The training grounds in the Agnus estate.
Ever since Bell he completed his goal of making himself a god, albeit a fake one, he had been even busier than before.
His insomnia improved for a few days initially, but it didn't take long to return; he didn't mind since it meant more time to spend on something productive. Whenever he wasn't reading, eating with his family, playing with his little sister, or speaking to the Jerman, who would frequently inform him about all the rumors his family had heard, the rest of his time was spent in the training room.
In this world, there was no instant shortcut to becoming strong.
If you wanted to move up your skill tree, you had no choice but to put the effort in.
But… but, there is an advantage that rich people have that others don't. Money. And Bell had a shit ton of money.
By buying the highest quality recovery potions on the market, he was able to push his body to its limit, then chug a bottle, and his body would feel better in no time. Well, not exactly "no time". These potions weren't like the ones in typical RPG video games. It didn't instantly heal you. It merely boosted the recovery rate of your cells in your body.
But for Bell, who needed to get as strong as possible, as he had brought himself back to the starting line when he severed his link with Solmire, drinking these expensive potions was basically a cheat code.
He wished he could've drunk these when he was tempering his body a while back, since he could've reached his goal sooner, but a regular human wouldn't be able to handle the effects and would die due to the sudden surge of star energy that the potion contains.
Soon, there would be another potion that would be introduced to the market that wouldn't just recover the body but also boost the production of star energy in one's body for a limited time.
"Coincidentally", Bell happened to be the sponsor of the person who would someday invent the potion.
Hanging on a bar, Bell was shirtless, squeezing his abdomen as tight as possible while one of the retainers would continuously punch it just hard enough that it hurt.
His abs were screaming in pain, but he continued to endure. Only when he released the bar would the punches end. Yet, despite his gloved fingers ready to slip and release the bar at any given moment, he forced them to grip on tightly as if he was hanging off a cliff.
It was only after he was at his absolute limit that his body refused to agree with his mind, that he dropped to the floor, and the punches stopped.
Tired, drained, and out of strength, he picked up the wooden sword on the floor and began sparring with the retainer.
Although Bell himself had no memories of ever training in the way of the sword, his muscle memories remembered, and he was able to keep up with the retainer technically, but physically, there was a massive gap, and he was hit many times.
When he finally dropped down to his knee after receiving a blow to the temple, Jerman handed him a potion.
Chug chug chug.
Tossing the empty bottle to Jerman, he crossed his legs and began circulating the star energy that was in his body, helping his body to recover even faster than just waiting around doing nothing while the potion went to work.
Although he wasn't fully recovered, as soon as he felt that he was recovered enough, he got up and began running laps around the training grounds while carrying weights on his wrists, his ankles, and on his back.
Step! Step! Step!
Jerman, who had gone through similar things in the past, couldn't help but feel surprised.
It was one thing for his family to go through that level of training since they were a vessel family whose purpose was to protect and serve their masters.
But Bell was the son of the Duke.
There was no need to put in this much effort.
Yet, he was pushing himself further than even the Facold family's training regime; albeit, it was only possible due to the potions he was able to afford like water, and if the Facold family had access to them, they would've done the same — but still, what Bell was doing was not only impressive but also maddening.
'One would think that you're preparing for the end of the world, Young Master.'
Just as Bell collapsed to fatigue and was about to pick himself up and prepare for another round of sparring, a servant entered the training grounds.
Bowing at Bell, they said, "Young Master Bell, Maya wanted me to inform you that she's back."
"Got it," Bell responded as he sat up and removed his weights.
Drinking another potion that Jerman handed him, he grabbed a towel and began drying off his body and hair. Then he removed his gloves, dried his hands, and put on another pair of gloves.
Informing the servant to tell Maya to meet him in the garden, he then dismissed the retainer for the day.
The retainer bowed and left without a word.
But internally, the retainer was shocked; when the Young Master informed the leader of the Agnus family's guard unit that he needed one of them to accompany him during his training, he expected the ever-happy-go-lucky Bell to give up or to go lightly on the training.
But no. Something was different about the Young Master.
He was focused. He didn't make jokes. He simply trained as if his life depended on it.
'I guess it wasn't a lie,' the retainer thought as he recalled a conversation he had with his wife, who also served in the Agnus family as a maid. She told him that the Young Master had changed drastically, but since there was no reason for him to enter the main manor, there was no way to confirm her words.
