Chapter 67: Carefully Played.
Naomi’s attempt to provoke Damien wasn’t going the way she’d imagined. Even after making it sound as though Andrea had betrayed him, he refused to give her the reaction she wanted. His cold blue eyes didn’t so much as ripple.
Instead, his expression shifted from confusion to understanding.
"You seem to be under the assumption that I’m one of Andrea’s lackeys." Damien sighed. "Sorry to disappoint you, but the only master I serve is myself. I accepted that mission for several reasons, and funny enough, you’re actually one of them."
Damien wasn’t about to let Naomi throw him off balance. He wasn’t as naive as Ryan, nor as reckless as Vincent. He was Damien the Undead. He trusted no one, questioned everything, and never settled for the first answer to any question.
"You see, Naomi, when I first arrived at camp, all of you came after me because of my unusual Dormant ability. Some of you were afraid, some wanted to take advantage of me, and then there were people like Vincent..." Damien paused, glancing in Vincent’s direction. "...who genuinely couldn’t give a shit...
"So naturally, after spending some time observing all of you, I decided to dig into everyone’s habits. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t find much. Just the fighting styles you’ve shown publicly and certain... tendencies I’d rather erase from my memory."
His gaze drifted toward Vincent for a brief moment before moving on.
"For a while, things were peaceful. I didn’t have a tent, so I stayed with Yuri. She was unconscious, and I don’t really sleep, so I spent every night sitting there watching her. Eventually that got boring, then you came along and made life interesting."
"I needed a weapon to defend myself, but apparently there was a process for getting one, so I went looking for Andrea. The moment I walked into her tent, I found all of you trying to force her to give up her seat. Especially you, Naomi. You were really committed to the performance."
Damien shrugged.
"Honestly, if you’d kept bullying Andrea, I probably would’ve silently rooted for you. But you just couldn’t resist baring your fangs at me before leaving."
"Now, I’m a paranoid guy. A glare like that immediately got me thinking. When are you going to make your move? How much damage can you actually do to me? Then I realized something. I needed to get rid of you anyway. I couldn’t leave someone walking around with that much misplaced hatred directed at me."
"So I agreed to become Andrea’s pawn. I knew she wanted to use me somehow. I just didn’t know how. To be honest..." Damien shrugged again. "I still don’t know. Now that she’s finished testing me, I’m fairly certain the real trial will come from somewhere I won’t see coming."
"But back to you."
"I wanted you dead."
"So I needed you to make a mistake, and that meant Leslie had to die. If your sister died, you’d lose your mind, start accusing powerful people at random, and sooner or later they’d want you gone just as much as I did. Then, when I finally killed you, nobody would waste time investigating. They’d just assume one of the people you’d been provoking finally got tired of your nonsense."
Damien let out a quiet sigh.
"Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out. Now I’m standing here wondering whether Leslie is actually dead, and if she is, who killed her, and why? Do they hate you more than they hate me, or are they simply laying the groundwork to destroy both of us?"
Naomi frowned slightly. Damien didn’t speak often, but whenever he did, he sounded like a complete psychopath. She never would’ve thought he was a new player in their little game, but seeing the logical way he pieced everything together only made her want him dead even more. The Round Table was already as complicated as it could possibly get. Naomi would do everything in her power to see Damien die before he ever claimed one of those seats.
Of course, Damien knew exactly what she was thinking. That was precisely why he’d avoided drawing unnecessary attention to himself from the very beginning. He never acted like someone who deserved a seat at the Round Table, nor did he openly pursue one. He preferred pretending to be a pawn, quietly waiting for the perfect opportunity to surprise the kings and queens when they least expected it.
If he openly revealed his ambitions now, or behaved as though he belonged among them, at least several members of the Round Table would turn against him at once, and Damien wasn’t nearly confident enough to face those odds.
"Naomi," Damien spoke again. "You sent your sister to kill me because you didn’t want Andrea controlling my Dormant Ability. Now you know she doesn’t. Why don’t we work together instead? Together, we can level the playing field, and I promise you, Andrea will never have any influence over me."
Naomi let out a cold chuckle.
"What makes you think Andrea can’t control you and your Dormant Ability? I don’t think you’ve noticed it yet, but have you ever wondered why everyone in camp practically worships Andrea? It’s certainly not because she’s some saint who turns water into wine. It’s because of her status... Harbinger."
Her smile widened.
"Do you even know what it does, Damien?"
Damien’s expression sank. He’d heard Seris mention it once before, but she didn’t know much about it herself. More importantly, she’d never cared enough to find out. She’d always been close to Andrea, just like Yuri.
"It influences her surroundings," Damien finally answered. "It helps her convince people to follow her."
Naomi suddenly burst into laughter.
"Is that supposed to be a joke?"
It was an unsettling sight. She laughed so hard that tears gathered in her eyes, yet her body never moved an inch.
Damien wasn’t unsettled. He had carefully played his cards, and now he was finally about to learn more about Andrea’s abilities.
Naomi, on the other hand, hadn’t even realised her emotions were getting the better of her. She still believed she held all the cards, convinced she could deceive Damien into letting her go, only to stab him in the back the moment an opportunity presented itself.
As she began to speak, Damien was already planning her demise.