Why had he been betrayed? His only family had sold him out to the state. He’d been forcefully dragged from his home and brought to this strange city of suspiciously friendly people. There was no way they were in a normal state of mind, people like that had to have ulterior motives behind their kindness. He wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting someone like that ever again, or at least, it’d take the scars from the last time fading away for him to forget the lesson.
His mind couldn’t help but loop back to the original point. Why had his uncle betrayed him? Sure, not trusting strangers, especially oddly friendly strangers, was a given, but putting trust in your family was different. It was supposed to be the one bond in this world that could not be messed with.
Or, at least, he thought that was the case. He guessed that just like the incident with the overly friendly stranger from his youth, this was also a lesson he had to learn someday, that even family could not be fully trusted.
If only he’d manage to avoid that damned test. The whole ritual surrounding that test was weird, and not weird like magic weird, but instead weird like cults were weird, with their strange rituals and sacrificial ceremonies. For some reason, everyone around him believed that the test could somehow measure talent. That it somehow knew what someone was best suited to do with their life.
It didn’t make sense to him, how could an orb scry the future, analyze a person’s being, and tabulate their fate to determine what suited them best in life? That was not even possible with the strongest of magics cast by the most powerful of wizards underneath the best of circumstances.
Heck, he doubted even the gods—if they truly existed—would possess enough power to do so, and yet, for some odd reason, everyone seemed to believe in the orb’s abilities. So, he too was supposed to just go along with it, and let it decide his future, despite his many, many misgivings about the whole thing.
This also didn’t even account for the fact that the kingdom controlled the orb. Couldn’t they tamper with the results if they wanted to? Move around elements that were unsavory to them however they wished? Or let the rich and powerful select the jobs that they wanted?
At that point, what was even the point of the orb in the grand scheme of things? A way to make money and control the people, he supposed.
In the end though, just like all of his other theories, his uncle had shut this one down. Honestly, his uncle had been a bit aggressive about silencing him on the topic, which only fueled his concern regarding the orb. If they couldn’t even talk about their suspicions about it, wasn’t that inherently suspicious?
Even now, several days after he had passed the point of no return, he still pondered these questions that he would likely never hear the answers to. And regardless of their answers, the fact of the matter remained the same, he was trapped in this godsforsaken city with no way out. Naturally, his captors must have informed the guards at the gates to not let him pass, so there was no way he’d be able to escape through that easy of a method.
Initially, he figured he could just climb the wall, after all, he was a pretty good climber. Just the other day, for example, he had climbed out of the window from his prison cell that his captors referred to as a dorm room in order to escape a gang that was pursuing him.
Which as a sidenote, he was still confused by. He didn’t know how he’d made them angry enough that they would not only attempt to get him multiple times per day, starting on his very first day in the city, but clearly, he was marked by them for some reason.
And he didn’t get how he was valuable enough to his captors to place within this prison city, but not valuable enough to protect from the local gangs. Fortunately, if his time on the streets taught him one thing, it was that if someone was willing to hurl spells at you in broad daylight, you wouldn’t want to come face to face with that bastard, especially if that bastard also had backup with him.
At least with his life going to shit, he could still find solace in kicking the shit out of the scumbag trio. But even the joy he garnered from that did not distract him from the strangeness of their presence here. His capture would definitely go unnoticed, especially since the only person who would care about him, his uncle, was in on the plot.
Those three, however, were the children of rather prominent merchants based in Rusfaya. While they weren’t quite nobility, they could be said to have the same standing as minor nobility, so their absence would definitely be noted within minutes of their disappearance.
That didn’t bode well for him. If high up people like those bastards could be casually kidnapped by his captors without raising alarm, he doubted he stood much of chance of escaping, as they were clearly professionals at what they did.
One didn’t just capture minor nobility and then let them go without suffering major consequences. Last time he checked, kidnapping of nobility generally resulted in the reward of no longer needing to worry about feeding yourself, and if your hair was long, they would even provide you with a free haircut. You would also never need to worry about cutting your hair again either!
