Overlord Tamer: All My Pet Monsters Have God Potential

Chapter 206: Name Your Terms

[A/N: Alright, the novel will continue instead of ending it lazily like i intended. Happy Reading :) ]

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The food came in waves after that. Roasted Voidhorn ribs glazed in something that smelled like caramelized starlight, a soup so tender it dissolved before the spoon even reached the mouth, and a stack of fruit that only John, Azelis, and Jibril dared touch, because the servants knew exactly what tier those fruits belonged to.

Azelis picked up a rib and inspected it with the mild curiosity of someone judging a stranger’s cooking before she took a bite.

"Not bad," she said. "Better than the last three restaurants we tried."

"That’s because the last three didn’t have people threatening our lives while we ate," Jibril said dryly, sipping from a cup of something violet and steaming. "Manners improve fast once you flip a family head upside down."

"I didn’t flip him." John tore into his own plate without looking up. "I misplaced him."

Meron and his gang were still kneeling by the wall, foreheads nearly touching the floor, too afraid to move. The two uncles stood rigid near the head of the table, sweat beading on their necks despite the cool air drifting through the open pavilion doors.

Vinera sat stiffly in her seat, arms wrapped around herself, still shaken from wherever John had sent her earlier. The eldest brother stood closest to the table, hands clenched, eyes darting between John and the empty space where his father had stood five minutes ago.

"Where is my father." His voice was tighter now. It wasn’t a question anymore. It was a demand wrapped in desperation.

John finally looked up and chewed slowly before he swallowed.

"Currently, somewhere five thousand kilometers up, in a nice little neighborhood of floating rocks," he said. "Lovely view. Terrible neighbors."

The color drained from the man’s face.

"The Calamity Wilds," one of the uncles rasped. "You sent the head of our family into the Calamity Wilds?"

"I sent him into the general vicinity," John corrected. "Whether he survives the actual neighborhood is up to him now. Third-calamity rank, wasn’t he? That’s a personal problem, not mine."

The eldest brother’s aura flared, and dark blue lightning crackled weakly around his fists, but he forced it back down when he remembered what happened the last time someone in this room tried something clever.

"Sit," John said, not unkindly. "Eat if you want, or don’t. But throwing a tantrum won’t bring him back any faster."

Silence settled over the table, and it had teeth.

Azelis glanced sideways at John, a faint smile tugging at her lips. She had seen this pattern from him before. Cruelty dressed as indifference, though it was never actually cruelty.

He liked pulling threads until people showed him what they were really made of.

"You’re not actually going to let him die," she said through Magic Whisper, low enough that only he’d catch it.

’Of course not,’ John whispered back. ’I want him terrified, not orphaned children raising a grudge for the next three centuries. Bad for business.’

’So you’re just teaching a lesson.’

’I’m teaching several. Watch.’

Out loud, John set down his utensils and wiped his mouth with a cloth conjured from Molding Essence. It was an unnecessary flourish, but he liked the theater of it.

"Here’s what’s going to happen," he said, looking around the table at the family, the uncles, Meron, and Vinera. "Your father is going to spend the next hour learning exactly how small he is in the grand order of things. Then I’ll pull him out before something with too many teeth decides to make a meal of him."

"Why would you do any of that?" the eldest brother asked through gritted teeth.

"Because manners run downhill," John said. "Your brother learned his from somewhere, so I’m addressing the source instead of the symptom."

He snapped his fingers, and a screen of light unfolded above the table, small and private, visible only to those seated there. It showed the bearded family head clinging to a jagged outcrop of floating rock, his robes torn and one arm scorched black from a near miss.

He was breathing hard as something enormous and winged circled below the cloud layer, hunting by scent.

The uncles’ faces went white. Vinera’s hand flew to her mouth. Meron made a strangled sound and looked away.

"He’s..."

"Alive," John said. "For now. Notice how he hasn’t tried anything stupid, like using his strongest technique to draw more attention. Good instincts. He’ll live if he keeps them."

Nobody spoke. On the screen, the winged thing banked lower, and its shadow slid across the outcrop. The family head pressed himself flat against the stone, utterly silent and utterly still.

A Calamity-rank powerhouse, third within his rank, was reduced to holding his breath like a rabbit.

"This is what real strength looks like," John said quietly. "Not confetti attacks that get laughed off. Not throwing your weight around in a restaurant because your family owns the deed to a city."

He looked directly at Meron now. "Strength is the gap between what that thing down there can do to your father, and what your father can do about it. Right now, that gap is enormous. And everyone on this side of the world who thinks they’re untouchable because of a title is standing in the same gap, whether they know it or not."

He let that sit for a moment before he continued.

"I’m not here to kill your family. I was hungry, and your brother was rude, and it turned into something more useful than a beating." He picked his utensils back up. "So eat, sit, and think about what kind of family you want to be once your father comes back missing an eyebrow and a few years off his pride."

Slowly and stiffly, the eldest brother sat down. The uncles followed. Even Meron, after a nudge from his brother’s glare, crawled to a chair and sat with his head down, no longer daring to look at John directly.

Jibril leaned toward John and lowered her voice. "You’re enjoying this a bit too much."

"A little," John admitted, popping a piece of fruit into his mouth. "It’s been a while since I properly terrified a family. Feels nostalgic."

"Don’t let it go to your head," Azelis said, though there was warmth under the words.

They ate in a strange, taut quiet after that. The family was too afraid to speak, and the servants were too afraid to move. The only sound was the occasional clink of utensils and, faintly, the low murmur of the trio’s own conversation.

Their ease unsettled everyone else at the table even more than the threats had.

Forty minutes later, John set down his cup, and the screen above the table flickered. On it, the winged beast finally lost interest and drifted toward a different patch of floating rock. The bearded man collapsed against the stone, chest heaving, alive.

John raised a hand and pulled.

A distortion rippled through the dining hall, and the family head appeared kneeling in the middle of the floor. His robes were shredded, one arm hung useless and blistered, and his hair was singed at the edges. He looked twenty years older than he had an hour ago.

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Then the eldest brother rushed forward and caught his father before he could collapse further. "Father."

"I’m fine," the older man rasped, though his voice shook. His eyes found John across the room, and something in them had changed completely from the arrogance that flared when he first arrived.

There was no fight left in it. Only a wary, hard-won understanding.

"You," he said. "What do you want from us?"

John smiled, and this time there was nothing cold about it. It was just the easy, satisfied look of a man who had gotten exactly the reaction he wanted.

"Now that," he said, "is a much better question than the one your son asked me an hour ago."

He gestured, and a second, smaller screen bloomed to life. It showed a map of the city and the surrounding territory, and beyond it, a marked stretch of unclaimed land near the border of a dimensional rift the Ulaang family had apparently been sitting on for three generations without ever properly exploring it.

"I need a few things," John said. "Territory, access, and a secret dimension I have reason to believe your family has been quietly ignoring because you didn’t have the strength to crack it open."

He tapped the map. "In exchange, I’ll make sure nothing like tonight ever finds its way to your doorstep again. I might even teach your son some manners myself, free of charge."

Meron’s head shot up in alarm.

The family head looked at his son, then at John, and finally bowed his head, slow and pained.

"Name your terms," he said. "We’re listening."