Chương 193: Late-Night Snack

"Man… I wish I could get girls as often as the Young Master does. I've been stuck in this shithole for so long, and look at me! Still unmarried at my age!"

"Heh, what did I tell you back then? You should have put a ring on that maid's finger. You wouldn't have been picked to come here if you had been married… But no, you just had to question yourself endlessly until you missed the opportunity… Listen, when you find a nice, honest girl who likes you, you should just marry her on the spot!"

"Huhuh. What about you then, Mister Knows-It-All? Why are you single?"

"... You're supposed to listen to what I am saying, not imitate what I do. It wouldn't come to your mind to mimic a bum who sleeps in the streets, would it? Ah shit… This damned wind is annoying" Two guards were standing near a side entrance to the residence. The gates were high and operational, but it was still their job to watch over this particular door during the early hours of the night before another duo came by to replace them.

"Alright, but what if I don't want just a nice, honest girl? What if I want a girl who's tough?"

"My friend, that's what idiot youngins like yourself think of for everything… What if I don't want to settle for this or that? What if I can aim higher? Listen closely. You can't. You're fucking average, like the vast majority of the population. Give up on your dreams of grandeur and get yourself simpler dreams that you can actually accomplish""What a shitty life…"

"It isn't shitty when you don't expect to be the freaking hero of a story–Hold on, I need to go inside to light this thing…"

"Sure, sure…" The wisdom-dispensing guard had been trying to light a roll using a match, but the wind was too strong and his matches kept going out immediately. Thus, he stepped inside the residence to actually do so… Only that he didn't come back.

"Man, are you messing with me right now? You talk about committing to relationships, but I swear that if you snuck out to meet that laundry maid-" The other guard opened the door to check, only to be met by a row of teeth and the sudden crunch of his own bones as an abominable creature of steel bit down on him before he could comprehend the shadow being he was looking at.

Another one down my gullet… I had been proceeding room by room, hallway by hallway, picking off everyone one by one. These guys had made the job easy for me, just as I had been thinking about having to either quickly kill both of them in a single swoop or have to lure them away, one of them decided to offer himself up on his own. From there, it was obvious that the other would react and check inside, meaning that I just needed to wait–And I had been completely correct in my assumption.

These fools had no idea that they were in mortal danger, so they were throwing themselves within bite-distance without thinking. Leou had mentioned some knights as part of the guards, but it was pretty obvious that Hulil Boorizar was fully and utterly disgraced. His parents didn't even bother placing even a single truly powerful individual to protect him. Probably because he was so pathetic and unimportant that it didn't make sense for anyone to target him in the first place.

Unfortunately, Hulil had decided to try to court the wrong person and had now paid the consequences with his life, and since the one in charge of delivering his death was none other than I, this meant that every single breathing being inside of this manor was also fair game. … Although the knights were average and thus weaker than my mechanical self, I still made sure to kill them swiftly and fully by surprise. A knight was a knight.

If one decided to take off running and sound the alarm, I wasn't a hundred per cent certain that I would be able to stop him in due time. As quick as I may be, my heavy frame meant that I didn't have the quickest initial burst, and it also meant that my momentum could screw me over in corners at times. I could make up for it, but one wrong move, or a freaking carpet that slid beneath my feet, and I could definitely launch myself out a window. Anyway, it was better to do things calmly and slowly…

It was nice to fight every once in a while, but methodical slaughters were the best kind nonetheless. When I wasn't taking hits, I could also accumulate more steel and flesh in my reserves, though I couldn't stock up on negative emotions since no one even knew I was there. I still don't know what my stock of flesh can be used for, too…

Well, I can't be precise, but–Speaking logically–It should definitely have the same use as the stocked steel, just for a form that you have yet to acquire May I know if said form is amongst the ones that I know the name of? I'm not allowed to say that… And if I try to allude to it, I'll probably get wacked I wouldn't want my precious little darling to get hit, so I'll just presume that I do know the name of the form in question…

I mean, surely a condition to unlocking this flesh-desiring form is to accumulate a lot of flesh, right? If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. … It wouldn't be a bizarre requirement, I suppose Precisely! Anyway… Did I kill everyone already? According to the list of personnel Leou presented to us… Yes, every single inhabitant of the manor has been slain without exception I would have liked to sigh.

Such a grandiose massacre, without leaving even a single drop of blood behind–And yet no upgrade for me to choose from. What a tragedy. I truly need to figure out these alternative ways to earn upgrades. I do have one idea at the moment, but it will have to wait until I can ask Leou for some more stuff. Am I nearing another evolution, by the way? Nara was silent for a moment. I am actually allowed to speak about this, curiously enough… But you are actually right on the cusp of it.

