181. Confirm
The always relaxed and arrogant ‘Darkness’ lay on its knees in the dark. It wasn’t that I was with anyone.
Just maintaining that posture, he was talking through a mask.
“I checked the cube.”
The dark voice was infinitely polite.
“The seal on the cube is completely gone. The imperfect powers of creation will soon return to their original state.”
Contrary to Leon’s expectations, ‘Creation’ was not the power of the leader.
“If the power of creation doesn’t return, it’s not the Cube’s problem. It is her hiding power.”
Leon was stolen because he thought it was the power of the leader of the dark side, but a completely different person came to use the dump.
Leon’s handiwork created something unexpected.
“You shouldn’t trust her too much.”
It was a sincere advice, but the opponent did not take it that way.
The darkness immediately answered servilely.
“I’m sorry. I was off topic. Please have mercy!”
A completely different appearance of darkness than usual. His body, lying on his stomach, trembled.
‘Deep Horror’.
The dark was afraid of the one with whom it was conversing.
“Thank you for your mercy!”
Fortunately, his anger did not last long. Soon we moved on to Oren’s story.
“Oren, he continues to exceed expectations. I think I can put it into an important project now.”
The darkness, which had been listening carefully to the other person’s story, answered soon.
“Yes. I’ll get the mask, adjust the grade, and put it in right away. Thank you very much.”
Even though the conversation ended like that, the darkness didn’t wake up for a while.
‘Dark fear’ was weighing down his body.
* * *
“Don’t you think we see each other often these days?”
“Sounds useless.”
Oren cut off the words of darkness with a single sword.
“Why are you like that? Aren’t we part of the family now?”
“… … .”
Oren didn’t even respond to the guy’s nonsense.
However, the guy opened his mouth as if he was having fun without showing any embarrassment.
“Shouldn’t you accept it? You have no idea how much I suffered.”
“I didn’t ask too much. Rather, I think I overdid it quite a bit considering your position.”
“I know that. I’m not the type to be ungrateful.”
Nucksal was an amazing guy.
“Isn’t that why you came here?”
As soon as he finished speaking, a large bag appeared from the darkness.
thud.
thud.
Just hearing the sound made me feel how heavy it was.
“I went through a lot of trouble trying to find it. Why don’t you check?”
“done. I know you are not one to play with these things.”
“Five. Your credit for me is growing.”
Oren gestured as if to stop talking about it. The guy who saw it left cleanly.
“Hmmm. I didn’t come here today for this gold.”
“then?”
“The rating has been confirmed. Congratulations.”
To Oren’s question, he replied with congratulations.
“It is natural.”
“That’s true, but isn’t it something to celebrate?”
I couldn’t see it because it was covered by a mask, but I heard that he was smiling.
“First, I will retrieve the mask.”
“The reason is?”
“The mask changes when you reach a certain level. It is retrieved for processing.”
To say he would take the mask and upgrade it himself, as expected, couldn’t compare to the notification window.
Oren took out the mask from his bosom and gave it to me.
“You can look forward to it.”
“Don’t lose it.”
“Oops, I didn’t think of that.”
He giggled as he said what he said and found it funny.
‘Is something strange?’
I was pretending to be particularly happy today. If you do it on purpose, it will be more obvious.
“What happened? You’re desperately pretending to be happy today.”
Oren’s laughter stopped at the sudden remark.
“Does it show a lot?”
“little.”
“sorry. I think it’s because I reported to a very high place.”
The moment he heard those words, Oren felt something strange.
‘I think I reported it to Dae-ri… … Wasn’t it using the power of creation?’
When he stopped laughing, he caught a glimpse of the emotion he was hiding. It was none other than ‘fear’.
‘Am I just afraid of him?’
no. It couldn’t have been.
It was really strange for a guy of ‘darkness’ to feel that kind of emotion.
‘Then, is the power of creation used by someone else?’
Rather, this was more realistic. If you think that the boss of the dark side deals with ‘horror’, you’re pretty much right.
‘Fear… … .’
Oren pondered for a while, then gave up. A useless prejudice could be a problem when making plans in the future.
Take the information, but don’t confirm it.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Oren put a hand on his shoulder.
“Focus on my hand.”
And called Bixby.
‘Bixby. Unleash some anger on me.’
[All right!]
Anger seeped into the dark body.
“I’m sure he won’t be swayed by this level of anger, so don’t be like a dog in the rain and be alert.”
After experiencing fear, humans have one of two choices.
give in, or shrink.
Or get angry at the person who terrified you.
The dark guy chose to surrender.
However, when a little anger is added to this, the situation is completely different.
“Whoa. I thought it would take three more days, but I never imagined I could finish it here.”
“Quench your anger. Anger is a more dangerous emotion than fear.”
The dark guy understood Oren’s words at once.
If you surrender to fear, you will survive, but if you fight against it in anger, you will not survive.
“Yes. All right.”
“Think of it as a reward for all your hard work.”
“haha. You really fit the Golden Rule.”
The dark guy was also an unusual guy. As soon as he was angered, he regained his original composure.
“Go back carefully.”
Oren greeted me, but he said as if he meant something.
“Do I still have work to do?”
“… … do it.”
When O-Ren answered, he burst into laughter.
