Theron walked with a lightness in his step that had nothing to do with the evening breeze. The city's lanterns were being lit, casting long, dancing shadows that mirrored the schemes playing out in his mind. He had successfully planted the seeds of discord, plundered a fragment of the protagonist's luck, and now held a secret missive meant for Caden in his pocket. The game was advancing beautifully.
His destination was not the group's rented house, but a small, unassuming property he had acquired with a portion of the gold coins Cyrene had given him. It was a two-room house on a quiet, almost deserted street on the city's outskirts—a perfect den for his private machinations. He called it his "sanctuary," but in truth, it was a laboratory for his most delicate experiments.
As he approached the door, his sharp eyes, honed by a lifetime of assessing threats and opportunities, caught a flicker of movement in a rain barrel's reflective surface. It was just a glimpse, a shift of shadow behind a large oak tree across the street. He didn't turn. He didn't tense. He simply smiled, a cold, knowing curve of his lips.
Lying on the ground in front of his door was a large, jagged piece of a broken mirror, likely discarded by a previous tenant. A lesser man would have kicked it aside in annoyance. Theron saw an opportunity.
He made a show of sighing, muttering about irresponsible neighbors, and bent down to pick it up. As his fingers closed around the cool, sharp glass, he angled it subtly. In its reflection, clear as day, was the figure of Cyrene, her cyan hair like a splash of paint in the monochrome twilight, pressed against the trunk of the oak tree. Her eyes were fixed on him, burning with a mixture of fury and terrifying resolve.
So, the little bird had left her gilded cage, and she had brought a knife. How… predictable.
A plan, cold and efficient, crystallized in his mind instantly. The mouse and cat game was over. It was time the mouse learned who was truly the predator.
He unlocked his door and stepped inside, deliberately not closing it fully, leaving a tantalizing sliver of an invitation. The interior was sparse: a main room with a table and two chairs, and a bedroom. In the corner of the main room, leaning against the wall, was a stout piece of oak, a leftover from some previous tenant's renovation project. A perfect tool.
He grabbed the wooden club and melted into the shadows behind the door, his breathing controlled, his body still. He was a CEO waiting in a boardroom ambush, a hunter at a blind.
He didn't have to wait long.
The door creaked open slowly. Cyrene slipped inside, her movements silent as a ghost. The faint light from the streetlamps glinted off the polished steel of the knife in her hand. Her face was a mask of concentrated hatred, her sapphire eyes scanning the dark room, looking for her prey.
She took one step, then two, her body coiled like a spring.
Theron moved.
There was no warning. Just the sudden, brutal whistle of wood cutting through air. The club connected with the back of her head with a sickening thud. Her eyes widened in shock and pain, a soft gasp escaping her lips. For a fleeting second, her gaze met his—seeing his calm, viciously smiling face—before the world shattered into fragments of agony and then into absolute, consuming darkness.
She crumpled to the floor, the knife clattering from her limp hand.
Theron looked down at her unconscious form. A trickle of blood matted her beautiful cyan hair. "Heck, yaa," he whispered to the silent room, a thrill of power coursing through him. He had bought huge amounts of the mana-restricting drug for emergencies. It seemed his foresight was about to pay dividends.
He easily lifted her, carrying her to the bedroom and laying her on the simple cot. He used rough rope to tie her hands behind her back and her ankles together. A mage could never be allowed to use those damn spells. For good measure, he tore a strip of cloth from a spare sheet and gagged her mouth.
Then, he prepared the dosage. He took a glass and poured almost the entire contents of a new packet of the mana-restricting powder into it, mixing it with a little water. It was enough to knock out a weak mage like her and halt her mana circulation for at least four days. He needed time.
Satisfied with his preparations, he went out to the market, locking the door behind him. He visited a specialty magic shop, purchasing a handful of small, crystalline orbs. Memory orbs. They could record a few seconds of video and store them after a tiny injection of mana. Once crushed, the recorder could see the stored scene. A useful tool for blackmail, or for preserving precious memories.
When he returned, Cyrene was stirring. Her sapphire eyes fluttered open, filled with disorientation and pain. When they focused and saw him, they widened in pure, unadulterated terror. She tried to speak, to scream, but the gag muffled all sound into pathetic, desperate grunts.
He stood over her, a devil admiring his catch. "You don't have to look so grieved," he said, his voice a low, calm murmur that was more frightening than any shout. "I don't want to hurt you. In fact, I want to be your true ally."
He let the words hang in the air, watching the confusion war with the fear in her eyes.
"All of this," he continued, gesturing vaguely to her bound state, "was the plan of Lyra and Isabelle. They wanted me to take care of you in the dark. They were the ones who provided me with the mana-restricting drug during the quest."
