POV Lionel Lionheart

Snap!

As the connection between him and his proxy broke, scarlet eyes snapped open as a burst of pain shot through his head, and the memories of his mimic proxy, including its last painful moments, sprang into his mind. Incredible pain wracked through his body, and he felt as if every inch of his body was being crushed and compacted.

Gritting his teeth, he activated the Lion’s Golden Aura, and an aura of pure golden light surrounded his muscular body, soothing the phantom aches he felt throughout. Although it could do nothing about his pounding head from overusing his mana, it helped a lot.

Taking a deep breath, Lionel placed his hand on the simple long sword beside him and began channeling his mana until he felt calm once more.

Caressing his sword handle with his eyes shut, he quickly filtered through the memories, viewing and discarding the ones that served no purpose.

Memories of failing to grab Lina due to a certain golden-eyed individual.

Memories of failing to critically injure Julius due to a certain golden-eyed individual.

Memories of being mocked, having his bones broken and his weapon taken before being chased away by a certain golden-eyed individual.

Remembering how those golden eyes bored into him as if the owner wanted to shred him to pieces, he couldn’t help but snort.

A useless weakling who depended on the strength of others to bully those around him. He would make him pay once they got back to the academy. Or get rid of him here and now if he had the opportunity. After all, what was one more dead student amoung the tens that had perished so far.

He continued filtering the memories, searching for a particular one.

Memories of the inability of his proxy to approach the lighthouse due to the dual mana mazes of Killian and Cassandra.

Memories of avoiding Silvia as she went on a wild rampage, leveling everything around her.

Memories of seeing the injured Robin enter the lighthouse with the broken body of his partner. And finally, memories of what had captured his proxy body.

He knew who had killed his proxy.

In the memories, he had gotten a glimpse of rainbow-colored hair flashing in the moonlight, heard a familiar manic laugh, and saw that the proxy was trapped in a barrier unable to move before its head had been repeatedly struck with controlled lightning until it burnt to a crisp.

Naturally, he narrowed it down to one person; after all, nobody else had such fine control to do such damage without killing a person.

Solomon Nova.

That uselessly talented bastard from the Nova clan who was apparently free of his restraints and running around causing havoc.

It seemed he had noticed something was up and was poking his nose around in business that didn’t concern him.

How annoying.

He would have to report this to Helen Lionheart to let the clan know.

“It’s dead~” A high-pitched sing-song voice echoed through the dark space, interrupting his thoughts, and Lionel opened his eyes and turned his head slowly to stare at the figure squatting in front of him.

An oversized, tattered, full-length robe that was black on the top and transitioned to pure white at the bottom. The only visible feature was a simple white mask with one black circular eye and one yellow star eye, and a red smile crudely drawn on with a marker. He could even see the smile smudging from the low-quality ink.

How unprofessional.

In fact, everything about the robed figure was completely unprofessional.

To start with, the robe still had a store tag from the costume store, boldly displaying the 40% discounted price of 7.99. The “blood stains” were clearly food coloring that had been artistically spread out; after all, he could see many stars and smiley faces spread throughout the bottom of the robe. On the feet, the robed figure was wearing rainbow-colored crocs with star and skull accessories. And to top it off, the figure referred to themself in the plural swapped between a childishly girly persona and a gruff man persona, and frequently talked to themself, which threw him off.

When he first met the figure, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Was this supposed to be an operative from the infamous Darwinists? A mistake had to have been made. The figure reminded him of a child out on a field trip with their annoying cheer.

“Ding. Dong. Your proxy is dead~; Solomon Nova crushed its head. Pop! Pop! Pop!”

The sing-songy voice interrupted his thoughts once more, the irritating sound worsening his headache.

“You think that I don’t know that? You don’t need to state the obvious.” Lionel’s sharp voice rang out, and the robed figure tilted its head to the side as if observing him before standing up and pirouetting away.

“No need to be mad at us~,” the words were drawn out as the figure continued dancing around wildly. “You should be mad at yourself, little lion.“

Irritated, Lionel glared, his scarlet eyes flashing as he placed his hand on the sword on his waist and slowly stood up.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Solomon had removed his cuffs? I would have made a different decision much earlier if I had known. This is your fault,” he growled.

The robed figure stopped unnaturally, like a toy whose battery had been yanked out. Slowly, the head turned to the side, and Lionel felt the temperature in the room drop as his breath became visible in the suddenly ice-cold air.

A suffocating atmosphere filled the room, and the childish mask didn’t look as childish as before and was instead quite menacing.

There was a pause before the robed figure began speaking, this time in an emotionless masculine voice.