Regardless of the danger that the four of them were in, the lack of the normal protective measures that usually surrounded the scumbag trio gave him a unique opportunity that he’d never had in life, to give them payback for all that they’d done to him.
Sure, technically it was their servants that had done him in, but he knew that the servants were only operating under their orders, so he couldn’t really blame them. After all, it was hard to argue against the orders of the ones who paid your bills. Also, unlike the trio, he could at least respect the servants for working to earn their coin, even if that work was sometimes beating him.
Not that they had managed to get their hands on him in years. After the first couple of beatings, he had become accustomed to just instinctually sensing their approach and running away ahead of time. As his uncle used to say, you could never lose a fight that you hadn’t fought.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t solve his current situation by simply running away. For one, this weird, layered room was seemingly designed to prevent mobility, although its true purpose was more likely to aid the man at the front of the room in his mission. Clearly the endless nonsense the man had been spewing out was meant to distract those who listened from realizing his true objective, to keep a sharp surveillance on the many youths situated in the room.
The one thing Edward couldn’t decide on was whether or not the man was only keeping an eye on them to ensure none of them ran away, or if he was also taking the time to note down any behavior he saw as suspicious. Hopefully he wasn’t looking out for suspicious behavior, as Edward doubted that he could convincingly pull off acting like his spirit had been broken like everyone else in the room seemed to be.
There was no way he would buy that his fellow prisoners hadn’t gone insane, as they all seemed to follow the man’s words with rapt attention, as if they were all spellbound. Only a crazy person could make sense of the nonsense that he was still spewing.
Since he couldn’t mimic the mindless, broken-spiritedness of the others, he resolved to at least keep his eyes trained on the man at the front, so as to at least do the minimum to blend in. It’s not like him doing so prevented him from planning his escape. He just hoped that his escape would happen before the meaningless drivel got to him and drove him just as crazy as the rest of them.
It didn’t help that in order to blend in, he had decided to follow the schedule that his captors had given him, as according to what he could make of it, it seemed like he would be in for several more rounds of mindless chatter before he would be done for the day.
Curiously though, the infernal chatterer ceased his performance before the allotted time. Perhaps he would be free from this particular section of the day sooner than he’d thought? Alas, it seemed that the man had only been interrupted by someone who was hidden behind the entrance to the room. At least this interruption would give him some welcome reprieve in this time of plight.
If only this luck carried on through the rest of his day, maybe he would be able to get through it without his mentality collapsing.
Suddenly a jolt went through his body, snapping him out of his thoughts. He could sense that something was wrong, and as if to prove it, he could swear that the man had glanced in his direction. Furthermore, his body language reeked of trouble, as he turned to let the person in the doorway into the room, while also subtlety maneuvering to guard said doorway.
That was far too many warning signs for him to remain in his seat calmly. Luckily, a window was nearby that he could make his escape through should anything happen, and he had already begun moving towards it before he had even realized all of the warning signs in front of him. It paid to have good instincts sometimes.
However, keeping his focus solely on the front of the room proved to be a mistake, as the crashing of glass splattering to the floor was his only warning sign as someone barreled into him, tackling him to the floor. Fight or flight mode instantly engaged, he tried to wrestle his attacker off of him to no avail.
The boy had both weight and strength on his side, not to mention better technique, resulting in his swift detainment on the ground. This was undoubtedly a shit situation for him to find himself in—one that he would be hard-pressed to escape from.
He could hear footsteps moving towards him, likely from the person in the doorway approaching to aid in his capture. He wished that the rest of the people in the room would stop their chattering that had begun after he’d been tackled; it was hard to focus on his escape and the approaching footsteps with all the noise.
Most people would think the enemy receiving backup would make this bad situation even worse, but he knew that if his opponent was inexperienced, the approaching reinforcements could draw his attention away. That lapse in focus would be the only opportunity he would get to escape his pinning, and hopefully, the room as well.