Her eyes bulged. Shock, then dawning, rage-fueled understanding.
"If you understand, just nod your head, and I'll take the gag out," he said, his tone reasonable, almost kind.
She hesitated for only a second before nodding vigorously.
He reached down and gently removed the gag. She gasped for air, her chest heaving.
"So it was those bitches!" she hissed, her voice raw. "But why did you obey them? Why tie me up like this? You could have just told me the truth!"
"Are you dumb?" Theron replied, his voice laced with feigned exasperation. "Just think. Lyra is from the powerful Silversword noble house. Isabelle is from the top-tier Windfaller aristocracy. If I dared to disobey them, I wouldn't even know when I'd be beheaded by assassins they sent secretly. And you…" He picked up her knife from the table where he'd placed it. "Look at this. You were carrying it so sneakily. You probably wanted to kill me, too. I did all this to secure my safety."
Cyrene fell silent, processing the logic. It was twisted, but it made a sinister kind of sense. She saw herself as a victim of the two vixens, and Theron as a fellow victim, forced into being their weapon.
"It's… it's ok," she said finally, her voice smaller. "This lady now knows the truth and will not hurt you. Just untie me."
Theron chuckled softly. "No. Not yet. You see, I want to take revenge against Lyra and Isabelle for forcing me to work for them. And I want to help you get Caden. I want to be your ally. Plus, I have a great plan."
Hearing the words "get Caden," all her grievances seemed to momentarily wash away. Revenge and the object of her obsession—it was a potent combination. She looked at him in a new light, a potential weapon in her own hands. "What's the plan?"
"It's twofold," he explained, pulling up a chair and sitting beside the cot. "You know it's 2v2, but Lyra has strong swordsmanship and can easily kill a mage like you. Isabelle boasts strong defense with that shield. You have no chance in a fair fight. So, let me become strong for you. There is a powerful treasure left behind by my family. My mother left me a map to find it. I will retrieve it, become stronger, and then I can help you fight them head-on."
Cyrene's eyes lit up with excited malice. The idea of having a powerful ally to confront her rivals directly was intoxicating.
"What's the second part?" she asked, her voice eager.
Theron leaned closer, his gaze intense. "The problem with you is you don't know how to act like a girlfriend. I've been observing you. Your actions are selfish in Caden's eyes and non-feminine. Right now, he sees you as just a relative trying to reap benefits from him. He doesn't even see you as a potential love interest."
"You're lying!" she burst out, but the protest was weak, fueled by the sting of truth in his words.
"Am I?" he shrugged. "Do you know what a girlfriend should do? Do you know the art of seduction to keep your boyfriend away from vixens? Do you know how to serve tea? Make delicious food? Do house chores? Be obedient? Do you know how to completely make his heart yours?"
The rapid-fire questions dumbfounded her. In her eyes, love was two people falling for each other and living happily. She had never bothered with these practical, subservient details. She had isolated herself too much, focusing only on eliminating rivals, not on perfecting herself for Caden.
She fell silent, a profound realization dawning on her. She saw Theron not as a captor, but as the last ray of light on a very dark day.
"Please, Theron," she whispered, her voice pleading. "Please teach me how to be a good girlfriend. Only you can help me. You must have a way, right? That's why you spoke about this stuff."
He finally breathed an internal sigh of relief. The hook was set. He untied her ropes and helped her sit up, her body stiff and sore.
"I'm going to help you," he said, his voice softening into a manipulative croon. "After all, we are now people sailing in the same boat. Just travel with me and help me find my family treasure, and I will guide you on how to be a good girlfriend along the way. You must listen to me. The only pity is that it may take up to three days for the drug's effect to wear off before you can use magic again."
"It is okay," she said, a frightening determination in her eyes. "I have been tolerating Lyra and Isabelle for years. A few days is nothing. Let's pack our stuff and go find your family treasure."
Theron smiled. He had shamelessly claimed the emperor's treasure from the note as his own family's inheritance. The cyan-haired yandere, broken and remolded, was now his willing accomplice. He had successfully snatched the first girl from the protagonist's harem, not through force alone, but by twisting her own obsessions to serve his purpose.
As they began packing for their journey, Caden, who was relaxing with a cup of tea at the rented house, suddenly felt a sharp, inexplicable pain in his chest, as if a vital thread connecting him to something precious had been violently severed. He shrugged it off, attributing it to a lingering injury from the battle, completely unaware that his childhood friend had just been stolen away in the dead of night, her loyalty systematically broken and transferred to the villain standing in the shadows.