Calypso didn’t like the size of the shop owner’s grin already. So when it doubled in size, causing the creases of his face to settle fully around the raised cheeks, and how unmovable and empty his blue eyes were… She dreaded to think what kind of shit this poor bug girl managed to get into.
“W-what is that…?” Gale, proving time and time again that she’s far stronger than the skeletal monster girl. “And how are you gonna help us…?”
Niles was too busy chuckling. Admiring the weathered, torn page that was folded in two. Rotating his wrist back and forth, versus twirling it between his two fingers.
What drove Calypso into muted, but pronounced hysterics was the fact he wasn’t opening it. Reading it, doing anything else with it. She turned to the bug girl, who was still looking downward, still despondent. Calypso wanted to yell, shout at her—first thing asking her would be if they doomed the town or not by more or less giving this paper to this creepy man.
“Ohoho… I have to be very careful, setting this down…”
Calypso turned her head to see just that. With tender care and caution—traits that she hadn’t seen this man exhibit at all to his supposed fellow man, Niles gently placed the paper onto his counter. Petting it out with both hands, with the body launch of adjusting the wires of a bomb’s timer to it.
“This depends on how much you truly know,” Niles began. “At the bare minimum, one of you must know about the ‘lost’ era of human history, hm? Where humans were the monsters, and Subsumed were equals~?”
Gale sputtered in confusion, but Calypso stepped forward before anything could escalate. “I do,” the skeletal monster girl answered.
“Then this is a rather simple, yet interesting tale…” Niles kept his crooked grin, still eyeing the parchment on his desk. “This happened during the transitionary period… Humanity stepping out of their blood-soaked mess, regaining their senses. Collectively agreeing that they must establish the boundary between the natural and the super—all riveting to watch. But of course, with any massive change, the hiccups are so much more interesting…”
He quickly turned around, causing Calypso to instinctively brandish her claws. Trying to desperately suppress their trembling.
“This was the start of it. The Subsumed’s pact, the systematic attacks against humanity… The very messy morality of dealing with such. All of it was so wonderful to watch, but impossible to live. It got to the precipice of immense causalities on both sides, and it being an accepted part of life. But one man… He refused.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
With tremendous effort, the spindly man hoisted this massive wood trunk and swung his body back forward to slam it onto the rattled counter. Right before the scrap of paper.
No one, but Niles, was ready for the box to suddenly jerk about. Something was in there, and it took everything Niles had to keep the lid of the trunk from opening.
“The story goes that a sole survivor of a settlement, somewhere in the west, was wiped out in a mutual fight-to-the-death between humans and Subsumed. The survivor was baffled, because he remembered the exact moment when he died. He used his final moments to curse the Subsumed, curse humanity for playing into their yearning for a forever war, and screamed to the heavens that if he had any choice in this meaningless void called existence—he’d warn future generations what they were getting into… Then the realization hit him. Yes, he was undead—but the Fates That Be wanted to see him put together this so-called ‘warning’…”
And without a warning himself, Niles reared back—allowing the animated, massive black heart to leap from the trunk and with a gesture, used one of his shadow tendrils to catch it midair.
Calypso looked over to Gale, who had her mouth covered with her vine-covered hands and her monstrous eyes wide with fear. Calypso could only look forward, unable to express the same amount of confusion and unease.
“Behold, girls…” Niles cooed as he grabbed the beating heart with such intensity. “To witness the fruits of that penmen’s labor. In which not only he sacrificed life, but his entire body over the course of centuries over…”
He knocked over the trunk, despite that seemingly being heavy moments ago. The heart made Niles’ entire frame jerk erratically, before he slammed it into the same leathery tome Calypso only just remembered.
She watched as the thing absorbed the disgusting, decayed organ into itself. She watched it come to life, shudder, breathe. The lesions that she noticed before, they started to bleed as the tome continued to flex itself to breathe, the texture of the leather become clammy and gained pours.
“‘The Tome of the Dark And What One Needs to Understand to Fear It’,” Niles practically purred. “The all-encompassing guide to everything about the supernatural world we live in. But with a fun price to gain such knowledge—as you’ve seen me handle even a page with care… You have to offer yourself. The greater knowledge you wish to gain, the more you have to pour yourself into this…”
Niles leaned forward, while stroking his chin with a lowered gaze. Directed pass Calypso, of course.
“So. What did you have to give up, little bug?”
Once again, silence. Silence, coming from that girl, of all things.
"No? Still going to hang there, like the disgusting mite within a trap that you are? Ah well..."
Niles reached into his smock's pockets, pulling out thick, orange gloves and snapping them on. "Regardless, we're still at an impasse. I was told, 'three college-aged young women'--and now, one of the four women is already privy to some information. Why not do the logical thing, here? Why--?"
"OH WILL YOU JUST--SHUT YOUR PRETENTIOUS HOLE ALREADY!"
Every aware person in that room was in shock at Calypso roaring at Niles. Including Calypso herself, until she took a breath to continue.