Although it hadn’t been outside the realm of possibility, it had been far outside Freddy’s expectations to find himself sitting beside Jacob Santorio, the son of the owner of the Santorio Training Center and the Santorio Hub.
Despite his own intimidating size, he looked damn tiny next to the towering figure that was Jacob. The man must have been almost seven feet tall, and the sheer mass of muscle covering his body, dare he say, put even Mark Afronte to shame. On top of that, the man was a two-star well above his level, doing nothing to conceal his power.
It was difficult to precisely evaluate those above oneself because of the suppression, but purely based on how suppressed he felt, the man must have been at around 50 to 70 percent along with his second star.
It wasn’t that far above his own level, but for someone like this, it was likely that the man had waited many years to ascend to his second star. His body alone was evidence of many years of intense training.
Freddy was pretty nervous, and even though he was trying to hide it, it also became rather evident when placed next to the man who was sitting with his right arm leaning against the couch they were sitting at, his legs crossed while he smoked a massive Cuban cigar, flicking its ashes on the floor like he owned the place. Well, he did own the place, but still. His actions served as a rather poignant reminder, no doubt intentional.
Eventually, almost precisely 15 minutes after sitting down, Jacob finally turned to him. “You were given an invitation to an interview. It's in two days. Are you coming?” the man asked.
He showed no outward indication that the question bothered him, but he felt short on answers when confronted like this. By all means, he would prefer not to lose the right to delve here, or at least, he’d want to avoid getting hit by a severe restriction. He could find another place to delve, but losing a hunting ground he was so familiar with was still a blow nonetheless.
After thinking his answers through, he conjured one he was pretty satisfied with. “I apologize. It’s a tempting offer, but working with a party isn’t my style.”
“You’re confident,” the man noted. “It’s an interview, not an open invitation. What makes you so sure you’ll pass?”
“It doesn’t matter whether I pass or not,” he said, shifting his posture, “when the reward is something I don’t want to compete for.”
“And what if I threaten to ban you from delving here?” the man asked, flicking the cigar again. “Does that make it worth your time?”
He gritted his teeth. There were two big reasons he didn’t want to go to the interview—his unique skill set and his stolen identity, both of which would likely be compromised when surrounded by people interested in knowing as much about him as possible. It also tied him to other people in a way that he didn’t feel comfortable with, and if this was the person he would be working for, he had even less desire to join.
“And what exactly do you get from banning me?” He finally turned to face the man. “I wouldn’t make for a good team member, and as you said, I’m not even guaranteed to pass.”
“Oh, I’m not doing it to get something out of it,” the man declared, grinning ear to ear as he puffed the cigar. “I’m just an asshole.”
Freddy scoffed. “Charming.”
“Look, kid,” Jacob started. “I don’t like seeing pricks like you abusing the hard work my father puts into keeping things running. If you can’t do us a simple favor, we can’t do one for you, either.”
“Is taking 50 percent of all the profits I earn by risking my life not enough for you?” He snorted. “Next time I pass out from exhaustion, maybe you should scam me harder.”
Jacob showed no signs that the jab had gotten to him, instead taking another puff of the cigar. “At any given time, two to three hundred people work to keep this passage safe enough to stay open. You are paying for their services.”
“Oh really?” He chuckled. “If that’s the case, tell me how much money actually goes to the workers.”
“They’re paid what they earn,” Jacob said, flicking ash directly at Freddy’s face.
“You know what?” He got up as he prepared to walk away. “Your passage, your rules; do whatever you want. If you don’t want me here, I’ll move somewhere else.”
“I change my mind,” the man suddenly said, chuckling. “I’m not going to ban you.”
Freddy’s steps halted. He turned around.
Jacob got up from the couch and approached him. “I don’t know what the fuck that bastard saw in you,” he said as he extinguished his cigar on Freddy’s helmet. “I take back my invitation.” The man walked past him, snickering. “I don’t want a coward like you by my side.”
And with that, the man simply walked away, leaving him in a frustrated, dissatisfied silence.
“What a goddamn asshole.”
***
On his way home, Freddy stopped by a butchery to buy a giant bag of unwanted meat waste. It was incredibly cheap.
As soon as he returned to the apartment, he threw the bag of refuse on the ground, pulled out the captured spark of undeath, and placed it beside it. Then, he sat down and focused.
He took several deep breaths to calm himself, and then he triggered Thousand Wet Hells.
Pain shot through his entire body, so intense that he could barely stay conscious. Every time he used it, he felt a profound fear of death creep into his soul. Now that he had an undead body, he thought that would change.
It didn’t.
Because the risk of death wasn’t truly gone. Thousand Wet Hells was insanely powerful. So powerful that there was a genuine risk that using it could destroy a crucial part of his brain and leave him completely incapacitated.
If that happened, there was a non-zero chance that he would… simply die. Because who would heal him? Who would save him if he found himself in that situation?
A thought appeared in the back of his mind.
With a small burst of will, he released Bloodshed from its shell. The skeleton immediately knelt before him, leaving a giant bloody stain on the carpet. “What do you need of me, My Liege?”