“Why should we? That wasn’t part of the deal. Our job was to deliver the goods and protect you while you tested it out for a set duration of time. Your failure to acquire relevant information about the outside situation has nothing to do with us. It was your side that insisted on pushing the plans up because Solomon Nova would not be active. It was your side that wanted to create a proxy against our advice. And it was your side that was too weak to deal with him. Where is it our fault? Clearly, you were wrong.”

“I wasn’t wrong! During previous incidents when Caerus chained him up, he wouldn’t dare take his cuffs off unless he was on the verge of death. If you people had intentionally avoided him, none of this would have happened. Now, he knows that something is wrong. Who knows if he’s told other people?” Lionel complained angrily.

“Sounds like your problem, but what does it have to do with us~? It was your incorrect assumption, and insistence that has cost us a lot of time and effort, little boy. One of our agents is near death and can now only be used as a puppet, while the other must battle on his own. With the Nova child in the know, the others are most likely compromised. How incompetent you are when compared to the child of the Nova clan. Truly a disgrace to your father and clan’s name.” The robbed impassionately spoke while Lionel’s eyes narrowed in displeasure.

What he hated the most was being compared to Solomon. There was no comparison as he was leagues above the other boy.

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“Don’t call me boy. Don’t speak on my clan. And don’t compare me to him. Otherwise, I’ll make you regret it.” Lionel retorted, his scarlet eyes flashing.

“Despite who you think you are, you are not your father. We could squash you like a bug if I so choose to. The only reason we will not is due to the possibility of your father’s rage and the benefits from the deal we have received. Remember that you are only able to remain living due to your last name. After all, despite all this time and your overconfident bravado, you haven’t even been able to claim this item as your own. Useless. Incompetent. Weak. Petulant. Annoying.” Slowly rotating its head back to its original position, the frozen figure suddenly became alive. The outspread fingers and limbs returned to a more natural position as the figure began humming happily as they danced around once more.

Hearing the words, Lionel wanted to retort in anger. After all, the thing he hated the most was being criticized. Especially by random, no-name individuals. Instead, he took a deep breath to calm himself. He couldn’t mess this up.

“I’m going to continue.” He glanced at the robed individual before looking at the small object placed on a pedestal.

It was a statue.

The statue was made of an unknown black material that seemed to absorb the light, leaving it dark even in the light. It was of a robed figure of unknown gender with emptiness where the face should be. A floating veil was sculpted over and around the figure, engraved with the moon and stars all over. One hand was held up, and in the hand was a circular object made of similar material, around 4 inches across.

It was this object that he had been tasked to retrieve. That he had been trying to take control of and the one that had been rejecting him for the past couple of days. As he stared at it once more, he used Insight, his weakest skill, and tried to pry into the secrets that it held.

[??? of a ??? Monsters Fragment 1/10]

[Rank: D]

[Created by ?????]

[Owner: ???????????? (95.9%), Lionel Lionheart (4.1%)]

[An artifact created by ???????????? and blessed by ?????. This artifact allows you to summon and control up to a ???? different types of monsters. As it is a fragment, its usage is severely limited.*]

[* You may increase the strength of the monsters summoned by feeding them monster cores.]

[Monsters available for you to summon 1/???]

[- Shadow Mimic Nest (D)]

[Monsters available for you to control 1/???]

[- Shadow Mimic Nest (Partial availability due to not meeting the requirements)]

[Shadow Mimic Nest: a generally mindless monster that is the breeding ground of the monster ‘Mimic’ whose sole purpose is to devour anything with mana and spawn off versions of itself to devour and replace everything.]

[Likes: Places/People with dense mana, specifically Shadow/Dark Mana.]

[Dislikes: N/A. Given enough time, it will consume everything around it.]

[Weakness: Fire, Light]

[Strength: Shadow, Dark, Force, Pure Mana]

[Abilities: Spawn, Encroach, Devour, Proxy, Control, Swap (Disabled), Disguise(Disabled), Shapeshift (Disabled), Gather(Disabled), Hibernate (Disabled), Storage (Disabled), Thrive (Passive)]

[Controlled Spawn: 48 (humans)]

[Current Spawn: 2012]

[Requirements to use:

- Child of ?????

- Minimal Rank D

- Favored By Mana

- Blood of the *** ****

]

[Shadow Mimic Nest Special Ability: Create a proxy that will carry out your will in place of you.

- May create one proxy per fragment*

- You may give mental commands to the proxy**

- When the proxy is destroyed, you will receive the proxy’s memories and cannot create another proxy for 72 hours]

[* Proxy will be a duplicate of you, your skills, and select memories you choose to impart. It cannot use its original mimic abilities.

