A few hours have passed by ever since Eric made a few quick phone calls to some of his contacts and went back to his penthouse, and now, as the sky started turning darker and darker out, Eric found himself drinking a glass of wine by the window of his living room and staring out into the city in deep thought.
Although he was done with the second step of his plan and was quite confident that the Aurora in this current stage of time would absolutely fall into his traps if she dared try and make a move on him here while he was in his penthouse, the truth of the matter was that he was honestly feeling a little bit bad for her.
After all, once his plan finally comes into fruition and this was all over, Aurora will no longer be in this world.
Of course, Eric already knew that Aurora was a regressor and all, and truly couldn't be killed off at all by any means necessary.
However, Eric was certain that if he killed Aurora in this lifetime, then he wouldn't have to worry about her ever again while he lived here in this world.
Aurora's ability was regression after all, not resurrection.
Once she dies, she goes back to the past again, and the timeline that she dies in continues to move on without her.
And while it wasn't explicitedly stated in this story that this is what happens when Aurora dies, or even implied at for that matter, it was pretty obvious that was the case.
Of course, Eric also already knew that Aurora will definitely pay him back with even more vengence once she regresses again, but that was a problem for the next Eric Porter to deal with, not the current him.
"Remember, it's either me or her." Eric then downed the remainder of wine in his glass and looked out towards the direction of his apartment complex' parking lot and the black SUV parked right beside his white Lamborghini.
Then after staring at the parked SUV for a few more seconds, Eric placed the empty wineglass on the windowsill, turned away from the window, and then headed to his bedroom, intending to sleep early for tonight.
And if all goes well for him, then he'll surely be able to live a long and prosperous life once and for all...
Hopefully.
***
The next morning, Eric was able to wake up alive and well, just as he had expected.
After getting out of his bed, Eric went to the bathroom, did his morning routine, and then walked towards the kitchen to make himself some breakfast.
As he was making his way towards his kitchen though, Eric suddenly realized that something was wrong.
'Wait, when do I ever make my own breakfast, ever?'
It really was weird, not once has Eric made breakfast for himself in the history of his entire life living as Eric ever.
Typically he'd order food from a delivery app or go outside to an expensive restaurant for his meals.
But now, for some reason, his mind automatically thought of making breakfast for himself as though it was the most natural thing to do.
'...It must be because of my memories back on Earth.'
Eric didn't really know how to feel about this, but he didn't pay any more attention to it, and simply went to the window in his living room to check up on the black SUV that was supposed to be parked there.
Strangely enough though, the black SUV was no longer there.
"Hmm? That's weird, I thought I paid them to be on surveillance 24/7 for the next two weeks." Eric frowned.
He knew that the people he had hired to be on surveillance duty were professionals in the industry that they were in, and wouldn't just take off with the money like that.
And besides, it was his money that they were running off with, not anyone elses.
Other than the fact that it was just bad business for them to just run off with a single client's money like that and ruin their reputation forever, there was a reason why nobody has ever tried to take advantage of him or his family ever.
As such, there could only be one possible reason for their sudden disappearance.
'She came here last night, huh.'
But if that was the case, then how was she able to take down such a group of well trained professionals so quickly and quietly within just a single night?
If he was right about this, then there were probably about a dozen people of people constantly keeping each other updated and making sure everyone was still alive every hour.
An Aurora still at the very beginning of her regression cycle shouldn't have the capabilities of doing this whatsoever.
And more importantly, why was he still alive right now?
It was clearly evident enough that she at least knew him well enough to show up specifically at the building of where his penthouse was at.
So why let him live?
Eric briefly thought about it for a moment before going up to a motion triggered camera that was hidden right inside of his front door.
From there, he noticed that the motion triggered camera had been somehow disabled, and the frag grenade that was supposed to go off when the camera captured any motion was gone as well.
Then it suddenly hit him.
'She had been cautious against me this entire time.'
Eric honestly wanted to just bang his head against the wall right now.
He had been so occupied by the fact that he wanted to get rid of Aurora as soon as possible that he had completely forgotten to take into consideration about Aurora's caution, instincts, and cunning traits when he came up with his stupid plan.
'As expected of the protagonist in this stupid world, she's too smart for me, even at this early on in the regression cycle.' Eric shook his head in disbelief.
Had Eric taken a different approach and tried not to involve a close friend of Auroras like Aria at all, and instead had been more secretive with his actions while still behaving the same on the outside, then perhaps it genuinely would've worked out for him in the end.
But now that he had absolutely no element of surprise anymore, and he had unfortunately attracted Aurora's attention towards him this early on when she typically doesn't even pay attention to him until she kills about 9 other villains and their group before him based on the novel, Eric was sure that the long and prosperous life that he had so hoped for last night wasn't going to be as easy as he thought.
Still, since Aurora didn't immediately just kill him off outright even after managing to get past all of the traps he had set up including the one at his front door, then perhaps there was a chance that he could survive after all.
However, before he wanted to even begin to think about what to do next, Eric needed to go outside and get some food in his stomach.
Having decided that, Eric grabbed the winter coat on his coat rack and then headed down the elevators back to the cold streets of the city below.