“The thing about humans is… what?” Eddie blinked at the sudden departure of the subject his ‘boss’ was taking, having started off really serious but then…

“I mean, there are a whole lot of ‘facts’ about humans but there are also contradictory statements that are also true at times? That’s confusing, like there’s one that says ‘humans triumph over adversity’ but there’s also one that says ‘humans, like animals, take the path of least resistance’. I think the latter forgot to mention that humans are also the only animals that do that mentally and physically.” Eddie found Mourn to be a strange man, especially when he started talking so strangely…

Mourn, at least to the rest of his men, was an insane dictator incapable of thinking clearly, but Eddie was quite aware that Mourn was smarter than he appeared.

It was just that… sometimes Mourn got into talking about topics far beyond what Eddie felt was suitable for casual conversation.

Then again, Eddie had never had a truly casual conversation with Mourn.

“Boss, what are we doing here?” Eddie asked, looking over the strange thing Mourn was building…

Mourn had a Metal Element with a secondary Fire Element, using both Mourn was actually creating rarer Metals and moulding them into things like bracelets, necklaces, even rings.

“Well I’m trying to make jewellery to get some starter money for other projects. As for you, you’re here to keep me company. Don’t go doing anything dumb either.” Mourn warned.

Eddie cautiously took his hand away from the bracelet he was eyeing a moment ago… Eddie quite liked things which could be sold for a nice amount of money.

He got in trouble quite often for stuff like that when it came to his old family…

“Wouldn’t the added Gold and such devalue it?” Eddie asked, looking at the jewellery from a safer distance while Mourn scoffed.

Eddie was quite good at Economics and Mathematics actually.

“Outside of the Dungeon there isn’t enough Mana to create piles of gold, and even then, creating anything other than iron, steel and metals of that level is difficult even for me. I can only make small amounts, what you see is the result of a few weeks of working on it.” Mourn said, gesturing to the small box of stuff.

It would probably be worth quite a lot, but for the amount of time put into that work it seemed a bit disproportionate.

“And besides, a few hundred grams of Gold wouldn’t saturate the market, it would require much more to do that… I have no doubt that the costs of lots of stuff will fluctuate when Adventurers start messing with different market groups.” Mourn was also good at economics for someone who was only able to research such things for about four or five months.

“I suppose you’re right… I’m going to go out for a bit.” Eddie said, moving away from his forced boss.

“Get me something sour.” Mourn had an odd taste when it came to things he liked to eat, usually dealing with sour and spicy stuff.

Eddie nodded as he left, knowing that if he didn’t follow the orders of his Boss he’d be hurt, usually involving a light application of torture techniques…

And yet, Eddie didn’t leave Mourn.

No one in the warehouse followed Eddie, instead nodding at him in ‘respect’ for his position of second-in-command, and Eddie was out of there.

If he were to run away from Mourn at this moment, he’d probably succeed.

But he feared for his life, he didn’t believe that he could stay running from Mourn in the case that Mourn decided to hunt him down.

Fear did that to people, it kept them from making the most rational choices on the belief that those same choices would lead to their deaths.

Eddie, whether he realized it or not, was so scared of the possible repercussions of betraying Mourn that he didn’t even contemplate it anymore.

No, there was only a small group of people that could possibly influence Eddie enough to get him to betray Mourn at current, and that would include his parents and his younger brother.

His parents he would listen to out of respect and belief that they did in fact care for him enough to tell him the best choice…

And his brother? Well… Eddie feared his brother a bit more than even Mourn.

Mourn was psychotic in his actions but deep inside he might not actually be that bad, just putting on a façade for the world around him.

With Eddie’s younger brother, he believed it to be the opposite… putting on the appearance of a normal being when deep inside his brother was more of a monster than Mourn pretended to be.

Between a sane man acting the monster, and the monster pretending to be sane, Eddie believed that the latter was obviously more terrifying.