He got up and brought a serrated kitchen knife, handing it to the small skeleton. “Can you try swinging this at that blob of flesh?” he suggested.
The skeleton nodded, taking a swing at the spark of undeath. The knife stabbed right into the spark, but nothing happened. He didn’t feel his talent trigger from that. He sighed. It seemed that if he wanted the damage Bloodshed did to count as damage he was doing, he needed to summon it through Blood Sacrifice and not just release it from its shell.
Speaking of Blood Sacrifice, he remembered something. A few days ago, he tried using the ability in combat, only to fail. Bloodshed whispered some cryptic bullshit into his ear, but he wanted a more detailed answer as to why he wasn’t able to trigger the ability.
“Bloodshed,” he called. “How much blood do I need to activate Blood Sacrifice?” He suspected that he couldn’t use the ability because he didn’t spill enough blood to trigger it. But—
“Any amount would suffice,” the skeleton declared.
He froze. “What? Wait, so… back when I was fighting those monsters, why couldn’t I use the ability?”
Bloodshed raised its head. “Because there was no bloodshed.”
Freddy scowled at that. “Was that not a bloodshed?”
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“Not yet,” the skeleton answered.
“What do you mean?”
“Bloodshed only exists as a consequence of slaughter. It ripens when the slaughter ends.”
He took a moment to consider its words. “So... what you’re saying is… I have to stop fighting first to be able to use the ability?”
The skeleton briefly appeared offended at the oversimplification, but Freddy’s guess seemed to be close enough. “That is correct.”
“Ouch. That really sucks. Can I just, like, pause the fight? Would that count?”
The skeleton froze for a few moments but eventually nodded in confirmation. “If you can disengage, yes, that would work.”
That was… better. But he wouldn’t always have the luxury of disengaging during combat.
Sighing, he looked at the skeleton. “Bloodshed,” he called. But then, he paused. He wanted the skeleton to help him if he found himself in dire straits. But how? If his brain was damaged to the point where he couldn’t wake up on his own, he would need external assistance if he wanted to get back up. In the worst-case scenario, he could genuinely just straight-up die.
“Okay, we’re going to try something,” he said as he took the serrated knife and put it beside his body. Then, he lay on the ground next to it, posing as if he’d fallen unconscious.
“Master… what are you doing?” Bloodshed asked.
“Bloodshed, I need you to take the knife, put it in my hand, and then move my hand to stab this blob of flesh. Can you do that?”
“Anything you wish,” it said as it moved over to follow his instructions.
It picked up the kitchen knife and placed it into his hand. Then, it proceeded to close his fingers one by one as he did his best to resist the urge to move on his own. For a brief moment, he was surprised at the spirit’s strength. It was definitely stronger than an adult mortal man. But on second thought, that should come as no surprise.
The skeleton was rather clumsy when it came to stuff like this, and it struggled mightily to lift his arm while holding the knife in place. After a few tries, it managed to do it, then dropped it down on the blob of flesh with the blade facing down. A tiny pulse of lifesteal coursed through his body, and he sighed in relief.
It could take the skeleton a few hours of fumbling to heal him enough to wake up, but that was far superior to being left at the mercy of… nobody, pretty much. Maybe the landlord would break the doors down after a few weeks, but he couldn’t imagine anyone entering his apartment before that point.
“Thank you, Bloodshed.” He got back up. “Please stay right beside me. If I pass out, do what you just did for as long as it takes for me to wake up.”
Bloodshed nodded.
He fed the spark of undeath a few chunks of skin, fat, and a large piece of bone as he placed it on his lap. Gripping the serrated knife, he prepared to start stabbing. Then, he triggered Thousand Wet Hells.
A strangled groan escaped his lips as he frantically swung the knife, but after only two seconds of use, he failed to maintain it. It was still the longest he had managed to keep it active. Gulping for breath, he grabbed his head. A piercing headache threatened to blow his skull apart, but he endured as he healed himself back up and prepared to start again.
Once more, he failed to last longer than two seconds. And again. And again. But each time he tried it, he managed to last a fraction of a second longer.
But after the fifth try, he suddenly found himself unable to continue. “What the fuck?” The ability refused to trigger. He dove into his ethercosm to take a look.
The shell for Thousand Wet Hells had progressed by roughly 1%, increasing to 2% completion, and the turbulent vestige within rested idly. There seemed to be nothing wrong with it. But as he turned his focus on his star, he immediately discovered the problem.
Are you kidding me?
The dull shine of his stars noted that both of them were empty. He was entirely out of essence. At that moment, his maximum capacity was at 114%, having gone up by 3% after his risky encounter with the gorel horde. But still, after only around 10 to 12 seconds of use… Thousand Wet Hells had drained every last bit of it.
That meant that it consumed around 10% essence per second of use, making it easily the single most expensive ability he had, even compared to using Flowing Strike with both stars activated.
He hadn’t used the ability long enough to notice, but that was a massive problem. He gritted his teeth. If only he hadn’t been so stupid with his upgrade choice. A sense of frustration overwhelmed him, but he refused to give up.
