Ⅵ
Clap, clap, clap!
Arthur applauded Malinda.
He had always felt that his methods were sometimes too ruthless, but compared with Malinda, he felt like an absolute saint.
All he did was make people sign a few extra Contracts.
He hadn't made anyone take slow-acting poison, had he?
And he hadn't held their families hostage, had he?
I'm such a kind soul!
Arthur praised himself inwardly.
Then he said outright-
"Remember to give Aipuke's family some poison too.
Don't use the same slow-acting poison.
Ideally, mix a few poisons together."
Abel: ...
The Vampire Ancestor Insect had just been rejoicing that its master merely had a habit of using Contracts rather than being so vicious. Now, it was on the verge of tears.
But before the tears could fall, it realized something.
It was all alone!
It didn't have a family!
A smile immediately appeared on the Vampire Ancestor Insect's face.
Then that smile froze.
It didn't even have a family.
Its tears immediately became impossible to hold back.
Abel rammed its head into the ground, sobbing its heart out.
Arthur sensed it.
But rather than offering comfort, he felt only delight.
Arthur's understanding of Vampire Ancestor Insects was far from complete.
At the very least, he didn't know what family meant to them.
But that had been before.
Now?
Seeing Abel like this, he vowed to find it a female insect. They absolutely had to produce a whole brood of little insects. And then?
Naturally, they would work themselves to the bone for him to repay his kindness in giving them a new life.
He, Arthur, wasn't some kind of devil.
He would absolutely never use poison to control Abel's family, but every last one of them would have to sign twenty-seven Contracts.
As Abel wept, its entire body