“It’s not that long of a story when I think back on it,” Glenn realized while peering down the ale in his mug.
‘Actually…you’re right!’ Diamanes gasped fakely, ‘Your whole misadventure with the other insane misadventure can be resumed in a few words: “Idiot sabotages local cult after drinking too much and is tortured for two months but escapes by stealing their valuables!”’
Glenn’s eyelids trembled but remained concentrated on Redan, the old man looking at him curiously.
“...Let’s just skip to the good part,” he sighed, before pulling out the document “3333” which contained the names of all the atrocities whose blood had been forcefully fed to him. Redan squinted at the sight of the document and wordlessly took it. Glenn gulped and leaned back in his chair, sipping on his ale sheepishly. Giving away this document would tell Redan that he was abnormal, but he would at least gain some insight into some situations. It was a gamble. Either he gained the help of that mysterious powerful old man, or… Glenn didn’t want to know what the other option was. One thing was certain; he wouldn’t get drunk again soon.
“You heard of a cult kidnapping people around town? Because that’s what happened to me, and I ended up in the worst prison imaginable and received some lovely, very enjoyable…” Glenn shivered, “...torture. Lots of it. Every day. Or more like every time I was awake. Until I escaped, of course.”
Redan raised his hand in a calming gesture, frowning as he slowly opened the book.
“Give this ol’ man a second to give that a read, alright? Ya’ll tell me the rest of it after that…”
Glenn’s lips were sealed shut as he awkwardly tried to make himself more comfortable. Redan carefully moistened his finger and flipped a page, before suddenly frowning in displeasure. His hand moved brusquely, startling Glenn, but it was only to produce a golden monocle out of thin air to continue reading. The monocle seemed out of place, compared to the overall fashion that the old man seemed to enjoy wearing. Cheap, practical clothes, but a luxurious monocle? That seemed weird.
‘What’s wrong about an old man needing something to read?’ Diamanes mocked. Glenn gritted his teeth impatiently, forcing himself to remain silent. He sincerely hoped this wouldn’t end up a waste of time, or worse, in his early demise. These damned cultists…taking them head-on seemed like the best idea to kill himself. Redan’s help would certainly spare him a lot of trouble, or maybe even solve the situation entirely.
“...S—so, what do you think of it, sir?” Glenn called out, his voice trembling with apprehension. Redan arched an eyebrow, before rubbing his forehead with an annoyed expression.
“Don’t rush this ol’ man, boy. I can read, but I can’t read fast, alrigh’?” The old man grumbled, returning his focus to the document while holding his monocle close to his eye.
Glenn pressed his lips tightly, taking everything he had to restrain a heavy sigh from leaving his mouth. He closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands for a moment, before shaking his head. He still had a plan B if things went wrong with Redan, or if he refused to help him. He could simply get out of King’s Rise and head someplace hidden to raise magic sheep or something.
‘...On second thought, that might be even more dangerous than staying here. Do you know anything about magic sheep?’ Diamanes asked with a genuinely concerned tone. Glenn wordlessly shook his head.
‘Me neither. And that terrifies me,’ Diamanes spoke fearfully, before exploding in mocking laughter.
This time, Glenn couldn’t restrain his sigh.
Instead of wasting his time trying to reply to the snarky entity, Glenn decided to examine his current capabilities. Right now, he has a superhuman body and the potential to use magic. Too bad he had no idea what to do either. The only sport he practiced had been climbing, and fighting never really called out to him—much less learning how to use a sword.
Glenn could almost bet his left hand he sucked at sword fighting. And that wasn’t because he had a guarantee that said hand would grow back.
‘Go to hell,’ Diamanes groaned, ‘...To resume it, you're a pretty tough meat bag—expendable fodder, with powers you don’t know how to use and half the brain to go with it.’
Glenn clacked his tongue, earning a glance of distaste from Redan.
‘Is it my fault if my country didn’t have military service?’
Diamanes seriously considered the question before replying, ‘Hmm…Yes.’
Glenn sighed. There was no reasoning with the entity. Maybe half an hour later, Redan finally moved something else besides his old eye. Glenn held his breath in anticipation, only for Redan to flip a page in an especially, excruciatingly slow manner. Glenn grunted as he laid back entirely in his chair.
