His original plan was simple.
The Fulners had unimaginable wealth. Apart from the Church, no one was richer than them in the whole Kingdom. Although Benjamin did not understand why the eldest son of the Fulner family ended up in a tiny village, but surely his net worth was still among the top.
That was why when Benjamin spotted Dick, he instantly saw the solution to his food problem.
After the annihilation of the mages at the theatre, Benjamin deduced the Fulner family’s secret - they had been in contact with the Academy of Silence.
Although he was not sure if the contact was still ongoing, it did not matter. Benjamin could take advantage of Dick from this conclusion.
Accius has prepared Dick to be his successor for a long time. Therefore, Benjamin believed that Dick would at least learn a little about the Academy of Silence. He may not have learned a lot but that would be better as it would be easy for him to fool Dick.
He then proclaimed himself to be part of the Academy of Silence and paid Dick a visit. Everything went according to plan. When Dick saw him, he could not recognize Benjamin. Dick was distressed upon learning that Benjamin was from the academy.
Oh yes, everything was looking good. The plan was turning out smoothly...
Well, it did catch him by surprise that Dick overreacted.
He has not even reached to the point of asking for food yet, and Dick was already like a water pipe that could not be shut, rambling on and on about random things. The more he listened, the more bizarre it was. It became ridiculous.
The information was all over the place, how could he obtain useful sources?
That was when he could not take it anymore and interrupted Dick.
It was such a pity that once he interrupted, Dick quickly recovered to his senses and was able to calmly assess the situation. This would be bad for Benjamin and that was why he quickly threatened Dick for food and money.
But...
"You’re very professional in your burglary attempt, you watch all that TVB series for nothing?" The System could not help but rant at Benjamin.
Benjamin did not have a choice. There was always a first to everything. If he knew better, he would have asked the professional Howl on his burglary tactics prior to his departure.
"Who... who really are you?" Dick was not that stupid. He started to become suspicious of Benjamin from his reaction.
"I am from the Academy of Silence." Benjamin felt compelled to bear the pain from his wound and cast an Icebreaking Spell.
A few tiny ice sickles appeared in his palm, followed by a string of pain in his head and the vibration of the Ice Runes. The ice sickles flew towards Dick like darts.
He was not aiming at Dick so the ice sickles scrapped passed him, sliced through a lock of his car and struck the wall behind him, resulting in a clear, crushing sound.
Erm...
Benjamin frowned at the sight of this.
He was only going to use magic to scare Dick but he ended up scaring himself.
This was the first time he was using magic after having the rift. Even if its strength was not even 30% of his past ability, it was enough to cause such pain in his head. The impact of the Icebreaking Spell was also surprisingly weak.
The damage to his Spiritual Energy was worse than he thought.
No can do, he would not be using any magic until the rift has completely recovered.
"Please don’t kill me! I… I will give you anything!" Luckily it was enough to scare Dick off and he did not realize the state Benjamin was in. Dick’s lower half body collapsed onto the chair and trembled as he pleaded for his life.
"Give me food and gold coins and I will guarantee that you will never see me again." Benjamin held his expressions back as he fought the pain, presenting an expressionless face.
"You must not kill me. There’s a lot of food... food in the pantry next door. As for the gold coins... I have them here. I’ll give you, I’ll give all to you!"
Dick took out a bag of gold coins from his pocket from tossed it at Benjamin as he trembled with fear.
Based on the size of the money bag and the loud thud it made as it hit the ground, it was definitely a bountiful bag. For Dick to carry on such a large amount of money, how rich was he?
At the very least, the Lithur family could not compare to them.
Benjamin crouched down to pick up the bag.
Just as he lowered his head at the money, the half-paralyzed Dick suddenly pulled out a gun from beneath the chair, unlocked and pulled the trigger on Benjamin.
But of course...
Benjamin held his kneeling position and did not move an inch.
A bullet scraped through his left arm and disappeared somewhere. He could only shrug his shoulders, packed away the money bag and raised his head to look at a now shocked Dick.
"Next time please aim properly for sudden attacks."
It could be that Dick was too nervous that Benjamin heard the commotion and realized Dick’s counter attack as he pulled out the gun.
Honestly speaking though, for a psychologically handicapped hedonist such as Dick, using a gun as a defense was really not a good choice. Benjamin felt that even he continued kneeling there for Dick to finish shooting a round, Dick might not even get one hit.
It was not as though anyone has a shooting interface.
And that was why he chose not to take cover. He was afraid that if he was to move and avoid the attack, he would instead get shot. That would be awkward.
"Oh... shit..." Dick quickly tossed the gun aside, after seeing that he missed. He glided backwards sloppily that he almost tripped over the chamber pot.
His gaze was not at Benjamin but rather behind him.
Benjamin was puzzled and turned his head.
There was cabinet with an oil lamp against the wall on his left. The cabinet was moved by Dick’s gun shot and an oil lamp fell off. Fire spread quickly on the fine wood and soon the entire cabinet was set ablaze.
... Oh fuck.
This was getting out of hand.
Benjamin’s first reaction was to summon a Water Ball to vanquish the fire but he quickly remembered that the Water Runes have already exploded and so he was unable to cast that. He fixed his gaze on Dick again.
Now Dick really looked nervous and in despair. This time, it was not play pretend.
Benjamin brainstormed and quickly ran over to Dick and punched the defenseless guy’s face before his servants could make it to the scene.
"What... what are you doing?" Dick was perplexed from the punch and sounded like he was going to cry.
"I’m sorry, I wanted to knock you off unconscious but I didn't manage my strength well." Benjamin scratched his head and gave Dick another punch.
Dick let out another shout but was still very conscious.
"Why won’t you faint already?" Benjamin rubbed his knuckles and whined.
"I’m… I’m sorry, I have no idea why I’m still conscious..." Dick was in pain and felt helpless.
"Problematic..."
Benjamin did not attempt a third punch but instead turned to look at the cabinet that caught on fire.
The fire was not small and it was slowly spreading onto the walls. The air contorted as temperature rose. If the fire was not extinguished, it will set the whole room on fire.
Ah, so complicated…
There were servants’ cries heard from afar.
"W-wait.. I…. I know you." Suddenly, Dick discovered something and could not control his voice, "Oh my goodness! You’re… Benjamin? Or Grant? Wh-what’s the meaning of this? Who really are you and how did you become like this?"
Benjamin laughed without denying.
It looked like he still could be recognized once the distance was near.
He did not respond but instead ran towards the window of the room. He kicked open the tightly-shut window and the sound of the shattered glass gave Dick a jump.
Benjamin used the window to climb out and escape the room.
"Hey, do you really want to be burnt to crisp in this room?" He flipped over the window and turned to look at a distorted Dick. "The door has caught on fire, you can’t escape from there."
Dick returned to his sense and was flustered at the spread of fire. He looked at Benjamin by the window and reluctantly looked at his chamber pot. In the end, he ran and crawled to the window.
Although his motion was disorderly but after much effort, he managed to flip over the window.
Squish!
The moment he flipped over the window, Benjamin tripped him and he fell head first into a mud puddle.
"This is to prevent you from leaking out my trail." Benjamin shook his head in slight dismay.
Before Dick could come to his senses, Benjamin turned around and ran towards North. It was not long before he disappeared from Dick’s sight as he went further away.
"Y-you son of a bitch!" Dick spat out the grass in his mouth and screamed at the direction Benjamin disappeared into.
The fiery blaze from inside the window shone at Dick as he struggled to get up.