Eddie paused on the sidewalk in contemplation, some guys working near the warehouses walking past as he realized something…

It had been a long time since he thought about his brother… Eddie continued walking, his pace now a bit more subdued as he remembered that terrifying being…

Eddie found his relationship with his brother to be an odd one. He hated his brother and his brother hated him, but both would prefer the other over a stranger.

If Eddie saw someone he didn’t know messing with his brother, he’d get involved. If his brother saw something happening to Eddie, Eddie would get help.

Both had their own reasons, but Eddie was under the belief that his brother kept him safe so that he alone could torment Eddie…

Eddie stopped people from messing with his brother out of a sense of responsibility. No one deserved to deal with that being…

Who knew if that was the correct way to view their relationship.

Eddie walked into a nearby shop while still thinking about his younger brother.

His younger brother was not normal by any stretch of the word… sure, he looked relatively normal, but he didn’t act at all normal even when he was a child.

Eddie’s brother would hurt people, and do it in such a manner that no one would be able to actually say it was him, frequently doing such things to Eddie.

Except that with Eddie, he never went physical, only messing with Eddie with words and actions that would never result in his injury.

Oh but that child would promise it… promise that someday, he would hurt Eddie, in an extremely violent fashion. And he’d promise these things all while doing something like killing a pigeon he caught.

Eddie still, somehow, cared for that brother though.

After buying a drink and a chocolate, Eddie walked away from the shop thinking about going for a walk.

He had sour sweets in his other pocket.

Walking, Eddie looked around, taking in the changes to Manhattan since Red Sky Day with some vague sense of interest.

With his current lifestyle, what others did didn’t matter so much anymore, but it was now interesting in the same way a foreign country having a protest was.

People could be seen walking around in groups of six, showing off their wrists to each other, other places had someone demonstrating some ‘superhuman’ feat which was now possible with the powers granted by levelling up…

Of course, there were also conspiracy theorists who believed that every Adventurer was now damned and would be punished by God.

Well, Hell existed clearly, so Eddie was sure that the Almighty existed as well… but unfortunately, the majority of humans were immediate gains focused.

If you were told you could either earn one hundred dollars right now, or one thousand dollars in ten days, many would find the one hundred dollars a bit more intriguing.

The other group that preferred the one thousand had the leeway of time or already having enough money that they’d be fine waiting.

Being an Adventurer was a necessity to face Chronos and the Dungeon, otherwise humanity would be stuck dying slowly to the demons and monsters sent by said being.

Either take Chronos’ offer of power and have a fighting chance against his forces, or reject it and die.

The naysayers were all on the ‘reject it and die’ side even if they didn’t know about the latter part of that statement… that or they ignored the other part of that statement.

Looking, there were even Adventurer Celebrities now, including the elusive Chosen of America…

That person was interesting to Eddie for many, many reasons, one of the least of which was Mourn’s interest in the powerful Adventurer.

Otherwise there were also celebrities who became Adventurers, though that was a small group, one of which included a certain wrestler who kept talking about how people couldn’t see him.

There were also people who were trying to get cameras to work in the Dungeon so that people could actually start YouTube videos about the Dungeon, a sort of tutorial video thing.

Cameras currently didn’t work, no technology more advanced than a watch worked really, but people had hope.

Eddie just couldn’t understand what made Adventurers so interesting… he was one, a powerful one technically, but he was forced into being one by Mourn, so… yeah.

Even something nice can be ruined when a person is forced into doing it.

Sure, Eddie had power now, as a level sixty he was in the top echelon of Adventurers, but he still feared Mourn, who was above even that group…

Eddie’s Anima, Silent Room, was a pretty boring ability, and many of the people who obeyed Mourn questioned its usefulness, though Eddie knew it was good.

No sound could escape the area around him, or he could even prevent Spells from being cast as long as he knew who was casting and had an equal amount of mana.

That last bit also meant that Eddie needed to have a large mana pool to even make that ability effective, which was counter-productive for an assassin type fighter like him.

