John had to laugh.

John had to laugh, or else he'd have to cry for the old servant caught in the Hawthorne web of slavery. Vanessa must have recognized that nervous laughter, because her smile split into a toothy grin. Was this how she got Frank to sit on plugs all day? Was this how this house fell into her family- no, her mother's hands? John's mind worked to connect the dots, the hints by the butler, where this estate once existed as a home to a family only to be a throne to a usurping queen... and now her vicious cunt of a daughter. The poor old fool... His mana pool... What would his mp max look like if he didn't sign something like this? It was just a guess; John couldn't know if the butler was **** to sign a "special" document as well... but didn't it add up? Would he be keen to the sort of tyrant he was serving? Would he be a mage, too? "Sign it already. You'd be the first one stupid enough to get shot in this cheap study, and aside from these old clothes I'm wearing I've got nothing to lose by seeing you go bye-bye."

John took a few moments to contemplate how exactly he would get out of this, and nodded to himself on the plan he'd execute. John was grateful now, more than ever, for the boost to Wisdom; he could feel the urge to get scared and sign anything to make the gunman vanish bubbling somewhere inside, somewhere the old Newman would easily find himself. But now? "Fine, but I only sign what I read."

"Do you really think I've got that kind of time?"

"It should only take..." John checked his character sheet and tried to guess at his mana regen. Giving himself a quick boost with equilibrium, he balanced his health and mana so they'd fill at about the same time if he truly got to meditate on this unsignable document. "... five minutes."

"Fucking... whatever." She waved her hand downward at the guard, who lowered his gun arm... and then did a quick spot check on the firearm that felt a bit too light. Vanessa, too casually to be warm-blooded, played on her phone.

John suppressed a smile as he pretended to read the NDA. John couldn't take the trigger mechanism while the guard had his finger on it, so he acquired the bullet in the chamber, the magazine and, with the vague idea of additional ammo somewhere on the guard's person, the second clip. John hoped the man didn't have a third one, but the way the latter patted his jacket in a confused fluster, and then pulled the slide back to look for a bullet that was no longer there, suggested that John had him. Vanessa, who had already buried her eyes in her phone, didn't even seem to notice that her guard was disarmed. The latter hoped John didn't notice either, and kept holding the gun as if it were anything more than an extremely short club.

Once John was fully regenerated, he dared his gambit. "I'd like to revise this contract."

"Fuck off," Vanessa sighed, "and sign it so I don't need to tell daddy why he needs to bury a body for me this time."

John's smile tightened at that. "I don't think your bodyguard here is going to shoot me. I think you're bluffing." John hoped she was bluffing. He wasn't in any danger... but c'mon. He was already warned about evil wizards and fought Abyssal evil-doers; did he have to add murderous psycho rich bitches to that list?

Vanessa looked up, her eyes squinting in ugly hate. "That useless doctor is in, right? He can perform minor surgeries, right?"

John took a beat to realize the question wasn't for the one she was glaring at, but the guard seemed equally flustered. "Eh... yeah, Ms. Hawthorne, yeah I do believe he is."

"Good. Shoot this asshole in the foot, just so he gets the big picture."

Holy shit... she... she would actually do it. Were it not for his disarming of the bastard, he probably wouldn't even hesitate. Who else have I jerked off to that would kill me without a second thought?!

"I just... gotta talk to an associate outside, Miss," the goon muttered, holstering the gun somewhere in his jacket.

Acquisition successful.

In a moment, the poor sap would be left wondering where he even put that empty gun of his, which now floated in John's inventory. Vanessa, unaware of anything save her goon's insubordination, finally put her phone down."What? Are you disobeying me?"

The grown man withered under her gaze. "N-No, Miss! I just need to get some bullets."

"Fucking- wow. Get the fuck out of my face," she said in slow bursts, pretending the bodyguard was slow, "and send in the next moron, the one smart enough to put fucking bullets, in his fucking gun, to do his fucking job!" The man shrunk under her attack and turned to leave. She then addressed John, who worked to meditate some of the mana he had spent to acquire, piece by piece, a real gun. "And you! Just try anything and you'll have to deal with a hit team that'll be here in seconds." John looked around the study, finding no obvious cameras. Did she have some kind of emergency alarm on her? Was it a bluff? She was so arrogant in everything that it made it hard to gauge, but John was relieved all the same when the door finally closed.

