[You have enslaved the soul of 'Guardian of the Underworld'.]
Eden looked at the notification, then at the subdued Guardian in front of him, and finally at the Necronomicon. It had been at the origin of this. He took another look at its status, and indeed, there had been a change.
[Necronomicon (Copy)]
[Rank: Rare]
[Magical Attack: +35%]
[Intelligence: +3]
[Wisdom: +2]
[Summon Evil Servant: An evil being was enslaved through the power of the book. If the enslaved is killed, ability to summon it again, but each resurrection will result in the enslaved being weakened. The enslaved's attributes may not exceed 20. Cost: 250 MP.]
[Dark Bolt: Conjure a bolt of dark energy to deal 100 necrotic damage, and weaken the physical attributes of those hit by 5 for ten seconds. Cost: 200 MP.]
[Cursed: The foul magic contained within this book confuses any who gazes upon it, and contaminates those who try to use it.]
Eden's ability to summon a lesser demon had been replaced, but Eden was pleased with that change. Although he did not know how strong a lesser demon was, he did know how strong the Guardian was. He was permanent too. Of course, being killed would result in the Guardian being weakened, but the Guardian was quite the chunky boy.
Moreover, Eden could feel the connection still, and were he to wish to, he could break it. That may give him back his ability to summon lesser demons, if that ever became relevant.
Other than giving him the ability to control the Guardian, their bond also allowed Eden to see his attributes, despite their gap.
[Guardian of the Underworld]
[Title: N/A]
[HP: 150/150]
[MP: 80/80]
[Strength: 16]
[Agility: 12]
[Physique: 15]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Wisdom: 8]
[Skills: Iron Fortress (1st Circle)]
[Resistances: Necrotic I]
[Weaknesses: Radiant I]
The Guardian's Intelligence and Wisdom, the only two attributes Eden had been able to see, and which were at 10, had been lowered by 2 to 8. That was a 20% decrease.
If all of its attributes had received the same treatment, then its Strength must have been at 20, its Agility around 15, and its Physique between 18 and 19.
Those were monstrous stats; no wonder it was so strong. Eden also wondered what the effects of that 'Hades' Champion' Title had been. The Guardian had unfortunately lost it. But if he had to guess, it had to be something that gave resistance to damage, at least fire and necrotic.
After all, Eden refused to believe that a mere 19 Physique would be enough to survive a fireball that formed in his face, or the ambient necrotic energy.
Eden also looked at the skill, guessing it was what the Guardian had tried to use.
[Iron Fortress (1st Circle): Increases the defence of the user by 25 for 5 seconds. Cost: 55 MP.]
Overall, despite having been weakened, the Guardian remained very strong. Strong enough to compensate for the loss of Eden's left hand.
There were also an interesting couple of new entries, Resistances and Weaknesses. Focusing on them, Eden learned that having resistance to a type of damage halved the damage one would take from it, while weakness would double that damage. They also affected buffs and debuffs. Maybe that was the reason for Guardian's resistance to the ambient necrotic energy then.
Eden put the Skull in his inventory, and suddenly, the pressure around him disappeared. The symbols on the walls lost most of their luster, glowing just barely enough to give some visibility. Unfortunately, no secret door revealed itself to give him an easy exit.
Well, that only meant he would have to find his way out of the cave. But before that, he unloaded the armor he had looted off Guardian, as well as the Hellsteel Greatsword, and had him put them back on. They would be put to much better use than in his inventory.
With everything equipped, Guardian's attributes looked like this:
[Guardian of the Underworld]
[Title: N/A]
[HP: 170/170]
[MP: 80/80]
[Strength: 16 (21)]
[Agility: 12 (14)]
[Physique: 15 (17)]
[Intelligence: 8]
[Wisdom: 8]
[Skills: Iron Fortress (1st Circle)]
[Resistances: Necrotic I]
[Weaknesses: Radiant I]
Now, all they had to do was walk back to the outside. Looking into his inventory had given him an idea, though.
Tearing the right sleeve of his shirt, Eden took out one of the rusty weapons in his inventory, a spear, and had Guardian tie it to the end of the wooden shaft.