It's just that evolutions ask a bit more than just XP now, basically, the next time you unlock a form, you'll also be able to evolve–But hey! I guarantee that this evolution will be noticeably more strengthening than the previous one I can't go into details, but it basically involves getting a free upgrade–Manner of speech, but you'll get what I mean when it happens Well, if you say so, I believe you… Say, what do you think about visiting the secret underground with cultish stuff happening?

Leou said that the strength of the cultists was unknown–Therefore, I would say that it isn't a wise decision and one dangerous to you… But since you have an escape route ready, I suppose you could at least take a peek I called out my ghostly cuties and explained what I was about to do. As we often did, they would hang back and stay hidden by phasing through solid matter and wait for my cues to act–We had a whole lot of cues to communicate together while they were hiding.

Even though they are spectres, and the fact that they are bound to me probably makes them way harder to actually destroy than regular ghosts, I still much prefer not putting them anywhere close to harm's way. I just don't think they are powerful enough to take on enemies head-on. Perhaps I am a bit too protective of them, but I just can't help it. My little sisters are too important to me for it to be otherwise…

In any case, Leou's intel once again proved tremendously useful, as she had shown me a map of the residence with details on where a passage toward the underground was located–She really knew everything about Hulil and this place. She must have been meaning to find someone to murder him for a while. My memory was good enough to remember the map in detail, but I left the navigation to Nara. She could literally calculate coordinates in just a few seconds, so it just made sense leave her in charge of such things.

In this manner, I quickly punched through a wall, revealing a hidden staircase. There surely was a mechanism or something else to open the way normally, but I wasn't here to solve riddles. I was looking for things to kill and eat. The details of the cult weren't clear. Leou seemed to believe that it was a devil cult of some kind, but according to the low amount of knowledge, it could very well be a better kind of cult–In my opinion–Such as a cult that liked ghosts or curses.

Thinking about the possibility made my imaginary stomach grumble in anticipation… I descended the stairs slowly, making full use of my 'Quietness' upgrade to be stealthy. The stairs didn't take me too far below the earth, but they did take me into a cave rather than a neatly carved-out dungeon. The place was dimly lit by luminescent mushrooms of impressive size, considering that most were taller than me.

Still, despite their great stature and large numbers, the shine they emitted was still weak, leaving the place still drenched in darkness and deep shadows. Anything up with these mushrooms? No, just the typical underground, manaluminescent stuff. They don't seem to have anything to do with any cultish activities, unless it's a mushroom cult, I guess I pressed onward, hugging the rugged walls of the cavern as I peeked from every twist and turn…

But there weren't many places to hide behind, the cavern was wide, the ceiling was high, and it seemed like the cult activities weren't very far, as I soon spotted blood-red light–Which was about as unsubtle as it could get, in my opinion… There weren't any chants or anything, but cultists were definitely present, even if only a handful.

Some lady wearing a horned creature's skull on her head was whispering things in a dialect I couldn't understand to two other cultists who were kneeling in front of an altar to the glory of… Intestines, I suppose. Alright, this is looking a lot like a devil cult… But perhaps they still specialise in curses or ghost-related stuff? I think they are more likely to cast fire magic than anything else You never know! Let's try to be optimistic there. I gave the signal to my ghostly little sisters.

Suddenly, the skull-wearing cultist found herself feeling abnormal as Gigi phased her face out of the stone on the opposite end of the cavern and simply stared, using her special ability to force a sentiment of unsettlement to bloom within her target. Simultaneously, all three cultists were besieged by paranoia as Nessa's strangling sounds echoed through the cave–The timid and demon girl had a similar ability in this regard, forcefully provoking a specific kind of emotion through a specific stimulus.

The greatest difference was that Gigi was more geared toward a single target, making the unsettlement stronger, while Nessa could invoke paranoia in as many people as she wanted. The only limit was based on hearing. Thus, the emotion she triggered wasn't as strong at the start. However, the sudden wave of unsettlement and paranoia that did not have quite a logical explanation, as it was too strong to be natural, was great at provoking a healthy dose of fear…

Obviously, the cultists immediately believed themselves under attack and in danger. Annie's and Elowen's abilities were a bit too geared toward getting in people's faces, while Ophelie's abilities were still unrefined. However, Poppy had made some progress, and without saying a word, the three cultists all found themselves with empty lungs, coughing up blood. Their panic levels rose, and before they could snap out of it or do anything to truly defend themselves, I swooped in.

I bit the female cultist in half, kicked another cultist in the head, smashing his skull like a rotten watermelon, and with the same foot, stomped down on the back of the third one, crushing his spine and sending his innards all over the ground. Hopefully, they keep some tasty goodies lying around.