As luck would have it, a single moment’s distraction caused the older boy to slightly loosen his grasp, allowing Edward to free his hands, and flip one of the larger boy’s legs up off of him. In the same motion, he rolled with all that he had, successfully freeing himself from his captor.
He could hear the footsteps speed up towards him as he completed his maneuver, but with no time to scope out the situation of the room, he did what he thought was best in the situation and continued rolling. Unfortunately, due to the rows of desks being leveled off in this room, as he rolled beneath the desk next to him, he was forced to take a two-foot plunge onto his shoulder.
It didn’t hurt that bad but hadn’t been able to brace himself for the fall at all, so there was a chance that it would hurt a lot worse after his adrenaline wore off. At the very least, the maneuver had put some space between the attacker and him, giving him the precious couple of seconds that he needed to figure out his best way out of the room.
“Surround him! This twerp can be quite slippery, so watch out for feints! Use magic if you have to, we can’t let this be a repeat of the dorm incident on Bierfall!”
He recognized the one who’d half-shouted the orders, he was the shithead who shot off the spell at him the day before, and it seemed like he was going to be shooting spells at him yet again. And assuming he wasn’t providing false information with his shouting, it seemed like the others that were with him could use magic, too.
In that case, the best option would be to stay low, and use the desks and other people in the room as shields to avoid the spells. But they also knew that, so they would expect him to do so. Instead, he’d— “Don’t let him slide beneath again!” —just have to go over them.
Jumping onto the desk in front of him, he let go of all the fear and apprehension in his heart and leapt from the top of the classroom towards the bottom row of desks at the bottom. It was only around a twelve-foot drop, so as long as he landed correctly he would be fi—
Those were the last thoughts in his head, right before he saw the shithead magic user launch a rock at him, only unlike the last time he did so, this one didn’t miss. Even worse, it swept out his legs from beneath him, causing him to flip over midair, and bash his head off of a desk on his way down. He did not remain conscious for long after hitting his head, and before he even made contact with the ground, his lights were out.
Interim
“Shit, shit, shit! Peter, see what you can do to keep him stable, that landing did not look good. I think he hit his head once or twice on the way down! Professor, please help clear the classroom while I go find Miss Helen. He is going to need help from a proper healer asap.”
With the orders given out, Kyle did not hesitate to run out of the room in search of Miss Helen. He knew he messed up with his spell targeting, he should’ve targeted somewhere else on the boy’s body, or not at all, for that matter. It was instinctive, he’d been expecting to shoot the spell low, below the desks, so when he swapped to targeting the boy in the air, the spell went off by reflex. That was, however, no excuse. As a disciplinary officer and a second year, losing control of an easy spell like a rock bullet for any reason outside of losing consciousness was unacceptable.
Still, he could prevent the situation from getting any worse by finding Miss Helen. His storming through the halls sounded like a bat out of hell, especially so once he took to shouting for Miss Helen, hoping that he could find her sooner rather than later. Fortune favored him, as just as he was about to make it to the end of another hallway, he saw Miss Helen pop her head out of a doorway.
Not wasting any of their limited time to help the boy, he immediately yelled, “First year needs emergency healing in the Helwitian History classroom,” as soon as he saw her.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a rush of wind pass by him as he saw Miss Helen flash forward through the hallway. There was nothing else he could do to help the situation, unfortunately. If Miss Helen couldn’t save him, then no one could. She was the foremost expert on healing at the school, after all. His helplessness only made him feel worse, as despite everything being his fault, he could do nothing to help the boy he had nearly killed.
Well, hopefully it would only be nearly killed, the boy was still in danger of dying having experienced a head on collision like he had.
It also didn’t help his feelings of guilt that they’d wanted to capture the boy for questioning, not even for punishment. It wasn’t a punitive expedition they were after, so he really should not have been using magic to begin with. He had forgotten that in the past week, as his frustrations with tracking the boy down had finally started to get to him.
