Chapter 105
After the laughter died down, Aaron thought about answering Zavi's question from the beginning, twisting the truth slightly so the thing lingering in the back of his mind would never happen.
Betrayal.
"That woman, huh," Aaron said as though recalling her. "If I remember correctly, I joined an unknown group near the border between Ninesorals Province and GreyHeaven. And the reason she called me a 'traitor' was because I slaughtered their group and ate them all alive."
Aaron completely played into his psychopath act with exaggerated hand movements and a wide grin on his face.
"Alive?" Zavi repeated as he reflexively stared at Aaron in confusion, then slowly moved away after realizing the man's nature as a cannibal.
"Of course," Aaron said without caring in the slightest. "That's my daily meal."
Zavi was stunned when Aaron bluntly said something so revolting.
'Has this guy completely lost his mind?' Zavi thought as he moved farther away again, goosebumps crawling up his neck while his chest tightened.
"That was just a joke," Aaron said with a chuckle, turning the previously tense atmosphere into laughter after seeing the stiff look on Zavi's face.
'Can the cold actually make him go insane?' Zavi frowned inwardly.
But was Aaron's earlier statement actually true? And had he deliberately hidden that fact from Zavi?
To ease Zavi's worsening mood, Aaron quickly stopped laughing and brushed aside the reason he was in Niki, replacing it with the question about the 'mystical object that helped you' and the first-stage Exorscist ability, Retrieval.
He let out a short sigh before calmly saying, "There wasn't any help from artifacts, relics, spells, or anything like that. It was purely the first-stage ability of Exorscist."
"That's all?" Zavi asked again, trying to make sure.
Aaron frowned before replying indifferently, "Yeah."
Aaron himself wasn't very open when it came to information about himself, choosing to hide things unless he had developed a strong sense of trust toward Zavi.
He had been thinking about this for a long time, even since the bell and clock tower incident in Suncrise, when he explained the details regarding the shadow veil that could stretch up to a hundred meters once released. Beyond that, he refused to say anything else for the same reason.
The three of them knew that. They let Aaron hide information about his Ability because they knew Exorcist belonged to the Manifestation type, an overwhelmingly unfair opponent against the Suppression type. Zavi and Felina.
Zavi touched his chin while glancing at Aaron, silently urging him to continue answering his earlier questions.
Aaron sighed as he crossed his legs and answered while carefully twisting the facts and wording things properly so Zavi would not grow suspicious of him.
"Help from wandering spirits and ghosts I defeated back then." He glanced around to make sure before continuing, "You remember when the four of us went to Syrp, right?"
Zavi immediately recalled the incident after the meteor fell.
"That one, huh?" Zavi said while nodding, receiving an answer that sounded both proper and reasonable.
Aaron nodded and immediately continued, "I never actually died. Before that woman's attack completely destroyed my head, I regenerated it quickly with the help of the many supernatural creatures I had captured while protecting that group of people, along with the strange things you three did that treated me like some kind of toy."
Since the idea had originally come from Zavi, he immediately turned his face away when the sound of Aaron grinding his teeth made his body tense up.
'Damn it, he still remembers that! I thought he'd forgotten about it. What am I supposed to do now?'
Panicking, he couldn't find the words to respond while desperately searching for an excuse, realizing Aaron had no idea the idea came from him.
As he focused on calming himself down.
A long exhale sounded afterward, easing Zavi's tension for a brief moment before Aaron's heavy, steady voice resumed the conversation.
"I don't even know whether to call it death, life, or something in between. Let me explain this again, it wasn't because of artifacts, relic spells, or anything like that. It was purely the Exorcist ability."
Zavi turned toward him guiltily as he lowered his head, his face pale like a corpse while avoiding Aaron's gaze.
"Don't think too much about it," Aaron said with a sigh. "I should be the one apologizing for attacking you back then."
With a confused expression and widened pupils, Zavi immediately lifted his gaze when Aaron crawled closer to him before extending his right hand directly in front of his face.
A handshake as a sign of apology.
Zavi's face, previously filled with guilt, brightened immediately as he returned the handshake with a faint smile.
Just as both of them had thought. Their presence here. This meeting in this room. This conversation. All of it was part of a plan for the two of them to use each other, even while still following the rules of their previous cooperation.
