Chapter 42: CHAPTER 42- Past
Immediately as he entered the woman's consciousness, he felt her sleepy state weakening.
But with this skill, sleep and dreams were his home territory.
He willed her to fall into a deep slumber and then commanded her.
First, he had to find her weakness. Otherwise controlling her would become difficult.
'Dream about the people you love the most.'
And slowly the darkness around him started changing as images started appearing.
This woman was Nadya Kazuo, the third wife of the Duke. She had a son and a daughter and when he asked her to dream he was expecting her to think of them. After all, can you love people more than your family?
But unlike what Ray expected, none of them appeared. Neither did her parents or anyone of the sort.
The person that appeared confused him. After all, he had no visible face!
The man who appeared was tall and muscular, with an eye tattooed to his right arm, however, his face was covered in a mask.
'This is the person she loves the most? What the fuck? Not the Duke?'
[Lust System: Oooh suspense, did someone beat you to it?]
Ignoring the system, he changed his instruction.
'Show me all your memories regarding this person…'
And the scenes changed again.
Nadya was younger in this scene. She was walking hand in hand with the person in mask. However, this person was the same as he appeared in the last image. He was neither older nor younger.
And the scene changed again.
She was slightly older in this picture.
She was sitting with the same person but this time they were holding hands.
She opened her mouth to speak.
"You know how much I love you right?"
"I love you more than you could ever love me!"
"I know… you will care for me even if it puts your life in danger…"
"Of course I will. If it's for you, I will do anything!"
"I know."
And she rested her head on his shoulder.
[Lust System: I know this troupe! Someone loves a person but is forced to leave them and marry someone else! Ah the love!]
However Ray felt something was wrong.
'Why is the man wearing a mask… and…'
He felt s alight resistance from the memories. Like something was veiling them.
Determined to find about this he kept going.
'Show me how you met this person!'
The surroundings changed once more.
This time Nadya was young. A young child around ten. She appeared to be smiling and looking at something.
Following her eyesight he saw a young boy about her age facing her. He was still wearing a mask and the eye tattoo still existed on his arm.
[Lust System: Childhood sweethearts separated? A tragic story of love behind the scenes?]
But this time Ray could feel something very wrong with this scene.
The surroundings were all dark. Everything other than the girl and the boy was black like the void. The smile on the face of young Nadya seemed uncanny and the boy standing alone facing her from the darkness seems too weird.
'No! something is wrong!'
He immediately spread his senses all around the place, going deep into the darkness.
It seemed to have no end, the darkness seemed unending, but he kept pushing until finally he hit a wall. A veil.
'Something or someone was blocking her memories…'
His first instance was to think of his own condition, but he shook his head. The condition of this woman was too easy for him to solve. His own however was different. His own memories weren't blocked, there was no resistance, it simply appeared to be eliminated.
But seeing this veil and the two young children looking at each other in an unnatural way he felt his curiosity rising.
'Break, show me the reality.'
His Dream Lord spell was almost at the epitome of sleep, dream and subconsciousness. Mere low level memory suppression skills never stopped him.
The moment the veil was erased…
The face of the young Nadya distorted. Her smile vanished and was replaced by a horrified face. Tears and snot ran down her face making the cute face hard to look at.
Her eyes however were still looking at the same direction.
But the young boy's image started distorting as well.
The figure started growing and in no time it became the same muscular tall man wearing a mask and an eye tattoo on his right arm.
However unlike the peaceful scene in the earlier image, he was holding a long sword.
His black and purple clothes were coated in splashes of blood and his sword was dripping blood as he walked towards the horrified and crying child.
The darkness beyond the two of them started receding and an even more horrifying scene was revealed.
Nadya seemed to be backed up in a corner of a room, while the room itself looked like the part of a huge mansion.
As the man approached her, sprawled at the door's entrance were mangled corpses, torn off arms and legs and the pool of blood it formed rapidly increased.
Nadya's eyes slowly moved from the man to one corner of the room as she slowly tried to open her mouth.
Her tiny arms appeared to be shaking as she kept opening and closing her mouth but no voice came out.
Ray looked at the corner of the room where another gruesome scene awaited him.
