Chapter 1016 (2/2)

And on a personal level… it wasn’t that Vye didn’t find the Ghosthound attractive. And it had been something of harmless gossip to talk about why he never was seen on anything close to a date. He was always seen either training or working. Yet people had a hard time believing that Randidly Ghosthound didn’t also want to satisfy his baser cravings. Plenty of people dreams about being on the receiving end of such desires. Such was the weird influence of fame-

Wincing, Vye lowered her hand to cradle it against her chest. She kept her breaths short and even and focused on enduring the waves of agony that spread up her arm.

After using her hand, the pain that from her entrance into the Image Stone was once more scrabbling at Vye’s will with white hot and greedy hands. She pressed her lips together. To distract herself, Vye tried to imagine kissing that confident smile. She tried to imagine what his lips felt like and the heat of his skin.

Then Vye shook her head. Like that would happen.

After a few minutes of breathing, Vye heaved herself back up to her feet. She turned and began to walk back toward the festival. Even if her hand made Vye want to curl up and die, she would force herself to go and watch the award ceremony. It was said that Randidly himself would be giving a short speech at the end of it.

Yet as Vye trudged back toward the festival with her hand cradled against her chest, one question remained fixed in her mind.

What sort of gift does the most powerful man in the world give?

*****

Even though Evan Crane knew it was happening, he could hardly keep his eyes from glazing over with greed as he looked up from the crowd packed in like sardines in front of him before the stage. One day… all of this will be mine.

After a rather stuttering introduction from a pretty but obviously empty-headed girl, Randidly had walked onto the lavishly decorated stage with an extremely petite woman at his side. There were four individuals standing nervously in a row with their hands in various states of scrunched up. Along the back wall of the stage was a series of four trophies, shaped to look like the profile of a tree.

Each tree had its own glowing rune carved at the center of the trophy, defining that category that the reward was given for. Even from his spot amongst the thick crowd some distance from the stage, Crane could tell the Mana density around the trophies was insane; they weren’t just ordinary trophies.

After announcing the names of the four winners to enthusiastic applause from the crowd, Randidly gave a curt gesture to the woman next to him, who stepped forward and began to speak to each individual winner. At first, the winners seemed rather dissatisfied, but then their eyes widened as the woman went through their different innovations, step by step, and told them the mistakes that they made.

You don’t even handle the running of the company, Crane chuckled. Others might see this as just you flaunting how deep the foundations of Erickson Steel are… but they don’t understand what this means as I do. It means that your throne is hollow. Anyone could sit where you are. The only advantage you ever had over the rest of us was being the first to get here, Randidly Ghosthound…!

After the awards, the crowd began to murmur in excitement. Although some people wanted to see the winning innovations, most of what they were here for was what followed: a speech from Randidly Ghosthound himself.

As he walked up to the podium, the crowd fell silent. His bare feet made soft noises against the wood of the stage. Then Randidly Ghosthound looked out at the crowd and offered them a wide smile. Even though he hated the man, Evan Crane couldn’t deny his charisma. The air seemed to hum with it. And as Crane breathed out, it seemed to him that the entire crowd was breathing out with him.

And that Randidly Ghosthound was breathing all of that ambient energy into his body. It immediately set Crane’s teeth on edge.

What Randidly Ghosthound did to get here was not as simple as Evan often made it out to be. The man was certainly more than lucky. He was capable. But still, Evan barred his teeth, buried deeply and safely within the crowd, at the man. It was a small resistance in response to the strange breathing phenomenon. It was Evan Crane assuring himself that he wasn’t like all the others. He would not be taken in by Randidly Ghosthound’s tricks.

And to Evan’s slack-jawed horror, it seemed that Randidly’s gaze slid smoothly through the crowd until his emerald eyes landed on him.

For a second, their gazes locked. Evan Crane was trembling. There seemed to be a monster standing behind Randidly Ghosthound, a forsaken thing wreathed in ash and shadow. It didn’t have a mouth, just a wide, dark hole. In a twisted mockery of Evan’s own expression, that dark hole leered at him.

Randidly’s smile widened.

Then Randidly looked away and the strange phantasm was gone. Coughing lightly, Evan Crane took an involuntary step back. Cold drops of sweat slid down his temples and back. When he took a step, his shoe caught on someone else’s leg and Crane felt a stab of panic.

But before Evan Crane could regain his balance, there was a hand on his back.

“Exciting isn’t it, seeing him in the flesh?” A young man helped the swaying Evan Crane stay on his feet. “I can’t wait to hear what he says.”

Then Randidly Ghosthound began to speak.