Back in Cain’s room, Dresil squiremed restlessly within the blankets, occasionally letting out whimpers. Cain immediately woke up and covered his room with sound-proof magic circles. “Dresil, what’s wrong?” He asked as she unmerged from the blankets. She sat on top of Cain’s lap; he had his right arm propping her back up.

Her expression was pained, so much so she couldn’t let out a single word without screaming. “Let it all out. No one can hear you except for me.” Cain said as soon as he saw her face. He pulled her head into his chest and rhythmically rubbed her back. Dresil screamed out in pain for the next few minutes. Her wails echoed of the inn walls, only stopping when she sobbed into Cain’s chest.

—Dms: Cain and Dresil— (3144ms)

Dresil: Sorry for disturbing your sleep, Master.

Cain: There’s no need to be sorry for such a thing. How are you?

Dresil: Better…

Cain: What happened?

Dresil: Someone burned a part of me before I could cut off my connection to it, so it transferred all that pain to me.

Cain: Yikes… Who is this person and how many torture methods are we using?

Dresil: Pfft, unfortunately he’s part of an organization that’s troublesome to deal with, even for you.

Dresil: You’ll need to at least have the power to eradicate a species from this continent to effectively defeat them.

Cain: …troublesome how? As in the amount of strength needed or how deeply hidden they are.

Dresil: The latter.

Cain: :sigh: It just had to be the worst. Anything else you can tell me about them?

Dresil: Not much. I’ll tell you everything I know though.

Cain: I assume they are watching me?

Dresil: Yep, but not actively. They’re using me to get reports on you so they don’t tip you off.

Cain: Dang… Don’t tell me any details about the people in the organization then.

Dresil: …are you not going to ask about what I reported to them?

Cain: I don’t need to since I trust you. If you want to say something though, I won’t stop you.

Cain: I’ve always known you were a part of some organization or something, but it never felt like you betrayed me in any way so I didn’t care much about it.

Dresil: What the… How were you able to keep thoughts from me like that?

Cain: I learned a few tricks trying to meditate to get rid of boredom, like changing how I think subconsciously and preventing myself from thinking about something.

Cain: Never got rid of the boredom though…

Dresil: :oof:

Cain: Oh, do they know if you are sentient?

Dresil: Nope, they believe me to be non-sentient and chances of me awakening sentience are 0.

Dresil: The only reason why I was even able to was because you had a peculiar situation, then you analyzed how you became sentient.

Dresil: I’m not self aware though, not yet at least.

Cain: I see. I assume “they” is that organization?

Dresil: Yep. They’re the ones who summoned you. They wanted to turn you into a weapon for killing gods.

Cain: Dang… that’s so cliche, couldn’t they have thought of something better?

Dresil: :kek:

Dresil: That apple I gave you on your first day here was actually a reward given to the leader of the group by a goddess.

Dresil: It had the power of greatly increasing the soul regeneration and power of anyone who could control below 10,000 mana.

Dresil: For freshly summoned individuals, it greatly sped up the assimilation process of mana and soul power.

Cain: That’s why I could use mana instinctually since Day 1, right? Also dang, that goddess screwed him over; giving that person an artifact he had no use for.

Dresil: Yep.

Dresil: I reported that you could use the ice, water, and fire elements and 3 million mana.

Cain: Sweet, so the normal 10% limit I already had and the elements I’m most familiar with. What about the stuff I did under the name of my “master?”

Dresil: All taken care of. If they come across any info that you did something, not your master, it’ll be interpreted as you taking the credit instead. And I took credit for any healing performed.

Cain: Perfection.

Cain: Any features about the technique I should be aware of? I’ll need to know so I can mimic it later.

Dresil: You’ll only lose your will after the technique is completed, which is when you can use around 50 million mana. You can still control mana like you usually do, there are no restrictions on the technique.

Cain: So that’s how they were planning to control me…

Cain: Also, keep in mind you’re free to leave after I take care of this organization. I would say before, but that may tip them off and make things harder for both of us.

Dresil: …is that why you have been so kind to me?

Cain: Yes, but no. The way you said it implies I’ll stop being kind to you when you decide to stay.

Cain: I’ve treated you the way I have in hopes of showing you what it’ll be like if you decide to stay.

Dresil: …Thanks.

Cain: You’re welcome.

Cain: You ready to go back to sleep?

Dresil: I don’t need to sleep… but yep.

--------------------------

Cain laid back down as Dresil merged into the blankets once more. Once she was certain that Cain was asleep, she unmerged and laid her head on his chest. She occasionally started shaking throughout the night, unable to forget the immense pain of being burned alive.

Cain always slept on his back with his hands at his side or on his belly. Thus Dresil’s actions went unnoticed to him as he was sleeping peacefully. Any increase in weight was assumed to be part of the blanket, thus there was no reason to be alarmed. When Dresil squirmed while still merged in the blankets earlier, it offset the weight in multiple areas at once, thus alarming and waking Cain at that time.

{Author’s note: So, the explanation behind why Cain doesn’t need the info about the organization’s people.

Cain’s situation before this chapter: He was cautious of showing all of his power and thus limited everything to 10%. He had no proof that someone was monitoring him, but the boi wanted to be careful since the chance was always there.

Cain’s situation after this chapter: He knows someone is monitoring him, and thus needs to limit his power so his enemies don’t prepare countermeasures against him at Cain’s full power, but what he showed off, thus making his job easier. (this is the #1 reason why Cain would hide his power at any given point in time no matter if it’s Day 3000, or Day 300.)

Cain refuses to know any more information about the group, since it may affect his actions and thus tip off the strategist. Cain assumes the worst case, in which the strategist can guess what he is thinking by his actions. The strategist, in reality, can only do this with 80% accuracy.

Ex: If one of them is the leader of a religion, Cain would be wary of those priests, avoid them, or just say some half-truths. Either way, his actions would be different than if he were to interact with another religion, thus tipping them off.

It’s like knowing someone is watching you on through an electronic device, tv, phone, or laptop, but not which one. Thus you limit your actions around each device (Cain’s 10% limiter.). Now imagine you find out that the device is the phone, and thus you put tape over all the cameras.

You’ve just tipped the person watching you off and now they’ll be even more careful when they try to infiltrate your laptop or tv next. This is what Cain is trying to avoid, the phone being the traits of the people of the organization.}