Villain: 10x Rewards Begins With The Protagonist's Mother

Dante shoved all the plushies into the car trunk with a grin on his face.

’What I wanted to do didn’t happen, but the result turned out way better in the end.’

More importantly, Natasha was finally starting to enjoy herself.

As he walked back to the bench where she was waiting, he noticed her staring at a cotton candy stall.

She was watching the sugar spin into a cloud with her eyes following every rotation of the stick.

He quietly slipped away before she noticed him and came back a minute later holding two cotton candies.

"Master, here." Dante held one out in front of her face, blocking her view.

"Huh?" Natasha looked at him with a confused expression.

"I saw you staring at it, so I got one for both of us." Dante said with a smile.

Before she could say anything, he shoved it into her hand and sat down beside her.

’I was just looking at it out of boredom, but he actually went and bought one for me.’ She felt a warm current flow through her heart.

"The person who ends up marrying you is really lucky." She said jokingly. Even though she tried not to show it, she couldn’t quite hide the envy in her voice.

"You..." Dante said, taking a bite of the cotton candy.

Ba-thump!

Those words made Natasha’s head snap toward him instantly.

"Wha-what did you just say?" She asked in a mix of anger and something else she didn’t want to admit.

Dante ’seemed’ to realize his mistake and immediately put on an apologetic face. "I-I’m sorry, Master. I couldn’t resist a bite. I meant to say ’YOU are giving me too much credit."

"Is that so?" Natasha asked in a stern tone, though she felt relieved on the inside.

"Of course, Master. Me and you getting married? Haha, there’s no way that would happen." Dante said with a joking smile while thinking to himself. ’There’s no way your son would let that happen. So please wait until then.’

Natasha was shocked to find that a part of her actually felt disappointed hearing those words.

After that, neither of them said a word. She was asking herself why she felt disappointed even though she already knew the answer, and he was having fun watching her struggle after that little tease.

The silence between them was slowly turning awkward.

Noticing this, Natasha stood up from the bench without a word, cotton candy still in her hand, and started walking.

"Master, wait!" Dante jumped up and chased after her.

She didn’t stop after hearing him and kept going without looking back.

She was practically running while pretending to walk.

"Why did you suddenly start speed walking?" Dante caught up to her, slightly out of breath.

’What should I say? What do I say? I can’t tell him I felt disappointed that we can’t get married, right?’ Natasha’s eyes frantically searched for an excuse and landed on something in the distance.

A strength tester machine.

A small crowd had gathered around it. Some guy was rolling up his sleeves, hyping himself up while his friends cheered him on. He threw a punch and the machine lit up with a score.

The crowd clapped after seeing his performance.

"I-I want to try that!" Natasha made a sharp turn and walked straight toward it, leaving Dante behind once again.

He watched her go and a knowing smile formed on his face. ’Hehe. Master, if you wanted to do that, you could have just gone straight there. Why walk in one direction and change course the second I ask you a question?’

Natasha waited for the crowd to leave and walked up to the machine. She looked at it for a second and it was simple enough.

You punch the pad, you get a score.

She had just watched the others do it. They put their whole body into it and got numbers in the hundreds.

’But if I use even 10% of my strength...’ She paused that thought immediately.

She wasn’t trying to launch rockets here.

Technically, she does launch rockets. There was a space division under her group called RavenSpace.

She controlled her strength as much as she could and pulled her fist back, lining it up with the pad.

She was just about to throw the punch.

"MASTER! YOU CAN DO IT! I BELIEVE IN YOU!" Dante’s stupidly loud voice came out of nowhere right behind her.

Her focus slipped for a millisecond and her fist connected with the pad.

The machine didn’t beep or light up the way it usually did. It made a sound that no strength tester should ever make.

The pad dented inward and the screen cracked down the middle.

The whole machine groaned and tilted back a few inches on its base. Sparks flew out from the side panel and the digital display started flashing random numbers before it went completely dead.

’I swear to god!’ Natasha’s eyes twitched as she stared at the broken machine. ’I was doing perfectly fine until he opened his mouth!’

Fortunately, she had managed to pull most of her strength back at the last second. If she hadn’t, there wouldn’t even be a machine left to look at.

The crowd that had turned their heads after hearing Dante’s cheer were now standing there with their mouths wide open.

"Holy shit. What the hell just happened? Did that lady... just break the machine with one punch?"

"No way. No fucking way. Did she just break that with her bare hands?"

"Bro, I’ve been going to the gym for three years. And this woman in heels just made me question everything."

"This is exactly why you never pick a fight with a random person on the street. You don’t know who the fuck you’re dealing with."

"That woman has a body count and I don’t mean the fun kind."

"Nah for real though, imagine cutting her off in traffic."

"Imagine being her husband and forgetting the anniversary."

A little girl looked up at her dad. "Daddy, is she a superhero?"

Her dad picked her up. "She might be. Let’s go. Now."

Natasha stood there with her fist still out, staring at the wreckage. Her face went from anger to denial to pure panic in about two seconds.

"I... that’s not..." She turned around and everyone was looking at her like she just landed from another planet.

A staff member was already sprinting toward them from across the hall, walkie-talkie in hand.

Before she could even think of an excuse, a hand grabbed hers.

"We’re leaving." Dante said.

He pulled her into the crowd and they ran.

Natasha’s hat flew off her head and she snatched it out of the air with her free hand while keeping up with him effortlessly.

They cut through a clothing store, past a food court, up an escalator, through another store, and didn’t stop until they were two floors up on the complete opposite side of the building.

Dante pulled her behind a pillar in a quiet hallway with nobody around.

Both of them stood there catching their breath. Natasha had her back flat against the wall with her hat pressed to her chest and her face burning red.

"THAT." She pointed at him. "WAS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT."

"MY fault?!" Dante was bent over with his hands on his knees.

"Why did you scream behind me like that?!"

"I was indirectly warning you to control your strength!" Dante spoke as his fingers were already typing out a message to Felix to clean up the mess before it became a problem.

"Warn me?! You screamed ’I BELIEVE IN YOU’ like I was going to war or something!"

"And you went to war with that machine! You killed it, Master! It’s dead!"

"Shut up!" Natasha’s voice cracked and she turned away from him, pressing her forehead against the wall.

Her shoulders were shaking. Dante thought she was angry until a muffled sound leaked out from behind her hand.

She was laughing.

She pressed her face harder into the wall trying to hide it but it was too late.

The laugh broke through and she couldn’t stop it.

Dante watched her and his own laughter finally came out, echoing through the empty hallway.

A hundred-year-old dragon slayer was hiding behind a pillar in a mall, running from the staffs, because she punched a machine to death.

Neither of them could stop laughing.

’That machine’s sacrifice was well worth it.’ Dante thought, wiping his tears as he looked at Natasha who was still laughing.

He didn’t plan for any of this to happen. He just wanted to tease her a little.

Honestly, nothing he had planned for today actually worked. It was these random, unplanned moments that were doing all the heavy lifting.

’Screw it. Let’s just wing it.’ He threw all the plans out of his head and decided to simply spend the day with her.

After the laughter finally died down, they waited for Felix’s reply and it didn’t take more than 10 minutes.

He even got rid of the camera footage.

With that solved, they stepped out from behind the pillar. This time, neither of them was in a rush. They walked side by side in a comfortable pace.

As they reached the fourth floor, a black cat darted out of nowhere and landed right in front of them.

"A cat?" Natasha crouched down immediately. "Is it someone’s pet?"

"Master, wait!" Dante said.

"What?" She looked up at him with a puzzled face.

"Don’t you know that crossing paths with a black cat is bad luck?"