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Chapter 53 - Deal with the Devil

After a few seconds of silence, the Cerulean Baroness answered Roberion; saldy, it was not the answer he was waiting for.

"I see you need a moment. According to my simulations, the time when I will get all the other participants ready is two hours after your engram will kill you. You will have until your death to decide", that was what the hologram said before vanishing.

"WAIT! Cerulean Baroness?? Who will participate??", Roberion waited a few minutes, but the hologram was gone for good. A timer appeared on the floor where she was, marking 9:46:12.

Roberion was exhausted, confused, and angry. He looked at Percival and gesticulated angrily, then said, "Dammit, fucking Baroness. Did you hear that, Percival? She wants me to accept a parasite in my head."

Percival said calmly his answer, "Sir Roberion, maybe we can find a way out. You don't need to panic."

"I'm not panicking!", Roberion took a deep breath, "Maybe a little, but damn, I have to say I was almost accepting it until the whole parasite on the head. Not that I would go all the way; I would remove this malfunctioning piece of trash and then escape this asylum. There is no way I would follow that, baroness."

"That was sensible. Nonetheless, we don't have that choice; we must need to run from here.", as Percival said that he took his rapier and tried to slash the walls, not even a scratch.

"That is not good, buddy. But maybe a place around the walls is fragile; you have a good eye, like when you found the space bag, look around and slash away. I will try to use my spell and the spear."

One hour later, both of them met again. Percival returned downcast; Roberion returned without mana; and his mood was tranquil, like he was already in acceptance.

"It's okay, Percival. We still have nine hours. I will drink a mana potion and charge your bomb equipment; you test it on the walls. As for me, I will try to get better at that spell and think about something."

Thirty minutes later, Roberion could already hear the explosions of Percival bombs; they were rather similar to his previous landmines, a little louder, though. Focusing on his spell, he tried to forget about his problems, but it was like there was a clock ticking in his mind, counting the last moments of his life.

Six hours later, Percival was already sitting quietly, watching Roberion train. The knight capybara seemed lost; there was no way to help his patron; now he could only wait for his choice.

Fifty one minutes before the allotted time on Baroness's timer. Roberion walked near it, [Minor Air Movement] activated, and although he couldn't run with it, he was pretty good at doing short bursts while jogging. That speed was slower than what he achieved running but required much less of his stamina.

Roberion spoke to the knight, resolute and somber. "Percival, is there a way you could kill me? You know if the parasite controls me or something."

Percival was lost for word, "I-I-I w-would never do that!", Percival tried to recompose himself and continued, "I think that if that happened, I could do that, if you wanted so; although, if the parasite wishes for me to obey, I would be forced to. I feel like a being, but I'm only a weapon; whoever owns me will make me obey. I can only hurt my master the same way a dagger is stabbed by the wielder's hands. I have no choice, so no, I can do this barbaric but understandable act."

Roberion spoke with determination, "Percival, I will accept her deal, but not to survive. Most of my short life was with you, buddy; without your help, I would have died many times", Roberion got closer to Percival and patted on his shoulder, "But I can't be like that anymore; your help is altruistic, but all people will want something from me; they will try to use me as I'm already being used. The only way I can remedy that is if I become strong enough to make the demands myself. Maybe there was a better way, a wiser way, but that is all I know about life."

"If I were born a human, born into a society, I would be different—maybe mentally stronger, maybe more courageous—and have something to look forward to. But look at me, the only thing I'm looking forward to aside from all this survival is a bunch of cards with muscled people that I get from buying improvement drugs. Maybe see the space or something. What I want to say is that I'm broken inside; something that was supposed to be there isn't, and if I didn't have to survive, I would probably be crazy already thinking about it. It seems wrong, but they created us like objects, and still in my mind, I feel like that, wishing to stop thinking, just ceasing to exist."

Percival protested, "But sir, you don't need to think like that; we have wonderful things to look forw—", Percival stopped after seeing Roberion signaling him to stop.

"That's not it, Percival; I reflected this entire time while training. This entire time, I felt death coming closer. I want to see how people live; maybe I will learn how to live myself. That's what I want to do, Percival. But for that, I need power. We need power. Because people will try to take that from us—the chance to live— they create people like me, objects. Do you think they would stop at that? There are probably way worse things out there. I won't be a victim, not anymore. And the baroness wouldn't let me leave alive if I didn't accept; we are in her trap, without escape, I'm stupid but not a fool."

Percival looked at his patron with pride. A female voice cut their hopeful moment short.

"Nice speech, innocent, but if that gives you will, who am I to judge?! It seems you accept the proposal. Just in time, because I think this parasite will harder to implant.

"What do you mean?", Roberion asked with alarm.

"Don't be scared; you will read the motive soon. First, let's get the crates. The crates are located in the following locations…", Cerulean Baroness guided them to recover the crates. With her hologram appearing at the locations and guiding in with her voice, the process of localizing was simple; only taking the crates was more strenuous. Nonetheless, after fourteen minutes, they had all the crates on the floor, and the Cerulean Baroness looked at them with an interested expression.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Now open the [Hellish Plasma Cannon] and [Behemoth Skin]. Their respective passwords are on the floor near their display."

Roberion got to work fast, retrieving both items. He believed the crate would be a document or something with all the details, but there was only a page in each of them.

