บท 8: Identity Theft
Atlas, after assessing the situation, knew that keeping Mia alive would only be a liability. It didn't matter whether these people were going to attack on the spot or be friendly—her life wasn't worth the risk of her revealing the truth about the situation. With Mia out of the picture, he could manipulate the narrative to his liking.
A couple of seconds later, the group rounded the corner at a slight jog. Instantly, five people stopped and gazed down the hallway. Three of them withdrew swords, one held a heavy shield, and furthest back, a small woman stood weaponless.
The sight that met them was horrific. One woman was decapitated on the ground; another appeared dead as well, with a large slice through her stomach and a hole where the heart was supposed to be. Finally, they saw a man sitting next to both of them, except he wasn't dead. Unfortunately, a sword was piercing his left shoulder.
They all approached the man slowly before a broad-shouldered man with a masculine face stepped forward.
"Hey, you! What happened here?"
Atlas looked up in fear as if a monster were standing in front of him.
"Get away!" he screamed, kicking his feet on the ground and scrambling away.
The group all looked at each other, realizing that this man was in such a pitiful state.
"You're just like him, aren't you? A murderer!" Atlas yelled.
The broad man took a step forward again, this time inspecting the wounds on each person, and concluded that a fight had just happened here, and this group was attacked.
"Where is your attacker, and how did this happen?" he asked.
Atlas looked at him again with fear in his eyes and said, "He-e-e was a short man with black hair and pale skin. He came from the shadows and attacked us over the food we had. My two companions gave their lives to protect me because of who my family is."
He took a shaky breath between sentences.
"I was able to hold him off a little before he stabbed me, and hearing the sounds of you guys coming, he turned that corner."
The broad man was instantly wary of an attacker capable of taking down these three people by himself. Even if this guy on the ground was in a pitiful state, it was clear they had survived many days in this maze, which was an accomplishment.
The group sent two men to inspect around the corner and saw a dead end.
"The maze has changed, boss," they reported back.
The leader decided that this young man in front of him was probably okay. Based on his story, there was no way he could have taken down these two women. Instead, it looked as if he was from some kind of rich family who had sent a group to protect their son.
He knew that a large reward would be given to him if he adopted this man into his group. Seeing that there were five of them, they still had one open space.
Atlas smiled internally, thinking about what was running through each of their minds.
His pitiful display was, of course, an act meant to fool this group into not seeing him as a cold-blooded murderer. He knew it worked when the broad man summoned the woman from the back to come and heal his wounds.
She bent down, her blonde hair laying beautifully to her side, and without warning, pulled the sword from his shoulder. No matter how good Atlas was at acting, he wasn't some type of demon who could ignore pain, and his reaction of cursing was real.
The woman then put her hand on the hurt shoulder and sent waves of Aether into it.
Atlas could feel the sensation of his muscles growing back, then the skin, and finally, it closed as if there had never been a wound at all. He was genuinely surprised at such an outcome. Who knew that Aether could be used in such a way? He wondered if this woman was able to do that through skill or some type of technique she had picked up.
The group talked to him more about his situation, and naturally, he kept lying to them. He said he was from an affluent family who paid these people to challenge a Door Node with government approval, and they all went in. The group was quickly separated and attacked, leaving only him alive at the end of it. Of course, he recounted the story of what happened here again, and every time he talked about the death of his comrades, he paused and took a moment, as if the pain of remembering hurt him.
Atlas then asked the most testing question of all to the group.
Putting on a worried face said, "Will you allow me into your group? Of course, I can pay you what my family was going to give to my previous group, and even more once I live through this Trial!"
That was the question the broad man wanted to hear. He felt like he could use this opportunity to not only be paid but to have a member of high rank in society indebted to him.
This man in front of him looked like nothing more than his ticket to a golden life. How could he refuse?
The strength of this man wasn't enough to take down the group, and he could easily be a background character in fights. Of course, it would add another mouth to feed, but with each of the party members being at the Veiled Rank, they weren't worried about not having enough food.
There were plenty of Veiled-ranked creatures that couldn't compare to the might of this group.
Atlas was given a hand to pull him up, and the broad man patted him on the back.
"My name is Sebastian. What's yours?"
Atlas shakily replied, "My name is Edmund Worthington."
He thought about everything happening and decided to change his name. The main reason was that if this group needed to be killed in the future, and for some reason, one of them managed to escape, they wouldn't be able to throw around Atlas's real name.
Each group member introduced themselves one by one, but the only two names he remembered were the tall man, Sebastian, and the woman who healed him—her name was Iris.
After introductions, some members of the group took the arrows from the dead woman and found a rabbit that was partially bitten into. They didn't ask him any more questions; instead, they started to set off into the maze.
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