Chương 103: 16 - NEEDLESS TO SAY

"Monan Ryker? How do you know that name?" T'balt stared at the woman intently, a sudden stop to his beating heart at the utterance of the name. Throughout all his travels, not once did he come across anything even related to that man. It became easier to believe he was just a ghost of his own nightmare, and as time went on, it became more difficult to explain to his party who he even was. Each iteration, it felt like they believed him less. So now they were all paying heavy attention to this woman in the gas mask.

But she was the professional type. Instead of an answer, she cocked her pistol and aimed it at T'balt's head. He didn't flinch. One of those inhuman things he did in the face of death as a result of dying too much already. He locked eyes with the woman through her mask, and in her gaze, he could see the same lack of fear, the same unflinching apathy towards death. She repeated her question.

"Were you sent here by Monan Ryker?" T'balt answered, feeling no reason to lie.

"I fought Monan… for a long time. Once I finally beat him, he told me that there were others like us and that I might find them in this place. But he's not a friend. Trust me, he's not a friend." She paused, the grip on her weapon tightening.

"Then you would know that you don't need to be his friend to do his bidding." T'balt looked back at his friends, all gleaming with some form of curiosity, fear, or pain. At some iteration, they had all hurt him in some way, whether they intended it or not.

"I know."

"No. I don't think you do. If Monan had anything to do with you coming here, then you're an enemy. And I won't allow any Redeemer to hurt me or my lady any further." That's when he put his hands up in peace.

"I promise you, I'm not here to hurt you or anyone." He wanted to appeal to her, knowing what she might be. He did not want another enemy. It didn't sway her weapon in the slightest. So he even got down on his knees.

"I promise."

"I know you won't hurt anyone."

"You do?"

"Because you'll be trapped down here and unable to do so."

"Hey, wait!" Before T'balt could jump for her or try to talk her down, she had jetted through the only door in the room. It slammed in his face as he could hear it locking on the other side. He stared at it, a heavy steel door with no knob or even a window to see through to the other side.

"Please don't do this! I just want to talk! I'm just like you! We can work together!" He pushed against the door in a feeble attempt to force it open. There was no answer for a while.

"I uhh… think she's gone," said Acelin.

"Good. That woman is a menace," Cannon said, holding his foot. Ellie had taken his boot off and wrapped his bare foot with a piece of her shirt, ensuring he didn't bleed more than he already had. The foot was clearly swollen, and it didn't look like Cannon had full movement in it.

"How's your foot?" she asked.

"It hurts like hell, but surprisingly fine, considering." Ellie tried once more to summon her healing, but her hands stayed the same slim, pale hands that they always were.

"My loot still doesn't work. I'm worried that if we don't get it properly handled, then you won't be able to walk right again." Cannon smirked.

"No worries. I'm sure our Redeemer's got it figured out, right? I mean, he brought me back from death once already." They all looked at him, but he was trapped in a world of thought, staring at the door.

"Uhh.. T'balt." Acelin pulled at his shirt, simultaneously pulling him out of his thoughts.

"What do we do?" He looked at them all with earnestness, remembering how Ellie warned him to be upfront with them.

"I don't know yet… she must have a loot that somehow disables ours. I don't know if there's a way for us to escape without any powers." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"So what, we just wait until she comes back to free us?" Ellie stood.

"If she does."

"Maybe. If she wanted to kill us, she wouldn't have shot Cannon in the foot. That means at the very least, she plans on keeping us here. If that's the case, she'll have to come back and feed us. Give us water. I can try to reason with her then." They didn't have any choice but to accept that answer, considering no one could come up with a better one.

"Hopefully, that's today," Ellie said. Acelin sat in a corner, leaning his head against a wall.

"This sucks…"

"I know, Acelin," T'balt answered.

"Just bear with me a little bit. I'll figure it out."

"I guess that Monan guy really is real, then."

"You didn't believe me?"

"It's not that. It's just the way you talk about him is a lot like how my dad used to tell me about the boogeyman." T'balt looked at the other two. Ellie shrugged.

"You never fully told us what he did. That didn't mean I didn't believe you. I just never understood your hatred of him."

