Bab 10: Chapter 9- Unexpected Allies?
As I stood there holding the crystal which glowed a faint blue, illuminating the darkness around me, I was contemplating over the choices I had left and what I could do to survive this hellish situation. Trapped on one side, and an enigma in front, with only death as a third option.
But death was never an option, so without wasting further time and energy, I proceeded to think about what I could do. "Well for starters I could possibly try digging the soil using the dagger, worth a shot I guess." I thought as I extended my spikes and tried lifting the dagger.
"Heavy..."
The Dagger looked small but was too heavy for my current strength so I couldn't lift it using my thorns. I wrapped my thorns by extending them and weaving them around the hilt. By doing so I was able to drag it.
It was bloody and I couldn't lift it. Using it as a shovel with my current energy was a futile effort.
"Interesting, Very interesting" a sudden sound surprised me as I retracted my spikes, letting the dagger go.
I looked around the darkness while moving the crystal to spot if there was anyone. The voice was sudden and was rather familiar. I looked at the vial with the purple liquid, while stepping over the dagger.
"Are you the one who spoke to me?" I thought while looking at the vial which illuminated a purplish sapphire under the light. I pulled it out while dragging it using a spike.
"No, I'm the one who spoke to you. Now get off of me" the voice said in an un-amused fashion.
I looked at the dagger below me. The jewel on the center glowed a pure white, as some seals appeared around it. Surprised, I replied with the only natural thing I could think of at the moment, "Wait!? You're a talking dagger?" to which he sarcastically replied, "and you're a sentient plant"
"Fair point" I replied as I moved from him. There was a moment of awkward silence between us. "So, um... are you gonna talk??" I said as I poke him with a spike. "Finally, it seems that I can't speak with you unless we are in contact with one another." He said with a serious tone. He turned on a lighter note as he spoke, "Ok, let's just start by introducing ourselves. The name's Benjamin. And as you can see I'm a dagger right now"
"Sorry, I don't have a name right now. Cause, I'm a cactus." I replied a little embarrassed over my current self.
"Hmmm, but wouldn't using your name from your past life would be better?" Benjamin asked.
"Well, you see- Wait... How-?" I fumbled, completely confused over the statement.
The tone of his voice changed to a calculative tone, "You see, at first I was confused whether you were a sentient cactus sent by that guy. The reason was that your species don't have sentience or movement as far as I know. And without the influence of a druid, sage or a nature-based Elementalist, it wouldn't be possible. With the only druid around I didn't sense a magic level comparable to that guy. The only other option would be that you are a reincarnator, and with your statement, before my calculations were on point"
He seriously deduced I was a reincarnator in a few words and I didn't even realize I've fallen into his trap. This guy wasn't a joke. The level of this world was really crazy high.
"Oh, well sorry about that. You may know about the events before, so I had to be cautious. Well continue, why don't you use your name from a past life?" he said changing the subject.
"Well, I can't seem to remember some things from my past life. I think I suffer from partial memory loss." I replied while making sure not to leak out my surprise and other thoughts. It seemed that we could only hear what the other person wanted us to hear. It was really difficult but I was able to handle it somehow.
He laughed a bit and then cheerfully replied, "Well aren't you in a pickle. Well no choice, I'll just call you cactus for now I guess"
"Okay? Is reincarnation that common??" I asked him as I also needed some valuable information I could use.
He replied, "No, they are really rare like one in a hundred million."
It was some good info and since we were on the topic of reincarnation, I jumped the gun and asked "Are you a reincarnator??
"No, but our 3rd leader was a reincarnator. That's why I know about them. It's a fairly rare knowledge, so only people with money, noble status or some sort of acquaintance would know. Since you are a reincarnated person you should have some info, think of it as, courtesy from the 3rd leader. So, here is all the info I know from the 3rd leader." He cheerfully replied but I could sense some dangerous undertones. He must have read my thoughts.
I could only reply with, "Okay."
"So, reincarnation is the only natural way a person from another world can cross over. The 3rd leader said that they will get an ability called <status> to check their stat flow but it isn't really great. Apart from that, the only other edge a reincarnated person has over the average folk is their common sense, knowledge and other things they learned in their world. There are many other forms of crossing over. Like when one of the great countries does a <Heroic summoning> to call heroes to fight the demons. Or an accidental drift in the world summons another person. Those things are rarer than reincarnation. Sometimes Gods, summon the other world'ers into this world. We call that <Divine Summoning>. The leader said there are many more but he didn't know all of them. If I had to sort them all by their abilities then, The strongest would be divinely summoned, then heroic summoned, then reincarnators and finally, the accidentals cause apart from their knowledge they have no abilities naturally granted to them. Not even the <status> skill. So they would be on par with the average folk here, but they'll need to learn magic if they want to be on par with the fighters."
"Thanks for the info. By the way, how did you become a dagger? Didn't you just die before?" I asked
"Well, technically I'm already dead. I'm just trapped in this dagger because of the drawback of my skill" He replied with a proud tone.
Feeling a chink in the armor hearing the proud tone, being careful about my thoughts I seized the chance as I egged him on, "Sounds like a shit skill."
"NOW LISTEN HERE- *Ahem* I can't tell this skill to anyone but since it's just you, I don't think it will do much harm. Remember to not tell anyone about this skill" He angrily replied.
I laughed as I replied, "Okay, I don't think I can speak through."
"Exactly, but you have to swear to secrecy. There are many other ways to tell a secret to a person." He said.