Stolen story; please report.
Getting made fun of over not being able to get the first year shouldn’t have gotten to him as much as it did, and now the first year in question was paying for Kyle’s loss of temper. His guilt towards the boy would not change, but at the very least, he should be there to see how the treatment turns out.
So, he began his walk back to the classroom, hoping that the boy would be alright. This would be a debt he’d have to pay back to the boy in time, should he survive.
Interim
His head felt like it was splitting apart—and not in the metaphorical sense either—his memory of what exactly had transpired was foggy, but he was almost certain he had hit his head hard. He couldn’t think of what he had been doing for him to even be at risk of hitting his head, but he supposed most people didn’t plan to hit their head hard enough to knock them about when going about their lives.
It somewhat hurt to even think, and the constant chattering that he was hearing was not helping. Maybe he should’ve expected something weird like this to happen to him, what with gangs of magic users roaming the streets and launching spells off at their innocent victims. Until he was more certain of the circumstances of his surroundings, he would continue to pretend to be unconscious.
Some of what he’d been doing prior to his accident was coming back to him slowly. He could swear that prior to whatever head trauma he suffered, he had been listening to a man endlessly speak utter gibberish as if it actually meant something. At least the man was dedicated to whatever he thought he was communicating, as he didn’t even bother to stop when one of his audience members fell unconscious.
Although on second listening, the voice didn’t quite sound the same as the one from the man from earlier, so he could be accusing the man of something he was not actually guilty of. It was entirely possible that Edward had been out long enough for the next rotation to come in and start up with their nonsense, after all, it was difficult to keep proper track of time when all awareness had left your body.
Regardless of whether or not the speaker was the same man, it did not change the fact that the constant chattering was irritating and grated at the ears. As much as he enjoyed lying there and listening to whatever the person was talking about, he knew he was better off being somewhere else to recollect himself.
As such, he began to listen carefully, trying his best to hear past the chattering. He had to figure out whether anyone was near him, as he did not yet know whether the cause of him being knocked out was a mistake on his part, or if it was through the actions of someone else who wished him harm.
He couldn’t make out any breathing or movements near him, and he noticed that the chattering came from no discernible direction. Was he not in the same room as earlier? Unsure, he cautiously cracked open his eyes to survey his surroundings.
Not immediately seeing a person hovering near him gave him the confidence he needed to fully open his eyes and take in the full scope of the room he was in. That confirmed his theory of not being in the same room rather quickly, as he was now in some sort of medical ward, lying on a bed. To be honest, he hadn’t even realized that he hadn’t woken up on a cold, hard floor that he should’ve been expecting.
He also wasn’t tied up—a good sign—that meant whoever had helped him to the bed didn’t wish him any harm. Or at least, they didn’t wish him any harm in the immediate future. The room was also empty of people, another sign that whoever had helped him wasn’t worried about him getting away, which once again meant that they probably weren’t going to harm him.
Not that he was going to stay around to thank them. It was strange that he suddenly found himself waking up with an extremely painful headache, and he needed time away from people to clarify some things in his mind and figure out what had happened.
Not wasting a moment, as the infernal chattering was only getting louder, a sign that he interpreted as the source of the noise getting closer to the room he was in, he got up from the bed. His shoulder hurt a bit, and he didn’t remember that being the case, so he figured that the source of his sudden deprivation of consciousness had either been a fight, or him falling out of a tree. And with no trees in the room he was in before, only one of those options was plausible.
He stretched his arm and shoulder to quickly figure out a more exact diagnosis of the condition his shoulder was in, and only feeling soreness, he figured the damage wasn’t that bad. That was fortunate, it wouldn’t hinder him from making his escape through the window he spotted in the room. Making his way over to the window, he silently opened it and began to climb out.
Not wanting to give any hints as to the way in which he left the room, he made sure to close the window behind him, before climbing down the side of the building to the ground below.
