The Lady's Butler: I Reincarnated To Serve The Villainess

Chapter 222: A Talk With The Cult Master

While the four dukes and the King faced the Excidium, Adrian and Renelle faced a different danger.

Renlle stood protectively in front of Adrian as she looked at the man before them.

She didn’t need to see his face to recognize exactly who he was, and she recalled what happened the last time he appeared before her.

"Calm down," the cult master said with a chuckle, "I have no intention of harming him this time."

The last time he tried, he had suffered more losses, so this time, he was only here for a conversation.

Renelle said nothing in response; instead, the environment around them suddenly got colder.

The cult master just let out a sigh before saying, "Fine then."

He lifted his hand, and before Renelle had the chance to react, the cult master snapped his fingers.

The scene around them suddenly changed, and Adrian found himself and the cult master surrounded by what seemed to be the sky.

"Now then," the cult master started, "let’s talk."

Adrian looked around for a while, realizing that although it didn’t seem like it, they definitely were not in Avera anymore.

"Where are we?" Adrian calmly asked.

"Somewhere we can talk," the Cult Master replied, studying the kid’s apparent lack of concern with interest.

"A dimension separated from Avera," Adrian muttered after realizing that he couldn’t get through to Renelle, which meant she was currently worrying.

"You’re quick to catch on," the cult master said with a nod.

The two silently assessed the other; each was an anomaly in a different sense. One is an anomaly of existence, the other a timeline anomaly.

"You’re not afraid," the Cult Master said finally.

"Should I be?" Adrian asked.

Was he certain that he was strong enough to escape this place unharmed? No, he definitely wasn’t.

And he preferred not dying again, even though he’d come back, through the Ouroborus’ mark.

But, there remained the fact that he could get Noctis to eat their way out of here.

"I suppose not," the cult master replied, seemingly satisfied with that answer.

"So," Adrian said as his entire demeanor seemed to change, "what do you want?"

He couldn’t afford to waste any more time here since he was certain that his lady was currently waiting on him.

The cult master’s demeanor also changed as he looked directly at Adrian before asking, "What are you?"

"What am I?" Adrian repeated as he looked at the man before him.

The cult master was a figure that remained a mystery, even in the manhwa, yet here he was, curious about someone he knew was an anomaly.

Perhaps this was a chance to see exactly what the cult master’s goal was, and to do so, he had to keep him curious.

"I’m simply the lady’s butler," the butler finally responded with a small smile on his face.

"Is that so?" The cult master let out, his tone sounding amused.

Adrian said nothing in response; instead, he waited for the cult master to continue.

"A butler, huh?" The cult master said as he looked up at the vast expanse of blue above them.

"One that has caused me considerably more trouble than my future self would’ve foreseen," he added.

Adrian said nothing, though this confirmed his suspicions about the cult master knowing the future.

"Your interference made me wonder if you were one of their own," the cult master looked at the butler before adding, "the V@i#."

He said a single word, but as though Avera herself had censored it, all Adrian heard was deafening static, and a searing pain shot through his head.

"It seems the world still prevents their name from being said," the cult master added after seeing Adrian’s reaction, "though I was certain its restrictions wouldn’t reach here."

Adrian straightened up slowly, noticing that the pain was already fading, but he still couldn’t help but ask Noctis, ’Is he talking about you?’

"No,"the cat responded,"I don’t think I’ve had interactions with this human before."

Adrian just nodded and continued looking at the cult master. There was only one other name that Avera herself would reject,

The name of the light beings.

This told Adrian that the cult master seemed to know what they were.

"You still haven’t told me why you brought me here," the butler said.

The Cult Master continued to study him, wondering whether the kid had deliberately dismissed the fact that there was a name he couldn’t hear.

Or perhaps he simply didn’t care.

Regardless, the kid was a pawn he needed to bring under his control to achieve his goal, so the cult master decided to respond.

"Tell me, Adrian, have you ever had someone you cared for?" the Cult Master asked.

Adrian looked at him with a frown.

"That’s an odd place to start," he said.

"Humour me," the Cult Master said.

"I believe you already know the answer to that," the butler replied, "even if your countless moles haven’t informed you yet, I’m certain you’ve already witnessed it for yourself."

The cult master wasn’t too surprised that the anomaly knew about his...informants...after all, he already sent one as a gift back to them.

Not that he cared, since they were all disposable anyway.

"Fair enough," the Cult Master said as he turned back toward the sky.

"Then do you understand," he said, "what it means to watch something you care for get destroyed whilst being?"

Adrian did, he spent his entire previous life reading Renelle’s death over and over again without being of any help.

The Cult Master looked at his expression before nodding, already knowing Adrian’s answer without him actually saying it.

"Then you’ll understand what I’m about to tell you," he said.

There was silence for a while as Adrian waited for him to continue, and he did.

"In a timeline different from this one," he started, "Avera completely fell, and funny enough, it neither fell by my hands nor even the beast or corrupted. "

"It fell to something that came from the outside entirely," The cult master continued, "things that can only be described as beings of light."

Adrian knew this already, after all, Avera had shown it to him, but he said nothing and allowed the cult master to continue.

"Everything was destroyed upon their arrival," he continued, "and Avera was utterly unprepared for it."

"I watched it happen," the Cult Master confirmed, "from a place they hadn’t found yet. A space between locations, not unlike this one."

Adrian continued listening in silence, finally understanding why the Cult Master had suddenly vanished from the story.

He had somehow seen what was coming and decided to save himself, but there remained the question of how he came back in time...or at least how he had memories of that timeline.

And the cult master’s next words were an answer to that.

"I won’t bore you with how," the Cult Master said, "only that I found a way to send my memories back...at least, some of it."

The butler looked at the cult master before him as he asked, "You’re telling me this, because?"

"You seem, my goal this time is to prepare Avera for their arrival," the cult master said, "and for that, I’ll need your help, anomaly. "

’He’s lying,’ Adrian thought, ’or at least, not telling the whole truth.’

"Obviously,"Noctis said.

The Cult Master studied Adrian’s face, searching for something. Doubt, maybe, or perhaps fear of what was coming.

He found neither.

"You don’t believe me," he said.

"I see no reason to," Adrian simply responded, "after all, you already tried killing me once, and then there’s your current attack."

"That is true," the cult master nodded, placing a hand on his chin, "but the results were undeniable. "

"Hmm?" Adrian looked at him with a frown, and the man took it as a sign to continue.

"You see, pressure reveals what comfort hides," the Cult Master said simply, "Ignis pushing past his limit, the Grand Dukes discovering their actual ceiling tonight, none of that would’ve happened without something pushing them past what they thought they were capable of."

In other words, he was claiming that his attacks had all been part of his plan to prepare Avera for what was coming.

And if Adrian hadn’t known any better, he might have believed him.

"What a load of bullshit," the butler muttered, too quietly for the Cult Master to make out.

"Hm?" the Cult Master uttered, tilting his head in question.

"You’re not interested in Avera’s growth," Adrian said, "What you really want is to control it because you believe yourself to be above everyone else."

"Isn’t that right, professor Aldric?"