Chapter 488 - Craziest fucking human I ever met (Patreon)

The rest of the dinner is uneventful, and even though I am suspected of killing the servant, no one says anything other than simple complaints, and it ends there.

As we return to the tower with Sophie, I think about how strange it is. How would my two-years-younger self react to such situation? With that, I also think about what we’re doing. Currently, we’re planning to take over a city of mind mages. There’s no hesitation in any of us, and we’re all ready to kill just to reach our goal.

Part of me wonders if we’ve gotten more comfortable with the thought of killing natives because we know they’re fake, or if we’d behave the same way when dealing with real people. We in Hell difficulty are all twisted in some way, and I can’t imagine people from lower difficulties behaving similarly. Everyone in Hell is wilder, more dangerous, and just… more adaptable to the world we came to.

Slightly psychopathic? Slightly sociopathic? Is it human nature to adapt, or are we just better at it? We don’t hesitate to go out, hunt, and kill monsters that are only defending their territory. If someone did something like that on Earth—went and killed all the deer in a forest, for example—they’d be considered crazy. Yet, we do the same thing here. Yes, there’s a difference between a monster and an animal, but that’s all.

For now, I think we’re just using the tutorial to the fullest, not knowing what awaits us out there.

(I’ll return to the tower a bit later,) I tell Sophie as we stop in front of the gate.

She seems to realize what I’m about to do. (Sure, later then.)

(Yup.)

With these words, I make sure she passes through the gate, and only then do I head back into the city. There are still a few dried blood droplets on my hand and some on my neck, but I don’t wash it off.

Connecting to the mark I made, I head in that direction and ignore all the scans I’m getting along the way.

It doesn’t take too long, and I reach a tower only slightly shorter than ours. I boost myself up onto the roof of the nearby house, tearing through even the defenses it has. Before the alarms ring, I reconnect the array, stop the signal, and sit on top of it, with my back against the chimney.

Then I wait.

The mark moves to the highest floor an hour later. The man I promised a visit, as he used the most disgusting attempts at manipulation. He didn’t only do it to me and Sophie but to others at the dinner, and most defended against him with ease, as if they were already used to it. But something about the way he targeted me and Sophie irks me a lot.

Attempts to mess with my connection to the crown and force it to release all the mana with enough power to kill me. A sneaky mark on Sophie that would alter her mark and make her tower’s defenses turn against her, and more…

I sigh. Yes, he was the worst of all, but at this point, it’s safe to say I’m just looking for a way to vent, using this man as a scapegoat. Ever since we came to this city, I’ve had that feeling of gradually growing anger.

As the man ascends the higher floors of his tower, I sense his attempts to remove or block my [Ley Line]—he’s likely just noticed it. Every attempt fails, no matter what he tries over the next ten minutes. Meanwhile, the defenses around his tower steadily strengthen, and my trait activates as I observe the fluctuations in the defensive array.

Having had enough, I stand up, take a step off the roof, and teleport through the [Ley Line], appearing in front of the man and his two bodyguards.

Immediate pressure attacks and the main defense—a powerful, disruptive targeting field—mark me as an intruder. A piercing noise fills my ears as wave after wave of attacks crash against me, all aimed at disrupting my mana.

Even so, my mana seeps out, turning into threads that weave into the shape of a javelin, and nothing can stop it. No disruption affects it.

It’s something I’ve worked on, a technique of my own that I named Mana Weaving—weaving mana into complex, resilient patterns that are extremely resistant to external manipulation and much harder to disrupt.

That javelin shoots forward, piercing through the bodyguard and the man he protects, not even stopped by the barriers they’ve set.

Wraith Dance brings me closer, and with the same method, a spear forms in my hand, and a shield on my back deflects an attack. Before the mind manipulator can react, I boost my movement further using kinetic energy and stab into his chest, swiftly shrinking and weaving the spear into a sword to cut through the ax of the remaining bodyguard and sending him against the wall with a burst of kinetic energy.

[You have defeated Psyche Bender - lvl 258]

[You have defeated Mana Nullifier - lvl 265]

[You have defeated Breaker Knight - lvl 261]

I absorb the kinetic energy of the door to stop it from opening and locate what seems like a safe with my eyes.

[Resonance] turns the stone around it to dust, and I tie [Ley Line] to it and teleport it with me back in front of our tower despite the attempts to stop me.

“Take it in,” I order the two guards standing there after removing all the marks from the safe.

“As you order!” they quickly confirm, pulling the safe inside as I pass through the gate.

“Give it to Dennis and Aaron and tell them to open it without destroying it.”

Without waiting for an answer, I cross the garden and follow the pathway to the door. After a few checks, the guards open it, and I step inside. A quick scan reveals where the others are, so I head up to the top floor, finding most of the group in the living room we often frequent..

From the laptop I bought for Izzy during the tournament, quiet music plays—a soft guitar accompanied by a soothing female voice. Even though it’s late, no one seems to be sleeping; only Maya and Sophie are in a different room with the twins.

I don’t like the room’s lighting, so I turn it off, replacing it with my thermal cubes, which float into place without a sound.