He left the ethercosm and took a deep breath. Then, he dove into the Netherecho, harvesting wisps with his scythe until he regained enough essence to go again.
The lack of wisps around him made it a long and frustrating process. It took him nearly twenty minutes to be able to go for just another few seconds, and by the time it was 10 p.m., he had only made another 2% progress with the tempering technique, reaching 4% completion.
His entire body was sweaty, and his headache persisted even after fully healing himself. The bag of waste meat was empty, but the captured spark didn’t grow even a tiny bit. He frowned.
A similar thing had happened with the life spark Madame had given him. It did grow with time, but that didn’t correlate to the amount of meat it was fed. Most of the mass seemed to vanish into thin air. The same thing seemed to be happening here, but the effect was far more pronounced.
Whatever undeath did to the blob of flesh clearly prevented its ability to grow. The first thing that came to mind was that it usually likely grew through mitosis. Technically, the splitting of a cell could be seen as the death of one so that two could be born.
Could undeath be preventing that from happening?
At the very least, that heavily reduced the potential threat these things could pose to humans at large. A not necessarily great, but also not an insignificant burden lifted off his shoulders with that realization. Hurray for not being guilty of creating a pandemic that destroyed humanity.
Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself. He had to get ready for his night out. He had honestly thought that, with all that had happened, he wouldn’t be in the mood to leave his apartment, but if anything, the opposite seemed true.
He had a burning desire to get out there and have some fun, to get his mind off everything, and to celebrate his successes.
It didn’t take him long to get ready. Within half an hour, he was out on the street, walking to the place he had agreed to meet with Sophia.
For a moment, he nearly walked right past her. Then, the beautiful woman wearing a red dress, whom he had been trying not to stare at, waved at him. “Uhm…? Hello? Earth calling Liam?”
He paused and turned to face her. “Wow,” he said, sneering at her. “You look so civilized I almost didn’t recognize you.”
She snorted. “Ha, ha.” Then, she approached him. She was much shorter than he was, even with stilettos, and with his bulky physique, she looked like a kid next to him.
The two of them waited in line, and he was amused by the strange looks people gave him.
He jokingly patted her head. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll find your parents in no time at all!”
She lifted her head and bit his hand full force, holding nothing back.
Unfortunately for her, that did pretty much nothing. The skin on hands was tougher than tanned leather.
This time, he had stepped into the two-star waiting line, where the wait was far shorter. It took less than a minute to reach the end. He got two stamps, while Sophia, as a one-star, got only one.
She seemed pretty comfortable in the club, showing no signs of being out of her element. They walked around for a while, with Sophia seemingly looking for a spot they could take.
It was Friday night, so the club was packed. They hadn’t arrived late by any means, but most people seemed to have come early to make sure they had a spot, leaving only a few shitty tables open all the way in the back close to where the toilets were.
Any other night, he would have just shrugged it off and tolerated it, but on that day? He didn’t feel like letting himself be shoved to the back.
The waiter eventually reached them.
Freddy raised his hand to show the two stamps on it. “Are any of the VIP lounges open?” he asked.
“There is one left,” the waiter said. “But you will have to pay in advance. Is that all right?”
“Got my card right here,” he said with a shit-eating grin.
For a long moment, he thought that Sophia would criticize him for throwing his money away like that. But she seemed impressed instead. “Wow, I didn’t think you’d have the balls to spend that much money on a night out.”
“You don’t know shit about me,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Sophia raised her arms. “Okay, wow. Hurt your ego?”
“Someone wants to lose their VIP lounge privileges, I see?”
She mimed zipping her mouth shut, and quickly saluted him. “No, sir.”
“Didn’t you just zip your mouth shut?”
“Oh, right.” She closed her mouth. Then she muttered something completely unintelligible with her lips closed. It was probably “No sir.”
He chuckled at that and shook his head.
Freddy had expected that the VIP section would be in a private corner. But no. It was actually those flashy seats smack dab in the middle of the club. Well, it made sense that those who would spend ridiculous sums of money on vanity like this would want it to be somewhere where they could flex their wealth as hard as humanly possible.
He knew that he preferred it this way.
The VIP lounges were separated by small walls and placed around a massive circle in the middle of the club. The bar was inside this circular formation, and there were small windows, although they were slammed shut. He saw one of those windows open as a medium-sized tray floated through it and landed on the table in the middle of the lounge to the right of where they would be sitting.
The assortment of drinks and the artistic way they were arranged beside artisan glasses attracted his attention, and he failed to look at who was sitting at the table.
His gaze slowly drifted to the image of a massive blonde man. He immediately recognized this man as Jacob Santorio, but that was hardly worthy of his attention.
Instead, the people he looked at were the man and woman engaged in a fierce fight, standing just outside the lounge and arguing. They noticed him when he got close enough. And judging by the horror-stricken gaze Theodore and Beatrice gave him… he had a pretty good guess what they were fighting about.
Oh fuck my life.