- If your proxy has a mana analysis skill used on it by those of similar or higher rank, it will appear as a shape-shifted and disguised mimic. Use cautiously.

- Your proxy can continue to increase in strength while away from you. If grows stronger than you, it may rebel against you. Use cautiously.

** Mental commands can be issued once a day from a distance.]

It was an item that allowed the creation of an unknown number of monsters. That in itself was special, but what they were targeting was the first monster—a mimic. specifically, the nest, which was the origin point of a pesky monster.

It couldn’t be said to be the strongest or the most versatile. And despite years of effort, it couldn’t be controlled by normal means. Although their abilities were useful, they were considered the pests of the monsters to be eradicated on sight. But their abilities couldn’t be disregarded. A monster that could imitate and overtake others and use its abilities as its own. If utilized well, an army where every movement, every thought, and every skill could controlled could be built. It was the wet dream of many of the top people around the world, which had led to numerous incidents of them going out of control due to experimentation and mismanagement of the areas where they were found.

This was the first time that an object had been found that could not only create them but control them. Considering the fact that an Oracle had been received about a Calamity amoung the students, this was a must-have to control the students and weed out those part of dissident organizations. In the best case scenario, the calamity causer could be found and eradicated. In the worst-case scenario, an army of future top heroes could be built and sent to infiltrate other organizations.

It was why his clan had even bothered negotiating with an extremist group like the Darwinists. To have that power for themselves and keep it away from others.

This was to be the testing grounds of such an object, and the results had been mixed.

The nest had been successfully created, and he had been able to exert a measure of control over the spawned mimics, although a few had escaped his grasp, causing havoc and doing whatever they wanted.

It didn’t help that the Darwinsts had no interest in aiding him and instead watched like observers while completing their own mission.

It was due to his incompatible mana. Ideally, he should have collected it and taken it back to the academy to be passed on to his clan, but he didn’t want to give up on such a useful tool. If he could make it his own, he could convince his family to help him keep it and eventually use it to control others as he pursued his long-term vision of separating from his clan and creating his own.

He couldn’t fail now.

Staring at the item, Lionel poured another round of mana into it, almost exhausting his resources, but the percentage only increased from 4.1 to 4.3 before dark mana expanded from the statue, eradicating his golden aura before going still as if nothing had happened.

“Fuck!”

He couldn’t help but curse in irritation.

“Awwwww~ another round of failure? Too bad, so sad~” the singsong voice mocked as the robed figure stopped and squatted in front of him once more.

“Stop bothering me. Don’t you have better things to do?”

“We do buuuuuut~, don’t you have to leave soon? After all, your cover has been blown. And your rainbow-haired friend isn’t one to be trifled with. We’d be afraid if we were you, little lion. He seems a little mad~. We can feel his vicious eyes trained on this building, you know? If it gets attacked, no protection for you. Not that it’s any of our business. Since a nice body has arrived, it would be a shame if we missed out on it, and I have to fix up Robby too, you know~?”

Hearing the cheerful words that didn’t have a single worry in the tone, Lionel sighed before responding.

“Hey. You. What’s your name?”

“Why should we tell you?” The robed figure’s voice suddenly became wary and had a petulant tone.

“I want to leave a good review after the job is over.”

“Ah, okay! It’s Duet~. Please leave a good review and tip, okay? Otherwise, Zero is going to punish us.”

Duet huh? He would definitely have his aunt lodge a complaint at the irresponsible party sent to guard him.

“You’re getting paid so much, and you still want money?”

“Money makes the world go round! You can buy so much like my pretty robe.” Duet spun around once more before continuing, “Rather than being critical, shouldn’t you be doing your best to claim the item? From what we see, you’ll never be able to do it if you keep chatting with us, you know~. So stay or go, make a decision, little lion.”

“Whatever. Didn’t you mention something about a body?”

“We did, didn’t we? Our harvest has been so good this time. One is pristine. Such a clean kill makes my heart flutter~. The latest one is pretty broken up, but we can stitch it right up.”

As he watched, the robed figure twitched, and then the deeper voice came out.

“But the wings? There’s only one. It won’t be able to fly.”

“That’s okay! Sha Sha can help us make a cute new one. Or we can commission it. It has to be full of sparkles and stars. Nice and cute!”

“No. It definitely has to be black and blood-red to look cool. Bloody and cool to inflict fear on sight!”

“Sparkles and glitter!”

“Bloody and Cool!”

The robed figure turned away and began talking to itself while walking up the stairs. As it walked, the pulsing black walls slowly dripped down until a small mimic formed.

Despite his orders for them to be outside, one occasionally spawned indoors as they were drawn to the statue.

This one was a glossier black than some of the ones he had seen, and it seemed to look around curiously, wandering here and there.