"Fine" I replied not thinking much about it.
Then he began his long speech, "The skill <Man slayer> is a 10th-grade Legendary class last resort skill. It is a <slayer> skill and I know of only 2 ways it can be obtained. There may be more, but I don't have any idea about it. The first being, when the global population of the world of a species is decreased by 0.1% in 1 hour by a person of no more than 10 times the strength or if it is passed down by someone else. The 1st leader obtained this skill when he killed 100,000 men in war. It's a last resort trump card because as long as you are fighting that species no matter even if you die, the other person will also get killed as long as you land a blow. The skill only activates when you are about to die but won't work if the other person is unscathed, on the other hand even if you manage to even scratch that person, they will die if you are about to die."
There was something really wrong with the skill. Confused I replied, "But that red-haired person didn't die."
"That was because it didn't fulfill the requirements of the skill, so prince Yukiyo was safe to the effects of the skill." He answered in a weird tone while laughing
Confused to why he was laughing I asked, "What did it not fulfill?"
He replied "I can't tell you that, I've been sworn to secrecy"
"Huh?" I couldn't even utter words completely baffled at the secrecy stuff.
"Well there is a drawback for every slayer skill, and mine is that when I die my soul gets trapped in my nearest belonging until I find a successor for this skill. It's like a tradition for our Grey edge clan, now. So I need to appoint the next successor. It's my last duty as the 5th leader." He said in a sad tone.
I felt sad for the guy but I continued, "Weren't you guys like bandits or something? Won't your clan get- like hunted or something?"
He laughed at the reply and said, "Well, you would get confused from out act before, our clan is actually not a bandit clan. We have our reasons"
"I mean for kidnapping and theft. Those reasons are a little weird to me." Confused I asked.
"Well you see, a massive undead horde is coming to attack our clan in 3 days, And we had to gather funds to recruit mercenary and adventurers"
I felt some hypocrisy so I said, "So to gather funds you had to resort to that." but since I didn't know the complete story I continued, "But I think there is a deeper story to this."
He cheerfully said, "You are quite ruthless aren't you. Ok here is the full story."
"We had already amassed a large amount of gold for the job. But a few days ago we found that half of the gold was stolen. The guards were injured badly and knocked out. They said it was a young male who had a physique of 16-17 years, had white hair and purple eyes. We tried to track the thief but we couldn't find him, Antonio and some men are still tracking him. The day of the invasion was getting nearer and we didn't have enough people. So to collect the funds we had to wear a mask and resort to stealing, we just stole half and ran, no killing, it was a quick job. But, in our last steal, I didn't expect that the source of all our problems would appear right before our eyes, the kid with the purple eyes and white hair, all my frustration and anger swelled up and was focused on revenge. But we lingered too long and as you know we were killed by the prince. Laughable isn't it, we became the same object of hate we so desired. But even though the image matched the kid, he wasn't like how the guards explained to us. He was more focused on protecting the girl than himself. I didn't know if it was my inner self screaming, but I couldn't fire that attack at full force when I saw him still protecting the girl when the shield crumbled, so I stopped the attack midway. Well, we have enough funds to barely defend against the impending undead invasion."
Somehow, I felt like compared to my hate towards Yukiyo was unjustified. To be fair he threw me into a hole because he thought I was dead. Compared to Ben I was being petty, still doesn't change the fact that I'm in a shitty situation. "So, do you hate the Yukiyo?" I asked.
"A bit, but it was a fight and he fought fair against 28 of us. To him, we were just bandits to be exterminated. We even hurt one of his allies badly. There was no room to talk. It was either escape or death and the door to escape was already closed. The fight was hard fought and I didn't kill him and that was all there was to it."
I decided not to force more out of him. He then said, "There is one problem. My clan back at home don't know that me and my men are dead. They may feel like I've gone to get back-up or I'm doing something important. Someone needs to get them the information. The clansmen may think that without a leader they will be killed by the undead, and there will be no one to handle the mercenaries and adventurers. Who knows, they may even run away."
Ben seemed to be in a very bad situation but I had to get out of this godforsaken place, I couldn't drag him to his clan because that would be impossible with my current stats. "Well, That's a doozy," I replied as I was about Just as I said that Suddenly the ground starts shaking.
"Why is the ground trembling?"
Then Ben said in a sinister cheerful tone, "So, Mr. Cactus, I know the situation you're in. No sunlight, trapped situation and only the place forward to run. How about a deal, in exchange for getting me to my village, I'll provide you with all the information, help and plans you'll need to get out of this godforsaken place and who knows I may even reward you when we get to the village."
A large snake-like head pops out one of the holes, flicking its tongue and moving its head around. The head itself was 4 times my size. I stood there frozen with fear, with this massive enemy in front of me. The head spots me, but retracts into the hole, fading into the darkness in front of me.
If I could sweat I would be sweating cold sweat right then. I wasn't trembling but my in my mind the fear had engraved deep. Even the path before me was certain death. Even though I was a plant I could be considered food for the majority of the creatures in the darkness.
The worst part, I didn't have any knowledge of them. Ben was far more calculative than I realized. He was, no he had planned everything from the beginning. If the previous chat was a chess game, I lost to him in a terribly one-sided match with the illusion of victory in front of me.
I laughed as I replied, "Well, you are quite the devil, aren't you. I can't really say no now can I."
"Oh, I wouldn't mind. It's your choice after all." He replied in a snarky tone.
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