‘How is it even possible to spend so much time reading a bunch of…nothing? There are names and dates, and yet it still takes him half an hour A PAGE?’ Glenn complained mentally, staring at the ceiling in frustration. He had spent so much time looking at it, that he knew there were exactly seven magical lights, with one that seemed to be missing in the north-west side of the inn.
‘Don’t be a dick!’ Diamanes interjected sharply, ‘Not everyone possesses the gift of speed-reading. Even being able to read is an incredible skill in and of itself when you consider it, even more in this world.’
Glenn finally gave up and slammed his hands on the table, standing up and stretching his legs. “I’m going to wash up. I’ll be back,” He announced, trying to see if that would disturb the old man’s concentration.
“Hmm…” Redan’s eyes were glued to the writings, completely uninterested in Glenn’s comments. The latter made his way to the counter, where a vaguely familiar face greeted him. He tried his utmost to not stare as the woman flashed him a flirtatious smile and leaned forward to put her ample bosom on display.
“Hrm—How much for a room with a bath?” Glenn inquired, coughing awkwardly as he struggled to avoid ogling. He chose to stare at the ceiling again. What a marvelous, crusty ceiling.
The woman leaned over the counter and pressed her chest against his arm, while moistening her plump lips, “For you, handsome, I can give you my room for free…”
A mix of confusion and desire blossomed in Glenn’s chest. Wasn’t this the dream scenario for any man? A very attractive woman going out of her way to try and share a bed with him? But after everything he’d been through, it had to be a trap. A very good one, for sure, but it simply couldn’t be so good. No way anyone would want to spend time with him when the scent lingering around him would make predators identify him as a literal piece of crap, all with a look defying the bottom of some toilets.
‘Diamanes, is it a trap?’ Glenn asked his hand, unable to believe his luck.
‘Uh, yeah? Don’t you remember her from last time? She was at the counter when you were drunkenly destroying everything. I remember because I thought she would almost pull some popcorn out of nowhere when you began to see those drugs on fire. She left without ever opening her mouth,’ Diamanes said with a matter-of-factly tone.
‘—wait, what?’ Glenn blinked, caught aback.
‘And give her cleavage a glance. It’s worth it, trust me,’ Diamanes added cheekily. Glenn clacked his tongue.
‘Who do you take me for? No, I’m not going to—’
‘Shut it, you imbecile. Just look, you might recognize something,’ Diamanes insisted, annoyed.
‘Wait, don’t tell me…!’
A not-so-discreet glance confirmed Glenn’s suspicions. The same scar/symbol he had seen on Scarred-Face’s head, the church, and the prison’s doors were visible between the two white mountains. A circle with thorny vines wrapped around it, with a cross in its center. Of course, she had to be a part of these damned cultists.
“I knew it! It was too good to be true,” Glenn muttered under his breath as he took a step back. The woman caught his hand insistently and pressed it against her chest seductively.
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“What, you don’t think I’ll be worth your time, handsome? Trust me, I know my way around cleaning male bodies…” She purred while looking up and down at Glenn’s dirty body. The latter blinked, almost scoffing.
“Somehow, I don’t doubt that…” He smiled wryly and tried to pull his hand back, but the lady held on. His mind raced at maximum speed, scrambling for an excuse.
“I’m sorry, but I prefer men.” That was the result of Glenn’s profound reflection. The second he pronounced these words, Glenn realized how deep the dung pile he had jumped into was.
‘Wow, that’s…wow.’ Diamanes whistled with sarcastic admiration, struggling to contain his laughter.
The inn, previously quite rowdy, suddenly felt very, very silent. Even Redan, who seemed immune to surprises, raised an eyebrow, his monocle quivering slightly. Most of the inn’s customers threw him weirded-out stares, some were just shocked, and others looked…interested, somehow.
‘Oh god.’
He shivered, ‘I just sacrificed my dignity to dodge that trap. Was it worth it?’ Glenn pondered as the woman’s expression shifted from sultry to repulsed. Thank whoever god she believed in that homosexuality wasn’t common in this world’s era.