A man's corpse was laid there but it was headless. Or rather, the head appeared to have been torn out of his body and it rested on his chest while blood pooled around his neck and flowed like a stream.
As the man with the mask kept walking towards Nadya, her moist eyes drifted once again to a different location, this time the bed in the room.
And once again, the sight was plain gruesome.
A woman laid there but she appeared to have died recently. Her throat was slit, but that was probably the best thing she experienced. Her corpse had no clothes and the whole body was ridden with wounds.
The once beautiful face was bruised and almost unrecognizable.
One didn't need too rich of an imagination to think what had happened.
Nadya looked back at the man with a horrified face as spoke between soft sobs.
"Mom… Dad… I'm sorry…"
And just like that, the scene ended once again.
[Lust System: Scratch everything I said, it's disgusting.]
Ray clenched his fists.
The masked man disgusted him too much. Not just because of this one image, but because of the rest.
He had manipulated the very person whose whole family he killed to be in love with him by suppressing some of her memories.
And for the first time in this life, Ray added a name to his must kill list.
He didn't have a whole lot of emotions due to his calm mind, but he did feel quite bad for Nadya.
Her whole life had been a lie, an illusion.
Ray knew this feeling all too well. He had people he genuinely loved just like Nadya, and he had lost a lot of them previously and even got betrayed by some of them.
In looking for Nadya's weakness, Ray had found something completely different.
Ray had decided what to do with this woman.
But before that, he had to look at the rest of her memories.
'Show me how you joined the association.'
And this time the image changed and a familiar man appeared.
A red haired man.
Nadya here looked to be in her twenties.
She was standing in front of two people.
A masked man with the eye tattoo and the red haired man.
At this moment, the masked man started speaking.
"You remember what happened to your parents right?"
Nadya seemed to nod as a murderous glint passed her eyes.
"Everyone says my parents, one of the marquises of the North died in a power struggle fighting with the other marquises. However from what you have shown me, it was a ploy of the palace to give more power and control to the Duke."
"Exactly. You are not the only victim. The royals are complete scum. They have implicated thousands of commoners and lower nobles to maintain their rule over the years."
Nadya listened with all her attention.
"Our association is created to pass justice over the wicked. We will kill people who harm the innocent and slowly take over the empire…"
And with that, the masked man pointed towards the red haired man.
"This is our vice-leader. Everyone follows his instructions. Under his leadership and guidance we will make the common people's voices heard once again!"
The red haired man smiled and waved his hand at Nadya.
"Welcome to our association. You don't have to be humble, your lover here is the first ever person to join our association!"
She looked at the masked man with a proud expression.
The red haired man continued speaking.
"From today on, your code name is Number 3, remember that and we will soon introduce you to other members!"
And with that, the man left leaving Nadya alone with the masked man.
She turned to look at him and asked...
"Number 3 huh... so i was pretty late... then what are you? Number 1?"
The man shook his head.
"Not really... I am..."
After watching for a few more minutes the scene ended and Ray cancelled his Dream Lord skill.
It seemed that Nadya was somehow convinced that her parents were killed by a conspiracy made by the palace, made to join the association with the intention of helping people, trained as an assassin to kill evil people and marry the duke as a chance of overtaking control over the North.
They thoroughly controlled her memory to not let her develop any suspicion towards her and so that she doesn't suddenly forget the masked man and start loving the Duke.
Ray couldn't help but scoff.
Really, the Duke seems to be prone on being manipulated.
His third wife who he did almost everything for never actually loved her.
But he felt even more pitiful for the woman.
Her entire life was a lie. She couldn't avenge her parents, going so far that she was forced to love the person who killed them. She was completely lied to, made to kill anyone whom she thought was 'evil' and not allowed to love the only person, the Duke, who could love her back.
And with that, the ingenious mind of Ray made up a beautiful plan.
'Why not make her kill this masked man herself?'
And with that, his face broke into another smile.
'Don't worry, your life will change for the better… you will avenge your parents, find out the truth and be able to love someone…'
[Lust System: We all know who that will be.]
Ray was confident he could make the perfect plan to find and make Nadya kill this masked man. He literally had a title in his third life named 'Master Manipulator'.
And he had found out another thing about the association.
Number 1 was not the first person to join it, it was this masked man.
And he was named...
Zero.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone