SSS Talent: From Trash to Tyrant Chapter 633: Esmond

Matteo went to the door without hurrying.

There was no reason to rush. Rushing would only make him appear nervous, and nervousness had a smell men like Esmond could taste from the other side of a wall. Matteo kept his cane in hand, adjusted his breathing, and crossed the hall with the measured irritation of a man answering an unwanted visitor rather than walking toward a ghost from his own past.

When he reached the entrance, he opened the door.

An old human stood outside.

White hair, neatly arranged. No beard. A narrow face with unfamiliar lines, the sort of face Matteo could have passed on the street without recognizing, which was almost certainly the point. Esmond had changed bodies, faces, names, or all three. Age had touched this appearance, but not in a way Matteo trusted. There was care in it. Design. A false frailty placed over something patient and venomous.

The old man's raspy voice scraped through the doorway.

"Matteo."

Matteo held the cane still against the floor.

"Esmond."

The two of them stood there with years, crimes, and old hatred packed between those two names. Neither offered a hand. Neither pretended warmth. The house wards thrummed beneath the threshold, tasting the visitor, accepting him only because Matteo had allowed it.

Esmond's mouth curved faintly. "An unusual method to request a meeting. I admit the phrase was rather captivating. I could not resist seeing which old friend had decided to remember me so fondly."

"So it reached you. A relief. I thought someone else might find it and fail to understand the message." Matteo stepped aside, sarcasm laid over his voice like old varnish. "It is good to see you after so many years, old friend. Please, come in."

Esmond took one step forward.

That was enough to reveal what had been hidden behind his body.

The homunculus stood at his back.

The small elven vessel wore the same gray one-piece cloth from the chamber beneath the Atrium. Bare feet touched the stone outside Matteo's house. White hair fell neatly down its back, unmoved by the evening air. It had followed Esmond without a word, without a question, without even the smallest sign of discomfort at being dragged through Aurevane like a proof of concept with legs.

Matteo's fingers tightened around his cane.

"You brought her here?"

Esmond followed his attention and gave a soft sound, almost pleased. "I assumed she was the reason you wished to speak. Through her, you learned I was alive, did you not? It felt fitting to bring my masterpiece."

Matteo's mouth hardened around the word masterpiece, but he swallowed the first answer that wanted to come out.

"Yes," he said instead. "I suppose it is appropriate. Please, follow me."

Esmond entered with the homunculus behind him.

The door closed.

Matteo guided them through the house, taking the route he had already prepared. The halls were dim, warded, and old in the way his home preferred to be. Shelves watched from the walls. Closed doors kept their secrets. The floor accepted each step without echo, and the air inside carried the faint scent of ink, treated wood, and stored mana.

Behind another wall, Trafalgar and Caelum heard everything.

The hidden space where they waited had been designed to overlook the meeting chamber through warded stone and a concealed passage. It gave them sound, partial sight, and a way in once everyone entered. Matteo had built his house for privacy. Today, privacy served as a cage.

Trafalgar spoke in a low voice. "He brought the homunculus."

Caelum's answer came just as quietly. "We should stay alert, young master. We have not seen what it can do, and anything Esmond values enough to bring here is likely dangerous."

Trafalgar gave a small nod. "Once all of them are inside, we move."

Their voices barely breathed against the room.

Even so, the homunculus stopped.

It halted in the corridor with unsettling precision, one bare foot paused over the floorboards. Its head angled slightly, not toward Matteo or Esmond, but toward the side of the wall where Trafalgar and Caelum waited. There was no expression on its face. Only that blank, obedient stillness, made worse by the fact that it had noticed something.

Matteo felt the change immediately.

He turned enough to see it and forced his voice into the kind of annoyance that could pass as natural. "What is wrong with it, Esmond? Why did it stop?"

Esmond's attention shifted to the homunculus.

The old man's mild amusement thinned.

"Come."

The command was simple.

The homunculus obeyed.

It resumed walking as if the pause had never happened.

Inside the hidden room, Trafalgar's hand moved closer to his sword.

"Did it detect us?"

Caelum's face gave nothing away. "It is possible, young master."

That possibility lodged itself in the air between them. If the homunculus could hear through the warded stone, or sense mana concealed beneath Matteo's protections, this trap had gained teeth they had not measured. Trafalgar did not draw. He only adjusted his stance and waited.

In the corridor, Matteo reached the meeting room.

His hand touched the door mechanism, and for a breath his old bones seemed to remember every choice that had led him here. The Vaelion capture. The trial. The phrase in the letter. Selara's red ears in the chamber beneath the Atrium. The small cold ankle in his hand when he hid the message beneath the homunculus's foot.

He opened the door.

Esmond entered first.

The homunculus followed.

Matteo came last and closed the door behind them.

Selara was already inside.

Esmond saw her at once.

The old man's face brightened with a tenderness so false it had to be intentional. He looked at his former disciple the way a collector might look upon an old instrument, recalling the music it once made and the price paid to own it.

"Oh, my little one," he said. "You are here today as well? Do not think you surprised me much. I expected to see you too."

Selara did not move toward him.

Her face remained controlled, but the room itself seemed to tighten around her.

"Do not call me that, Esmond."

Esmond smiled.

"A pity."

Matteo stood near the door, cane in hand.

The homunculus remained beside Esmond, pale and silent, its empty elven face turned slightly toward Selara as if waiting for an order that would decide what kind of night this became.

Beyond the hidden passage, Trafalgar and Caelum prepared to enter.

The meeting had begun.