Chương 7: [LD-1] 6. Observer

VI Observer I realised my mistake the moment my feet hit solid ground. The goblin was dead. I wasn't aware of how Initiation Chambers were usually supposed to go, but I doubted meeting a tutelary deity and removing a blade from their body was a regular occurrence. That meant my assumption that there were other people around me when I returned was wrong.

'I took too long.' They must've left when I didn't return in a timely fashion…or maybe they left me, period. Either way, I was alone. I glanced back at the goblin corpse. The creature was filled with steaming holes and had one of its arms ripped apart.

'Poor guy.' I had no real empathy for it—it'd killed one of our classmates.

"What's that black hue?" The dark cloud rose from the goblin's body like an aura. Narrowing my gaze, I felt a slight… pull, for lack of a better word. This was, of course, the whole reason I'd picked my newest ability. Newfound instincts guided my index and thumb into touching and formed an oval shape." Observer," I chanted. My insides swirled like they did during my seances. Now, however, I could almost see the energy slip from my stomach towards my hands.

Darkness seeped out of my skin and shadowed the space between my digits. The blackness whirled like a vortex and bubbled— A blur whirled past my face and into the air over my shoulder. Six tiny tentacles wormed out of the grey sphere. The creature was about the size of my palm.

"Ha…" it breathed.

"Haha…" I knew it'd be able to speak, given the description, but it didn't have a mouth. Its voice projected as if from a speaker, and its tone was a mix between dark and brooding and chipmunk.

'But why is it saying "ha" like that? Does it have trouble breathing?' My brow rose. Do eyeballs even brea—"Hahaha…I have been SUMMONED!" My frown deepened. That sounded like the laughter of a B-movie villain.

"Uhm, hello," I said.

"Could you help me out here? I'm facing a bit of an issue." The singular pupil of the observer whirled on me. It was all black and vertically slitted.

"Master! You did well to call upon me! Problems? Don't fret! Togetheeerr… we will cleanse the world of every living, squirming worm! Haha… muhahahaha!" My heart stopped… until I watched the observer spin higher into the air and bump into a root burrowing across the ceiling. It sank bank down with an 'oof', then promptly threw a slew of curses at the unmoving root, whom it dared to cross its path again lest it reduce it to nothingness. I deadpanned. Did I choose the wrong skill?

The observer turned from its fated opponent towards me.

"Master, this loyal servant requests permission to eradicate your enemies!"

"That root is not my enemy." He glared at the plant and whispered: " You're in luck." He turned back to me.

"You mentioned an issue, Master? Please leave it to your loyal servant, Kilrog!" By this time, all emotion had left my face.

"I'm glad you're so dependable, Kilrog." He squirmed at my compliment. In the middle of its reverie, the summon jerked and stared at the nearby corpse.

"Oh, a goblin. Been a while since I saw those." He floated towards it and bobbed within the black aura.

"Are you going to absorb this, Master? The miasma is fading with every moment. Or did you save it for me?" My ears twitched.

"I can absorb that?" If an eyeball could frown, it was doing so now.

"…yes?" The eye narrowed.

"Wait, Master. You're level…" he did a double-take, spun back to the goblin, then took in the scene.

"I've been summoned to another realm…by a neophyte?" Now wasn't that the title of an indie novel if I'd ever heard one.

'I suppose summoning this thing at my stage shouldn't be possible.

'How do you even unlock legendary skills?'

"Kil," I said, shortening his name on instinct, "how do I absorb the energy?"

"You think of pulling it towards you," he said absentmindedly. He shuddered and added: "I don't understand how this is possible. Master, what did you—" A figure popped into view midway down the corridor. Blood dripped down the spiked club of the goblin. Its putrid, yellow gaze fell on us.

"Alright, Kil," I said.

"Time to do your job." I hurled a finger at the goblin.

"Kill that creature!" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Kil watched the creature waltz forward but otherwise remained floating beside me.

"I can't, Master."

"Huh?!" I exclaimed, heart shooting into my throat.

"Weren't you going to 'eradicate our enemies' just a second ago?!"

"Well, yes, but that was before I noticed you were a neophyte, Master. I don't have access to any of my higher level abilities." …

"So you're useless?" He gasped.

"You hurt my feelings, Master! How could you say that! I'm—" The goblin roared, and its walk turned into a sprint. Kilrog screamed in tandem with the roar like a little girl.

"What do I do you useless eyeball?!" I yelled over him.

"I don't know!" he cried.

"I've never served a neophyte!"

"Well start thinking or we're both going to die!" He whirred in place, single eye roving around before falling on the corpse of the goblin.

"Quick, grab that energy!"

"I don't know—""Just pull!" he yelled. My hand dived for the corpse and I did my best to 'pull.' But how in the hell were you supposed to pull goddammed air? To my surprise, the moment I touched the dark cloud, I met resistance. Like sticking my fingers into jelly. I'd felt this before. Hundreds of times. Old memories guided me and gathered the cloud into a sphere. I whirled back. The goblin was mere steps away and raised its club—"What n—""Soul resonance!" Kil yelled.

In a span shorter than a blink, a stream of consciousness entered my head accompanied by a strong image: a dense ball of shadows that ate through its enemies. I stabilised my wrist with my free hand. A tingle shot through my entire arm. The sphere imploded to half its size.

"Deathbolt!" Kil yelled. The force of the missile ripped into my shoulder and had me tottering back despite my efforts at stabilising. I caught my step and whirled up in fear…and was looking at the hallway. I realised only an instant later that I was looking through a hole in the goblin's head. The club dropped, and the creature collapsed. Kil sighed.