“This is true, as expected, meeting Oren-sama, it feels like all the stress that has accumulated has melted away.”
“I’m feeling stressed out.”
“haha. That is very sad.”
The joke ended here. The guy went straight to the point.
“How much do you know about the organization?”
The main topic was what Oren was most curious about.
* * *
“Of course, I can’t tell you everything.”
“I am not curious about the history of the organization either.”
no. I really wanted to know.
I wanted to learn the history one by one and poke at their weaknesses.
However, Oren was not the type to wonder about such things.
“Instead, I can tell you one thing for sure.”
“What is it?”
“This is our purpose.”
Oren was curious, but forcibly pretended not to be interested.
“Indeed, he did have a purpose.”
“Absolutely. Will the organization run aimlessly? This is not a useless story. Reaching the goal quickly will be the path to a quick grade increase.”
“Know.”
It was time to check if the reasoning so far was correct.
“Our goal is the collapse of the Empire.”
Not the end of the world?
This was a bit odd.
“Then, is the purpose of destroying the empire and establishing a new country?”
“no. collapse of the empire. That in itself is a goal.”
There was something strange about this. It seemed to be at odds with what I had deduced so far.
“What next?”
“There is not. The organization is disbanded, and each person lives on.”
“Is everyone moving for that will?”
“That’s right. There are a few unique groups, but their goal is also the collapse of the Empire.”
“A unique group?”
The boy said with an ‘Oops’ look.
“ah. First of all, I should explain this. Organizations fall into two broad categories.”
Considering what he said, one of them was expected.
“One must be those who want the collapse of the empire. Those who are angry with the empire. Just like you.”
“Exactly.”
“Then, what about the other categories?”
“They were born and raised in the organization. They are not talents who came in from outside, but people who were there from the beginning. This is a unique group.”
“What does unique mean?”
“I worship the power of the mask as if it were a religion. Well, instead of being a bit weird, his ability to use authority is exceptional.”
What was out of alignment was corrected.
It wasn’t that the reasoning was wrong.
“Those born and raised in the organization will rise to the upper levels.”
“That’s right. They have the ability, and since they were raised by the organization, they are much more reliable.”
The power structure of the organization on the dark side was roughly understood.
Priests of the forgotten gods in the upper echelons.
Competent talent recruited from outside is the lower class.
It is divided like this.
“Which of the outsiders went up to the upper levels?”
“There are some, but not very many.”
It meant you could go up.
It seemed that more detailed information would be obtained by improving the grade and going upstairs.
Well, there is only one thing to do now.
“I’ll have to aim for the upper floors.”
“A good choice. Can we prepare for the mission?”
“It would be appreciated if you brought the mission along with the mask.”
“Are impossible missions okay?”
“much better.”
The more difficult the mission, the faster the grade will rise.
* * *
After the darkness took the mask.
For a while, Rion acted in her original form, not Oren.
“good morning.”
I also participated in the morning bell ringing after a long time.
“A special budget has been set aside for the lab. ‘Meeting expenses.’ It’s a bonus from Lord Oren, so eat, drink, and rest for today!”
He even showed his face in the laboratory.
There was only one reason for this.
It was because when the mask arrived, it had to act as Oren’s face.
After a few days like that, darkness came and handed over the mask and mission.
“sorry. I was going to bring an impossible mission, but an urgent mission came in and I couldn’t help it.”
It was also a bit of an odd mission.
“Still, this is not a bad mission. Urgent missions, if not as impossible as impossible missions, are missions that can be scored quite high.”
“good night. It doesn’t matter at all if you do this and the next impossible mission.”
If it’s an urgent mission, something unexpected happened in the dark side.
It wasn’t too bad to check this one out.
“You should go to the sea.”
“ocean?”
“Pirate King, have you heard?”
The king of pirates, the outlaws of the sea.
Oren knew him better than anyone else. There was also a plan prepared in relation to the pirates.
“He is dead.”
However, that plan went awry.
“Couldn’t that be? He is not someone who will die so easily.”
“You think highly of him.”
It was natural.
When there was a great war between the empire and the monsters, he was a person who created a pirate corps and became the loser of a region.
“People don’t know, but I know roughly what he has done so far. Without the ability, that would have been impossible.”
“haha. This is funny. Did it look like that?”
There was something strange about his reaction.
In that moment, I understood what had happened.
“Could it be that he was the one pushed by the organization?”
“you’re right. He was very useful, but he was not a great human being. It’s just a face madam, you can see that we ran it.”
Goosebumps ran through Oren’s body. The continent was still full of dark plans.
If he hadn’t entered the dark side, he might have seduced him.
“The situation is understood. So what am I going to do?”
“The pirate king died and the plan went awry. Thanks to this, the collected items are also blown away, and intervention is impossible due to special circumstances.”
Special circumstances where intervention is impossible?
It must have been at least about a pirate rebellion, but it was not easy to understand.
“What is the special situation?”
“Even though I’m talking about this, I don’t think it makes sense… … A ‘ghost ship’ has appeared.”
I wanted to tell him not to joke around, but he wasn’t kidding.
“Please bring back the pirate king’s treasure that was plundered from this ghost ship.”
It was not an urgent mission for nothing.