“Hey sorry there, I think you dropped this?” Eddie was surprised anyone would talk to him, as he turned looking over at the person who spoke.

Eddie was lucky he didn’t have any food or drink in his mouth otherwise he might have spat it out.

“Uh, are you okay?” Eddie looked at the blonde woman with a bit of trepidation, knowing exactly who she was.

“Uh, yeah I’m fine… oh thanks, that would have been embarrassing.” Eddie said, noting that he had dropped a shopping list that was now in her hands.

Really, the one time he forgets to put a shopping list in his inventory, it falls out of his pocket and is picked up by the thief of Einherjar, Emilia Vasilievna.

Beyond that position, Eddie was also well aware of who she was related to… even then, being in contact with the American Chosen, well, she was dangerous to be near.

“No problem, I’ve made mistakes like that once or twice before myself.” She seemed a bit awkward about that, but she was surprisingly genuine…

Eddie wasn’t quite sure how he expected this girl to act, but this was probably in the lower range of expected compared to the other options.

Considering he was the second-in-command of Mourn, and she was a member of the strongest team in America… well…

His boss wanted to kill her boss. He was the only one who knew that between the two of them though.

“I think it happens to everyone once in a while… anyway, thanks again, hope you have a good day.” It sounded overly formal for Eddie, though Emilia seemed to not notice as she nodded, walking away.

“…Doesn’t she have a car? Where is she walking?” Eddie wondered aloud after a moment, looking back to the woman with confusion…

Mourn would kill Eddie if he realized Eddie let a chance like this go to waste. On the other hand, Mourn would never need to know…

“Nope, not dealing with that today.” Eddie said firmly, pushing his hands in his pockets and walking away, absolving himself of any involvement with that situation, pausing as he heard someone shouting from… somewhere.

Meanwhile, with Emilia, the reason she was walking instead of driving as she would normally do was because she had decided that today would be a nice day for a walk.

Though she could do without whoever was randomly shouting.

Yes, she was that happy after Arthur showed an interest in going out with her, finally.

Really, she had felt she wasn’t at all subtle with her intentions given her always being around him back when they were studying together, hanging out with him on their days off…

Heck, if Emilia could find an excuse to be with Arthur in just about any setting she would probably have taken it… within reason of course.

But as she got to know Arthur, she couldn’t help but think that Arthur was surprisingly genuine… it was hard to find someone like that these days.

When Emilia first came to America aiming to study, and get away from her family in Russia, she was a bit lost.

Her childhood was… sheltered, to say the least, and as a result Emilia was lacking a bit in common sense, and what little she did have were from movies.

So suffice to say she was poorly prepared for real life.

Stepping into her University classes for the first time, well, it was very different from life up until that moment, different people had gone up to her asking about her name, phone number, and all sorts of stuff.

Emilia had disliked those people immediately, likening them to the ‘friends’ her parents tried to get her to play with.

Emilia eventually figured out that said friends were the children of her parents workers… and that they were asked to be nice to Emilia and cater to her whims.

Yeah… Emilia came from wealth.

So with your only friends being those forced into interacting with you, and realizing over time that people who cater to your every whim were usually after something, Emilia closed off from her family, and that led to her moving to America.

And then, in her first class, as mentioned, she was crowded by people. Kneejerk reaction she had was that they were out to get something from her, be it money, an easy lay, or whatever else they could think of.

Politely declining, Emilia decided to sit as far away from other groups as possible… only to find someone already had that idea.

Arthur Clive was the only person who hadn’t really gotten up to introduce themselves, and made no effort to put himself out there like the other University students.

Emilia felt it was a bit confusing, but nonetheless sat next to Arthur for an entire semester.

There was no love at first sight at play here, Emilia could admit to herself as she walked past a few warehouses while on her reminiscent walk.

Arthur was quiet, and wouldn’t open up to anyone he didn’t know by name, while Emilia was withdrawn due to expecting everyone to want something from her.

So two quiet people sat next to each other for a few months, barely interacting beyond borrowing stationary from each other, slowly but surely talking more and more as classes went on.