Once his feet hit the ground, he crouched low and made his way behind a bush that was near the building, wanting to take a moment to catch his breath and evaluate his next course of action. The rest of his memories had come back to him, and he remembered how an attacker had come through a window and tackled him to the floor. And then if that wasn’t enough, just as his getaway was about to succeed, the shithead had actually hit him with a rock blast and nearly caused his early demise.
Clearly that schedule he’d been given was compromised, as that ambush was too well coordinated for it to have been a rush job. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted the darn thing, just like everything else in this prison, it was designed with the express purpose of making it easy to keep tabs on him and track him down if need be.
Staying low-key by blending in with the mindless drones was no longer an option, not while he was being targeted by that gang. He also couldn’t risk returning to the place he’d been hiding out in since Bierfall, as they’d likely have already sniffed that out by now. That whole area was likely under some type of surveillance by the gang before he’d even been attacked in the room.
The first order of business then would be finding a good, new spot for a hideout. Perhaps he could set himself up in one of those wooded areas within the city. They had many bushes in them that had thick layers of leaves that could help prevent him from being spotted. If he dug a hole beneath one of them and covered the entrance with some sort of leafy hatch, it’d blend right in and nobody would notice it even when walking right past it.
The only issues would be keeping it warm and dry, especially during the winter and spring time. He could probably figure out some sort of drainage system to deal with excess water, and if he also made an elevated platform in the hole, he could avoid the wet soil and various critters at the same time.
From there, he could probably steal some fabric to use as a blanket from one of the shops in the city, and then all he’d need to do is find a rich ‘donator’ to obtain a heating stone from. In a city like this, that shouldn’t be too big of an issue, most of the people here seemed like they wouldn’t even notice if a heating stone or two went missing.
It didn’t change the fact that it would be a rather large undertaking, not to mention one that he’d be doing without any relevant experience. The entire plan itself was just based on what he knew of rabbits burrowing combined with some things that he’d heard from his uncle at some point in the past.
And also, unlike rabbits, he’d need some tools to get it done. Not to worry though, as that only added to the list of things that he’d need to steal. Some sort of trench shovel, ideally one of the military-type ones, and a knife or two should do the trick.
But before he began working on any of his grand, thieving plans, he should first find a good spot to bunker down at. After all, his entire scheme was based on the fact that he could find a suitable bush. Its importance was also further emphasized by his need to find a place to stay for the night.
With his thoughts organized, plans made, and headache finally subsiding, he rose up, ready to begin his search. He already had a particular wooded area in mind that might fit the bill, he remembered it having thick brush from the previous week when he escaped from the gang through it.
But just as his first step hit the ground, a shudder passed up his spine, there was something that he was missing. He couldn’t quite place what was wrong, but his uncle had always said that his senses for these types of things were unusually potent, leading him to want to trust his instinct.
Where he was, there were only so many things that he could have subconsciously picked up on that could be throwing him off. Once again, he would rely on his uncle’s advice for these types of situations, as much as he hated having to rely on the man who had betrayed his trust. Still, his life as of late did not leave much room for being picky about where he got his advice from.
According to his uncle, the best thing to do when one could sense something was off, but couldn’t tell what it was, was by focusing on each sense one by one from the most important to the least important. That order was feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and then tasting, and if was somehow not one of those things, he should start going through sub-senses like hot and cold or balance.
His body, which he had checked earlier, was fine. His shoulder hurt, just like before, but his head was almost entirely better by this point. Checking his feet revealed that he hadn’t stepped on anything weird. And scoping the area quickly didn’t have anything that jumped out at him. But just to be sure, he doubled checked by slowing spinning in place and scanning the area around him. Still, nothing jumped out at him.
Content that the issue wasn’t something he had spotted and hadn’t realized, he start to focus on his hearing. The wind was blowing, and he could hear the leaves of the trees rustling in the distance. And that infernal chattering was still—how could he still hear the chattering?