"Phew. That was a close one, wasn't it Master? Luckily, you had the great Kilrog at your side!" My knees barely kept from following the greenskin's example. A cool jolt rushed through my veins and strengthened my limbs somewhat. I turned to Kil.

"I thought you said you had no abilities?"

"I don't. Soul Resonance is an innate observer trait that lets me share my knowledge with you through our bond. Also, though I said the name, the deathbolt ability didn't activate. You didn't do all the steps correctly, Master."

"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly have time to perfect it." I turned to my screen. Lvl. 3 Goblin x 1 slain. Bonus EXP awarded for killing a creature above your level.

'Experience…I could use that to level. Doing so would give me stat points, but I'd need to consolidate my experience through meditation to level.' Despite that, I flicked a glance at my stats.

"Kil, what do you recommend I spend my stats on when I get to it?"

"Intelligence and wisdom," he said without pause.

"As a Reaper, your main damage will come from abilities scaling with intellect. Wisdom affects the total mana you have and how fast it regenerates passively. Your physical stats are only used to keep up with other classes that specialise in physical confrontation." I hummed. Made sense. No amount of magic would save me if a monster blitzed me before I ever got a chance to cast.

"What about Faith?" I asked.

"What does that do?" That made him pause.

"It's complicated," he said eventually.

"Faith doesn't increase your power directly. You also cannot put points into it like you do regular stats." I frowned.

"Then what's the point?"

"It unlocks stronger abilities like miracles. If you had no points in Faith, you wouldn't have been able to cast the miracle required to summon me, even if you knew how the skill worked inside and out." His eyeball narrowed.

"That reminds me…how did Master get so many points in Faith so early…" He mumbled to himself more than he asked the question, so I was glad to ignore it.

"So how do I get more of Faith?"

"The system awards it when you complete missions related to a god." Gods…from what I knew, there were different covenants that each served a particular deity. For example, the Black Church who served Lord Null.

'So I need to join the church if I want to get more points into Faith?' I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Being forced to do something wasn't exactly my style. Still, that was a problem for later. I returned my attention to Kil's comment on my main form of damage and remembered a particular object I'd received. I coughed in my palm.

"Actually, I also have a weapon…if that matters."

"A weapon? Do you mean your exceptional intellect, Master?" My lips pressed into a line. It should've been sarcasm, but his tone was reverent, making it sound genuine.

"An actual weapon. I received it in the Initiation Chamber, but it's stored in my soul. How do I call it?"

"You received a soul weapon?" I imagined him raising a brow.

"You can retrieve it by keeping the image of the weapon at the forefront of your mind." So I thought back to the flowing runes walking the length of the scythe.

'Cull.' Air warped, and as foretold, the weapon fell into my hands as if some god had placed it there.

"Huh," Kil said.

"A scythe. That's rare." He trailed off and hovered near the blade…the darkness within his single pupil stretched slowly.

"Master—you…" For the first time since meeting him, I found the quirky eye at a loss for words. And what else did I expect? I'd basically stolen the weapon from a god. The god, as far as a creature from the Black Well would be concerned. He was about to speak up when roars clattered through the halls.

"No time," I said.

"We need to get out of here." With only the closed elevator behind me, I was stuck on a one-way with whatever rounded the corner.

"What do I do with the death energy of this goblin?" I said.

"Do I keep it in hand for another deathbolt?" At a guess, the system would only give me the skill for using deathbolt after I successfully used the ability. The best way to learn was repetition.

"Ah…well," Kil stammered.

"…I'm not sure—" I snapped my fingers in front of the eye.

"Wake up, Kil! I need you. What do I do?!" He shook himself out of his daze.

"Draw the energy inside yourself, Master. Your core will hold it until you need it."

"The area near my navel, right?" He nodded. Crouching near the fresh corpse of the goblin, I pulled the energy into a sphere. Storing it in my core was as simple as willing the energy to enter my skin and commanding it to my centre.

"Let's go," I said. He came to hover above my shoulder and followed me through the hall. I strode past the human corpse on my way. The student's face was in the same position, but his eyes were more lifeless than before. The miasma around him was sparse; he'd been gone for too long, yet I crouched to absorb it all the same. Because I drew closer, I noticed the dried up streak of moisture trailing down his cheek. Where it would've struck the ground, the earth was a tad darker.

'What were you thinking about, I wonder.' I couldn't remember thinking about particularly anything when I'd died. Was everyone the same? That thought lingered with me while I wiped the streak from his face and closed his eyes. I put my hand on his forehead.

"Lord Null, please accept him into the Black Well with loving arms. Lead his spirit so he won't get lost." My breathing slowed to give the ensuing silence room to exist. Death, as much as it was a harbinger of the inevitable, was also a shepherd. A thing people often forgot. After another moment, I rose to my feet. There was no response to let me know my my prayer had achieved anything, but it made me feel better. Many things had happened today.

I died, was reborn, got teleported to a shadow realm, and stole a weapon from a god during my awakening. I had a hundred questions and no answers. But I knew one thing:'I'm not dying again.' Not like that. This time, I was leaving on my own terms. And I wouldn't be satisfied until I saw that man again and figured out why he looked so alone. It wasn't a lofty goal, but one that drove me nonetheless. I twirled the blade in my hands and stalked down the hallway. Kilrog wordlessly stared after me.