Chương 28: How Broken They Are

Slowly, with a smile on his face, Arc stepped toward the Imp. "See? He's not all that bad. All he did was defend himself. We would have done the same, wouldn't we?" The boy asked as he slowly turned to the other children from beside the Imp, before exactly that Imp felt a slight cold of air approaching his throat. "That being said, I personally don't have any qualms doing the same, Mister Imp. I personally don't mind you coming with us, on the contrary, you're probably stronger than all of us at the moment and can protect us. But we're more than you. Only three of us may be able to injure you, but remember. Even you need to sleep sometime." Arc said with a smile, using the Dagger that the Imp so thoughtlessly dropped on his way into the carriage to grab the child in his arms.

Slowly, it seemed like Arc was pushing the blade against the Imp's throat, although he was really just touching it a little. Only if either of them rapidly moved would it actually cut the Imp. The Imp had to figure out a way to defend himself right now, overwhelm this child, and then git rid of it. He somehow didn't feel like killing any of these children, but if they threatened him like that, he had no choice but to, didn't he?

But before the Imp could actually come to a decision, Arc already pulled the Dagger away from the Imp's throat and grabbed it by the blade, holding the handle back toward the Imp.

"Don't worry, I don't actually know how to use this that well." Arc pointed out with a slight laugh, before the Imp continued to glare at him and quickly pulled the basket standing next to him closer with his foot before placing the child in his arms back into it, and then slowly took the dagger from Arc again.

"Imp not kill childs. Childs not kill Imp." The red monster said with a glare, as he took the dagger and placed it into the small bag hanging by the side of his hip, and Arc nodded his head with a smile.

"Alright, then I hope you trust me enough not to sit right next to me while I'm driving the carriage while stabbing my leg." Arc told the Imp, and he did so with a slight smile, barely any animosity included in it, something that the Imp didn't really expect, "You didn't hurt me, but you drained a little bit off my health, so it would be great if you stopped doing that or I'll end up unconscious sooner or later. We don't want that, now do we?" The young boy asked before heading back toward the carriage, but the Imp had something else he still wanted to know.

"Why no pain?" He asked the boy, and he looked back at the monster behind him again. "Oh, right! Well, if we'll be staying together for a while now, I think we should better explain it a bit and introduce ourselves properly. I'm sure everyone is hungry, so let's do that over a little bit of food, huh?" Arc suggested and stepped into the carriage, and at that point, the Imp more than just happily nodded his head.

If it was about food, he had more than enough prepared. These children sure must be hungry, so the Imp had to share his food as well, didn't he? Wanting to share wasn't a feeling he has felt for such a long time, he first felt it when he killed that weird little bird sitting on the pile of sticks and then gave it to Avalin, but he didn't expect to feel it toward all of these useless children.

So, the Imp quickly stepped into the carraige and grabbed his bag of cooked meat, happily placing it down in front of the children. "Eat!" He exclaimed, and while Rudy, Clementine and Sammy seemed pretty hungry and wanted to grab some of it, Arc actually knew where that meat came from.

"Ah, sorry, Mister Imp. We can't eat that food." Arc explained, but the three other children looked toward him disappointedly. "Huh? Why not? It's meat!" Rudy exclaimed hungrily, already trying to extend his hand toward it, but he was quickly stopped by Arc who simply grasped the other boy's arm tightly.

"I said we can't eat that food. That meat comes from... something that will kill us if we eat its own. They're going to be able to smell us out, and they will be able to hunt us wherever we are. That only applies to people though, so monsters can eat it..." Arc explained, and the Imp just looked at him confused while taking one of the pieces of meat and starting to eat it, because why wouldn't he? It was just normal meat, but Clementine looked at the Imp jealously.

"Whaat? Why can Mister Imp eat it but we can't?" Clementine asked as she crossed her arms, but Arc just placed his hand on the top of her head and rubbed over it, something that made the Imp stop for a moment. But soon enough, he just continued eating like normal, while the children went into the carriage and grabbed themselves some other food that the Imp recognized from what Avalin, Thomas and James always ate, bread.

But the Imp didn't care, it was the children's loss, after all. And while they were eating, and the Imp tried to figure out why he felt so calm around things he wanted to kill just a few hours ago all of a sudden, Arc quickly began to speak again.

"Alright, then let's start our introduction. Let's go with Rudy first, again. Do you mind?" Arc asked as he turned toward the other boy to his right, and he slowly shook his head. "...I don't mind... So, I'm Rudy... Are we also supposed to explain our skills..?" Rudy scratched his cheek as he turned back toward Arc, who just nodded his head with a calm smile. "Alright... I have to Unique Skills, called 'Perfect Defense', the strongest defense skill ever known... It makes it nearly impossible for attacks below a certain amount of damage to hurt me... I can't accidentally hurt myself either, because no damage can pass through my skin. And then, I have 'Impossible Attack'. It makes me literally impossible to attack anything. I can't even hurt a fly..." Rudy said in a complaining tone as he was pushing bread down his throat, and the Imp took a short break from eating.