By then Emilia could have gone to hang out with any of the other cliques in University, but instead stayed near Arthur after he saw she was writing in Russian.

It was a simple conversation where he asked if she knew Russian, she responded that she was a native Russian, and he admitted to wanting to learn the language at some point.

That was pretty much all it took for the two of them to start talking.

And Emilia quite enjoyed talking with Arthur every day since that first strange conversation.

Arthur was just… so confusing, but at the same time so genuine.

He would shy away from making statements, like a true politician, but whenever he was certain of something he’d stubbornly defend his opinion, usually with facts and statistics backing him up.

And if she proved him wrong? Then he’d just apologize for being in the wrong, acknowledging when he was wrong… though sometimes he’d just use the ‘agree to disagree’ card, that was rarely used.

And, well… Arthur turned out to be Emilia’s first real friend, in her opinion at least.

And slowly, but surely, it became something more.

Even if she was asked, Emilia wouldn’t be able to say exactly when she began to like Arthur as more than a friend, but at some point she could just look at him and think ‘hey, I think this person could make me happy’.

Not all love stories were like in the movies or books, some were just simple from beginning to end.

Well… ignoring the other parts of their lives, Emilia was certain that her ‘love story’ would be pretty boring.

Which was fine with her. After knowing Arthur for over a year, he had brought her along to meet his friends, Michael, John and Matt, with Alice at school at the time.

And after meeting Michael and hearing of Michael’s history with dating, Emilia was firmly of the opinion that ‘boring is best’ when it regarded dating.

Seriously. Getting threatened by the girl’s mother for sitting next to her, dating long distance, and a case or two of being cheated on…

Emilia was surprised that Michael was still holding out hope for there being a special someone out there for him.

The only thing that Emilia was wondering about was getting her parents approval… her mother was aware of her feelings for Arthur, mothers were amazing like that, but her father…

Her father had already offered to send a bomb to Arthur’s house without even having met Arthur, just on principle of him being a friend of Emilia while also being a boy.

If he was to find out Arthur was going out with Emilia? She’d have to worry about getting her old training gear out from storage…

Perks of having ex-KGB bodyguards growing up, they tended to teach some awesome things, some things which weren’t exactly legal unless you were a soldier fighting for your country.

Though they hated being called ex-KGB… she just remembered them as ‘Boris’ and ‘Boris’. It was a joke her father played so that she’d always remember their ‘names’. Even when their faces and statures changed, they were still both Boris.

Her father liked old American movies too… but they gave him a strange sense of humour.

Hearing a ringing noise, Emilia reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone.

She had no need to worry about getting robbed, not ever since she became an Adventurer anyway, sketchy neighbourhood or not.

“Hello?” Emilia answered, walking to head out of the docks, ignoring the cursing she heard from one warehouse…

Though the cursing seemed to be someone complaining about jewellery being made incorrectly…

“Hey Emilia, it’s Arthur, listen, about that date, I, um…” Emilia stifled a giggle as Arthur began to stammer, trying to find his words.

Much like when Emilia had to force a straight answer from him, he was struggling to say something he wasn’t sure she’d agree with. He always got like this when he would talk about things not usually spoken about or things where he had different views than most.

“Arthur, relax… relax. You know I don’t like fancy stuff, and you hate it even more than I do. I’m sure whatever you have in mind would be fine.” Emilia’s calm reassurances were everything Arthur needed, as she could hear his stammering cut off when she spoke.

Whenever he got nervous, or just needed someone to listen and talk to, Emilia would always be there, much like he’d be there for her… it’s just that her problems mostly revolved around her family and Arthur, strongest Adventurer or not, wasn’t quite ready for that.

“Right, right… sorry, it’s just, I want our first date to be special, and to be honest I’m clueless.” Another thing Emilia liked about Arthur, he could admit his faults.

Arthur was not an alpha male most of the time, he had his moments such as when they were in the Dungeon, but otherwise he just had this feeling of ‘I accept things as they are’.

