Midday, Bell, and Jenjo stood at the shore of the pond. The rain, listening for a moment to the sound of rain splashing down into the murky water and to the croaks of toads resting on lily pads—of which there were hundreds. Probably by virtue of increased altitude, the fog up was not quite so oppressive on Jugrim’s back as it had been during their journey to get here, and it was thanks to this that Midday was able to see something very curious indeed: sitting at the center of the pond was a vibrant flower of incredible size. With more knowledgeable eyes, he would have identified it as a lotus but, at present, the only thing he knew for certain was that this plant was special.
The fireflies that filled the area with light like thousands of tiny streetlamps avoided flying within a certain radius of the lotus and, upon a closer glance, it appeared as though the reason for this was that there was a force that pushed them away whenever they tried to get close. More than that, however, the main reason the lotus had caught his attention was that it was large enough that Midday reckoned it might be possible to stand atop. He refused to believe it was an ordinary plant.
“Any idea what that is?” asked Jenjo, raising an eyebrow ever so slightly.
“No,” answered Midday in the most businesslike tone he could muster. “But it’s important. That much is certain. We should ask Solomon about it.”
“Next time he turns up, we will. Before that, though, I’ve got a task for you.” Jenjo turned to make direct eye contact with Midday. He reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “At level 6, you’re the weakest member of the group by a considerable margin. You’re weak, self-centered, and altogether unskilled. It’s true that you’re good with a gun, but you’re nowhere near good enough to face the kinds of threats that’ll be coming our way in the near future.” Jenjo lifted his hand off Midday and turned his gaze back to the pond, staring out into the fog with a pensive expression. “Fortunately, I have a plan that will rectify two of those things very quickly provided that the assumptions I’ve based it on are valid.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Simple. The first thing you need to do is crush some minnows.”
“Okay…” Midday looked down at the school of minnows that had made their way to the shoreline where they stood. They were small creatures, evidently not special in any way, and Midday failed to see what good might come of killing them. “But why?”
“Think about it. Any corpse exposed to this fog comes back to life. That raises a few questions, but the most immediate one pertains to whether a creature submerged underwater at the time of its death will still get reanimated. I want you to spend some time conducting trials to better understand the nature of Weathermaker’s revival toxin.”
Without warning, Jenjo drew his cutlass and sliced a minnow in half. The motion was so fast that Midday didn’t even realize what the man was trying to do until he had already picked up the corpse and was holding it in his outstretched palm.
“This fish will come back to life in a few seconds and, insofar as we believe with our current understanding, there is no upper limit to the number of times it can die and come back.” The severed head of the minnow started twitching in his hand. “Moreover, each successive revival makes the creature in question more dangerous.” A little stem of flesh sprouted out from the head of the minnow and expanded until the creature was similar in appearance to an earthworm. Jenjo crushed the newly regenerated creature with the squeeze of his fist, bringing about its second death just moments after its revival. “Owing to the fact that Weathermaker is a mid-tier Elysian-level individual at best, it’s safe to say that there’s an upper limit to what can be achieved via this ‘post-mortem upgrade’ phenomenon. As for where that limit lies…” Jenjo grinned. “That’s your job to find out, Midday.”
Jenjo tossed the now twice-killed minnow toward Midday. Following its second death, the creature’s wormlike body had thickened to a point where it looked as though it would take a lot more effort to kill via the same squeezing method that Jenjo had just used a few seconds before. The original head was still that of a tiny minnow, but the second rebirth had changed the rest of its body into a bulbous cylinder. The minnow, still very immobile, began to writhe its way toward Midday as soon as it landed. Midday, forgetting the stoicism he had been trying to cultivate in himself, jerked back at the sight of the macabre horror approaching him.
“Find the upper limit to the post-mortem upgrades and get some XP while you’re at it.” Jenjo reached into his bag and grabbed a few Lordmaker Saltines. Ignoring the zombie minnow, he stepped toward Midday and handed off the crackers. “Alright. Good luck. Bell, you come with me. We’ve got other things to attend to.”
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Bell nodded sheepishly. “I wish you the best of luck, Midday. I’ll pray for your success.”
“Y-yeah.” Midday forced himself to calm down somewhat after realizing that the minnow, despite its appearance, posed no threat whatsoever to him in its current state. “I’ll do the same.”
With that, Jenjo and Bell disappeared into the fog, leaving Midday alone with the zombie minnow.
