Chapter 224
The Legend Begins (IV)
Though Cain’s little poking and prodding didn’t force an early confrontation with the Prince--now the King-- it didn’t mean it was without any consequence. His stunt had forced other powers to speed their plans up due to the unforeseen appearance of yet another ‘power’ that, from the looks of it, could rival that of the King himself directly since the man many presumed was the leader of the group was able to to force the King to swallow his pride and retreat.
That presumed force was currently stonewalling a small group of guards of a local gang leader while Emma and others slowly cleaned up the insides. Since the timeline was sped up, he also decided it was time to stop being passive; urging others, they began a new campaign of the ‘Greedy Seven’, a name they kept despite their numbers’, to accept donations in the name of fighting against the tyrannical King.
Though their initial support was somewhat barren, it grew exceedingly larger with a few speeches of persuasion, and a few unsavory acts that were naturally kept hidden.
“Of the many talents you have,” Kramer said with a sigh. “Why are you the most talented at robbing others?”
“What robbing?” Cain asked. “You mean setting up donation centers and accepting people’s good graces?”
“You can sugar it up however much you want,” Kramer said with a strange look on his face, looking around at the dozens of people lying on the ground in pain. “But if this isn’t robbery, then robbery literally doesn’t exist.”
“It doesn’t exist then.”
“Is robbery really where you want to draw the line?”
“... it gets shit done,” Cain mumbled. “Besides, you weren’t complaining when I saw you picking out those items.”
“True,” Kramer chuckled. “It is the easiest way to go from boned to boner.”
“Shit, I never heard that one before. I’m stealing it.”
“... you’re gonna say it in front of the kids, aren’t you?” Kramer already regretted teaching Cain something new.
“It might be twisted,” Cain said with a chuckle. “But watching their expressions warp from that hung-ho indifference they front to absolute embarrassment... ah, how lovely it is to fell the ineffable.”
“You’re a weird, weird fuckin’ dude, man,” Kramer said, shaking his head. “In another time, you’d likely become that weird uncle everyone gets really uncomfortable around.”
“... your implications literally break my heart.”
“Whatever you extrapolated was not what I implied.”
“Yea, yea, yea. Go check with others what’s taking them so long. We have a lot more places to rob--I mean accept donations from.”
“Yea, yea...”
Cain chuckled at Kramer’s reaction as the latter withdrew deeper into the compound to look for others. Looking around, he saw a particular combination of fear and unwillingness in the eyes that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him. He’d seen those eyes countless times before, usually right after the groups realized he’d screwed them over one way or another.
He even felt a bit nostalgic over the sensation, reminiscing further into the past than ever before--all the way to the first time he ever scammed someone. It was only his third year since becoming classified, and he’d grown relatively disillusioned with the idea of partying up with others. Even when he did, he was only exploited either as a carry-boy, or ‘hey, rookie, go scout out this super dark and dangerous-looking place for no compensation whatsoever’.
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“We cleaned ‘em up,” Jamal came strolling with a huge grin on his face, showcasing he found something nice.
“Nice,” Cain nodded, standing up. “Moving on, then.”
Within the next few hours, Cain and others ‘shopped’ in quite a few places, bringing with them a good chunk of decent loot. Cain, however, didn’t take a single piece since none of them fit him. That didn’t mean, however, that others didn’t get exponentially stronger.
It should be enough, he mused with a faint smile as he watched them chatter among themselves, sharing the details of their spoils. With the extra firepower, they should easily outpace the difficulty...
“Hm? Did everyone else get an updated quest?” Emma suddenly said, startling others who also took a quick look.
“Yup; the contents are still the same,” Daniel said. “But the difficulty is now just ‘A+’. What the hell?”
“Maybe Cain’s shenanigans made the whole thing easier?” Kramer said, glancing inquisitively at Cain. The latter also looked at his quest’s details, but held back tears instead of a smile. The difficulty of his quest remained at the ‘Thief-specific’.
“I work in mysterious ways...”