Emilia was quite used to seeing the ‘alpha dog’ personality in her father and some of his workers, it just got less appealing as time went on.

Besides, if Arthur was too much of a ‘take charge’ man then she’d have much less say in cases like the current one.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect you know? Besides, I’m happy spending time with you… anything more is just icing on top.” Emilia tried to explain her thoughts to Arthur, who just hummed in agreement on the other side of the phone.

“Alright… how about we go bowling, I know a place thanks to Michael… and I’ve never really been good at bowling given that I used to have trouble with the weight.” Emilia could relate.

She was actually pretty good at bowling as long as she used a ball of the correct weight, but if she used one too heavy… yeah…

That wasn’t really an issue anymore given that they were Adventurers. The only reason they weren’t banned from such places was that Adventurers only had super strength if they focused on it.

People with high Intelligence stats were beginning to mention that they could slow down their perception of time a bit if they focused too… lots of quick reaction speeds there, though without the Dexterity and Strength to move at said speeds it was kind of pointless.

“I think I’d be happy with that, got an idea for the date?” the double meaning was accidental, and Arthur wasn’t going to mention it thankfully.

Besides, he was one of those people who burst out laughing at the silliest of puns… Emilia would usually end up laughing because he was laughing though.

“I was thinking during our day off next week, I can come pick you up with the bike?” Emilia quite enjoyed that bike of Arthurs, and he was surprisingly good with that bike…

“Sure, that’s fine… I’ll see you tomorrow.” Emilia added, knowing that Arthur hated calling people actually, so she helped ‘end his misery’ so to speak.

“See you tomorrow.” And with a click, the phone call ended… yeah, regardless of whether or not he liked talking to someone, Arthur disliked talking over a phone through a method that wasn’t text.

The only time he called people was for things he felt required a certain level of emotional investment, such as this date, or letting someone know bad news.

“Ah… guess I have something to look forward to.” Emilia said to herself as she walked out to a different section of Manhattan.

Going back a few minutes, to the moment where Emilia and Eddie crossed paths, a man stood on a roof looking at the encounter…

He was more than a mere man, standing in his crisp dark red suit, looking with his eyes that saw more than mere mortals could, he was the (self-proclaimed) Hokage of England, the (self-proclaimed)Cardinal Agent… He was-

“George Clements!” The man beyond men stepped back a bit, just in case the two he was watching were to take note of his presence, not willing to influence their days.

“Must you have an outburst every few minutes?” the (self-proclaimed) Cardinal Hokage looked to his second in command and unofficial minder, Mike.

“It’s an essential character trait- squirrel!” George’s head snapped to look at something in the distance that Mike was quite certain was not a squirrel.

But dealing with George’s new found insanity- “I resemble that!”- every day was difficult if one didn’t learn to just accept what happened around the (self-proclaimed) Hokage.

“I wonder if ‘self-proclaimed’ is my other character trait this chapter…” See, it was difficult to understand George because he’d sometimes talk from a further point of conversation than the actual beginning.

An example would be watching a soccer match, and having George saying ‘and that is why marshmallows are pink or white mostly’ and nodding as if he discovered some great secret.

The rest of the conversation was lost to the strange mind that George had developed since gaining the ability to selectively view the future.

“Mike, to understand alien concepts one needs an alien mind.” That was a bit more understandable to Mike given that it was more of a statement than a conclusion.

“Right… right, anyway, George, why did you think we need to be here at this spot at this time?” Mike’s question was relevant, as unlike George, Mike was actually in his pyjamas, having flown in two days ago his internal clock was still adjusting to the new time-zone.

So they made an odd pair, one man wearing a red (Cardinal!) suit while the other was wearing fuzzy slippers, flannel pyjamas and was currently brushing his hair.

“It was relevant to the plot… yes, the plot which I have set in motion since I first gained my power.” George sounded uncharacteristically serious, which had Mike immediately drown out whatever George would say next.

