Kyon snorted with contempt:

«You almost hit me with your sharp words. And you know... Yes, there is some truth in them. So come on - if I can't beat you in a fair fight a little later, I will never beat you again. Unless you do something wrong, that is.»

Juno beamed with antic.i.p.ation, but soon her face clouded up again. Though she was confident of her victory, she couldn't believe the words of the mean slave... She understood perfectly well how foolish and naive it would be on her part. But still…

The girl nodded resolutely:

«If your word is worth anything in this world... I'd be glad to beat you again.»

Kyon looked at her disdainfully. Even the most pathetic slave has honor and dignity; as for him, he was an emperor by nature. Although not quite so... In recent weeks, he had taken the master of humanity in himself down a peg or two, raised in him in many years of arrogance. For everything that could interfere with his success had to be eliminated.

Kyon went through her things once again: he shamelessly took a bag with spheres (money) with a total cost of about 10,000, which would be enough to buy an average-sized house on the outskirts of the estate; he glanced at the transparent s.h.i.+eld, then looked at it more closely and thoughtfully took it in his hands.

«Grandfather gave it to me... If you take it away, I will never forgive you…» – Juno said quietly but with a noticeable threat in his voice.

Kyon wanted to hit her again, so that she knew her place, but had limited himself to showing her the fist and giving a menacing look. Surprisingly, the girl was not frightened, quite the opposite - she took a belligerent stance and thrust her chest out.

The guy threw the s.h.i.+eld to the side and said insidiously:

«Now it's time to put our little birdie with golden feathers into a solid cage.»

Juno wrinkled her nose questioningly.

«What in the h.e.l.l are you…»

Kyon pointed his index finger in front of her charming little nose, meaning to teach her a lesson:

«Once again you will fail to show me your respect, and you will regret it dearly.»

The girl turned visibly pale but asked again:

«What do you have in mind, master?»

Kyon didn't bother to answer, he began making numerous orders to protect himself from all sorts of possible tricks on her part. Among them was a ban on any hostile actions against him, a ban on calls, hints or other means of warning, in a word, everything that could ruin his life or reveal the little secret of their "close" relations of master and slave.

He had to come up with a cover story so that not to arouse suspicion among the maids by his sudden promotion. He'd allegedly impressed Juno with his combat technique, besides he was Marina's friend; all things considered, it led to the young lady's decision to make him her personal servant.

Somewhere deep inside, his pride showed itself: he was upgrading from the rank of a slave to the position of a servant - such an honor. But his mind put everything in its place, reminding him that he was the true master of the situation (and one mindless teenybopper who had the real power in that place).

Kyon also ordered the girl to always carry a sound transmitter in her pocket and by no means touch, break or put it away. If he called, she was obliged to answer the call and listen to him.

Then Kyon forced her to memorize all the orders by heart.

The subconscious, alas, is never perfect - it does not remember the information but relies on the cerebral cortex, that is, the consciousness, which can cause many problems. For example, if she forgets the order or understands it through the prism of her erroneous view/upbringing/knowledge, then he may get in trouble, so he spent several hours to convey the message to her as detailed and understandable as possible. Fortunately, the girl was smart and a quick learner, too.

He'd love to defend himself with the help of many wiretaps and video formations, but they were quite heavy in terms of energy in addition to the spatial attribute transmitting the signal; it was above his abilities to create them.

Kyon was not comfortable with the fact that his thorough beatings could not suppress her entirely, especially as he was looking at her pretty angry face. She turned out to be a strong-willed person of an indomitable spirit, and the guy couldn't help admiring her for that.

When he repeated the last order, Juno angrily stamped her foot:

«You must be out of your mind! I am not going to comply with this humiliating order!» – She could not understand how it could have come to that — she was to become a spy at her own home per se! The freedom-loving mistress couldn't live with that.

Kyon just shrugged it off:

«It's okay, I'm ready to take any risks. Anything is better than hiding in the bushes all day and shaking with fear till one of the gardeners accidentally find you.»

Juno furiously bared her white like pearls teeth and snarled:

«You are obnoxious! How did you even manage to survive?! Why do you no longer obey me? And how on earth did you get into my room?! I can't make any sense of it!» – The angry little girl found it hard to maintain an att.i.tude of respect towards the slave and to speak in a reverent voice was out of the question. She was too eager to get the answers to her questions.