That first skill sounded pretty useful, and the Imp wanted to somehow learn it, but that second skill was really useless. It just turned Rudy into nothing but a shield. The Imp wanted to ask about how to get that first skill, before Sammy spoke next.

"My name is Samantha, but everyone calls me Sammy. My Unique Skill is 'Liar's Truth'. Everyone who hears me speak believes what I say as complete truth, but I can't control it at all... Sometimes I also believe myself, even... But right now the skill is sealed, so everything's fine!" Sammy exclaimed with a somehow smug expression. It also sounded somewhat useful, even if pretty annoying if it couldn't be controlled. But that could just be solved by not speaking, so the Imp didn't mind that condition, and also wanted to get that skill somehow. And next, he looked at Clementine, who seemed to also want to speak up.

"I'm Clementine... My Unique Skill is... S-Status... Ah, right, it's 'Damage Eater'. It makes it so that I can heal any injury without issue, so tell me when you're hurting!" She explained to the Imp, and immediately he nodded his head excitedly. That would surely be useful to him! Good that he didn't kill her! Although, then he learned something else about that skill.

" 'Without Issue' isn't exactly right, though. She basically get's hungry for injuries, and whenever she hasn't eaten one for too long, she has to go ahead and eat it up to still that hunger. But when she does that, she takes the injury onto her own body. She doesn't get damaged by it, but she still feels the same amount of pain, so please don't rely on her too much." Arc added, so the Imp just looked at the young girl surprised, before Arc spoke up again with a sigh, "Her's is probably the most singular broken skill there is..." He muttered quietly, before pointing at the tiny child that Sammy was holding in her arms.

"And this little one here is Leon, he has two Unique Skills as well. I think they were supposed to be 'Loved By Monsters' and 'Feared By Monsters'. The first one attracts monsters, the second one makes them run away, but if both of them are active at the same time, the monsters go mad and end up rampaging and killing everything they see. Both of them are sealed right now though, obviously." The young boy explained with a slight laugh, before crossing his arms with another big, broad smirk.

"And I'm Arc, the oldest of the group! I have two Unique Skills as well, one is 'Negative Emotion Resistance', and the other is 'Pain Resistance'! The first one includes stuff like Anger, Sadness, Fear, and so on, so I'm basically happy most of the time! Well, except when I'm a bit overwhelmed like before, hehe..." Arc admitted with a wry smile, before pointing at his leg where the injury was before. "And obviously, Pain Resistance makes me pretty resistant to pain! Not totally though, but small cuts like these are fine." And as the young boy explained these, the Imp really just had to admire those two skills that he had. They would definitely come in handy for the Imp! He under any circumstances had to learn them!

"How I get?" The Imp asked curiously, and the four children looked at the Imp confused, and Sammy slowly scratched her cheek. She still seemed pretty scared, like the other children that could actually either register what was going on, different to the toddler Leon, or that could register fear itself, different to Arc as the Imp just learned, but due to the oldest boy's help, they seemed to be able to have calmed down a little.

"How do you get Unique Skills?" Sammy asked, trying to clarify what the Imp meant, and the monster swiftly nodded his head because that was exactly what he was asking, and Rudy crossed his arms.

"You can't learn Unique Skills. You either have them, or you don't. We were all born with our skills." The chubby boy pointed out, and the Imp looked at him just confused, "Imp no learn skills?" He asked, and Rudy nodded his head. "Not Unique Skills, no." Rudy replied with a frown and just dropped onto the ground without any hesitation in a way that would have hurt any normal person, but Rudy himself was apparently just fine. After all, just like he said, he couldn't take any damage at all.

But sad that the Imp couldn't learn these skills after all, he looked at them all and asked about something else that they said. "What Seal?" The Imp asked, and Sammy slightly scratched her cheek as her face flushed red, pulling up her sleeve as she did so to show pitch-black drawings as well as scar-like carvings all over her skin.

"This is a seal... It can stop you from using your skills. Mine and Leon's were too dangerous, so they were sealed." Sammy explained quietly, and Rudy sighed with a nod as he kept eating his bread. "They tried to seal my 'Impossible Attack' Skill as well, but they couldn't carve into my skin..." He said annoyedly, before Arc just slightly chuckled to try and lift the mood a bit, and then looked at the Imp and the child in the basket next to him.

"Well, now we've all been introduced. What about you, Mister Imp?"

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