Cameraman Never Dies

"Aah, finally!" Judge thought as he watched them all vanish after the teleportation. If his understanding of the scriptwriter ability was correct, Selena would now be forced to demonstrate some grand principle. Not that he cared much about what it was.

All he had done was subtly manipulate Selena into telling the others she would reveal a principle— a trick that would drain every drop of her ether. He knew full well she had a reservoir of ether large enough to power a city, but the script needed her to be vulnerable. And for that, her energy had to be depleted.

Everything was falling into place exactly as he had planned. Now, it was time to teleport to Hawthorne— or Lucifer, as the man wore his mask when he left the Studio. The next step? Pure acting. The kind of performance that would make Oscar winners look like amateurs fumbling with cue cards.

In fact, the best actors weren't in theaters or cinemas. They were in boardrooms, draped in power suits and dishing out corporate politicking with the finesse of seasoned performers. Judge was no stranger to that art; he could match any of those sly foxes with ease.

He deactivated his Enhanced Cognition, wincing as the ache in his head felt like a drill grinding into his brain. And his brain, mind you, was far more valuable than most people's— he liked to remind himself of that.

Rising from his seat, he waved away the table with a flick of his hand, watching it disappear into the void of the Studio.

He exited the space swiftly, stepping back into the patch of grass where he'd started. The eerie déjà vu that once haunted him here was gone, replaced by the more immediate dread of his master finding him. He shuddered at the thought. That was a horror he didn't care to imagine.

Without hesitation, without even glancing around, he focused his ether and began folding space toward his location. It costed a ton of ether, and he did not have much ether left after casting it.

———@@novelbin@@

Lucifer regarded the two pitiful beings before him with a cold, detached gaze. They had originally been his targets—marked for death by a mysterious woman who had promised him a reward of 200 sten if he succeeded.

That was no small sum, and it immediately raised suspicions. It was rare for any quest, unless it was to kill or investigate someone immensely powerful, to exceed a reward of 30 sten.

But Lucifer was confident. His new master backed him now, and his instincts told him to take the risk. And as expected, his master had sensed something was off with the whole ordeal.

The girl had lived a life steeped in misery. Abandoned at birth, she was taken in by a farmer who was anything but kind. At six, her village was burned to the ground, liberating her from one form of misery only to cast her into another.

She spent years as a slave, each new owner meeting with a fate more miserable than the last. At nine, she was finally taken in by an ether researcher, and now, at ten, she was under the care of Percival, who seems to work for the researcher who took care of her.

Percival, however, had lived his life like Lucifer, both were insanely powerful entities. After an accident that took his arms and crippled his legs, his powers faded, and now he could neither fight nor flee. But unlike Lucifer, he had given up entirely— resigned to his fate with no desire to seek out a path forward.

"Pathetic," Lucifer thought bitterly. "Giving up is the first and last step to failure. Those who refuse to grow are no better than dead weight." He waited, his mind drifting to the impending arrival of his master— the only person who seemed to know his past. Only those his family had once served knew his true origins.

His family had cast him aside for being weak, and though Lucifer had since grown in power, it was still not enough to exact the revenge he craved, which was a goal that kept him going until he lost his powers.

Now that they had found him in his weakened state and offered him strength, he had accepted without question. It was in his blood to serve, he had now entirely forgotten about revenge, and now a new purpose drove him forward.

But where was the recorder? Time had passed since Lucifer stepped aside, waiting for his master's entrance. "He must be debating whether these weaklings are even worth his time," Lucifer mused.

Just then, a menacing presence made itself known—the air thickening with a suffocating weight. The recorder had arrived, his presence alone enough to command absolute submission.

Lucifer immediately withdrew his will. Servants were never to exert their will in the presence of their masters. That was a common law everyone in the world followed, exuding will in front of their masters was considered as an act of disobedience, unless it was instructed.

The figure before him was unmistakable: a red cloak draped over a green vest and crisp white shirt, a green top hat with a red ribbon adorned with delicate golden embroidery, and, of course, that signature white mask— a permanent, unsettling smile etched across it.

To Lucifer, the mask symbolized his master's merciful heart, but to others, it was a chilling facade that hid the true terror beneath.

"What do we have here?" Judge's voice boomed, low and authoritative, dripping with a forced gravitas. The weight of his will pressed down on everyone present, and his words carried a finality that left no room for defiance.

He moved closer to Percival, his presence as menacing as a predator toying with its prey, Percival's clenched his teeth in anger.

"Oh, how fierce you are," Judge mused, his tone was laced with mockery. He reached out, brushing his fingers along his chin as if contemplating something amusing.

Despite the crushing pressure of Judge's will, the young girl forced out a strained voice, defiant in the face of overwhelming power. "Don't... touch Percival... you villain."

Judge arched an eyebrow, the corners of his mouth twitching under the mask. 'Me? A villain?' He found her accusation amusing, but he wasn't the sort to lash out at a mere child.

He could be called a villain— many had done so— but he was not without principles. His parents, when they were alive in his previous life, had raised him with a sense of right and wrong.

"Villainy is such a subjective term," he thought, his masked smile hiding the smirk that played at his lips.