Then, Eden placed the Necronomicon in his coat's pocket, took out the Skull and placed it on the ground, and stood at the room's entrance along with Guardian, who was silently holding the broken spear shaft in front of Eden.
He cast Strengthened Fireball, and stalled the fireball long enough for the torn sleeve to catch fire before Eden fired the spell back into the room, into one of the symbols on the room.
He did this out of sheer spite for whoever had designed this giant trap. Whether it had any effects, Eden could not tell, but at least now they had a torch. It probably would not last very long, so they set off immediately.
Eden kept the Skull in his hand, which allowed him to absorb the necrotic mana rapidly, even without concentrating to increase his MP regeneration.
The Skull might have been disappointing, but if anything, it was a good MP battery.
Guardian also seemed to be immune to its effects, which was a relief. Eden guessed it had to do with the fact that it was resurrected with the necrotic energy in the first place. Besides, even though he looked like a man, maybe he was not.
Soon, Eden's MP returned to full, so he returned the skull to his inventory.
As for the cave, although having a source of light certainly helped, Eden could tell that something had changed for sure. Or rather, they had returned to normal.
There were no longer several paths branching out every ten meters, and even the areas where Eden had faced the first two groups of monsters were now straighter paths. Then, finally, as the improved torch was burning out, Eden saw light.
As expected, the cave had opened up.
It was night outside, meaning Eden had managed to come back on time. The light they had seen was the torches Alex's squad had set in front of the cave when he was inside. Now, they were standing nearby.
As Eden walked out of the cave, they turned to look at him, the surprise clear on their faces. They did not expect to see him come out of there. His appearance was probably eye-catching too.
While already unique, the left sleeve of his coat had been completely burned off to the shoulder, and the shirt underneath was not much better, meaning they could see his charred arm. And even the rest of his coat, while not turned to ashes, had also turned darker because of the flames.
Eden had also taken out the Necronomicon and held it in his remaining hand.
Just in case.
When they saw the Guardian, with his half-melted helm, follow behind Eden, they immediately got on guard. Lieutenant Alex held a long spear, pointed at them, while his three subordinates, armed with swords, started surrounding them.
Before the situation could degenerate, Eden reassured, "This is just a servant of mine. I got the item, so it's time to go back."
The four men eased, but Alex had his eyes on the Necronomicon as he said, "This is not what the Lord asked you to bring out."
Eden nodded, "Yes, I have the Skull secured. I'd better not bring it out here, though; just being near it could harm you."
The moment Eden mentioned the skull, the faces of the four men once again tensed. Alex stared at Eden, who looked confused at their reactions, and sighed, "Do you even know what freeing the Skull will do to these seas? To this world?"
Clutching his book, Eden mused, "You almost sound like you don't want me to hand it over to your Lord."
Alex's stance hesitated before he dropped it and said, "You never should have accepted this deal. But now that the Skull has been freed, it is too late. But Morgan must not get his hands on it. We will offer you transport. Follow us, and you will get much better rewards than Morgan would ever give you."
So this was the last hurdle for this mission. Curious, Eden asked, "What about the contract I signed? If I renege on it, I will die."
Alex shook his head, "We can protect you from its effects, too. We are agents from her most esteemed majesty Anne, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and you may still be redeemed for your sins."
Eden seemed to have two options now: either follow them and hope they worked for the Queen, and had the means to negate the effects of the magical contract, or fight them and still bring the Skull to Morgan.
Many ifs and so. And that was if they were telling the truth, which Eden did not believe to be the case. Smiling, Eden opened the Necronomicon with a hand and said, "Before we do this, would you mind reminding me which direction Morgan's mansion is?"
Alex frowned and, without another word, charged at him, closely followed by his men. The lieutenant directly went for Eden, while his three subordinates attacked Guardian.
The first blow meant to kill, as it was aimed at Eden's throat. But although his three physical attributes were shown as question marks to Eden, meaning they were above his by quite a few points, he could tell they were lower than Guardian.
Eden thus remained unperturbed as he calmly circulated his mana through the Necronomicon and finally got to try his strongest spell, Dark Bolt.
The activation was instantaneous because it was not Eden who had to condense the spell, but the book did it for him, as an equipment skill.
