DBOFS 10

Harris’s terrifying power had stunned me for a moment, but when I saw the restraints at my feet, alarm bells rang in my head.

‘Wait. I can’t just leave those restraints like that.’

The restraints attached to Harris’s limbs also served as a kind of biological signal transmitter.

In other words, in the worst-case scenario, the Mage Tower might have already realized something was wrong.

‘No!’

The spoiler from Adrian’s first life before regression flashed in my mind.

The worst possible path Harris walked in his first life—one where no one saved him.

‘I have to do something, even now. If I want to buy time…’

I quickly grabbed the restraints and approached Eric—the chief warden of the underground prison, the one I had knocked out with a chair shot.

It was ironic.

While my comrades had turned to ashes in an instant, the first to fall, Eric, had survived.

‘Maybe he lived for this very reason.’

I rolled back his collar and clicked the restraints onto his exposed wrist. Then I fastened the rest to his other wrist and ankles—click, click.

“What are you doing?”

“……!”

Harris had approached before I realized and was now looking down at me. His face was expressionless, unreadable, but laced with murderous intent.

“I-I’m punishing the bad guy, of course!”

“Like this?”

He repeated my words in a low voice, calm and unsettling.

He was suspicious of me.

I could feel it instinctively. The more everything unfolded exactly as I’d planned, the more wary Harris became.

Because Harris didn’t trust me.

And an untrustworthy prophet was more dangerous than anyone.

As Harris’s red eyes stared silently into mine—

“Ugh…!?”

A pained groan came from the collapsed Eric.

At the same time, a buzzing sound was heard, and a light flickered from the mana stone on the restraints.

‘Knew it!’

I placed a hand over my chest in relief.

The controller only responded to those with mana. In other words, it only activated when mana was detected.

‘Now that the light’s on, the signal must have reached the Mage Tower again.’

They’d be in chaos up there.

If the signal had stayed off, they might have suspected, “Did Harris Godwin escape?”

But now the light was on again.

‘They’ll just think it was a temporary malfunction. They’ll be confused.’

So instead of reporting to Duke Godwin, “That bastard Harris escaped!!” they’d probably just discreetly ask, “Duke, your son’s still locked up, right?”

They’d want to avoid taking responsibility for mismanagement.

‘I bought us that much time.’

Time that Harris—just now escaped from prison—desperately needed.

I smiled brightly, relieved.

“Yes. This bad man should at least suffer one ten-thousandth of what you did, Lord Harris, don’t you think?”

I wanted to make him suffer just like you did! Oh, the monitoring function? Is that a thing?

I blinked innocently as if I knew nothing, and one of Harris’s eyebrows rose.

‘Well, it’s not entirely a lie.’

In the beginning of Divine Messenger, it was said the prison warden tormented Harris most viciously. That bastard deserved a taste of his own medicine!

“Oh, were you planning to turn him to ashes like the others?”

I widened my eyes and tilted my head as if clueless.

Harris didn’t answer. Instead, his crimson eyes narrowed, sizing me up.

“But, killing him instantly feels… too merciful.”

“You think I’m merciful?”

Ha. Harris scoffed.

True, the way he looked just now didn’t suit the word at all.

“Well, you do have a soft side, hehe!”

I was saying whatever I could! No shame at all!

“You’ve been so kind to me, haven’t you?”

I made a flower pose under my chin and winked.

The hidden message in that gesture: I’m doing all this—surely you won’t kill me, right?

“…Hah.”

Harris’s lips curled slightly, like a smile.

Bang—!

A dreadful gunshot echoed through the prison.

At that moment, Harris’s mind went blank.

Kind to you? Me?

He couldn’t comprehend what that strange slave was saying.

Is she really crazy?

Harris didn’t know much about slave markets, but even he could tell Jade wasn’t an ordinary slave.

Long, wavy, light pink hair that resembled a fairy. Clear blue eyes.

Flawless, pale skin—such a beautiful slave seemed far too valuable to have been bought as a mere servant by his insolent underlings.

Was she really sold cheaply because she’s insane?

Or did she have her own motives and was acting calculatively?

…That must be it.

Harris’s crimson eyes darkened.

He knew why Duke Godwin had locked him away here.

He wanted to kill me. Erase me.

But since he couldn’t kill him, he must’ve wanted to get rid of him from sight forever.

At first, the servants were polite and confused, but once reality set in, they began to treat Harris like an actual prisoner.

He had lived that way for years. A total stranger like Jade—and a slave at that—wouldn’t sway him with a few words.

“Right. We’re going to help Lord Harris escape.”

The underground was Harris’s domain.

No matter how the slaves tried to stay out of his sight, their words and actions still reached him.

Even Jade’s attempts to persuade the other slaves before the escape—

“Help? Jade, are you insane?! That monster—no, that man nearly killed you! All of us!”

“And why would someone like him need our help in the first place?!”

But Jade convinced them.

“We nearly died. That’s why we know—we can’t survive or escape this place on our own.”

“Exactly. He might not need our help, but we need to at least pretend to help him. For all of our survival.”

Pretend. That word lingered in Harris’s mind.

Of course. People are driven by desire. The desire to escape. The desire for freedom.

And the desire to live—even from a monster like him.

Driven by that desire, that slave girl pretended to be kind.

…Is she really a Guide?

Harris recognized the unique resonance of a Guide.

But Jade’s guiding aura came in sudden waves—sometimes overwhelming, other times nonexistent.

Strange.

She didn’t feel like any other Guide he’d known. The alluring scent when he was on the verge of losing control, her refusal to force guiding, and…

“Lord Harris!”

…Maybe it was just his imagination, but the way she acted like she cared for him was unusually affectionate.

Too strange. Her voice, her gaze, her smile—shining like sunlight…

Stop.

Stop thinking. It’s unnecessary. Harris shook his head.

Whether real or fake, it no longer mattered. That slave had given him freedom, just as promised.

So he no longer had any expectations.

He just hoped she’d disappear without a trace—and stop stirring his heart.

Harris paused.

…Stirring?

Was his heart really shaken by that slave?

Had he fallen for that deceitful kindness?

Just like he had with his father?

After everything… you’re letting it happen again?

Harris’s face turned pale. He stood frozen, bitter at his own foolishness—

Bang—!

A bullet pierced his body.

“…Kuh.”

Blood-mixed coughs escaped from Harris’s red lips. His hand clutched the bleeding abdomen as it turned crimson.

The servants of the estate were armed.

Harris knew that better than anyone. They’d fired warning shots at him in the past, when he was locked up.

Because of his restricted mana usage, Harris had refined his abilities to an extreme, until the servants realized they were only wasting bullets—and being counterattacked.

…They must have heard the screaming from earlier. The ones upstairs realized something was wrong and launched an attack.

And yet he’d let his guard down—distracted by that slave.

I didn’t think I was that much of an idiot…

Apparently, he was more foolish than he imagined. Harris smirked bitterly.

“This, this is…”

While his blood-soaked lips curved faintly, the slave girl in front of him froze in shock.

“Wh-What… Lord Harris—are you o-okay?!”

Her face was pale, splattered with blood. Her blue eyes trembled in fear and horror. Her hands, trying to press cloth to his wound, shook violently.

You insisted you were a prophet, yet didn’t see this coming?

Harris wanted to scoff.

But he bit his lip instead.

What was the point in talking?