‘...You know, according to Earth’s standards, your preferences are completely acceptable. I respect your choice, and think it’s very brave of you to be so open about it,’ Diamanes laughed mockingly in his mind. Glenn tried his utmost to suppress the parasite’s voice and offered an apologetic smile to the fake waitress. He fished out a silver coin from his dimensional pouch and handed it to her, before swiftly snatching the key from her flabbergasted grasp.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” He blurted out before dashing to his room. It was plain, with a desk beside a bed. There was some sunlight coming through a dusty French window donning on the street below.
“It’s no luxury suite, but it’ll suffice,” Glenn muttered to himself. He was about to relax but remembered he had powers he could use. He grabbed the knob with his left hand.
‘Mind if I could put an Alarm on this?’ Glenn asked. Diamanes didn’t reply amidst the waves of laughter he couldn’t suppress. Watching Glenn’s coming out seemed to have been thoroughly enjoyable. Nonetheless, Glenn still felt Diamanes’ energy run through his left hand and settle in the knob. Diamanes appeared in his left palm, grinning from the thumb to the pinky.
“So, what are your preferences? What kind of taste are you into?”
Glenn sighed, questioning the extent of his blunder, “...I’m never going to hear the end of it, am I?”
Diamanes’ laughter echoed in Glenn’s mind, the entity enjoying the time of his life.
“Come on, I’m not ridiculing you. I’m all for it, actually,” Diamanes added with amusement. Glenn rolled his eyes and was about to reply when his senses flared up, indicating that someone triggered the Alarm on the door’s knob. He promptly hid his left hand behind his back as someone knocked on the door.
“It’s the bath!” A female voice announced from outside the room.
Glenn went and opened the door, discovering a new waitress, not the “trapped” one. Her cheeks were as red as the big moon when he first came into this world. A wide wooden barrel was beside her, empty of water.
“You…You know how to use a Shard, right?” She asked shyly. Glenn lied with a smile and took the chestnut-sized blue crystal she was holding toward him.
“Yes, thank you,” He dragged the barrel in his room and dusted his hands off, before turning to the waitress. She was still waiting outside the door, fiddling with her thumbs.
“...Do you need anything else?” Glenn inquired.
The girl’s cheeks flushed even redder and she buried her face in her hands.
“Do…Do you have a lot of partners?” She forced herself to ask, ashamed. A flurry of female laughter echoed further in the corridor.
Damn it.
Glenn clacked his tongue and closed the door, not even bothering to answer. He looked at the barrel and the blue crystal, the “Shard”, trying to distract himself from Diamanes’ laughter.
“"Oh, Diamanes?"
"HAHAHAHHAHAHA!"
"Could you enlighten me about Shards, please?"
"HAHAHAHAHA! Honestly, joining forces with you was the best decision I've made, even though you're completely worthless right now!"
Thanks a lot for that. Doesn't hurt at all.
"Alright, about this Shard. Essentially, it's a fragment of a specific power. Remember your Fire Staff? It contained a fire Shard that allowed it to launch fiery projectiles." explained Diamanes, straining himself to not laugh.
"Right. So this Shard must be water-based since it's blue?" Glenn quickly understood
."Exactly. You can either infuse it with your Mana, which is something Initiates like you can do, or you can apply blood to fuel it—mundane folks tend to use that technique."
"Welp, I'd rather not cut myself. I think I've suffered enough in that hole," He stated plainly, wincing as blurry memories of torture instruments appeared in his mind. Thank the gods they were blurred.
"And you are completely right. Remember when you've used my power on those chains back at the prison, or on the door’s knob? Same thing, but you have to picture the energy in your heart, and redirect it to the place where you want it, which would be the Water Shard in this situation.”
Glenn grimaced as he clenched the Water Shard tightly.
‘I have to imagine the energy in my heart, then…move it around…’ He closed his eyes to concentrate, searching for that mysterious energy in his chest. At first, he could only find the darkness and the thought that this was all very nonsensical, but after focusing even further, he did manage to find…something. Something strange, mystical, that he was pretty sure had never been there before. Or maybe it was, but he could have never found it if he didn’t know it existed, that was for sure. He followed Diamanes’ instructions and willed for that energy to move from his chest to his right hand, to the crystal. Water suddenly cascaded out of the Shard like a high-powered washer, filling the barrel quickly. Glenn gasped in awe and released the Shard out of surprise. The flow of water was cut off as soon as the crystal left his hand.