A black, irregular decahedron appeared above the book, and Alex was alarmed the moment he saw it. He immediately abandoned his attack and tried to dodge the attack, feeling how dangerous it was. However, the impressive momentum created by his attack worked against him as the spell still hit him on the shoulder.
The armor was ineffective in blocking the magical attack, and the self-proclaimed spy cried out in both pain and fear as he stumbled back.
It was hard to see the effects of the spell because of the armor, but Eden noticed thick black veins were making themselves visible around his neck and his lower arm.
Alex did not fall to the ground, but he was like paralyzed, the black veins having spread to his face. He looked at Eden with both fear and hatred, already expecting his death to arrive.
However, even after his three subordinates were swiftly slashed in half by Guardian's Hellsteel Greatsword and inhuman Strength of 21, he waited next to him, on standby.
The ten seconds passed, and barely had Alex regained his lost attributes that Guardian struck the side of his knees with his foot, completely shattering them.
Screaming in pain, Alex fell to the ground, where Guardian proceeded to mercilessly break all four of his limbs. It was quick, but Alex screamed throughout.
Now that Alex was no longer able to pose any danger, Guardian took a step back, though he remained at a close enough range to attack, and Eden crouched next to Alex.
After a few seconds, Alex's screams turned into low growls, which were eventually also repressed asked in a hoarse voice, "Curse you, Ozymandias!"
Eden remained impassive in the face of his words, expressionlessly saying, "This was your own doing. I never intended to attack you."
Alex gritted his teeth, roaring out, "Just kill me already!"
Eden shook his head, explaining clearly, "Good act. But begging for death only reinforces my guess. You don't work for the Queen, do you?"
Alex was no doubt having trouble thinking because of the pain, but after blinking several times, he said, "I can see you've already made your mind, why would I tell you anything?"
Eden's lips thinned into a smile, "You said you worked for the Queen, to stop Morgan from unleashing a calamity. And that you had a way to block the magical contract. Now, I'm sure you could have fooled someone else, but your story doesn't make sense."
Alex stared at Eden darkly, but he was ignored as Eden slowly explained, "First off, infiltrating the inner circle of a man like Morgan sounds like a very hard thing to do, but let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're a very good spy. But to add in your whole little squad of spies along with you?"
Eden gestured toward the bisected subordinates, adding with a teasing smile, "They'd be lucky to have half your skills."
Alex did not say anything, but hearing his friends and partners being ridiculed, he could not help but feel a strong hatred towards Eden.
But even in the face of such burning hatred, Eden kept the same teasing smile, and even tapped Alex's forehead, chiding, "T'is but a joke."
Alex gritted his teeth, and Eden continued, "Well, ignoring the improbability of your halves buddies managing to infiltrate Morgan's mansion, did you expect me to believe that he would send you four, out of all his guards, to ensure the completion of something so important to him?"
The lieutenant still did not speak, but Eden did not him to, as he continued, "Now, for that to happen, Morgan either has the majority, if not totality, of his guard infiltrated, which is unlikely, or you and your three half-men all somehow managed to convince him of your fake allegiance enough for him to send you here."
The man may have been trained, but he still ended up speaking. Instead of snapping, though, he growled through gritted teeth, "I will skin you, salt you, rip your flesh, and feed you to the fish. I would go for your close ones, but a monster like you could never have anyone close to them, you sad excuse of a human being."
Eden placed a hand over his chest, pouting, "You wound my heart, and here I was trying to make you laugh. But speaking of feeding," Eden turned back to look at the men severed in half, and whispered to Alex with a downright demonic smile, "I wonder how your friends will taste?"
Amidst the pain, incoming death, and overwhelming hatred, Alex's psyche seemed to be reaching its limits as he struggled despite his broken limbs, screaming incoherent threats.
His goal achieved, Eden did not see any point in continuing this charade any longer and took out the Skull.
Eden was not so bored that he would torture a man, an NPC no less, for no reason. The reason he did so was to create an evil spirit. A strong one.
But before Eden could worry himself about the morality of torturing the man, he stopped as he suddenly felt something new from the skull.
