"Luckily for you, I have a high-grade mana poison antidote that can probably solve your problems," Lee Jung spoke as he shook the tube that had the antidote invitingly like he was trying to seduce Davies.

*'BOOM'* an explosion went off inside Davies's head as he saw Lee Jung pull out a tube filled with suspicious-looking liquid that he called a high-grade poison antidote.

Once again, he almost lost control of his mana as he felt the puzzle that had been bothering him this whole time click into place even without him trying to solve it.

'Fucking hell…' 

Before coming to the birthday banquet of Rafael Lecroy, Davies had been constantly wondering about what opportunity would there be for Lee Jung at the banquet and he had arrived at the conclusion that the opportunity had something to do with Melinda Ashborne, hence his attempt to befriend her and become a block that would constantly interfere in their relationship should it ever occur, and if it did not, he would still get the girl anyway.

He had been almost a hundred percent sure that a relationship was supposed to be built between those two tonight, but somehow that did not end up happening and this was what had prompted him to want to leave in the first place.

He also hoped that by him making a move first, he could provoke a move from Lee Jung, or fate, or whatever was supposed to be the spark that ignited the relationship between them, as he knew that for someone to form any kind of relationship with this girl, the spark that would give rise to the relationship had to be equally explosive to crack the frigid block of ice that was known as Melinda Ashborne… mild methods would definitely not work, unless of course the person was as handsome as Davies himself and as much of a Rizz king as he was, but Lee Jung didn't even come close to those standards.

In the end, the result of his trying to hurry up the process, he had been double tapped by poison darts and was now suffering the effects of a poison he had never come across before and had almost no idea how to deal with it and preserve his life, but seeing a poison antidote that was able to cure that same poison in the hand of the fated protagonist, Lee Jung, he immediately knew that while the process of what had happened may be wrong… what was happening was definitely no coincidence.

It was probably supposed to happen in a different format from what was currently happening due to Davies's interference, but this was definitely the opportunity that was planned for Lee Jung.

Davies was sure of this. There was no such thing as such a perfect coincidence when it came to something that was tightly intertwined with fate like a fated protagonist.

What was probably supposed to happen was for Davies and Lee Jung to come to the birthday banquet, probably have a little conflict… or not, Davies probably tries to get into Melinda's pants but fails as she is very resistant to such motives or any type of romantic attempts at her for that matter.

After failing, Davies probably fumes away in anger while planning something disgusting and derisive for her in the future, but stays unperturbed for now after which, Melinda probably decides to leave the banquet and then she gets shot by the poison dart.

The rest of the story would be as cliche as always… Lee Jung would arrive like a knight in shining armor and give her the antidote for the poison after Melinda had thoroughly fallen into despair and is overwhelmed by the fact that she would die due to the poison's effects.

Lee Jung's actions probably would cause a romantic reaction and then, voila… opportunity acquired, as well as that piece of devastatingly sexy MILF ass.

But…

Davies had interrupted the whole process,

Since he had figured out where the opportunity would probably come from due to his knowledge about this type of thing and had also come up with the best method to get close to the opportunity, Melinda, the whole scenario had gone out the window.

Instead of trying(directly) to get into her pants, he had decided to play the long game and had instead gotten into an interesting but non-romantic conversation with her, and he had succeeded since he didn't go against the flow and had instead decided to play with her feelings and incite sentimental emotions in her instead of making her horny.

This led to them establishing a relationship that wasn't aversive to her. Of course, it was too early for him to actually say he had become her best friend or anything of that sort, but he had successfully established a position in her heart that wouldn't be easily shaken, thus when he had simply grabbed her hand to leave the banquet hall, she hadn't resisted and had simply gone along with it, 

But then everything changed when the fire nation attacked-… *cough* *cough* Ahem,

… Everything changed when he felt a sudden sting on his neck which happened to be a poison dart that had then deposited its poisonous content into his bloodstream.

It was also then that he noticed the second dart moving towards the neck of Melinda and he tried to block it, but due to the unexpected sudden deterioration of the control of his mana, he wasn't able to protect his hand in time before it came into contact with the poison dart, thereby causing it to lodge itself into his palm and deposit it's poisonous content into his body, instead of bouncing off of his mana protected skin.

Davies began to chuckle slowly as he relaxed his tense body onto the platform, he was resting his back on even more.

Everything had gone wrong.

He had not actually failed in what he had wanted to achieve, rather he had actually accomplished his goal and even more... there was just the slight issue that he had ended up putting his life on the line and thus he was now at death's door, and though he had a way to drag himself away from death's door, it wasn't without cost… a heavy one that he currently wasn't willing to bear.

Melinda was the one who was supposed to be poisoned, but he had ended up being her shield because of his intrusive actions to try to grab hold of the 'opportunity'. 

Lee Jung was supposed to give the antidote to Melinda after she was poisoned so he could establish a relationship and even make her have a good impression of him, which would then develop into a romantic feeling after they had spent more time together, but he had been the one who had ended up poisoned instead.

He was not sure whether he was supposed to be poisoned in the original scheme of things should he not have interrupted at all, especially since he had a way to survive, but he did know that there was no way that Lee Jung would ever give him the antidote after all that had happened between them.

Even if by some miracle, he decided to smoke some weed and then decide to give Davies the antidote, he would use the opportunity to literally take a pound of flesh from Davies, either by humiliating Davies or blatantly ripping him off of something that was worth more than a million times of what he was giving.

Unfortunately, Davies was in no condition to snatch the antidote directly from Lee Jung's hands, and even if he was able to, he still wouldn't do it.

He had his own pride.

He wouldn't accept something from the bastards that had been hand fed by fate. He didn't want to owe his life to a protagonist, no matter the loss he would have to suffer… though this was only because he had another opportunity. 

If he didn't have any other choice, he would definitely not let the antidote escape his grasp… he needed to be alive for him to actually be able to have his revenge after all, didn't he?

Well, now that he understood what had happened, even though he still needed to give the matter a lot of thought, he simply shifted those excessive questions to the back of his head and returned his focus to keeping his mana in check while waiting for Melinda to come back with the car.

Questions like, whether he was also supposed to be poisoned, or not?

Or, who was after his life and Melinda's? were not questions to be thought about at the moment.

It would be better for him to have a more in-depth thinking and examination of this matter, but that would be preferably done when his life was no longer hanging by a thread.

Suddenly, he became slightly curious about why Lee Jung had decided to show himself, and why he was waving the antidote around in his face. 

Why was he acting so sleazy all of a sudden?

Did he actually want to give the antidote to Davies?

If he did, what did he want in return?

All these questions popped up curiously in Davies's head as he looked curiously at Lee Jung who looked like a black-hearted merchant at the moment.

"What do you want in exchange for the antidote?" he decided to ask directly without beating around the bush as he wanted to know what Lee Jung could ever want from him.

"Oh…!" Lee Jung was a bit startled that Davies immediately got to the point, but he wasn't that surprised that Davies immediately understood what was going on.

This was extortion and his requests were definitely as such,

"I want you… to beg…"

"To beg for your life as I step on your face, and you grovel beneath my feet,"

"... Also, I want your Magical Runic Technology," Lee Jung made his exorbitant requests known with a big, evil, shark-like smile on his face.