“Do parties really suck that much?” Min-jae asks after glancing at the bits of blood on my skin.

“Could be worse,” I say, sitting opposite Izzy, who is currently taking pictures of a sleeping Biscuit. She’s putting some cute hats on his head, and I’m surprised there’s still some space left on the smartphone.

Noodle, to show disappointment with his owner, slithers to me and patiently waits. Only after I gesture does he crawl around my shoulders, his head next to mine and looking in the same direction. His mouth is left slightly open as he feeds on my mana.

As he likes to do, his size is now different from a day before. It’s overall very inconsistent, and the question I’m curious about is how big he can grow.

“Do you need healing? Also, your passive sucks.”

“I think I have fewer shards than I should. Can you heal that, Lily?”

“Such problems are often solved by being born rich,” Tess answers before our healer can.

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You’re welcome. Or , if you want, you could buy my guide on how to become as rich as me.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Enough to make me rich.”

“Smart.”

I notice the looks Lily gives to Tess, and I’m sure Tess is aware of them as well, that amused smile curling at the corner of her lips until she laughs and pulls Lily closer into a hug. “Damn, Lily, you can be so cute sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” she pretends to sulk.

“Often. Want to spar tomorrow? I want to see how much you’ve improved.”

“I might hurt you if you aren’t careful, Tess.”

“You’d have to catch me with that enormous ax of yours. But how about you make a bone javelin for me? I want to test it out.”

“Another for your collection?”

I allow myself to listen to their banter for a while, feeling my mind relax slightly. I close my eyes and calm myself down. There’s a part of me that wants to use [Focus] to filter out these emotions I feel, but I don’t.

Gradually, a determination builds up in me. My mind clears, and my chest feels lighter. My fists clench and unclench multiple times, and my erratic heartbeat slows until it becomes calm again.

When I open my eyes, Izzy is standing in front of me, watching me up close.

“You are so pretty,” she smiles, and I know she’s not talking about my looks.

Her small hand touches the side of my head and then moves to caress the top of it.

“Here, here,” she says, still smiling. “You know you can ask for help if you feel like it’s too much.”

These words hit harder knowing the situation she is currently in.

“It’s fine.” I stand up and carefully hold Noodle while he shrinks by half and slithers onto Izzy’s arm.

“Good night,” I say to the room, and after receiving a few similar wishes, I don’t teleport but walk.

After entering my room, I close the door, take a warm shower, put on clean clothes, and sit in the armchair I moved closer to the large window. Surrounded by all the materials, golden chains, and items around the room, I look out at the city before closing my eyes and appearing within my mind.

This time, it’s not a place taken from Whitey’s memories. I’m in an area that’s very familiar—a city on Earth, with a few shorter apartment buildings around me. There are no cars, no people, and even the trees stand still in the windless air.

I still stop by the road as I often used to and check both sides before crossing it. Between the two apartment buildings, I move slightly to the left to avoid the pothole that I know is there.

Reaching the entrance door to the building, I pull hard, knowing they can resist.

The stairway is as dark as I remember it, and as I enter the second floor, I find the door to the apartment open and go inside.

Lastly, there’s one more door—the one leading into the room where Victoria and I grew up. Without hesitation, I open it.

Whitey sits there on my old bed.

“Yoo,” he says with a big smile.

“Yo.” I nod and sit on Victoria’s bed opposite him.

“That’s a really shitty room.” He gestures, “But it’s not like I can trash it too much. I grew up in worse.”

Whitey takes a notepad from the side of my bed and flips through it, looking at the silly drawings I used to make, often just scribbles.

He laughs shortly and lifts it in front of me, showing a drawing of some weird animal, most closely reminiscent of a dog.

“Cute.” He smirks.

“I did my best. If you go to page thirty, you’ll find a really nice drawing,” I defend myself, using the opportunity to look around. Even though I have a lot of bad memories of this place, there are some nice ones too.

As it tends to be with these things, some memories are blurrier than others, but the strong feelings remain.

Whitey lifts the notepad again, now open at page thirty, revealing a huge middle finger drawn on it. Even though it’s not the same gesture, he recognizes it from my previous use over the last six months.

“Very nice,” he confirms and finally puts the notepad away. “You’re not going to ask?” he finally decides, putting the notepad away and looking at me.

“I thought of it and there’s no need to,” I answer.

His eyes haze and waver for a moment, and he observes me in a way only he is capable of. Sensing the vibrations of movement, he watches for the slightest changes in my blood flow, the twitching of my muscles, the beat of my heart, and the flicker of my eyes.

I don’t do anything to stop him, nor do I try to hide the signs as he works to confirm my words.

"Crazy fucker. The goddamn craziest and dumbest fucking human I’ve ever met,” he growls, irritation clear in his tone.

Looking at me for just a bit longer he stands in one smooth movement and takes Victoria’s old, barely-working laptop from the table. On the screen, a scene of me using kinetic energy appears, as always from my POV.

“Now, let me explain what you did wrong here,” he says, sitting beside me and pointing out all my mistakes in using kinetic energy during that brief clash in the tower.

***

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