I Am The Madman Of This Family

Chapter 10: I Was the One Who Seduced It First (3)

When Keter didn’t listen, Volkanus gripped his hammer more aggressively. Though Volkanus was currently a blacksmith, he was formerly a combatant who had smashed countless monsters and knight heads. His intimidating presence couldn’t be ignored, even by a high-ranking knight, but Keter just casually looked at the bow.

“What’s this thing’s name?” Keter asked, pointing at the jet-black bow.

“This is your last warning. Put down Amaranth. I’ll give you the finest bow, not these pieces of trash.”

“Amaranth. It rolls off the tongue nicely.”

Amaranth vibrated the moment Keter mentioned the bow’s name. In an instant, it transformed from a bow into a liquid form and enveloped Keter’s right hand. Since it couldn’t take over his mind, it was trying to take over his body first.

Volkanus mercilessly swung his hammer at Keter’s head, trying to knock him unconscious before Keter became the Marksman of the Demon Arrow.

The hammer was destructive and powerful enough to kill an ogre instantly. However, Keter caught the attack with his right palm on the spot.

The hammer, made of black iron, which was ten times harder than regular steel, shook violently. Volkanus had swung with all his might, but Keter was only pushed back slightly.

Stepping back two paces to steady himself, Volkanus muttered, “Damn, is it too late? Has he already become the Marksman of the Demon Arrow…?”

Volkanus was certain that Keter’s incredible strength that blocked his hammer came from Amaranth. He believed Keter had already been taken over by the Demon Bow.

But Keter, shaking off his right hand, said, “Ow, my hand. Grandpa, why are you trying to crush someone’s head all of a sudden? That’s something that Liqueurians would do.”

“Huh?”

Keter was completely normal. Volkanus finally sensed something was off. From what he had witnessed, the eyes of the Marksman of the Demon Arrow turned completely black as they lost their sanity. However, Keter’s eyes were still those of a Sefira: deep, with a mix of purple and gold.

Volkanus looked closely at Keter’s right arm and saw that Amaranth had not completely taken over. It had swallowed his right hand, but had not gone up past his wrist.

Amaranth sent black tendrils up Keter’s arm, still trying to take over, but—

“Hey, the adults are trying to have a conversation. Stop it.”

The wriggling black tendrils limply retreated back into his hand as Keter swatted them away as if catching a mosquito.

Volkanus was shocked. Over the years, many heroes tried to control Amaranth. However, they all failed, either going berserk as the Marksman of the Demon Arrow or, in rare cases, making a contract with it to control it briefly. Even those who managed to make a contract inevitably faced doom. As Besil was also one of the victims, Volkanus and Besil promised they would seal Amaranth away forever in an isolated place.

However, Volkanus secretly hid Amaranth in the storage room because of his instincts as a dwarf, which drove him to cherish exceptional artifacts like his life.

“Grandpa, why did you leave such a troublesome thing here? Were you actually waiting for its rightful owner to appear?” Keter asked.

Keter, quick-witted, had easily figured it out.

Volkanus swallowed hard.

“... Who are you? How can you control Amaranth?”

“Oh, this thing?”

Keter raised his right hand, which had turned completely black from being taken over by Amaranth.

“I’m not controlling it; I’m just keeping it locked up. It had the audacity to try and take over my body.”

“That’s even more unbelievable! Locking it up? Did you learn magic or something? No, even a Grand Wizard wouldn’t be able to confine a cursed artifact like that…!”

Keter pointed at himself with his thumb and said, “I told you I’m quite an exceptional guy.”

Volkanus gripped his hammer tightly, deep in thought.

Keter wasn’t wrong. Deep down, Volkanus also wanted to find a right owner for Amaranth as a blacksmith. Though it was cursed, his soul as a blacksmith didn’t want Amaranth, an exceptional artifact, to be sealed away forever.

But until now, no one had been able to fully control Amaranth—not even the past patriarch nor Besil. Besil had managed to make a contract with Amaranth and control Demon Arrows. But after a certain incident, he broke the contract with Amaranth and handed it over to Volkanus. Besil pleaded to Volkanus not to mention Amaranth to his family and to seal it away forever so that no one would ever find it.

Instead of saying he would, Volkanus responded to Besil with silence. Since then, he hadn’t mentioned Amaranth to Besil’s children either… but he had subtly tested them. Whenever Besil’s children came to receive a bow, Volkanus would always call them here, telling them to choose a bow as a test.

Among them, only one person noticed the existence of Amaranth. That person was the genius of the Sefira family, Cherbyl El Sefira. Like Keter, Cherbyl discovered Amaranth by its temptation and even held it in his hands, but he resisted its lure with immense willpower.

With that, Cherbyl left the family and went to study abroad in the empire.

Honestly, Volkanus wanted to ask Keter to hand over Amaranth because giving such an artifact to a suspicious bastard he had just met today was absurd. However, it seemed that Amaranth had already fused with Keter’s body. Besides, it didn’t seem like Keter would give it up easily.

“Listen, Bumpkin. You may have trapped Amaranth for now, but if you try to use it, it will force a contract.”

“That sounds perfect. I like contracts,” Keter replied.

“Let me finish! Amaranth will grant you seven Demon Arrows. Six of them will be yours, but the last one will belong to Amaranth. The six will hit your targets as you intend, but the final arrow will go where Amaranth wants and bring inevitable misfortune.”

“I’ll just turn the misfortune onto someone else.”

“”

Volkanus realized that no words would make Keter return Amaranth.

The last resort would be to kill Keter and take Amaranth.

Keter had blocked his hammer with one hand. Even though Keter appeared to lack muscle, Volkanus, having seen much in his time, knew that some individuals developed their muscles internally, such as elves. However, Keter didn’t have any characteristics of an elf, which meant that he must have learned a technique to compress muscles. As far as Volkanus knew, that kind of technique was typically used by assassins.

Volkanus had no choice but to concentrate and look into Keter’s mind. It was a dwarven ability that he despised, but it was necessary now.

Volkanus, who looked into Keter’s mind, was surprised. When someone gained immense power at a young age, they often became arrogant and come to rely solely on that power. They sought to resolve issues with brute force, and over time, their voice became filled with an intent to kill, and their body exuded the scent of blood.

But Keter was not like that. He was overwhelmingly powerful, but his voice was cheerful, and rather than smelling of blood, his body emitted a reassuring scent that put people at ease.

Volkanus denied it, but his dwarven instincts had already acknowledged Keter as the true owner of Amaranth he had been

Only remembering the positives about Amaranth, Taragon scoured every corner of the family estate to find it. Unlike the Tempest and Agareth, which were kept in the family’s underground treasure vault, he couldn’t find Amaranth anywhere.

Eventually, Taragon gave up searching for Amaranth, but—

Keter had found Amaranth. How wonderful this was.

Taragon stepped back from the door, trembling and laughing.

“Hehehe.”

Taragon was already lost in a delusion. He imagined himself excelling as the Marksman, his family admiring and loving him. If anyone else had been with him, they would have been horrified as the whites of his eyes had turned pitch black.

Amaranth, trying to escape from Keter, had resorted to seducing Taragon as an alternative. As Taragon was overwhelmed by his intense desire for acknowledgment and recognition, he easily succumbed to Amaranth’s temptation.

“That… belongs to me.”

Consumed by the Demon Bow, Taragon flung open the door to the bow storage where Volkanus and Keter stood.