MC's POV
Frank's body hit the ground with a dull thud.
I didn't stop there. I raised my hand and fired five more Magic Bullets into him. Each one punched through his body, leaving small holes of burnt flesh.
His corpse twitched once, then went still for good.
Only then did I lower my arm.
My breath came out rough.
The air tasted of iron and smoke.
I leaned against the nearest tree, feeling my legs tremble under my weight.
My arms ached, my chest burned, and my head throbbed with pain.
I was drained.
My mana was nearly gone, scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But that wasn't what bothered me most.
It was what I had just witnessed.
'Frank was an Exorcist.'
Frank Estenwald.
That man was supposed to be a normal human just like my father.
He was a bastard uncle who'd sided with my mother's family when they tried to rip off everything from me.
In my past life, he was the one who spearheaded the betrayal.
He pushed the legal attack, seized the house, and froze our accounts.
He might've killed me too if I hadn't ended up isekai'd to Wageah along with my mother and half of earth's population.
And now here he was, revealed as an Exorcist?
Not just any Exorcist either.
Those dull, lifeless eyes he activated mid-fight, I recognized them.
And that sword style, fluid and brutal at the same time, didn't belong to some back-alley Exorcist mercenary.
Both of them belonged to the Daelthorn family.
House Daelthorn was a dominant family within the [Round Table] Clan. Round Table itself was a major Hidden Clan that secretly ruled the world from behind the curtain.
Like all Clans, Round Table was a coalition of elite Exorcist families.
But everyone knew who the top dog in Round Table was.
Daelthorn.
Their symbol was their unique swordsmanship, and their dull, grey lifeless eyes. Only the direct descendants were allowed to have both of them.
The rumor said the eyes of the direct descendants' lose their shine because they've killed too many people, and that's how they became dull and hollow.
But in truth, those eyes were an awakened trait.
They enhanced perception and allowed one to use powerful abilities.
Paired with House Daelthorn's elite swordsmanship, the people of that family were a nightmare to fight.
'Was Frank a bastard child of House Daelthorn?'
I didn't remember a direct descendant named Frank among the members of House Daelthorn.
'Maybe he was killed before I returned to Earth in my last life.'
'That would explain why I never found that bastard Frank even though I searched for him.'
In my last life, I had come back to earth after I grew strong in another world.
I had even searched for Frank because I wanted to kill him.
But I never found him.
The information in front of me flipped everything I thought I knew upside down.
How could someone like Frank Estenwald— no, Frank Daelthorn be my father's brother?
'Doesn't this mean dad is also a Daelthorn? And a direct descendant at that.'
My father had always seemed normal. Just a tired man working an office job, trying to provide for us.
What didn't make sense was how the records of two direct descendants of the Daelthorn family disappeared from history.
'It seems like dad was exiled from his family, and told to live as a normal human.'
'But that still doesn't explain why there was no record of him in the Daelthorn family. Frank is the same.'
'I need to find out what happened in the past.'
It would help me understand why Frank wanted to kill my parents.
'Now I understand how Frank was able to hire Exorcist mercenaries to attack my house today.'
'It was something he could easily do with his identity as a Daelthorn.'
If Frank was a Daelthorn, killing him made matters complicated.
'House Daelthorn will easily find out that Frank attacked my family, and got killed in return.'
'They won't know it was done by me, but they will still think a hidden guard of ours did that.'
House Daelthorn could attack my family for revenge since we killed Frank in their eyes.
'I need a deterrent to stop them.'
I didn't regret killing Frank, but I needed to prepare for the future.
I drew out a few simple alchemy materials from my Spatial Inventory.
A cracked gem, a piece of wood, a drop of mercury.
"Are you making a weapon?" Yuna asked.
'Yuna, it's not exactly a weapon.'
I placed the materials on the ground, drew runes and began chanting. The faint hum of mana filled the air. The items glowed, fusing together on the ground.
A few seconds later, a staff appeared. This staff had no special property. Creating it was easier than converting gold into mana.
What mattered was the appearance of staff.
Yuna tilted her head.
"What is that supposed to be?"