John sighed, and spoke with his full confidence. "I thought he'd never leave." Knocking the man out would be easy enough, but John really didn't want to have more than one witness to what he really was.

"What the fuck are you so happy about?"

Now. Satisfied with their privacy, he cast slow on Vanessa, followed marching towards her while opening a tunnel under her feet...

... and watched as she fell out of the diagonally-angled exit into his bedroom back home.

She landed with confused feet and was about to slam into his bedroom door when he looked into the portal and parsed a false door onto it while still in the study. He had the design planned out before the mobster had even left: an exact copy of his door, but one that stuck to the inner-side of the real one and had a hole where the real handle was. It would swing inward, and quietly, if shoved with enough ****, only to flap back to closed. If his mother came to investigate any noise, she'd swing the real door inward and never notice its false, opposite side. Even if she did, she'd grab the handle or only gently touch the door, never realizing the faux door that led into some warped version of his house, devoid of monsters save the one he just tossed in. Vanessa slammed into it as planned, falling straight on through into a miscolored version of his hallway, one spasming foot stuck in the false doorway almost comically. John was already leaping after her, knowing the slow spell would keep her stunned only for so long. The tunnel to the Hawthorne Estate closed, and only then did John exhale.

Vanessa was face-first on the purple-beige floor of the warped version of some peasant's house, but in her mind she was still reeling from the sudden sensation of falling in her father's study. John burst into the false reality with her, taking no rest before opening another tunnel, this time to drop her clean through the second floor and onto where he expected a couch to break her fall in the fake living room. He sealed the false door just as her screams (still reacting to the first fall) echoed through the portal, and looked down to see she had landed on an exaggerated, almost bed-sized version of his couch. She landed softly enough, only registering two points of damage from the whole ordeal as she then bounced off and landed on the floor between it and an oblong vision of his coffee table. John closed the tunnel, leaving Vanessa Hawthorne dazed, confused, and terrified on the first floor. She wouldn't even consider the second floor as a possible exit, not at first... and he was here, guarding it. She was trapped... and he was free.

I did it. John almost couldn't believe it. Sure, he was dealing with a non-mage, but... there were just too many steps, too many ways it could have gone horribly wrong. But he was safe, for now. Where did he go from here? He'd have to rely on a bit of Gamer's luck to explain spiriting away the Hawthorne heir, but more critical was that he was out of her fortress and now inside of his... and she wouldn't have a clue as to how to get out. John sauntered past the bizarre renditions of his family photos (replaced with devils and angels, horses and overgrown goblins) to come to the narrow opening of the corkscrew staircase to go downstairs. He meditated at the top of this landing, taking his time while he listened to Vanessa scream, then scream again, and then grope around at a morose pace as she tried to escape this new, awful place. She wouldn't; John shaped the barrier to conform to only the inside of the house. What would happen if she tried to break out? John hadn't considered this, and presumed it just wouldn't work. Back in the first false reality he made, the shrapnel explosion he caused had cracked the windows too, but they never actually fell apart or revealed anything beyond. It was an interesting thought experiment to help focus his regeneration, up to and including the sound of her attempt to throw some copy of his furniture at a window.

The sound of broken glass, followed by her cursing furiously, was a happy confirmation to end John's regenerating to full. Taking a few steps down the stairs, he looked back and opened the tunnel he'd keep open until he was finished with her: a perfectly circular portal eight feet tall that covered enough of the staircase's top end to make it impassable. If she tried to run up the stairs to escape him, she'd only find that it looped back to the exit: an equal-sized hole that replaced the basement door. He stepped up through the portal, and found himself in the first floor hallway... just as Vanessa turned the corner in her search for a way out.

She blinked at him, her eyes wild and furious. The slow effect seemed to have worn off, and her rage was crystal-sharp. "Who... how the..." She stumbled between confusion and anger, and settled on a scream of rage and a charge.

John's stoic expression remained calm and unchanging. He took the full-knuckled punch to his face-

3 damage.

She blinked up at him in disbelief as his head barely moved. He looked back down on her... and serpent bit at her shirt, missing her flesh on purpose. The tight, compromised garment tore away to the left, ruined, and revealed her massive, leaking tit to him. All at once she understood her dire situation.