Chapter 423: [Bonus Chapter] Carambola

"Thank you. Have a nice day."

An older gentleman with graying hair that wasn't quite silver yet but on their way there had already resembled steel in color nodded to the shopkeeper and went out of the shop with a bag full of groceries.

"Mhmmhmm~"

The gentleman was of course Carambola, the servant, bodyguard, and the caretaker of the daughter of Fillia Envy, the daughter of the main branch of the Envy family.

Funnily enough, Carambola was not a member of the Envy family - at least not when it comes to his bloodline.

He was a rather special person, born in a poor noble family, Loyalty, he very quickly showed off abilities that made him stand out from other members of his family and even go as far as to enter Wraths family to be trained as a bodyguard.

Normally, someone like him had no chance of ever coming close to the tightly guarded, strictly bloodline-based hierarchy of the Envy family.

Then how come that a man like him was not only let in on the darkest secret of the most secretive family out of the seven main families of the kingdom but got to an undeniably high position of guarding the girl that was set to become the future queen through the arranged marriage with the kingdom's first prince, Roan Greed?

Well... Carambola didn't achieve that in any normal way...

First of all, a little trivia...

The thing was, he had not one or two but three inborn unlocked affinities - one tier 2 and two tier 3 skills that many would have killed to get their hands on but had no ability to receive.

First was the tier 2 close combat skill.

It was an incredibly useful skill - it was almost laughable how many powerful warriors could be disarmed and incapacitated like mere toddlers once Carambola got close to them.

Coupled with a speed-increasing skill, it was a child's play go through the bodyguard's training at the Wraths family training facility.

Then, there was the ridiculous tier 3 mana drain skill.

A skill that simply couldn't be more perfectly synergized with his close combat skill.

Mana was important not only for mages but warriors too - mana dictated how many times a skill can be used - without it, there was no enhancing the body, no shooting out powerful spells, no dashing away breaking the rules of the natural order.

It was a broken skill that Carambola could pull of indefinitely since the amount of mana drained was equal to the amount that the mana drain required to remain active.

Those two skills alone should have made him unstoppable.

Should.

Because his third affinity was both a great strength and the biggest demerit that he could ever receive.

Tier 3 skill, Loyalty - the very reason for his family name.

Carambola was the first person in generations who was born with it - in the distant past that skill was a reason why Loyaltys was one of the most promiscuous families of the middle-tier nobility, favored the most by the Pride family - but with the disappearance of that skill, so did the status and close relationship and Loyalty family was pushed lower and lower down the hierarchy...

What was worse, even though Carambola was born with it, it did not mean that he could raise in power...

Usually, tier 3 skills would get rid of its tier 2 base skill flaws - but not loyalty.

As its name suggest that skill literally required another person to work out.

It was a skill that bonded the user and the recipient and granted the user all of the powers of the recipient in exchange for absolute loyalty for as long as the recipient was alive.

...and that wasn't even the demerit...

The actual problem was that loyalty wasn't just inactive like any other skill - it was constantly influencing its user to actively search for the recipient - the user could not help it at all as the loyalty was a pride-based skill that seemed to have a will on its own.

And that was the reason why Carambola didn't simply enter the Envy family as much as he was forcefully pushed into it by the series of rather fortunate - or unfortunate - series of events.

The thing was, young Crambola training under the Wrath family was the absolute best candidate to become the next bodyguard of the royal family.

Was is the keyword.

Because one day as he was traveling, he encountered a group of Envys that was in the middle of capturing elves - and the group was led by the avatar of envy of that time, Rambutan Envy's father.

At first, the head of the Envy family ordered his men to kill Carambola off, but the youngster with powerful skills wasn't going to just lay down and die and began fighting them off all at once.

At one point it even looked like he would be victorious...

...until the avatar of envy used his powers and stole both his mana drain skill and close combat skill, using the overwhelming, system-defying steal skill variant only available to him.

To make it all worse, the loyalty skill started acting up too - but that turned out to be the blessing in disguise.

Thankfully, Rambutan's father was aware of both who Carambola was and the properties of the loyalty skill and offered him a deal.

Use the skill and be bound to his family forever or die.

Considering that Carambola was already an older gentleman in the current moment, it is obvious what he had chosen, right?

Even when the old avatar had died and Carambola was technically free, he had no choice but to use the loyalty skill on someone else from the Envy family to escape the possible assassination since he knew far too much at that point - that's how he ended up as young Fillia's servant.

Honestly, he chose that child as the recipient of the loyalty skill merely because that would give him a few years of peace before she would start ordering him around.

But, considering that Fillia was already almost fourteen years old and already putting her own plans into motion, that peaceful time was already over.

Still, was it that bad?

Carambola couldn't escape his age and the sentimentality that came with it.

Whether it was because of the loyalty skill or not, he was unable to stop thinking about the daughter of the Envy family as his own granddaughter, and certainly wanted best for her - and was fully intending on helping her realize whatever plan she came up with as long as he will be able to move around.

"...she's been in a bad mood recently... let's forget about the balanced diet for today and just go full comfort food mode..."

The old man tilted his head and looked towards the Envy's mansion with a soft smile, ignoring whatever commotion was happening near the shops with adventuring equipment.

"Sir...! S-sir Carambola...!"

"...?"

Though it looked like it wasn't in the cards for him to just go about his day, one of the Envy family members ran up to him, pale, scared, and on the verge of pissing himself.

"Young lord Apple. What's the matter?"

Carambola raised his bow and asked the beautiful man.

"At...! At the kobold's weapon shop...! We thought that it is the Pride's girl and her undead...! But...! But it's a girl from the Gluttony family and her bodyguard... he must be from... a one of the Wraths...! He's beating everyone up...!"

The scared man cried out pointing at the center of the commotion where the most people gathered in a circle to observe the events play out.

"You... You know people from the Wrath family, right...! Please! Stop him!"

The man gasped in tears.

"Gluttony and Wrath? Are you sure?"

Carambola straightened his back and looked down at Apple.

"Yes...! Must be! The girl ate my sword! The masked guy is using a skill similar to yours...! The close combat...!"

The beautiful man reported, trying to catch his breath.

"...fine. I'll go check it out."

The older gentleman nodded, agreeing more out of curiosity than the need to help out the Envy family.

He moved past Apple and walked towards the center of the action.

"...about young lady Fillia? Is trash like you able to set up a little meeting between me and her?"

"!!!!!!!!"

As he was walking through the gathered crowd, Carambola heard a sentence that made the hair on his neck stand up.

This no longer was just some random encounter - the child he was protecting was clearly being targeted!

The steel-haired gentleman pushed past the other people with no remorse and finally reached the spot...

...a crimson-haired girl was standing right by a person that certainly didn't want to be recognized they were covered from head to toe in inconspicuous dark clothes...

...and that person was holding up another member of the Envy family, that Carambola recognized as Lime Envy - holding him in the air by the throat, choking the poor man with no remorse.

"...what is the meaning of this...?"

The old gentleman asked with a frown.

*thump*

The reaction was instantaneous - the disguised person threw Lime away like trash, and looked right at the old man holding the groceries.

"Carambola...!"

"!!!!"

The joy that he spoke the gentleman's name with was so disturbing, that the man in question leaned away and gritted his teeth.