As it clambered over his feet, Lionel booted it away in irritation. It slammed into the wall like a splatter of paint and didn’t move as it slowly seeped into the cracks.

“Disgusting things.”

All they did was propagate like mold. They pissed him off each time he saw them slithering around the ground. He wanted to slice it to bits, but remembering what he had to do and how useful they were, he dropped his hand from his sword.

Glancing at the disobedient statue, he wouldn’t slap it to the ground, shattering the whole thing.

Instead, he looked away before yelling.

“Duet!”

“Yes, little lion?” the sing-songy voice rang out as the robed figure appeared while holding a needle and thread, their gloved hands covered in blood.

“… What are you doing?”

“Sewing? Want to see? Our backstitch has really improved!”

“No. I’m leaving. Since Solomon has been making moves and knowing his personality, this place is getting attacked soon. Robin said he sensed something, right?”

“That’s right! He said he felt familiar creepy eyes staring into his soul earlier. The same eyes are on us now. And now there’s a purple mist outside. It’s everywhere! So pretty!”

“Sounds like Nova and Cassandra,” Solomon replied bitterly. “Anyway, I’m leaving.”

“Without that? Isn’t that what you came here for? You’ve been working so hard.” Duet nodded their head at the statue.

“With Nova around? Nah. He’ll sniff it out in a heartbeat. I’ll give the nest the order to start attacking and join the students when raiding this place tomorrow. That way, I have an excuse to grab it along with what the professors hid. That way when I get back-”

“You’re telling me details that we don’t care about, little lion~.” Duet rudely interrupted, “We each got what we needed, and we’ve done our part, so we’re leaving too. Ready to go, Robby?”

At the name, a man dressed in tattered red leather appeared. His wounds had been stitched up, although his arm was still missing, and one eye was stitched shut while his bald head now had frightening scars all over it.

“Leave? You must be joking. I’m not leaving until I rip that bastard’s arm off in retaliation and get revenge for Swallow.”

“Mmmm, but you already lost once, and she’s dead and gone~. Do you really want to stick around? I can guarantee that you’ll lose again~. He seems really angry.”

“I don’t care. If that bastard thinks he can get away with attacking a Hero and live, he has another thing coming! I’ll finish the job and properly slice him from the inside out this time.” Robin spat out through gritted teeth before stomping away.

“As you wish~. But your body won’t hold up too well. After all, this is a quick fix~. Since everyone is clearing out, we’ll be on our way. Bye bye. Good luck.” waving cheerily, Duet watched as the two exited the lighthouse through the back.

Once they were gone, the figure split into two identical figures. The only difference was the mask, which had split into two.

“I don’t want to leave the item here~. Did you see how he looked at it. How dare he be disgusted at a statue of our god.” a singsongy voice complained.

“But we already got paid. Zero said no messing around this time, or we’ll get a snack cut. Besides, he wants the Lionhearts to have it. Think of our snacks!” the deeper voice complained.

“No cookies~?”

“Or crackers! Or muffins! Or cake! So let’s behave just this once.”

“Muuuuuuu~ fine! But I get the winged one~.”

“Then the other body is mine. It’s so nice and clean. Minimal damage, too.”

“Should we kill the other ones? They’re locked up and asleep. Nobody will know if we take them. I want an extra for Sha Sha to study~. And one to experiment with!”

“We can’t! And Sha Sha has enough. Think of the snacks! Let’s go. If we leave now, we can go to Portos when they open and buy everything! There’s a limited edition cake dropping today!”

“Ah! You’re right! Okay, let’s gooooo~!”

Having reached an agreement, the two robed figures held hands as a storm of mana wrapped around them, and then they disappeared.

Then, the lighthouse was empty except for the locked-up students and the mimics which started moving around in agitation, having received the order to assemble and began spreading.

Droplets of shadow-like creatures dripped from the walls and seeped from the floor, forming a silent army of shadow beings that morphed into various monsters that had been absorbed.

In uncanny unison, they began moving out and spreading from the lighthouse, doing their best to devour everything in their way. The ground, the trees, and even the ambient mana in the air. Nothing was safe as they began absorbing everything before spawning more and more of themselves.

Soon. The inside of the lighthouse was completely empty. Not a sound could be heard.

That’s why nobody realized there was still somebody or, rather, something in the building.

“Squeaaaaaaak”

With a burst of mana, Onyx reassembled itself into its blob form from where it had been kicked against the wall.

Poking its head up carefully to make sure nobody was around, it squeaked happily and began its mission. Store everything! Eat everything!

As a feeling of hunger spread through its shadowy blob body, Onyx began its solo adventures.