The moment he had taken it out, not only did it start emitting a strong necrotic energy, but Eden also felt a connection establish itself between the Skull and something else.
He could not tell what it was, but he could feel that the Skull was drawn to it, and he could even follow it.
The most damming evidence, however, was the new quest that popped up in his vision.
[Side Mission (An Ominous Call): After retrieving the Skull of Mictlantecuhtli at great expense, a mysterious connection established itself between the Skull and the place where it belonged. You were warned of a potential calamity the Skull would unleash in the hands of Henry Morgan. Decide what to do with the Skull.]
This was… interesting.
As he finished reading the description of the side mission, Eden retrieved the Skull back into his inventory, to avoid killing Alex with the necrotic energy it released, and asked the man, "Say, you spoke of a tragedy."
Unfortunately, Alex did not hear what he said, or simply did not care to answer as he continued thrashing on the ground, trying to bite Eden.
Sighing, Eden sent a quick command to Guardian to watch him and retreated to the cave, stopping only a few meters in before bringing the Skull back out. Interestingly, the connection was no longer there.
But as he stepped out of the cave with it, it appeared again, meaning something inside the cave was jamming this connection.
Thinking for a moment, Eden looked at the surrounding forest and exclaimed loudly, "Enough games, Morgan! Come take the Skull!"
Eden waited for several seconds, but nothing moved. No one seemed to be there.
This reinforced Eden's earlier theory that Alex and his men were not sent by the Queen. And this meant many new possibilities.
Without even realizing it, a grin appeared on Eden's face as he thought of the countless possibilities, schemes forming and crumbling as he fiddled with the Skull.
It took him a few seconds to realize and stop himself. Although many possible courses of action had just opened up to him, there were also many unknowns and assumptions. The first of which was the magical contract.
Looking at Alex, who had stopped thrashing around but was still staring at him with intense hatred, Eden knew he would not be getting any answers out of him. That did not mean he was of no more use, though.
The second punishment of the Magical Contract was 'Instant Death', and was thus something Eden would not easily mess with without some degree of safety. However, the first punishment, severe migraine and memory loss, was not as… definitive.
But Eden decided he would wait until dawn to try it out. Although it might be a perk of his Talent, Eden was able to feel his connection with the magical contract at all times, and if he was capable of doing it, he assumed other people might be able to as well.
And since he did not know whether one side breaking the agreement would break the contract for both sides, he decided to do his experiment at dawn, when he would be leaving.
If he had been sure that Morgan had broken his end of the contract, Eden would not have bothered to wait, but he could not be sure.
Although Eden was positive Alex and his men did work solely for Morgan and were loyal to him, their attack did not mean he had broken his contract.
After all, Alex and his men had to have Morgan's complete trust to be sent here, meaning they probably understood better than anyone how he thought. This meant that they did not need to be ordered to attack Eden and fetch the Skull for him.
The clause of the contract had been that they were forbidden from trying to harm each other for the next three days, or planning for them to be harmed, but it said nothing of other people acting out of their initiative.
Of course, there were, again, many conjectures, but Eden still decided to wait until dawn to try it out.
With this in mind, it meant that Eden had until dawn to rest. But he knew he could not rest, as that would be wasting an opportunity.
After all, no matter what happened to the Skull, Eden was about to leave on a ship, where it would be impossible to take it out without affecting other people, which would only end up harming himself.
Besides, Eden had already lost a hand, and while he had Guardian for protection, Eden did not want to be a sitting duck without him, so he might as well sharpen his magic. His machete was damaged, and fighting with a single hand would be inefficient anyway, so training his spells was the way to go. Especially when the Skull was taken into account.
Still, before that, Eden quickly looted the dead men, as well as Alex, but they had nothing extraordinary. They only had Common equipment, the kind that was not worth anything to a Player.
This was because no Player, no matter how weak, would bother buying something they could easily find on any NPC in basically any world. They did not even add attributes either, only offering meager defence.
The only Common equipment that had any worth would be the guns, but even then, those would mostly be bought by newbies.
Still, Eden decided to take them for the same reason he had gotten the rusty and broken weapons from the cave, which he had to throw away as he was running out of place.
Then, Eden started training his spells.