♦
Romulo was curled up in a fetal position, hiding as best he could in the hollowed-out tree trunk he had taken up shelter inside of. He had been hearing footsteps—human footsteps—for the past few minutes and, though he supposed it was possible that they belonged to Midday or someone else he knew, the giant knew better than to assume the best.
The stride of this unforeseen interloper gave him a bad feeling: their footsteps were far too confident for his liking. The branch bridges formed by the mangroves were like suspended bridges in how shaky they were, and yet the person above didn’t seem to be bothered by it. There was also a lightness to the footfalls, as though the intruder weighed almost nothing, and Romulo didn’t know what to make of that.
But the real issue was that the person had been in the area for a few minutes by then, circling the tree where Romulo in which Romulo was hiding. No doubt, thought Romulo, the person in question knew that someone was nearby and was looking for them. The main question was why.
For starters, it shouldn’t have been possible for anyone to detect him. He was low to the old swamp waterline, where the fog was thickest, and it was impossible to see anything more than a few feet away from him. Moreover, the heavy rain smothered any noises he might have accidentally made, so hearing him would have been impossible. With all that, detecting him should have been impossible. Not even someone with a sensory-type Ability should have been able to find him in his very well-hidden shelter—not unless they were stupidly powerful or skilled, anyways. For a moment, he worried that the person he was dealing with was way out of his league, but then he made a simple realization:
During his preparations for the month, Romulo—inexperienced as he was—had made one very simple oversight: he had done nothing to cover his scent. The thought of rolling in mud or doing something else along those lines to cover his tracks had never even occurred to him, and it was all too clear now that the result was that anything with a good nose would be able to find him extremely easily.
There were several other possible explanations for it, but the assumption that his pursuer had followed his scent seemed to be the most plausible one by far: scent-based Abilities, while not common, certainly weren’t rare either and, even without an Ability, it would have been easy for his pursuer to just bring an ordinary dog to accomplish the same feat.
Regardless of how it had been done, it became apparent that the pursuer did indeed know where Romulo was when stopped walking and called out to him:
“Hello! Why are you hiding down there, mister? How did you even get there in the first place?”
Romulo held his breath, refusing to make a peep.
“It’s understandable that you’re afraid! But don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. In fact, I’m here because I need your help!” The tone was friendly. “You see, I have something I need to do, but I’ve realized that I probably can’t do it on my own… And that’s where you come into the equation!”
Romulo remained silent.
“I don’t know your name or anything like that, but I do know that you’re like ten feet tall and muscular as hell. You caught my eye when Siempre was introducing the rules of the experiment, so I figured I might as well approach you with an offer but, boy do you travel fast! Took me a while to catch up! Anyways, are you good in combat? Like really good? I need to recruit someone strong.”
Romulo, despite his better judgment, posited a question: “And why is that?”
“I’m more of a support kind of guy. Not really a frontliner, if you catch my drift here, but that’s the problem. You see, my boss wants to kill a certain someone, but after some thought, I’ve realized that it would be pretty much impossible for me to do it on my own… And unlike you humans, it’s not as though I can come back as a zombie and carry on with my mission if I die. I only get one shot at this, so I need to do it right, I think! Will you help me?”
“Why should I?”
“Ah. Fair point. Well, for starters, I guess I should introduce myself: my name is Coffee Coffee, and I’m the head guard of Neighborhood 12. Additionally, I am a golem who was brought into this world by the chairwoman of Elvanera Group.”
“...And?”
“And I have a lot of really high-up connections, so to speak. Based on your size, you’re probably a pseudo-human individual, no? Well, what if I told you I have a way to turn you into a full-fledged posthuman?”
“H-how?” Romulo felt his stomach drop at the prospect of becoming a true, genuine-article, Knight. If that actually happened, he would be considered far too valuable of an asset to use as a mere slave. He didn't know much about Knights but, one thing he did know was that they were generally seen as equivalent to a thousand normal soldiers.
“I had a feeling that would get your attention. I’ll tell you all about it if come out of that hidey-hole of yours. Heck, I’ll even throw a cup of coffee into the mix as an added bonus!”
“I have no reason to believe you.”
“Hmm. Then how about I drop a hint to entice you?” There was a short pause. “Siempre Elvanera.”
“What about him?”
“He’s relevant to this. You’ll have to come up and talk to me face-to-face to learn more though.”
Romulo sat silent for a few seconds before making his decision. Despite his well-founded apprehension, the promise of achieving greater strength was too alluring for him to resist. With a forceful exhale and a lot of doubt, he started climbing up to the branch Coffee was standing atop.