"Ok, let's see, Resume of Hellish Plasma Cannon, Tier Peak-VII, Blessed Incarnation, creation, and elimination line. Elimination? Alright, let's continue. It has the following enchantments: [Mana Adaptable] As long as the source feeds mana, the weapon has the capability to activate its second enchantment, independent of incarnation. WARNING: After using it to shoot the enchantment [Plasmatic Hell] with the power of a Tier Peak-VII, the reactor will need to be fed a constant flux of mana or it will explode. The explosion will have the same power as the previous shot mentioned. That's really bad; it's like a one use weapon, that is, if we use the powered shot—",

Cerulean Baroness interrupted and said, "You don't need to read for everyone here; you don't have the time. Just read to yourself; we still have to implant the parasite."

"Alright. Alright.", Roberion read the texts, "So one if one uses a weapon that can kill me, and the other is an armor that will repair itself and me as long as I have mana; when I don't have mana, it will fix at my body and consume me to repair itself. Nice, I really wanted to be eaten alive by my own armor."

Roberion took the orb that was inside the [Hellish Plasma Cannon] crate and used mana to activate it. A sleek black gun showed up; the size of the thing was enormous—the height was more than half of the Null's torso, the length was the size of his arm—and Roberion had to use all his strength to cradle it with his arms. It seemed to be an arm-mounted firearm; its body was like an inverted triangle; the same was true for its muzzle, which was the same size as its body. "It's beautiful".

"That's a masterwork, but that thing, that thing is disgusting. It really looks like thick skin from an undead behemoth; at least it's not the same purpleish color as the undead, or people would shoot me on sight. It's like a gray bodysuit made of skin that a canibbal made up; this shit is ugly as hell ", Roberion's distaste for [Behemoth Skin] was palpable.

The Cerualean Baroness said with humor, "You will look the same using it, even the bald head; you only get a little larger and grey; it will be funny to see your white face peaking from it."

" Again with the bald prejudice. They should create nulls with hair if people get so pissed off about it. Anyway, let me wear this ugly skin; maybe it will reduce the chances of this parasite eating my brain, or at least recover it.", It took a few minutes for the Null to wear it.

"This is weird; after this whole parasite thing, I will try to wear the leatherleaf armor above it.."

Cerulean Baroness spoke after, "I don't think it will be a problem; your leather armor doesn't seem to have an enchantment that could interfere with it, as it doesn't have any. Didn't you say you wanted to open the crate? Hush hush."

Roberion didn't even deign to answer, just opening the crate and reading the resume of the parasite. It only made things worse in his mind.

"This paper is saying that it was rejected because the parasite fused with the user; why would I want that?", Roberion asks with confusion.

"That is normal; the emperor of creation research on this base wanted a parasite that could be transferred between users, carrying all its evolution and improvement with it, like some sort of mobile power up. This one is a copy of the first successful attempt at severing the connection with the Pained Chimera, but the fusing process continued.", the baroness answered with seriousness.

"Do these other participants have the improved version?"

"…yes", the baroness replied somewhat timidly.

"That's just great; I get an inferior version of the parasite; that's nice."

The baroness contested, "It's not inferior; it is even better than the next older versions; the cost of having a parasite that didn't fuse with the user was the lessening of performance. Until they fixed it for the last generation."

"Oh yes, improvement in your control of your body and senses. That doesn't seem like that good to begin with; I would prefer a removable parasite.", Roberion didn't have any of it, even after reading the benefits on the description page.

"You say that because you are inexperienced, the benefits are immense, and that's only the beginning. Depending on how the parasite evolves, it could become better than a weapon."

"Alright. Alright. I already accepted this cursed deal; how do I put this thing?", Roberion took the jar, and inside there was a red worm with multiple teeth on its mouth, like a shark fused with a triturator. All around its body were filaments that resembled tentacles; This thing is ugly.

"Take out the cap of your bodysuit and put the worm near your nape; it's inert, so it can't begin the process itself."

Roberion did what he was told and neared the creature to his nape. Why do I always make bad choices? The Null didn't have much more time to regret as the worm squirmed and left his hand. cut his flesh and penetrated his head.

Roberion’s mental list:

Hellish Plasma Cannon

“A real beauty, though a little explosive” by Roberion

Type: Weapon

Tier: peak-VII

Incarnation: Blessed

Line: Creation, Elimination

Enchantment:

[Mana Adaptable]: As long as the source feeds mana, the weapon has the capability to activate its second enchantment, independent of incarnation. WARNING: After using it to shoot the enchantment [Plasmatic Hell] with the power of a Tier Peak-VII, the reactor will need to be fed a constant flux of mana or it will explode. The explosion will have the same power as the previous shot mentioned.

[Plasmatic Hell]: a superheated ball of plasma improved by the elimation line, melting anything in its blast radius. Enchantment power is dependent on mana and weapon tier.

Behemoth Skin

“The ugliest armor ever created. It seems that these beasts regeneration is also a work of the creation line,” by Roberion

Type: Weapon

Tier: early-VII

Incarnation: Blessed

Line: Neutral, Creation

Enchantment:

[Behemoth Regeneration]: As long as mana is fed, the armor and the user will be healed; independent of loss of mass, new flesh will be created; burned flesh and broken bones will be reverted. WARNING: After using all mana from the user, if the armor is still damaged, it will consume its user flesh to restore its condition. Studies indicate that the armor has a reserve of mana; when it stops receiving more, the reserve mana will only be used for the neutral line aspect of the change of materials, with the user flesh becoming the raw material for the armor regeneration.

Notable Items:

[Convert Parasite of Pained Chimera #0383] - The thing that is entering my head.