He had initially ignored it, convinced that when he first woke up that he was still in the room that he’d been knocked unconscious in. But then when he realized that he’d been moved while he was out, he began to think that it was coming from somewhere outside of the medical room. But that could not be right, now that he really thought about it. The chattering hadn’t been coming from the direction of the doorway, it had been more pervasive than that, like it had been coming from every direction through the walls around him.
How had he not noticed it then? The source of the noise was clearly not normal. And now he was outside, and yet it still sounded as if it was coming from every direction, above, below, behind, in front, everywhere, all at once.
Starting to panic a bit, he focused on keeping his breath as calm and steady as he could, he knew it wouldn’t do him any good to lose his cool here. It was hard though, as someone was either messing with him with magic or…
…he’d been the target of an Evil Spirit Implantation spell. He didn’t want to believe the second option though, as he doubted any cult had survived the purge that had happened a little over a century ago. Widespread usage of the spell that caused the phenomenon by cults was the entire reason the purge had happened to begin with, so why would they dare to start using the spell again?
Nobody would dare to break that particular law, unless they were either suicidal, or powerful enough that they did not need to fear the punishment of the country. The latter option made too much sense with the added component that was the strangeness of the prison city Edward had found himself in.
For all he knew, this entire city could be a city of cultists controlled by a powerful noble of the kingdom, one that could not be casually investigated for fear of their political influence and power. It would also explain how the scumbag trio had ended up here without a fuss, they were likely political prisoners that hadn’t had their release negotiated yet. Not that their release would save them, if a cult was at work here, they would be brainwashed before they were sent back to their families, guaranteeing whoever was in charge a loyal ally for their cause.
It would also explain why his captors did not care about the gang that had been pursuing him this past week, as they were likely to be fellow members of the cult. That meant that it was already far too late for him. Or, more accurately, it was too late for him to escape the evil spirit implantation process.
They probably had intentionally caused him to fall on his head, as an unconscious person was supposedly an easier target to use the spell on. And once it was done, they didn’t mind leaving him alone, as sooner or later he would be taken over by the spirit and become a fellow cult member. Or he would go insane, but they probably had plans in place for that outcome.
Luckily, it seemed he knew a particular detail about the process that they did not, that the strong-willed could resist the possession of evil spirits, and eventually expel them from their body. If they listened to any legends and fairy tales growing up, they would have known this, as you never heard about a hero being possessed in them.
The entire possession process also took somewhere between a week and a month, so he figured that as long as he kept himself in good condition for that long, he’d have successfully rid himself of the spirit by then.
Still, if he was to combat the spirit, it would do him good to learn more about it. Other legends that he had heard when he was younger stated that spirits would grow complacent if they found their target to be weak, and would unintentionally expose their weaknesses, allowing for them to be defeated easily. But he would take that information with a grain of salt, as his uncle had told him that while he was drunk.
Regardless, as long as he kept his mind alert, and his will strong, he didn’t think that a little bit of communication with the spirit could hurt him. To that end, it was best to peep into its thoughts now, while he was still safe behind the bush he was once again crouching behind.
Now that he knew the chattering was being directly input into his mind, it was easy to trace it back to the source. At first, the words were unintelligible, but slowly, as he focused more and more on the connection with the spirit, they began to clear up. He couldn’t help but notice that unlike the scary, imposing voice he had been expecting, the spirit sounded monotone, as if it had no emotions.
“Yes, finally, at long last, you have checked the initial system alerts. Fifteen minutes is what it took you, which is only thirty times longer than any other contractor I’ve worked with. It seems like the quality of reincarnators assigned to me has been dropping steadily. Curious that this one decided to forego activating his goldfinger, instead choosing to climb out of a window and avoid the first encounter with the buddy character that had been set up.”