“Oh, bite me.”
“Not a straight line from him.”
“Well, he is a crook...”
“When you’re done making your lame jokes that are just desperate --and failed-- attempts at copying me,” Cain said. “We’re beginning the quest.”
“Huh?”
“We’re helping those moon-lunes get their independence,” Cain said. “And figuring out who the fuck those people who were also freeing the prisoners were. The former will mark us as a hostile group to pretty much everyone else, so... there’s gonna be a lot of fighting. At the same time, we’re gonna scam the moon dudes for a few pieces of stone so Taima can have some neat crafting material in his pocket.”
“Hell yeah!!” the boy exclaimed excitedly.
“Furthermore, from what I understand, the stone will also be useful as a fuel for Lek’s summons.”
“Yes,” the boy nodded shyly. “The quasi-negative energy is a good material for a conduit.”
“And, most importantly,” Cain said. “We get to show off a lot in the course of whooping this Kingdom into proper shape.”
“And there it is, the main component...”
“I think everyone here saw it coming?”
“I mean, nobody’s blind, so, yeah, pretty much.”
The group of fifteen departed soon after, split into three, smaller groups of five, each headed toward the headquarters of the cult. Cain spearheaded his way with Jamal, Kramer, Sigmund, and Daniel, mixing it up a bit since all girls chose to go together.
“So, what’s the difficulty of your quest?” Kramer asked as the group made their way through a set of narrow alleyways.
“What do you mean?” Cain asked back, playing dumb.
“What I mean is on the scale from ‘assassinating Satan in hell’ to ‘destroying the entire universe in a second’, where’s your difficulty at?” other three also perked their ears up, interested.
“... somewhere along the lines of ‘assisting Satan in overtaking the universe’.” Cain sighed bitterly. “But don’t worry; my strength’s up to par.”
“Oh, we don’t doubt that,” Jamal shrugged. “We’re just worried too many of these fights and you might double down on your narcissism.”
“The hell are you talking about? When have I ever even implied I’m an narcissist?”
“Right then,” Daniel said. “When you claimed your strength is up to par to a quest that would likely kill every other Conqueror alive... combined.”
“... oh.”
“Shit, he’s not even denying it anymore,” Sigmund grumbled in annoyance. “You could at least pretend dude! Give us something to hang on!”
“I’m messin’ with ya’, messin’ with ya,” Cain chuckled. “Besides, most of my strength is in, uh, items. Right, yeah. It’s in the items.”
“Here are the headquarters,” Kramer said. “So, what’s your plan? Sneak in? Apply to see the leader?”
“Eh? Who has time for that shit?” Cain shrugged as he stepped forward while cold sweat broke out of other four’s backs. “Yo’, you lot who worships a fucking rock! Tell your whack-ass leader that the only guy who can save your fucking weird religion is here and if he doesn’t meet me in three minutes I’ll, uh... I’ll... right, I’ll start making jokes about the moon rock! Like... you’re stuck between a rock and a moon! No, wait, that makes no sense--even to us. Uh... if you think hard things are worth praying to, you should check out my--”
“What me means to say!!” Emma interjected quickly as she suddenly paused, looking at him. “What the fuck did you even mean to say?”
“Oh, you’re here.”
“... I knew something felt fishy so I sped up a bit.”
“The only fishy thing here is these people praying to a rock.”
“Ah, your plan to befriend a cult starts with insulting the core of what makes them a cult,” Emma said sarcastically. “Brilliant. Shit, I never thought age would make you smarter, but would at least not make you dumber...”
“Who dares make a ruckus in the House of God?! Step forward so I can--” Cain blinked forward and grabbed the man by the hair. “Auuu~~”
“Takes to your leader.” he said.
“O-okay, okay, just stop pulling my hair, I just did my braids!”
“...” A-aii... did... did I make a wrong decision? No... no... I can’t be that unlucky... no... the group of ten moved forward while the storm of denial began to rage within Cain, soon taking him over entirely.