Unable to repay my student loans, I had no choice but to work part-time as a demon hunter.

Later that day, Charlotte let Gordon ride in her car to their ancestral home in Montfort.

"Come on in." Charlotte lifted her skirt and gracefully got into the car.

"Ah...!" Gordon's eyes widened in amazement. The carriage had an understated exterior, but the interior was extremely luxurious, especially the soft cushions. As soon as Gordon sat down, his posture instantly shifted to a reclining position. He had found something more comfortable for his spine than a wooden bed.

The carriage sped out of the university's west gate. Gordon looked out the window and saw a group of college students running off to eat cheap pies. The aroma of onions, beef, and beer wafted in from the countless small restaurants on Knightsway, making Gordon even hungrier.

To distract himself, he glanced aimlessly around.

[An expensive carriage. I'm very unhappy to serve you.]

[Seat cushion. There's a reason it's called a "seat" cushion.]

A kerosene lamp cannot illuminate your future.

"Why are you lying down?" Charlotte sat up straight, her hands on her knees.

"I'm more concerned about you," Gordon said. "You're sitting so upright, not even touching the cushion... Either this car isn't suitable for you, or you're actually worried about that old house and just don't want anyone to know."

"What if a monster jumps out and tries to bite me?"

"First, don't scream, your screaming will affect my judgment. Then, we need to see if that thing wants to eat people or is just uncivilized."

"Ugh, this is so unfair..." Charlotte leaned back without saying a word, and the cushion began to support Miss Monford's weight.

Gordon looked away and started thinking about other things.

He hadn't won the scholarship yet, but the hospital bills were piling up like a dog. Working in the lab required him to pay for his own supplies, and his student loans were accumulating interest every month. As of now, the three copper coins he had were all the working capital he had.

Let's do the math.

A weekly wage of 3 silver pounds, without eating or drinking, amounting to 12 silver pounds per month.

Excellent, excellent. A student loan of 144 silver pounds per year, equivalent to 2000 silver pounds in gold, can be repaid in just 13.8 years. Then Gordon will regain his freedom…

Stop.

The human brain wasn't designed to stare into such an abyss. Perhaps we should consider whether the Montforts provide dinner; it seems there's definitely hot soup in the kitchen. Behind the soup might be roast meat, and next to the roast meat might be potatoes…

Gordon pondered what to eat for a long time, and the car had already entered White Elm Road. Upon arriving here, Lundnium suddenly became cleaner, the streets were wider, the pedestrians were all well-dressed, and rows of neatly trimmed tree canopies peeked out from behind the stone walls.

On both sides are old houses, all of them strangely grand, complete with wrought iron gates, hedges and fountains, as if to say: We have won before, and we intend to continue to win.

The Montfort family home is at the end of the street.

The atmosphere in front of the gate was very oppressive.

There were nervous servants and several tall, tense guards who seemed particularly adept at getting people to leave.

"We're here. This is it." Charlotte took a deep breath, lifted her skirt, and got out of the car. "There are many old collectibles in the old house."

"Collectibles." Gordon said thoughtfully, "Aristocratic collections either fetch a lot of money or cause a lot of trouble."

An old house, a threat from otherworldly beings, ancient collectibles—it all sounds like they're about to combine into something even bigger trouble.

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Gordon felt his student loan preparations were evolving into a second stage.

The main gate of the ancestral home was half open.

The interior was dimly lit, and water stains on the stone steps of the porch reflected the moonlight and the cold light of the gas streetlights.

As Gordon got off the bus, the air was filled with the stench of water. It was the classic smell of the Blackwater River, reminiscent of rotting wood, silt, and fermenting fish entrails.

An old man stepped out of the shadows under the porch.

He was around sixty years old, dressed in a black butler's uniform, with his gray hair neatly combed. He had a straight back and a polite demeanor that exuded a haughty coolness. He tried to dissuade Charlotte and Gordon with his eyes.

"Miss," the old woman said with a slight bow, "you shouldn't have come at this time."

"Evans," Charlotte said, "you shouldn't have kept it from me."

"Nobody's hiding anything from you," Evans said. "The ancestral home is fine; it's just that the sewer pipes are old and burst, causing flooding in the basement."

"Oh? Where's the plumber?" Gordon asked.

"And who is this?" Evans asked Gordon.

"Gordon Vick, my classmate," Charlotte said.

