, the cold precision of the morning's encounter having settled into a grim sort of satisfaction. A necessary lesson delivered. Point made. Consequences established.

He hadn't felt Ken Park's hidden presence shift or react during the incident, only the steady, unwavering observation. The report would already be on his father's desk, no doubt. Lloyd braced himself for the inevitable summons, the questions, the potential disapproval of his methods. He had acted decisively, perhaps brutally, but he felt no regret. Some weeds needed to be burned out at the root.

As he crossed the grand entrance hall, a young maid scurried towards him, her face pale, eyes wide with nervousness. She executed a hasty curtsy, nearly tripping over her own feet.

"Young Lord Ferrum," she stammered, avoiding his gaze. "The Arch Duke… his lordship… requests your immediate presence in his study."

Showtime, Lloyd thought wryly, maintaining a neutral expression. "Thank you, Elina. Lead the way."

The walk to his father's study felt longer than usual, the heavy silence punctuated only by the soft patter of the maid's slippers and the distant, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. The air itself seemed charged, expectant.

The maid knocked softly on the heavy oak door, announced his arrival in a trembling voice, and practically fled as Roy Ferrum's curt "Enter" echoed from within. Lloyd pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The study was exactly as he expected: imposing, orderly, dominated by the massive mahogany desk behind which his father sat, ramrod straight, face an unreadable mask of stern authority. Documents were neatly stacked, the quill resting precisely in its inkwell. But Roy wasn't alone.

Standing before the desk, facing Roy but half-turned towards the door as Lloyd entered, was another man. Tall, impeccably dressed in expensive silks that subtly emphasized his status, with silver beginning to touch his dark hair at the temples. He possessed the characteristic sharp features of the Ferrum line, but his eyes held a shrewdness, a calculating glint that Roy’s direct gaze lacked. His smile, directed towards Lloyd as he entered, was smooth, practiced, yet failed to reach those observant eyes.

Viscount Rubel Ferrum. Lloyd’s uncle. Head of the most powerful cadet branch of the family.

The moment Lloyd saw him, a cold, visceral anger surged through him, so potent it was almost physically sickening. It wasn't just the memory of the man's smooth usurpation of power after the assassination in his first life; it was the ingrained, instinctive loathing, the gut-deep certainty that this man was the source of the rot, one of the architects of his family’s demise. Seeing him standing here, now, in his father’s study, radiating polite deference while calculation glittered beneath… it took every ounce of Lloyd’s hard-won control not to summon a white-hot filament of steel and sear that counterfeit smile right off his face.

He forced the rage down, locking it behind a carefully constructed wall of polite indifference. He inclined his head slightly. "Father. Uncle Rubel." His voice was steady, betraying none of the tempest raging within.

Roy Ferrum acknowledged him with a curt nod, his expression unreadable but stern. "Lloyd. Be seated." He gestured towards a heavy chair positioned directly opposite the desk, placing Lloyd under the combined scrutiny of both men.

Rubel Ferrum offered another smooth smile. "Nephew. Good to see you looking well." The pleasantry felt like a barb coated in honey.

Lloyd settled into the chair, meeting his father's intense gaze. "You summoned me, Father?"