Kyon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Although he was the most outstanding person in his previous world, exaggerated respect had always irritated him. There were several reasons for that:

Firstly, at the end of that life, he was only 22 years old, and when people older than him or his peers treated him with idealization, he felt somewhat uncomfortable. Children were an exception, but he'd never considered Juno a child; her behavior and world view (arrogant and cruel) brought her closer to an adult. In fact, what did he do to be seriously respected? The previous life was an easy game for him, he pa.s.sed all the "advanced" tests and trials effortlessly. Laurel was born with an extraordinary predisposition to Synergy, any task was like a joke for him, but the guy didn't deserve the credit, mother nature or lady luck had endowed him with the most remarkable gifts. To put him on a pedestal for the mere fact that he was born? Count him out.

Secondly, he abhorred falsehood in all its forms - whether it was a tradition that had long outlived itself or just common courtesy. He accused of falsity those who, for example, gave a respectful greeting almost with a bow and sc.r.a.pe to stupid old people who had achieved nothing in their entire life. Another example - tolerance with tons of shortcomings on its side and a bit of an advantage; or countless hasty apologies for each and every of your actions: "Excuse me, would you be so kind to tell me the time, please," "excuse me for interrupting, but your shoes are untied," and so on. He believed that such people should apologize for their very insecure existence and thank their parents for helping them become perfect gears in the well-oiled machine of the system.

It's taken for granted that there exist good upbringing and innate decency, but if a person brazenly pretends to be a highly spiritual person, he will definitely deserve Kyon's contempt. In his opinion, a clear chain of command is quite enough.

At the same time, he had a full understanding that all these socio-psychological issues are essential for society to coexist peacefully. But then each individual person won't be able to make full use of their latent potential; being squeezed in the rigid framework of a biased strict society, it's possible to live the whole life as an unrealized and miserable person. It is proved that the more stringent the canons of society are the more unhappy people live in it, and therefore the more suicides happen every day. The statistic was enough for Kyon to be completely sure in his worldview.

That is why the guy decided not to spend too much effort and not to force Juno to treat him reverently: formal politeness and absence of her particular brand of sa.s.s were quite enough for him.

«Since you are now my slave, I will satisfy your curiosity and even ask for nothing in return, because you already completely belong to me, hha.» – The pleased guy burst into nasty laughter.

Juno's face contorted with rage at those words, she wanted to tear the insolent a.s.shole into pieces. He treated as if she were a thing. Do all slaves feel like this? No, she refused to believe it. She did not want to try their reality on herself.

Kyon told her that he had survived thanks to his unique ability, only, he decided not to say much about it, he only mentioned that it was one of a kind. Supposedly, his ability accelerated the regeneration of the body, at the very least.

Then he said that he had studied the profession of a formacist in the hidden library, and then, based on the gained knowledge, he invented his own formation which he applied to the newly made slave.

«Pure nonsense!» – The girl exclaimed incredulously. – «The formation can be imposed only with knowledge of the elements, but you can't possibly know about them!»

Kyon smiled slyly.

«Master Jean lent me the baseline of pure force.»

«That's impossible! I can admit that you've learned the baseline in just two weeks, which is clearly beyond your competence (based on your abilities), but I will never believe that the master could give such important knowledge to a slave! In this case, his pride and reputation would have been dragged through the mud right away!» – The girl had taken a stubborn stand.

Kyon snapped coldly, he didn't think he had to sell Jean out. If only he revealed to Juno the whole truth about his true nature, the wretched pervert would immediately get his b.a.l.l.s cut off and after a while, his head, too. Kyon wasn't going to grieve over the death of the p.r.i.c.k. Nevertheless, he felt certain grat.i.tude to him. Besides, Dinah was aware of his dirty business... Indeed, he'd already paid in full.

Juno was left without an explanation of his strange answer, she turned her back on him in exasperation:

«Even if it is true… I will never believe that you had enough… I mean that you really could apply this monstrosity to me… You are not at that level of development!!»

«Speaking of development… You should be well aware of this important rule of formacy: "The lower level of intelligence the potential submissive has, the easier it is to apply a formation to them." But take it easy, at least you are beautiful!»