“What’s your problem, Fred?!” Juliet went to block the guy from grabbing Jacob’s shirt.

Joseph, on the side, was just staring and mostly keeping to himself. He was dead tired, but he could understand where Frederick was coming from.

“He almost had all of us killed! What the f*ck, Juliet!” Frederick was upset as he had never been before in his life.

Jacob's voice interrupted both.

“Juliet, it’s okay. Move to the side, please. I need to address this problem before it becomes any bigger.”

Jacob tried to stand but felt so many bones cracking that he just let it go and remained sitting on the ground. Finally, he exhaled and looked toward Frederick.

“I needed a weapon, Fred. Without a weapon, we would have been dead all the same.”

“And why couldn’t you just take a fu**ing ax or a spear?” Frederick’s voice toned down a bit since he was finally getting some answers.

I have to say that his behavior makes me think that I’m facing a completely different person compared to the slug I had to deal with in my past life. But, then, old Fred would have never shown so much emotion; instead, he would have praised and used me before stabbing me in the back…

“I think you all saw what happened when I was wielding a sword, no?”

“And what was that sh*t? How did you do that crazy sh*t, Jake?!”

Well…

“I have secrets I can’t share with you all right now. They would put me in a terrible position.”

Jacob turned to the side and coughed a sizeable chunk of blood and flesh from his lungs and esophagus.

“Jake, are you ok?” Juliet crouched beside him.

He gestured to give him a moment and then pointed toward the dead body of the boss.

“Please… Can you check,” Jacob made multiple pauses to catch his breath, “if the guy has some weirdly shaped pills in his pocket? I might need one to avoid dying.”

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Juliet looked at the body and flinched. Frederick ignored his request with his teeth gritted.

On the side, Joseph sighed and went over the corpse to search his pockets. Then, after a minute of silence, he said: “Found something, Jake. Check it out.”

He brought the pills to Jacob, who was immediately relieved.

Cockroach Empowering Pills, there were eight of them on the bastard.

“Give me one. You can use the rest among you. There are probably more around this place. Those guys over there probably deserve some too.”

Everyone looked at the conspiracy theorists.

Twelve of them had come, and only four had survived. Geneva was one of them. She had tried hard during the fight, but she had been distracted because she felt like she had to protect the others. In the end, she barely survived and had endured extensive wounds.

People could ingest more than one pill, but the impurity inside those would risk impairing the cultivation for the future.

Right…

That fuc*er had some sort of Cultivation Technique.

So many problems, so little time to solve all of them.

Joseph passed him the Cockroach Empowering Pill, and Jacob murmured a thank to him.

“I need to recuperate. These pills are used to cultivate. They are called the Cockroach Empowering Pills. You can use one or two without side effects, especially if you have a Cultivation Technique. They will allow you to raise your Qi cultivation. The bastards also had Cockroach Enlightening Pills, even though it seems that they could barely use Spells.”

Hearing those words, the only enemy left conscious screamed: “Hey! Hey! I have that! The boss found one in the next room and shared it with all of us! I can show you where it is if you free me!”

Everyone looked at Jacob. They were all new to killing and abducting people. But, instead, their friend seemed oddly comfortable with all of it.

“I need to ask that guy some questions,” Jacob said with some pain. “But, first, I need to cultivate. Fred, I’ll try and answer as many questions as possible as soon as I’m done. But, for the moment, put something in that guy’s mouth.”

Jacob refused to speak further and popped the Cockroach Empowering Pill in his mouth. It had a bitter taste, but he felt the high quality of the concoction immediately enter his Meridians.

Through the Time Domination Cultivation Technique, he could easily absorb any alchemy product without significant drawbacks. He started chanting his Cultivation Technique softly, and he instantly felt the energy rushing toward his broken flesh and bones, now healing most of it. He was still in the lower levels of the Cockroach realm, and such a pill was usually ingested at the 7th or 8th level to skip the first bottlenecks.

An hour later, most of his wounds had healed, and people had been resting and circulating their own Qi to heal. Jacob had also reached the 3rd level of the Cockroach realm in Qi. He was going to need a fast catch-up for his Mana cultivation soon.

“So, Jake, are you done?” Frederick’s wounds had naturally closed thanks to his quick regeneration, and he was staring daggers at him.

Jacob nodded.

“Well, then it’s time you give us some fu**ng answers,” he said.

All the conspiracy theorists who had tried to run, save for one of them, had died in the 2nd room, trying to run away from the pursuers.

Jacob had his new sword laid on his knees and held it tight, using it to help him get up.

“I agree. It’s time.”

Juliet looked at him, worried.