"Every big man needs his adversary," Cannon said. T'balt sighed.

"You're right. I haven't told you all what he did to us. So it makes sense that you don't get it."

"What did he do?" Acelin asked. He patted the kid on the head.

"You're better off not knowing." T'balt felt he had worked so hard to escape those realities where Monan got his way. But when Acelin asked, the first thing that popped into his mind was Arthur.

"Never tell me what I did," the man had told him. He remembered the state of the man at even just realizing he was capable of hurting someone he loved, and he didn't want to subject them to any of that. Even when he used to tell them about Monan, he only ever told them about his murders, his rampages, his manipulations. Never who he did them to, or who he had do them for him. It just seemed easier that way. But he could tell by Ellie's frown that his lack of answering bothered them.

"Just know that I don't blame this woman for being as cautious about him as she is. There was a time when if I were in her shoes, I would've done the same thing," he said. T'balt remembered Monan saying that he had done to him the same thing he did to all the other Redeemers. That death game. Kill him once while he kills you a thousand times. He was sure that the others would've had an easier time at it, or that they might be more equal to Monan in strength.

T'balt was the only one, apparently, who had lost his memory of his god-slaying iteration. The one where he killed the Redeemer. But he supposed Monan had his ways about him, and he could strike fear in even the people who remembered facing a god and coming out alive. He tried to think of what he might say to that woman when she next came by. How he'd appeal to her. Logic was probably the best way to go. A hard negotiation style like he had to take up with German.

In a way, he got the same vibe from her that he did when he first met him. Too calculated, stiff, and unfeeling. Almost robotic. But she was more menacing in her gait. He could've assumed that she might've been military at some point. Her body always stiffened to complete attention. And she handled that pistol in that precise way that T'balt had only seen in movies.

But if she was, that meant she was gonna be all the more difficult to try to get information out of, and that would likely be helpless to whatever she had in store for them. Acelin groaned.

"I wish I had never given my food to that girl. That was my last roll."

"Come on. Don't say that. You did a good thing," Cannon said.

"But at least we'd have something to eat."

"Now that you mention it. We hadn't eaten since before the Wanderer. It's gotta be morning by now, right?" Ellie thought about it.

"I don't know. There are no windows to tell. Why?"

"I'm a big man. Less than two months ago, I was used to eating five meals a day. I'm usually constantly hungry, but I guess my body has finally adjusted to apocalypse living. I'm not hungry at all."

"Hmm. Neither am I, " said Ellie.

"I just thought it was because everything was going on, but it wasn't just me."

"I also haven't gone to the bathroom since then either," admitted Acelin meekly.

"Where are we supposed to go in here?"

"Oh God…" Cannon said.

"That cruel woman. She'll have us piss on the floor in the room with a woman and a child. I'm gonna have words for her when she gets back."

"I wouldn't say anything unless you want a bullet in your other foot. Acelin, just hold it until she gets back, alright." Ellie said.

"I already have. I've held it so long I don't even have to go anymore." T'balt sat idly still, lost in his mind, ignoring most of what they were saying, but that last bit struck him strangely.

"They're not hungry, and they don't have to go to the bathroom," he thought to himself. He stood up. Acelin let me check your neck. The boy was startled by a sudden movement, but he turned. T'balt ground his teeth. The loot he had given to the boy was gone, but that wasn't their biggest issue. He half expected that. It was that it had been replaced by another. One that he remembered reading about in the Hunter's Club catalog. He went to check the others. Same thing, and his head immediately dropped.

"What's the matter?" Ellie asked.

"We all have need nullification loot."

"What's that mean?"

"It means we won't have to eat, drink, go to the bathroom, any of it. And we won't die." Cannon perked.

"Oh, great then. So no going boom boom on the floor." T'balt rubbed his temples.

"Not great… That means she doesn't have to come back. She doesn't have to feed us. She can just leave us down here, and we will never die. We'll never get tired. She doesn't have to come back."

"Wait, ever?"

"That was her plan. Knowing I'm a Redeemer. She put me in a room where she could leave me for good and never have to worry about me dying and resetting. She could abandon us here forever."