The past days had proven her words to be true.
'Maybe we'll now have another candidate for the next head of the family.'
In the garden.
Bell sat at the table, his legs crossed. He was still shirtless because he didn't want to put on a shirt when he was dirty, and he planned on showering after the conversation.
Maya, who had just stepped into the garden, stopped for a brief moment as she saw what looked like a statue meant to be displayed in the center of the city.
It was another reminder to her that Bell had insanely good looks, which he mostly inherited from his mother.
Standing at the edge of the garden, a little lost in thought for a moment, Maya shook it off and approached him. She walked down the marble path that led to the gazebo where Bell was sitting.
The path was decorated with flowers and hedges on either side. All the flora was still glistening faintly from the earlier rain.
Taking the seat across from him, she picked up the cup in front of her.
The first time they met in the garden like this, it had been a cup of tea, but after learning that she wasn't a fan of tea, Bell had the servant serve a cup of freshly-squeezed orange juice instead.
In one single gulp, she wiped her mouth and let out a large exhale.
Although Bell couldn't see past her curtain of white hair that hid her eyes, he could sense that they were tired. Taking a glance at her fingers, he could see that there was a faint tremor she was trying to hide.
"Have you been up since yesterday?" he questioned.
It was the afternoon, but it didn't seem like she had just recently woken up.
"No. I've been busy with the task you've given me," she replied. Her voice was steadier than she felt.
He nodded, "Speak."
Maya paused for a brief moment, searching for where to begin. "I didn't do as you asked."
"?" Bell raised an eyebrow as he took a sip of the bitter coffee in his cup.
"I felt that investigating all the noble houses on the list one by one would take too long. While I'm spending all that time investigating, more and more people could be dying."
She met Bell's eyes to see how he was going to react to her straying away from his exact orders, but his expression didn't change. Maybe his eyes sharpened a little bit, but for the most part, he continued drinking his coffee while awaiting her next words.
"Rather than going to them one by one, I decided to just make the one we're searching for come to me instead," he said quietly.
"How?"
"I decided to purposely be a little less secretive and expose my existence to them by asking around the market up north. I pretended to have been investigating the number of bakers that each noble house has hired."
"Because of the wheat," he muttered, understanding her decision.
"Yes," she nodded. "The wheat shipments seemed to have been frequent, so they must've been constantly using the wheat to make bread. And it would take a lot of bakers to make enough bread for that many people without burning out."
"By asking around, the house purchasing the wheat would know that you're aware of their secret purchases," Bell eyes flicked up briefly before returning to his cup.
"Yep. I even asked around about perhaps if they had private bakers off the books, just to get the point across that I knew. Most merchants just ignored me or were confused about why I was willing to spend money to find out about such useless information. And although I didn't catch them in the act, a good actor whoever they are… they did send people after me, so one of them must've been working for House Droselmire."
"Droselmire?"
For the first time in their conversation, Bell's expression shifted.
His brows tightened so very slightly that it was almost imperceivable that there was a shift.
It was a name he recognized based on the research he did. But it was not a name from the novel. Or if it was, it must've barely been mentioned because he couldn't recall.
She began to explain to him about how she latched onto their carriages and followed them around the entire time until they led her to the Droselmire estate.
"I stayed the entire night inside the mansion investigating the place."
And as she explained the horrors of what she saw inside the mansion, the people in cages, the smell of burned flesh at the furnace, the tanks, the kids, the boy whose head was stitched onto a wolf for fun, some of the conversations she overheard, etc., Bell's brows tightened more and more.
"I saw the culprit we've been searching for, the one responsible for the experiments. A scientist by the name of Doctor Debronx. That bastard. It took everything out of me to hold back from killing him, as there were others in the room. My invisibility would've turned off, and with aggro and attention on me, it wouldn't be possible to reactivate it without getting killed."
Bell nodded, "You did the right thing."
"...Now what?" she asked.
"It's time to go deal with them," Bell said as he stood up. "I'm going to have a conversation with my grandfather, then take a quick shower. Let's meet back up in an hour from now."
She agreed.
As she watched his back get smaller, she didn't notice as blood began to drip from Bell's palms.
He was enraged by what he had just heard.
Particularly, the boy who was stitched to a wolf.
'This has to be another reason why I was brought to this world. To deal with bastards like this.'