This initial look into the thoughts of the evil spirit had him worried. Just listening in on their thoughts for mere seconds revealed that they possessed a vast trove of knowledge that was foreign to him. That could only mean that the spirit had been a person of great intellect, power, or importance in life, and regardless of which it was, meant that the spirit was a strong one.
Several of those terms, namely system alerts, reincarnator, and goldfinger, were terms that he should keep a lookout for information on, as the core of the spirits thoughts were about those topics. He also had no clue what the buddy character portion meant, maybe a cultist had been dispatched to keep tabs on him, and he had avoided it? And the buddy portion was more akin to an inside joke than actually being a buddy?
Still, that information alone was not enough for him to work with, and as his uncle always said, ‘Listen twice, then twice more, and only after considering what he’d heard both times should he finally speak up or act.’
“And what is this guy doing now, why is he frozen there, crouching? Did the transfer division somehow mess up their job and destroy part of my contractor’s psyche? This guy only took one look at the initializing screen before freezing up on me, is he somehow surprised by the circumstances he’s found himself in? They were supposed to have him ready, with his mind intact, not whatever is happening right now.”
The spirit was growing frustrated with his inactivity. It likely didn’t realize that he had stopped to listen in on its thoughts, otherwise his inaction would not have been the cause of its anger. Fortunately, the spirit was also unlikely to figure out that he was listening in on its thoughts, as it was busy blaming the ‘transfer division’ for some perceived flaw it saw in his psyche.
Edward figured that this mistaken judgment could help him by ensuring that the spirit would underestimate him. Although it could be that the transfer division actually had made a mistake, and that was how he was able to hear the thoughts of the spirit. He wasn’t sure whether his experience was normal, as no parts of the legends that he had heard mentioned being able to read the mind of the evil spirit that inhabited oneself.
In any case, might as well use the privilege that he was granted to his advantage, as he certainly needed all the help he could get.
“This error cannot even be reported until after this vessel’s death, meaning that I will likely be stuck here for at least another couple years. But who knows, maybe the contractor will regain his wits and start paying attention to the system alerts I send him, and then everything will be alright.”
His mind reading powers were already coming in handy, as he expected would be the case. Even the most iron-willed individual did not guard their thoughts at all times of the day, much less a spirit that suspected nothing.
The spirit being unable to contact the members of the cult was vital information to have, as it meant that he was likely in the dark as far as the cult was concerned. His plan to create a hideout in a bush was a good one then, as it would make it that much harder for them to find him.
“Maybe the dungeon will shock him into waking up. I can only hope so. I’d been so excited about this assignment because the dungeons sounded far more interesting than all my previous assignments. Far more interesting than those cultivation worlds, with guys just sitting around for hundreds of thousands of years to become stronger. Well, for better or for worse, this guy is in for a shocker come midnight.”
He wasn’t going to a dungeon anytime soon, or probably ever for that matter, those places were dark, creepy, and dangerous. Not to mention that even if he wanted to, he couldn’t go into a dungeon while he was trapped inside the city by those damned walls.
And that cultivation world stuff did not make sense to him in the least. He had no clue what farming had to do with a seemingly endless lifespan and becoming stronger. But not everything the spirit said or thought had to make sense to him as long as some of it was usable information.
The spirit was gradually going off topic, as in, it was starting to delve into information and knowledge that was not useful for him at the moment. As such, he gradually worked his focus off of the connection with spirit, eventually completely zoning it out of the forefront of his mind. Now, once again, it sounded like gibberish speak, albeit much quieter as he had figured out how to silence it somewhat.
With his mind clear once more, and no longer plagued with the persistent noise caused by the spirit, Edward made his way from his hiding spot behind the bush for the second time. He would head towards the wooded area that he thought suited his need, and he figured he could steal a bite or two to eat from the cultist’s canteen as it was on his way. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too bothered by him doing so, as they should think that he was one of them.
That didn’t mean he was going to go anywhere near the ones that looked like they were part of a gang, as they might know enough to notice that something was up. You also never knew what those unstable guys might do.