“The result of my plot would be the creation of a world, which would further culminate in battles between seven or so god-like beings in a battle to determine the next Creator of Reality, while I get to be Hokage of a hidden village of Seers and Oracles before eventually training the Sword of God.” Yeah, Mike felt he was right to ignore George.

Honestly, hidden villages, Sword of God instead of God of Sword or something like that, it all just sounded like eighth grader-syndrome.

“I will also die at the age of roughly two thousand four hundred and seventy three. Give or take a decade.” Mike just ignored such outlandish statements and waited for George to make a more sensible statement instead.

George’s outlandish statements such as ‘God walks amongst men’ and ‘Death is a beautiful woman’ were just as crazy.

“I see you do not comprehend. Very well, let me explain, one of the two that just walked past, was Emilia Vasilievna, Thief of Einherjar and she is important.” Mike could understand that, as a Thief himself he acknowledged her as someone with the same ‘title’.

“As for the other, he is a sort of anomaly… compared to everyone else in this story, he fits in the least, even compared to me.” Mike wondered at that, knowing that George viewed reality itself as one large story…

With the ability to read the story, one wouldn’t think of themselves as a character, but a reader, correct?

It was because of this that George had begun to have sort of a… disjointed sense of reality, doing things which would have embarrassed or annoyed him before without care.

“That other person… his only real necessity is that he is a connecting point. He isn’t overwhelmingly strong, he isn’t truly evil or good, and he possesses no ambition beyond living.” From what Mike was hearing…

“He sounds… like a normal guy?” Mike’s statement got George to pause in his observation of the man before looking back to Mike.

“…A normal person… yes, that describes him nicely. A normal person surrounded by the extraordinary… It’s just interesting to watch in action.” Mike shrugged, knowing that despite George’s apparent insanity, the man was actually very rational.

“So, you have anything else interesting to tell me?” Mike asked, knowing that George was done following that guy around for the day given that George had turned fully away from the direction he went in.

“When someone asks which is better, heads or tails, my answer is always ‘the side’. After all, regardless of heads or tails or some miracle causing a coin to land on its side… it’s still just a coin.” George’s words were kind of simple, and if one looked too deep they’d find just as deep a meaning in them.

George liked statements like that.

One of Mike’s favourites was ‘A circle has no start or end’. Kind of simple and to some obvious, but it could also be used metaphorically to say that a cycle isn’t defined by when it starts or ends.

It was interesting.

“In any case, I find the interesting case of seeing many sides… I see a confused person forced to adopt the persona of violence to survive, I see a person who tries to humble himself despite being great… terrifying, but great.” George said, seemingly gazing beyond what was currently in front of them.

“And I see one who takes pleasure in the pain of others, finding no one to be more important than himself, and yet being forced to be normal… I wonder, of the three, who is truly the monster…” George considered, leaving Mike to just shrug and follow as George started to walk down the fire escape.

George was weird, but Mike didn’t have to understand the weird to get along with him.

Friends accepted things like that.

Arthur Clive

Level: 61 (C-Rank)

Class: Linked Swordsman- Grants one stat point to Strength and Wisdom per level

Gives Soul Sight (Unique) Skill

Anima

Dagger of Hunger

Cloak of Will

Anima Skills

No Change

Primary Element: Lightning

Other Element(s): Darkness

Personal Skills

Tactician III (142/150) - increases Wisdom by 20% (total 150%)

Sword Sage II (145/300)- Any bladed weapon deals 30% extra damage

Soul Sight II (277/300) - Allows insight beyond mortality

Dual Wielding IV (5/200) - Greater use of two weapons

Lightning Elemental III (34/300) - Use supplementary lightning spells

Quick Reflexes III (17/150)- Increases Dexterity by 20%

Stats

Strength: 76

Dexterity: 93 (111)

Intelligence: 53

Wisdom: 102 (153)

Endurance: 53

Vitality: 76

Despite not appearing in the chapter properly, it has been a few days since Chapter 3.