Extra's POV: My Obsessive Villainous Fiancee Is The Game's Final Boss-Chapter 376: Heatwave

"You’re smarter than you look, Petry," Ren said casually. "Hiding behind a crate while your bosses died screaming? Impressive." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"I— Look, I’m more valuable alive than dead, alright? I know things!" Petry stammered, waving his hands. "I can tell you about the other vaults. Routes, safehouses, names. Anything you want. You don’t need to kill me. I’m useful."

Ren stopped a few paces away, folding his arms. "Is that so?"

"Yes. Yes! You’re reasonable, I can see that. I mean, come on, we’ve done business before, haven’t we?" Petry’s voice rose in desperation.

"You’re the herbalist right? Next to Old man Gerran? You always paid your dues. You’re a smart man. Let’s keep this smart, yeah?"

Ren exchanged a glance with Lilith. She shrugged, cleaning a speck of blood from her cheek with the back of her gloved hand.

"Well," Ren said, stepping closer to Petry. "How about this? I’ll give you a chance."

Petry blinked. "A chance?"

Ren nodded. "I’ve got a... skill. Heatwave. It’s supposed to warm the body, protect us from the cold." He smiled. "Simple. Harmless, really. You take it for five seconds. If you’re still breathing afterward, I’ll let you walk."

Petry’s mouth opened. Closed. Then he nodded rapidly. "Five seconds. That’s it? Deal."

Ren raised his hand.

"I should mention," he added, almost as an afterthought, "it’s quite... warm."

The air shimmered.

Then Heatwave activated.

A ripple burst from Ren’s palm and wrapped around Petry like invisible fire. At first, the gang leader just blinked, confused. Then he screamed.

His skin reddened instantly. Blisters swelled across his cheeks and arms as his veins lit up like molten rivers. Steam hissed from his mouth and nose.

Lilith took a step back, the smell of roasting meat filling the air.

Petry collapsed to his knees, convulsing. His scream strangled into a gurgle as his body cooked from the inside out. In moments, he was twitching on the floor, his flesh seared, his eyes wide and steaming.

Then he stopped moving.

Ren stood over the steaming corpse, sighing.

"Ah," he muttered, "I always forget to mention..."

He crouched down beside what remained of Petry, eyes twinkling with dark amusement.

"...Heatwave’s fatal to weak Knights and regular humans."

He stood, brushing off his hands. "Oops."

Lilith stared at the corpse for a beat, then looked at Ren with a raised brow. "You’ve got a strange sense of mercy."

Ren grinned. "I gave him a choice."

Lilith matched his grin. "I didn’t say I don’t like it."

"Smart and beautiful." Ren chuckled. "Remind me how I managed to bag you again?"

"I think you’ve got it wrong." Lilith stepped closer. "I bagged you, not the other way around."

"Whatever you say, Mrs Ross." Ren retorted, his eyes twinkling.

Stepping closer, the two shared a hot, searing kiss. A few seconds later, they pulled back.

"Time to work." Ren grinned at her.

"Yeah." Lilith stepped back with a smile that promised more later. "Time to work."

And with that, they turned to loot the vault.

Ren rifled through a lacquered chest stuffed with neatly stacked bundles of currency, humming to himself as he began tossing them into his spatial pouch.

Beside him, Lilith cracked open another crate, revealing velvet pouches of gemstones and gold tokens.

"How much do you think all this is worth?" She asked, weighing a pouch in her hand.

"More than enough." Ren replied, shutting the chest with a satisfied thud. "If we’re smart about it, we can make this stretch for months."

Lilith arched her brow. "We’re never smart about money."

Ren chuckled. "That’s true. But this time, we have a plan."

He walked over to her, scooping a few more coin bundles off the floor. "We use some of this to buy our way down. Officially."

"Officially?" Lilith asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.

Ren nodded. "Yeah. We’ve got basic badges now, but citizenship tiers can be bought... if you’ve got the coin. With the right bribe, we can upgrade our badges through legitimate channels. Once we get those, it’ll open doors that we need in the lower floors. Business permits, property, access."

Lilith leaned against a crate, thinking it over. "You really think the powers that be won’t notice?"

"They will." Ren admitted. "But if we don’t cause trouble and keep our operations clean, they’ll assume we’re just another ambitious family trying to move up. Happens all the time down here."

Lilith smiled. "So what do we do once we’re in?"

"That’s where the real fun begins." Ren said. "We build a transportation business."

"With your teleportation coins?" She asked.

Ren nodded. "We seed them across the city. Markets, guard posts, merchant roads. Set up a network. If someone needs to get somewhere fast or deliver something important, they come to us."

Lilith’s eyes lit up. "And since you control the teleportation endpoints..."

"We control movement." Ren finished. "Information, logistics, access, everything."

She gave a low whistle. "That’s a lot of power."

"And a lot of visibility." Ren said. "Which is why we play it smart. Keep our public face clean, while we push deeper into the lower layers."

Lilith tilted her head. "You mean the exclusive layers. Where the elders and their families live."

Ren’s expression turned thoughtful. "That’s where the Flame is. The Primordial Flame leaks heat into this mountain for a reason. It’s close. And the closer we get to the center of the power structure, the more likely we are to find it."

She placed a hand on his arm. "Then that’s our path."

Ren gave her a soft smile. "From... cleaners to merchants. Let’s see how far we can go before someone tries to stop us."

Lilith smiled back, her fingers brushing the hilt of her blade. "Let them try."

They continued their work for almost a minute before Ren paused, as he slid the lid off another iron-bound chest. Something felt... off.

The faint jingle of coins, the creak of metal, the shuffling of movement, none of it echoed the way it should have.

The vault was large and the walls were made of stone, but the sound around them had become strangely muffled, like cotton had been stuffed into the air itself.

He froze, one hand still inside the chest.

Lilith noticed his sudden lack of motion. "What is it?"

Ren slowly straightened, his eyes narrowing as he turned his head toward the vault entrance.

And then he saw it.