“No.”
Ronin answered succintly, and went to cut the thorny bushes surrounding the old man’s feet with his knife.
“W-Why not?” Professor Espinella stuttered. “You killed him without hesitation because you know you can still resurrect him with the machine. Y-You can also do the same with me!—“
“It’s not the death that I am rejecting. I do not care whether I get to resurrect him or not.”
“In fact, I rather not resurrect him. But I still need to maintain a clean name while I’m still a weak Coal commoner.”
He took the dead man’s other arm, and gave Espinella a look that’s like ‘Will you help me carry this senile old geezer or not?’
Professor Espinella did not help him and just scowled pettily.
“Why not me, Ronin?” He clenched his fist.
“Just for one second…. I want to meet her too. I want to get a glimpse of this Other Side, this darkness that Vyrill and Perdrix had seen.”
“And lose your mind? Not to mention lose your Flame? You would throw it all away for just that?” Ronin chuckled deep in his chest.
“Professor, you are like a child being tempted by a pretty toy stuck in a ditch. Get your logic back, and think things straight.”
Espinella lowered his head. “You’re right…. You still need my Flame after all to transform me.”.
“But right after that, after you reach the path you wanted…. Can you do it? Can you let me meet her?”
Ronin just look at his dark pleading eyes, and felt that this must be how gods have felt when they were being prayed to again and again by a stubborn devotee.
It was pretty annoying, yet delightful at the same time.
The beggings, the desperation…. It tasted delicious.
“Alright. Now help me carry this man to the carriage, and help me explain to the driver that we had not murdered him. At least, permanently.”
——————————–
During the carriage ride, Kai had appeared by his side, unseen by Espinella.
“You have gained another skill.” Kai said. “You have reached Level 30 after killing the last descendant of the Diamant Family.”
“Three levels…. And I could tell that I have gained a lot of Flame from him.” Ronin clicked his tongue.
“One day, I won’t even level up after killing one or two people. Every level up may take me all the way into killing hundreds, if not thousands.”
He looked at the bloody corpse beside him, fixing the hair a little.
Somehow, he can only see this old man as the scared boy who had seen his parents die in front of him. It was strange…
He also had the same sense of superiority with Vyrill and Blanc D’Argent. Like he was the senior between them, and they were just children.
The more he killed, the more he saw adults this way. Which explains his way of speaking with Espinella just now.
Like he does not need to respect them or even pretend to show respect. Who are they, when they are just puny little huma—
He shook this off for now. This kind of mindset would not be helpful at the time being.
He needs to show respect to elders and authority, or else they’ll notice something different with him.
“Anyway, what’s my new skill?” He asked Kai.
Kai presented the new skill on a holographic screen.
[One Word Command
You would be able to give out a command to anyone using one word. It cannot be more than that.
The person will be obliged to follow it based on their own understanding. So the result may vary from your expected one.
If you give out a new command to the same person, the old command would not work anymore and be replaced.
To activate this skill, you would have to think of the rune for ‘Order’ and ‘Rule’ while saying the one-word command.
At the moment, you can only command 1 person per day. ]
Ronin nodded. “Not a bad skill. And it would be very useful for me to make the people forget all these visions they see whenever I kill them.”
“I’ll get to kill people and resurrect them scot-free.”
The rune for ‘Order’ or ‘Rule’ was quite easy to visualize. It was just a crown, or resembled three pointy teeth.
He decided to test this skill first with the old man. When they reached the Academy and placed him in the resurrecting machine…..
He woke up gasping for breath, looking horrified to death.
“Everything’s black….. The sky…. the seas….. the clouds….. In the middle of it all, an all-seeing eye…..”
“It’s upon us! It’s upon us! Everything black, everything black, everything black—“
“Headmaster.” Ronin grabbed both sides of his face.
“All that you are seeing….. before and after you died….”
The man blinked. “All that I saw….”
“Yes.” Ronin nodded, making sure it’s clear to him what he wanted to be erased before he says the command.
“Forget.”
As he said that, the old man’s face went blank, and his blind eyes went wide. As if dawning upon something.
“I….. Where am I?” He asked. “Who’s holding me?”
Ronin grinned. “You have collapsed from fright, sir. I am a nurse that was told to take care of you.”
“Ah… but my home….”
“Forget about your home for now. You need to get better, improve your condition.”
He went over to Espinella. “Don’t make him stay in that ruins anymore. Let him eventually get all his wounds healed by electro-therapy, slowly, until even his eyes are healed.”
Espinella narrowed his eyes. “Are you suddenly having a change of heart—“
“I want to know more about his family’s vision… This prophecy. I want to see how more useful this power of seeing ‘paths’ would be.”
He also wondered about that vision of a god he talked about.
Two boys, one at a cliff….. the other one consuming the other.
What could that have meant?
The truth was, he was able to see the vision that this man was seeing too. Thanks to his natural mind-reading skill….
The boys he saw were a blur, but the praying man on the field was clear.
It was Duke Taevas. It had got to be him.
Around the time that Duchess Akasa was in labor with Belladonna. The time he was praying fervently to Vesuvius to continue helping him…..
And Vesuvius had not listened to him, just letting him experience misfortune upon misfortune.
So his hunch was that this god that approach the Headmaster was Vesuvius.
But why would he be so confused with one mortal? And who were those two boys, how do they relate to Duke Taevas?
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