Chapter 51: Ch90. Encounter - 2
The old man looked at Kurt and sighed.
"Unfortunately, I can only answer one of these questions. And that is that I have reached my limit in this place, which means that just like all things that are born and grow... I must die, too."
Kurt was perplexedly speechless, but the silence didn’t last too long, because his quick wits placed some pieces together, and he asked.
"But... If ’you’ must die, then it means that the other Kurt has already died in here, too. Right?"
"I can’t answer that. Although my words might already be an answer by themselves. All I can say is that I called you here for a reason."
Kurt was quiet, waiting for the old man to keep on speaking.
"You have reached something that neither me nor Kurt, or for that matter... The ’other’ Kurt, have been able to." Orkas paused for a brief moment. "Stability, balance. And, somehow, a way to tame the system."
Kurt already knew all of it, because he spent some time inside the [MEMORY FRAGMENT] not only when he met the other Kurt inside the [HIDDEN ROOM].
He also spent time visiting and revisiting it through his sleepless nights, and through all the time he had studied hard to understand what he was getting into.
He saw the other Kurt amass an unimaginable amount of power in just a few levels and just a little time.
And Kurt knew how wrong it felt, how it seemed...
Too easy.
But more than that, he noticed a blatant difference between how the system behaved towards the other Kurt and how it behaved towards him.
It almost looked like the system ’liked’ this new Kurt.
But Orkas’ words shed a little light over Kurt’s thoughts about the matter.
"So I really kinda... Tamed it?"
"You spent almost two months to reach level 05, and to say the least, you only reached level 06 right after fulfilling the conditions for our meeting, because of the special... ’Features’ that the system displayed for you-"
[DON’T]
Kurt felt a sudden pang in his chest, he furrowed his brow, and turned around in every direction.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?" Orkas shot back, as if nothing happened.
Kurt stared at Orkas for a few seconds, but as if he didn’t find anything wrong in Orkas’ body language, the boy urged his hero to go on with his explanation.
"... So... If it isn’t taming, then I most definitely don’t know what it is." Orkas chuckled. "You certainly made it easier for him to-"
[DON’T BELIEVE IN THEM!]
This time, however, Orkas couldn’t fake a nonchalant expression.
His eyebrows twitched and his eyes went slightly wide. Even his explanation kinda choked on itself.
Kurt had decided he would let it slide the first time, because Orkas really didn’t display any signs of lying.
But he knew something was off, and he was waiting for a chance to see if it was just something in his head, but it seemed like it wasn’t.
’[POLYGRAPH]!’
[DUE TO THE LEVEL OF YOUR SKILL, YOU CAN ONLY TELL THAT THE TARGET IS HIDING SOMETHING]
Kurt’s heart skipped a beat.
He knew that something was off, but he never read or heard a message from the system with a tone like that.
And by that time, when he looked at Orkas again, the old man was just two steps from him.
’Can he be this fast even at his current age?’
But the strangest part was that Kurt’s instincts, his [PERCEPTION], didn’t sound any alarm in his head.
"You’re hiding something..." Kurt risked. "But you don’t intend to try and fight me, why?"
Orkas smiled, but his eyes had tears.
"I can’t answer that, kid. All I can say is that once you’re out of here, you’ll be a completely different person, and I hope you... Don’t... D-" The old man started choking and grabbing his own chest. "I... Won’t be able to... Give you... My... Legacy. But if you... Survive... You’ll earn the right... To do just... The same..."
Orkas fell to his knees, coughing blood and grabbing the chest of the shirt he was using even tighter.
Kurt felt lost, confused.
He tried approaching Orkas, but his body wouldn’t move.
"Oh, my... Why do you favor us so much, old man?" Another voice asked behind Kurt.
A voice he was very familiar with.
"I didn’t want you to die, but you know how things work around here, right? Without you, I wouldn’t be able to last so long being the current me, and so I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this chance..."
Kurt felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder, but he still couldn’t move.
When the person came into his field of view, every single one of Kurt’s suspicions came true.
The other Kurt was standing in front of him while Orkas was dying on his knees.
But that Kurt didn’t look much like the version who had taught the younger one everything in the [HIDDEN ROOM].
However, Kurt’s instincts told him that it was the real other Kurt. Even with the crackled face, and the exceedingly scrawny body.
"How are you doing, other me...?" The other Kurt smiled. "You have something that belongs to me, and I’m here to take it back."
***
Agent Collins opened the door to the interrogatory room and greeted the other two agents that were waiting for him.
In the dark, the agents saluted Collins, walking towards the door when he responded "At ease." But they stood there, not leaving the place.
The two people thoroughly cuffed and restrained raised their heads towards him, but they clearly feeling his presence, but the blindfolds around their heads kept them from seeing who he was.
And Collins didn’t say a word to them yet.
He looked at the mirror in the back wall of the room and said out loud.
"I want all the footage of the last hour AND the next three hours ’erased’."
He took the silence that followed his words as a compliance and sat at the table.
"I ran into a quite big deal of trouble to accomplish my mission because of some... Setbacks. But what I didn’t know, was that you two, out of everyone else, knew something about this setback of mine."
He slammed the table and the two people flinched backwards.
Collins looked at his men and nodded towards them.
They moved from the door and approached the prisoners, taking the blindfolds off of them.
"Now, I want you two to tell me what is up with the kid named Kurt Blake, and how he could go from a basically crippled kid fated to a hospital bed... To a prospect at the Boston Wielders Academy...?"
