Chapter 35: The Stepmother’s Wedding Gift
’What? She’s happy? She looks happy, she’s even smiling. Even when she was the Red Calamity, she never smiled. Is she truly happy?’
The lady bit her lip in silence, glaring at Theo.
’I came here to mock that brat. I can’t believe I’m getting to see these noises, defiling my eyes.’
She breathed in and let it out slowly.
’Alright then. To plan B.’
All of a sudden, the malice that kept leaking through her facade vanished.
"What? Dine? In this gutter? Oh boy, please."
She chuckled condescendingly and turned to Estea.
"To be honest, I was quite disappointed when I heard you married some ordinary guy, Estea. This guy has no name, no money, nothing, has he even ever been in the Tower? Tsk, I guess you were very desperate, can’t fault you for that. But shouldn’t you at least have sought your family’s support? I understand I am your stepmother, but your father, goodness, you know how much that man cares about you."
Estea was barely managing to keep a straight face. The muscle along her jaw had gone rigid, and her fingers pressed white against the arm of her chair. And through it all, Theo was observing.
’I guess it does make sense that she was practicing her death glare.’
Her stepmother continued.
"Well, I had to come and give you my blessings even if you didn’t ask for it."
Estea forced a grin.
"You passed the boundaries of the Tower, travelled in a chopper just to give your blessings, what a show-off you are. You’re going to bore me to death at this point."
Her stepmother went still for a moment, blinking slowly. She shook her head quickly the moment she caught herself.
"You and your retarded manner of speech. You never change, even in deterioration. At least I can tell your worrywart father his daughter is doing better than expected."
She sighed, and then brought out a lipstick and a mirror from her bag, fixing her lips while she stared into the little hand mirror and mumbled.
"Goodness, I can’t believe I ruined my lip combo for a moment there..."
She finished, stuffed them back into the bag, then lifted her gaze.
"Alright, Estea... it was very nice to see you. Crippled Dragon." She laughed and shook her head.
Then she glanced at Theo.
"I have a wedding gift for you, by the way. Once I leave, I’ll drop it."
Estea’s gaze went sharp the moment she spoke.
But Theo didn’t need to read her reaction for his own response.
"I’d rather you not. I don’t trust your taste. They look awful, from what I perceive of you."
The lady paused for a moment and raked her gaze over Theo, up and down and up again, with open disgust. Then she walked out and slammed the door.
As the door shut, the tension bled out of Estea’s shoulders, but she looked at Theo and spoke in an even voice.
"Go outside. That woman is capable of very hideous things. Better to make sure she touches nothing."
Theo obeyed and quickly set out. When he stepped outside, the lady was already on the rope ladder, climbing higher and higher, the chopper drifting away above her, its thunderous blades beating the air and dragging her figure up into the dimming sky. The downdraft flattened the grit across the rooftop and pushed against Theo’s chest.
The lady, though, still managed to shout as she hung from the rope.
"I hope you enjoy my present, Estea!!!"
Theo barely heard her over the din, and stood there staring up with a frown, wondering what she was all about, the wind from the blades still whipping at his hair.
"What the hell?"
Then his senses snagged on something, and the air across his skin turned cold and wrong. His gaze hardened, and he stared at the empty center of the rooftop.
’Something is different...’
As if to confirm his suspicion, the system’s monotonous voice rang out.
[Warning...]
[A Category Two Gate is manifesting within your premises]
’What?!’
Theo went rigid. A sudden explosion of wind threw him back and slammed him against the entrance door. The breath punched out of his lungs. He slid down the wood, caught himself on one knee, and pushed himself straight back up.
From inside the room, Estea’s voice bellowed.
"THEO! What’s happening there?!!"
But Theo locked the door from the outside before anything else.
’Locking the door won’t do anything, I must protect them and myself first, but at the very least they won’t do something stupid like wanting to come out.’
Theo locked his gaze on the center of the rooftop, planting his feet against the buffeting wind.
’Now, let’s see what this is...’
Gates were not an uncommon phenomenon. The problem was that there were usually high-grade security systems in place to predict them, and because of that, Heroes were always dispatched in time to deal with them, which had kept casualties to little or none.
In this case, though, there was nothing. It was as though the moment that lady left, the Gate had spawned. From that first blast of shockwave, it had swelled into a gigantic wormhole, deep-purple energy swirling within it, throwing streaks of that purple glow across the gravel and the low wall at the roof’s edge. The air around it hummed and pulled, tugging at his clothes and dragging loose grit toward its churning mouth.
’It can’t be that she caused this... right?’
Gates were a natural phenomenon, a consequence of the Tower. They were classified as leakage, something no one could simply conjure or dispel. Technology had even tried to prevent their appearance once prediction became possible, but that had only caused one disaster after another.
So Theo knew, with some certainty, that a Gate could not just be summoned by Estea’s stepmother.
But he put all of that aside, because right now he needed to confront whatever was in there, one way or another. He had to protect Sesan and Estea with his life.
Estea was still shouting his name.
"Open the damn door, you twerp!!"
He ignored her shout and focused on the Gate as its surface rippled and something shoved its head out of it. Theo summoned his sword first. And the moment the creature began dragging itself out, wet and heavy, its bulk scraping against the torn edges of the Gate, he used his Appraisal Eyes.
What he saw was not good.