“Well, that settles the problem, then,” Bob sat on the ground while his two captors eyed him suspiciously.
Bob was a calculative person, obsessed with making the most out of every situation. There was no point in getting angry over his fate. He had tried his best in both lives, killed a bunch of people and made Earth a better place. Collaborating with the Blade Tyrant, in a way, was a boon.
He had always known that alone he would have probably never managed to kill every single living creature. And it was simple math. He wasn’t strong enough to kill directly the most powerful cultivators. He was good at killing a lot of people, but not at killing the élite.
Now, with Jacob’s and – if he understood correctly – the Vermillion Tyrant’s help, he would be able to slaughter on possibly a bigger scale. Tritons and Sirens were so deeply hated by anyone that he was quite sure he could unleash the worst cataclysm he was capable of without having anyone as much as lift an eyebrow.
It was a nice thought.
He could understand the Blade Tyrant’s feelings.
It wasn’t everyday that you got to work together with another Tyrant just like that. And that’s why he was willing to sign the Soul Contract. He knew they would never trust him otherwise.
Heck, they were absolutely right. If he didn’t sign a Soul Contract, he would be scheming their deaths too. It was just how his brain worked, nothing personal.
What was personal, however, was whatever was going on between the Blade Tyrant and that kid. Bob wasn’t a fan of relationships, but he had faked more than a few to better take roots in some places before spreading some deadly plague. Whatever was up there, he wanted no part in it. The main reason he survived as long as he did as the Plague Doctor was exactly because he didn’t meddle with lesser affairs.
His whole mind was devoted to extermination.
The rest was just a footnote in his life.
He did enjoy ice-cream, though…
Looking at the murderous expression on his two captors’ faces, he decided to avoid asking if he could have some. Not now, at least. Maybe later, as soon as they became less murder-y.
“How long until the Vermillion Tyrant and the Devil are here?” Bob asked after a few minutes of awkward silence. No one answered and he groaned. He didn’t like wasting his time.
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He had been staring at the corpses on the ground, both Humans and Tritons. Something had transpired over there and it had not been pretty. Judging from the Mana in the room, quite a bit of Blood Magic had been used here.
“Did you set up that ritual?” Bob pointed at the two limbless corpses. “I can feel some Necromantic Magic in the air, did you learn that from The Necromancer?”
Bob never had very high level friends. Therefore, he felt an instinctual curiosity about the world he could never step into in fear of being discovered. He had always hidden among the weak, because that’s where people don’t expect to find you. Plus, the Karma thing that killed him in his past life had been something that he himself had postulated. Another reason why he never mingled with other Tyrants.
“It’s a Formation to torture Souls and extract informations from them. I found it in The Necromancer’s notes, yes.”
Bob eyes sparkled with curiosity.
“What a tool, that guy. Good Necromancy, don’t get me wrong, but he had a penchant for drama and theatrics I could never appreciate.”
“Fuck, is this idiot talking about another mass murder as if he’s commenting about his neighbor’s lawn?” Juliet spat out, still livid.
“His work and mine are different, kid. I don’t enjoy seeing people—well, I don’t enjoy seeing everyone suffer. Just die. Suffering doesn’t bother me in any way, positively or negatively. The Necromancer, instead, was a guy famous for torturing and disfigurating people’s Souls. I’m not sure who killed more people between me and him, but mine definitely suffered less. You don’t want a disease that makes people suffer too much, you want something stealthy that slowly weakens…”
Bob saw the flaming punch come and braced for the impact.
Juliet clocked the Plague Doctor’s face and left him a bloody nose.
“Juliet,” Jacob shot her a reproachful stare.
“I can’t. This is fucking absurd. He’s talking about killing people just like that! How can you tolerate this!”
“The Blade Tyrant,” Bob held his nose and swiftly stopped the blood flow before starting to repair it with magic, “killed many more people that you can imagine, kid. Few people became as involved as him during civil wars. He roamed all the continents. His massacres in the East were extremely famous during our time.”
“Jacob?” Juliet asked, already knowing the answer because of the Ancestral Bond.
“It’s true. I killed many people, Juliet. But at least my battles were for the sake of humanity, and not exterminating everyone. Do I really have to justify myself?”
Another awkward silence filled the space between the walls.
Bob was getting antsy.
He had so many questions about the Necromancer and other Tyrants. Those were all people he had never researched deeply enough in fear of leaving some trace in his past life. He had always been so paranoid and perfect in his cover that he had missed many opportunities to know the strongest people in the world, a category he rightfully belonged to.
“Can I ask more questions without being punched, if we have several hours, we might as well use them. “
“No.”
“Yes.”
Those were Juliet’s and Jacob’s answer.
“I could even start healing people as a gesture of goodwill. I mean, aren’t you curious about how I work? I would be eating my elbows if I were you. Everyone knows all the Tyrants and there are fictions too about your deeds. But I’m the most secretive, aren’t I?”