"Miss, the ancestral home is not suitable for receiving guests at the moment." Evans ignored him. "The Earl has not yet returned from Parliament; we should first control who knows about this."

"I have the right to decide who to ask for help," Charlotte said.

“Of course, Miss.” Evans’s expression tightened further. “But whether it’s the Bureau of Paranormal Affairs or the reporters… once those vultures smell it, they’ll dig up every last detail of the family files, and tomorrow morning’s newspapers will be filled with shameful headlines that will bring disgrace to the family!”

"Montford's ancestral home is in disarray, submerged in water." "That day there was only floodwater and eight maids." Gordon had already prepared himself for this.

"Evans, what's going on inside?" Charlotte asked.

"Miss, there's a problem with the water pipes."

"What size water pipe has been under repair since last night?"

"After all, the old house has a complicated history of pipework."

"...Why didn't you notify the Otherworldly Affairs Bureau?"

"Because it wasn't an incident involving a demon."

"Then why did you have the road blocked off?"

"Prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the water pipe repair area."

Charlotte fired four arrows in quick succession, which Evans caught with the same shield.

She looked at Gordon, her eyes filled with anxiety. So Gordon came on as a substitute.

"I know you hired a Source Hunter," Gordon said. "Where is she now?"

"Young man," Evans said calmly, "this is the Monford family home, not a place for you young people to show off your cleverness and earn applause. Before you speak, you'd better consider who you are."

"Hmm, it's definitely worth investigating further."

"Did I just mislead you?" Evans leaned forward. "We don't need college students here. Do you want to obediently leave, or are you going to be thrown out by a bunch of people?"

“No, I’m just certain of one thing,” Gordon said. “If it were just a pipe problem, you wouldn’t have needed to threaten me.”

"I told you, this isn't..." Evans's face turned completely cold. But at that moment, a piercing, sharp sound suddenly came from inside the old house, as if something heavy was scraping against the ground and approaching them.

The next moment, a foul-smelling black shadow flew out of the door!

Judging from the trajectory of the parabola, it looks like someone threw it out hard.

The gatekeepers quickly moved aside; their job was to prevent outsiders from entering, not to stop anything inside from coming out.

Charlotte's face turned pale. She instinctively raised her arm to shield herself, the oldest and most useless action humans take when facing sudden disaster.

Gordon pulled at that delicate thread in his mind.

Everything around us seemed to slow down.

"Thinking" is directly equivalent to "doing," and the amplitude, angle, and force of each movement are perfectly aligned with his original intention.

Facing the flying object, he took a step forward, dodging the wildly flailing limbs, and precisely caught the object's protruding bone spur with his right hand. Then, he tilted his body, lowered his shoulders and back, and redirected the immense force towards the ground.

boom!

Good weight!

But he did catch it. He slammed the dark figure down beside Charlotte, less than half a foot from the hem of her skirt.

Charlotte, startled by what Gordon had grabbed, took two steps back, bumping into a lamppost without even realizing it. "Good," Gordon thought. "Looks like she took the 'don't scream' rule to heart."

"Saint Joshua, what the hell is that...?" one of the guards cursed.

Gao Deng lowered his head.

[Deepclaw Demon. More accurately, Water Monkey.]

This thing is only the size of a child, with a back covered in fine scales, and its skin is wet and slippery. Its ribs protrude one by one from its chest and abdomen, like the bars of a cage that have been pried open. The most disgusting thing is that it has hands with translucent webbed membranes, but its fingers are shaped like humans and even have fingerprints.

Tap...tap...Gorden heard the sound of boots stepping through the puddles.

Evans turned to the old house, his face a mixture of anger and fear.

The sound of footsteps grew louder as they approached.

A woman with an unhappy expression walked out. Everyone immediately fell silent.

The moment Gordon saw her clearly, his brows furrowed slightly.

This person...is taller and more beautiful than Gordon had imagined.

The first thing he noticed was a pair of finely crafted, pure black boots, their soles stained with blood. Next was a dark trench coat, tightly hugging her curves, with a raised collar that obscured the lower half of her face, revealing only a pair of light gray eyes. Those eyes held no human emotion, only a wild, animalistic wariness and coldness.

She didn't stand like a normal person, but squatted down, maintaining a posture of being ready to pounce on the next target at any time.

"..." Noticing the alien corpse in Gordon's hand, she raised an eyebrow, like a hunter who had found something that should have been a rabbit, but actually kicked the trap with its hind legs.