Reincarnated as a step-dad in a fantasy world

"Are you fucking with me?!" Alex asked in a dark tone, not in the least bit pleased by what was being asked of him. 

The captain, however, simply shook his head with utmost seriousness. "No, I don't have time to waste on jokes."

'Do I have time to waste?!' Alex wondered inwardly, feeling his anger rise.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Alex reluctantly nodded.

Contrary to Charles and his companions, Alex didn't need to spend the night in Eidross. Besides the knowledge of being inside a city and surrounded by other humans, Eidross had nothing to offer Alex and his group.

In the first place, if it hadn't been for Maya mentioning that there was a city ahead of them, Alex wouldn't have even bothered trying to find a place with other human inhabitants.

"Very well, I will leave," Alex conceded.

"I will go fetch my comrades."

"That won't be necessary," the captain said, "I will send someone to fetch them in your ste—"

"You seem to have misunderstood something," Alex interjected, his gaze flashing behind his mask. "I wasn't asking for your permission."

Before the captain could retort, Alex completely vanished from his position, stunning not just the captain but everyone present.

Quickly overcoming his surprise, the captain deployed his senses to encompass a perimeter comparable to half of Eidross, but it was useless; he couldn't find Alex. The captain wasn't able to feel his presence even when Alex was standing just in front of him. Now that Alex had vanished to gods know where, he was unlikely to locate him.

Keeping his cool, the captain remembered from the report he had just finished reading that they had placed a few people to track Alex's movements and decided to contact them.

Unexpectedly, he couldn't contact the agents who had been sent to spy on Alex, making him realize that they were either unconscious or dead.

Taking a deep breath to settle his rising uneasiness, the captain turned to his men. "All of you, go search the city and find him. I want him here in less than ten minutes!"

As the guards rushed into the city, the captain turned to the group of nobles and, with his expression still calm, ordered,

"You don't move."

Meanwhile, Alex could be seen rushing through the deserted streets of Eidross in the direction of the tavern where his sister and Maya were currently resting.

Although his actions of forcefully entering the city, even while the guards' captain had forbidden him from doing so, could be considered idiotic and dangerous, he would have acted the same way hundreds of times if the situation repeated. Right now, Amelia was probably still sleeping naked in their bed. If he had allowed the guards to fetch her, there was a chance things could get out of control if they witnessed his sister's naked figure.

Of course, he understood there was only a slim chance of that happening, considering Amelia would probably sense the presence of people preparing to enter her room even while she was asleep. However, who knew what kind of abilities those sent to fetch her might have? They might possess abilities like Anna's, allowing them to approach her unnoticed. In fact, with so many abilities and applications, predicting what might happen was impossible. If given the choice, Alex wouldn't certainly leave things to chance and hope nothing wrong would occur.

In a few seconds, Alex appeared in their room and swiftly awakened Amelia before informing her that they needed to leave.

Looking out the window to confirm it was still night, Amelia yawned and asked suspiciously, "What did you do?"

Alex, with his mask still covering his face to avoid detection by the guards, chuckled. "I did nothing."

Seeing Amelia squint her eyes at him, Alex chuckled once again. "Really, I did nothing wrong. Quite the contrary! If those people weren't so ungrateful, I might have even been rewarded."

Unaware of what had happened, Amelia nodded and began to dress herself so they could leave.

Meanwhile, Alex exited their room and went directly to Maya's room. Without wasting time knocking, Alex forced open the door and entered the room.

The sound of her room door being forcefully opened abruptly awakened Maya. Leaping from her bed, the young heiress took on a fighting stance as she stared in the direction of the door fiercely.

Realizing that the one who had entered was Alex, Maya blinked in surprise before relaxing.

"We need to leave," Alex informed as he sized Maya up and down, feeling a little relieved that his training of the young woman over the past weeks hadn't been in vain.

"What did you do?" Maya asked with a dubious expression.

Alex's lips couldn't help but twitch as Maya asked the same question as Amelia.

Sighing, he said, "Go dress yourself," and was about to leave when he stopped and glanced at Maya once again.

"Oh, I forgot to mention," Alex said with a smirk under his mask, "you look cute in those pajamas, though you might want to properly button up your shirt." He then left the room.

Maya froze for a moment, then with a horrified expression, she glanced down at her pajamas and saw that the buttons of her shirt were undone, exposing part of her breasts.

Her face turned beet red, and she rushed to close the door with a loud bang.

"Why does this keep happening?!" she mumbled to herself as she hurriedly changed clothes.

A few minutes later, both girls were outside their rooms and ready to leave.

"Why are you blushing?" Amelia inquired curiously as she glanced at Maya.

"N-Nothing!" the young woman stammered, her eyes darting around to avoid the gaze of both siblings, especially Alex's.

Not willing to waste time on this, Alex coated Amelia and Maya's bodies with his smoke to conceal their identities. They then left the corridor and descended to the tavern's bar.

At this hour, there were fewer people inside the tavern than when they arrived, so as soon as they appeared, all eyes turned towards them.

Ignoring the curious glances, Alex tossed a coin to the bartender. "That's for the broken door and the trouble that's about to come knocking."

Without waiting for a response, Alex instructed the girls to follow him and promptly left the tavern.

The bartender stared at the coin with confusion, which only deepened when he noticed it was a gold coin, not a bronze or silver one.

'Why would he give me this?' he wondered.

Alex had mentioned a broken door, but since when did fixing a door cost a gold coin? But hey, it's not like he intended to refuse easy money.

Meanwhile, outside, Alex's group had barely walked for around five minutes when a group of about ten armored guards appeared before them.

With wary expressions, the group of men circled around Alex and the two women. With their bronze armor and muscular bodies, they would have looked dangerous if not for the fact that they were slightly shivering in fright. After all, the man before them had vanished right before their captain's eyes before the latter could do anything. If he had wanted to harm them, they could have done nothing to save themselves.

Moreover, the fact that neither Alex's nor Amelia and Maya's faces were visible was unnerving. People tend to fear the unknown, after all.

Just as the leader of the group of guards found his balls and was about to say something, Alex raised his hand.

"We are already on our way to leave, so you boys shouldn't do anything rash that you might regret."

Hearing him, a visibly relieved expression appeared on the faces of all the guards. Instantly, they beckoned Alex's group to follow them.

Around ten minutes later, Alex's group, escorted by the guards, arrived at the city gates where they found the captain patiently waiting for them.

'He seems paler than before,' Alex realized as he looked at the captain.

What he didn't know was that since the moment he had disappeared, the captain had kept his senses deployed to cover half of the city.

Alex had never experienced it, mostly because his mind had been enhanced with the black heart and the fact that he always used it in barren lands and for short times. However, maintaining one's senses deployed and covering a large swath of land was very difficult and quickly drained one's mental energy.

Notwithstanding this, the captain kept his senses deployed, and that's why he already knew of Alex and his group's arrival even before he saw them.

Despite knowing that they were coming, the instant the captain's eyes landed on Alex's figure, his anger flared up like a raging inferno.