“Wow! This—this is revolutionary!” Glenn exclaimed as he picked the Shard up, “But where is the water coming from? Is it materializing out of thin air, or is stored within the Shard and I’m simply draining it out? Or perhaps—” He couldn’t help but be excited. He just summoned water out of nothing! The only resource required was manpower, which meant you could theoretically create infinite quantities of water!
That meant no need to rely on natural rains for harvest, nor the need to create aqueducts to transport water to the fields. Everything could be powered by a Water Shard! Could there be ways to combine Fire Shard and Water Shard to create some kind of magical steam engine fueled purely by manpower? This—
“STOP!” Diamanes blurted out, putting a stop to Glenn’s unending thoughts, “Stop it. I have strictly no damn idea, and even if I did, why would I bother to explain all that? What use would that serve?”
Glenn shook his head with disappointment, “Well, understanding something is the first step to come up with new ways to use it and make it more effective. It’s normal to seek answers to unanswered questions.”
“And since the Shard uses my energy—or blood for the common people—to create water, that means there is an exchange taking place. Am I paying a price to something or…someone?” He shivered, wondering who or what was the recipient of this trade.
Diamanes grunted, his presence fading away from Glenn’s mind, tacitly implying that his questions were a nuisance and that he had no idea as to how to answer them.
“Oh, so the best way to shut you up is to ask you questions you don’t know the answer to, then?” Glenn mocked, finally gaining the upper hand on the annoying entity. Diamanes didn’t bother to reply, so Glenn concentrated on the Shard and began to pour the water again, filling the barrel. He couldn’t tell the difference in energy consumption for this amount of water, but it appeared pretty negligible.
“That’s darn convenient…” He muttered before taking off his rags and putting his precious dimensional pouch on the desk. Without wasting another second, he jumped in the barrel and grunted in satisfaction. He sank under the water’s surface, ridding himself of all the filth that had become embedded in his skin after weeks of living in a hole. The water was cold, freezingly so, but being able to clean himself felt so great he couldn’t pass the occasion. The water darkened in a matter of minutes, forcing him to come out of his bath and throw the water away by the window. It wasn’t the most efficient way to do it, but, well, there was no other one. Hopefully, there was no one under his window.
He repeated this process, thoroughly scrubbing himself until all the dry blood, dirt and scrap was off his body, spending more than an hour cleaning himself. After finally achieving a state where putting a toe in the water wouldn’t taint the whole container, he finally allowed himself to relax and simply lay down in the bath with his eyes closed.
“...Is this paradise…?” He muttered in enjoyment, a slight smile on his lips.
“Maybe, or maybe the place the old man is going to send you will be,” Diamanes’ reminder pierced the moment, startling him.
“Oh. Oh damn,” Glenn suddenly stood up, projecting water into the room. He had completely forgotten about the old man. He hurriedly jumped out and reached for his dimensional pouch, pulling his clothes out of it. He hurriedly dressed himself, taking a short but nice second to enjoy the touch of the soft fabric on his skin. That disgusting rag he wore before couldn’t compare to Jefferson Howard’s luxurious clothes.
“I am cleansed, be it physically or mentally!” Glenn exclaimed happily. He went to reach for the barrel, opting to empty it one last time, only to see his reflection in the water. He stopped and stared at himself for a moment, speechless. His hair had grown significantly, now reaching the nape of his neck. He would have to tie them up if he didn’t want them to impede his sight. That was the first time he had his hair so long, and he didn’t dislike it so much. It felt like their color had deepened significantly, the once chestnut hair now boasting a darker shade—almost jet black at the roots. He grabbed some string and pulled his hair back, discovering that his ears had grown slightly longer, suggesting a possible evolution toward sharper points. Even his jawline appeared more chiseled. He had lost all body fat, replaced by lean muscle. He still looked a little emaciated, but he did not doubt this problem would solve itself.
Though other alterations weren’t immediately apparent, Glenn could confidently affirm that his already very handsome appearance had grown even more striking. No reason to complain whatsoever.
“Your ego is…sigh…” If Diamanes had a head to shake, he would have undoubtedly done so.
Glenn ignored Diamanes and smiled happily, adjusting his black trench coat and finishing to tie up his hair in a ponytail.
“Phew…this is much better…” Glenn sighed before dusting his hands off.
“Time to seek answers, then. Redan should have finished reading the document by now, right?”