Chapter 5: This Otherworld Is Quite Something!

After setting down the tray, Sharvella asked, "My lord, should I have the servants come in to serve you your meal?"

"No need," Kaios replied.

Once Sharvella had left the room, he picked up a spare rib from the tray and tasted it. It was unexpectedly delicious. With a mere flick of his tongue, the meat slid effortlessly off the bone. It was tender but not mushy, and the rich flavors of the broth and spices had seeped deep into it. When he bit down, it wasn't particularly juicy, but the aroma was intoxicating.

He realized this Otherworld really had something going for it. In the few hours since he had crossed over, the spare ribs and Sharvella alone were enough reason for him to do everything in his power to stay!

After reading a few interesting books for a while, Kaios began to feel a bit tired. He got up and walked out of the study, only to find Sharvella guarding the door and Harvey standing further away at the top of the stairs.

"Why are you standing all the way over there?" he asked the latter.

Sharvella softly explained, "My lord, I am a Personal Guard, and Harvey is a Chief Guard. According to regulations, there are positioning requirements when we stand guard. We must maintain distance from each other to create defensive depth."

Kaios was slightly surprised. He had assumed Harvey was also a Personal Guard. It seemed that this was a rather official position.

"My lord, where are you going?" Harvey trotted over eagerly. He still seemed in high spirits, not showing the slightest bit of resentment over Sharvella bypassing him to become a Personal Guard. Even though Kaios had allowed him to continue calling him "Young Master," he had tactfully switched to "My lord" in front of others.

"I'm going to take a look at my previous bedroom and the rooms I used to frequent. Maybe it will help me recover my memories faster," Kaios said.

"My lord, the room you used to frequent the most... wasn't your bedroom."

"Oh? Where was it?"

A few minutes later, guided by Harvey, he and Sharvella arrived at a spacious room. After Harvey lit the Magic Lamp, Kaios finally got a clear view of the interior and drew a sharp breath.

The walls were almost entirely covered in paintings. The corners were piled high with various painting tools, and there were easels lined up one after another, several holding seemingly unfinished pieces. Every single painting was dominated by a stark, crimson red—or rather, a blood red. Aside from the red, there were only faint traces of black used for shading. Coupled with the reddish hue of the studio's Magic Lamp, the atmosphere felt incredibly eerie.

Harvey, however, introduced the room with a look of immense pride. "My lord, these are all your works! Your art and your painting skills are renowned throughout the entire Holy Protection Alliance! Trading one of your paintings for a farm or even a factory wouldn't be a problem at all!"

So, in this world of Spiritual Energy Warriors and Mages, the original owner of this body—a Great Lord—was actually a painter?

Kaios turned to Harvey. "Did I... never cultivate Spiritual Qi or Magic?"

Harvey looked somewhat astonished. "Of course you never did. You are a noble Great Lord, a Three-leaf Baron! Why would you cultivate Magic or Spiritual Qi? That is naturally left for servants like us! Your noble, dexterous hands and creative mind should be entirely devoted to creating these masterpieces of human art!"

If Harvey hadn't sounded so sincere, and if Sharvella hadn't been nodding repeatedly in agreement beside him, Kaios would have thought the man was mocking him.

"I understand. I'm going to look at these paintings; you two can step out for now." Kaios didn't ask any further questions, but he knew that he would definitely have to figure out a way to cultivate Spiritual Qi and Magic in the future.

As he walked past the crimson paintings in the studio, Kaios's brows knitted tightly together. He truly couldn't fathom what kind of person the original owner had been. It was one thing for the paintings to be predominantly red, but their subject matter was also incredibly grotesque, even downright vicious.

Many depicted obvious imagery like skulls, severed limbs, murder scenes, or battlefields. Others were even more brutal. There was one of a person dismembering someone else, another of a person throwing severed limbs into a pot, and yet another showing a person ripping open their own stomach to pull out their organs, while someone else received the organs to wash them, complete with a lit fire and a pot suspended over it nearby.

They were entirely red, with only a small amount of black as a base, and lacking detailed linework. At a passing glance, one might even mistake them for random doodles or heaps of color blocks. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he could instantly discern the true subject matter amidst the mess of red. He could even faintly sense the emotions the paintings were meant to convey.

Tyranny, savagery, resentment, wrath, suppression, sorrow, agony, madness... A myriad of emotions, yet not a single one was positive. After looking at them for a while, Kaios felt as if he were being influenced by them, too.

Just as he was about to leave the studio, another painting caught his attention. He crouched down and leaned in to examine it. It looked as though it had been casually tossed into the corner and left leaning against a cabinet. He noticed that its color was different from the rest. Although it was also red, the shade was lighter and somewhat peculiar.

He gently rubbed it with his finger and instantly realized the truth. It was blood! The original owner had used blood to paint this!

Extremely gruesome images flooded his mind. All the light around him vanished, as if he had been plunged into an Abyss of blood.

Kaios jolted in terror. He stood upright abruptly and stumbled two steps back before he finally managed to break free from the vision. Still shaken, he glanced at the painting and then at his own arms. What he had just experienced was truly hair-raising, leaving him covered in goosebumps.

It seemed the original owner really hadn't been a normal person.

Leaving the studio, Kaios felt a restless heat stirring within him. Upon returning to his current bedroom, he acted almost entirely on instinct, pulling Sharvella—who had followed him inside—into an embrace. The image of the sheer black outfit he had seen her wearing earlier flashed through his mind again. As if possessing a will of their own, his hands deftly undid a button on her outer robe and slipped inside.

He didn't directly touch her bare skin, but the silky, sheer texture made his imagination run even wilder.

Sharvella's waist was firm and smooth, without an ounce of excess fat. Kaios couldn't resist the urge to let his hands explore further upward. But right at that moment, his vision suddenly went black, and his body gave out, causing him to fall backward.

Sharvella, who had been both shy and nervous, reacted instantly. She twisted around to catch him and carefully laid him on the bed.

"My lord! My lord, are you alright?!"

Kaios hadn't lost consciousness; he was just a little dizzy. He was about to say something when he felt a tingling sensation in his nose. It felt like something was leaking out. He touched it, only to find his hand smeared with blood.

He cursed inwardly. The original owner's body was absolute garbage!

However, when he raised his head to look at his beautiful female Personal Guard again, he suddenly noticed something strange. After sensing Sharvella's mixed emotions of shyness, nervousness, worry, and fear, a blue halo suddenly materialized behind her head.

With just one glance, he realized that this halo was somehow connected to the mental shock he had experienced in the studio, though he couldn't immediately figure out what exactly it represented.

Sharvella was clearly unaware of the halo behind her head and was still anxiously wiping his bloody nose with a handkerchief.

"I'm fine," Kaios said, sitting up on the bed. As he buttoned Sharvella's robe back up, he instructed, "Call Harvey in."