"That can't possibly be all, right? You definitely want to keep talking longer," Aaron said while stretching his neck muscles, preparing to chat until sunrise as a faint grin formed on his now relaxed face.
Relief washed over Zavi's heart as he realized Aaron was someone on the same wavelength as him. Open with each other, even if hidden motives still existed. It truly reminded him of his memories back on Earth, when he was still in school and gathered around joking with all of them.
He did not regret ending up in this world at all, choosing to keep moving forward no matter what obstacles waited ahead. No matter how dangerous the road became, he would continue struggling until the very end; the only ending he had ever accepted for himself, at least for now.
After slaughtering the demons hiding in the shadows.
Seeing Aaron stand up to grab the metal cups from the round table before heading toward the kitchen to retrieve the bottled soda he had bought earlier.
Zavi drifted back into his thoughts as the warmth from the heater in front of him gradually relaxed his body.
'I'm still not sure, and I really am just a beginner when it comes to occult matters. But can I really accept that answer so easily?'
Zavi suspected Aaron was hiding the truth because he had witnessed it with his own eyes when Aaron's head was shattered into pieces, only for it to completely regenerate seconds later while even wearing different clothes than before.
It was far too strange. The whole thing made Zavi want to investigate Exorscist on his own without relying on the information Aaron provided.
Yes, he currently had two pawns moving according to his orders while he continued playing his role.
A few seconds later, Aaron returned carrying two glass cups he had just taken and a sealed bottle of lemon soda tucked between his arm and waist.
He handed one of the glasses to Zavi, opened the bottle seal, poured some into his own glass, then allowed Zavi to pour however much he wanted.
The sound of fizzing echoed from the glass in Aaron's hand before fading away as he drank until only half remained.
He wiped his mouth with his sleeve before deciding to listen to whatever Zavi wanted to ask while noticing he was still pouring soda into his glass.
Once again, Zavi only poured the drink without touching it, leaving the still-foaming glass in front of him while placing his left hand atop the round table.
"I'm not really sure," Zavi said hesitantly. "Do you know anything about the great war that happened around five hundred years ago?"
Aaron's expression stiffened as he replied, "I know about it. You're talking about Exorscist, right?"
Seeing Zavi remain silent without reacting to his statement, Aaron hurriedly added as his pupils widened and a chilling sensation instantly crawled through his mind.
"You mean the nine mysterious figures whose existence has become a myth in this era?"
Zavi swallowed hard as every breath felt like burning embers scraping through his throat.
"Yeah." He didn't know how to respond, but his instincts told him to stop talking about those mysterious figures immediately.
"There are three figures I know of who ruled during that era of walking hell, also known as the era of tailed stars!"
"Heaven of Inevitable Descent.
"Monarch of Shaman.
"Lord of Chaos."
He only knew those names because these mythical figures lingered within the memories of different people, including himself, while others possessed no memories whatsoever regarding the nine mysterious entities despite knowing them under entirely different titles, as though their existence itself had been concealed by some supernatural force!
'Even some high-level Receivers tried searching for their existence within dimensional cracks. Of course, their efforts were meaningless because discovering their Existence is nearly impossible, like forcing a human to suddenly live underwater without abilities or any kind of equipment.'
Aaron was left confused by those mysterious figures, especially because the three titles he remembered had never once appeared in history books or even rare texts written directly during that era.
One particular thought currently occupied Aaron's mind.
"Steal it directly from the royal vault," Aaron said without the slightest hesitation, fully aware that powerful people could do whatever they wanted while ignoring laws and societal norms.
Zavi failed to hear Aaron clearly because of the roaring sound of burning wood, making him ask again to satisfy his curiosity.
"Did you just say something?" he asked while sipping lemon soda and staring sharply at Aaron.
"Steal it directly from powerful people like Counts, Dukes, or even the king himself," Aaron answered openly without trying to hide it.
'This guy's insane. What's the benefit of stealing from people like that? Though if it benefited me, maybe I'd be reckless enough to do it too.' Zavi thought while nodding.
Zavi did not realize that the Hammond family was one of the kingdom's important assets as keepers of classified documents, and naturally Albert's parents had become targets for dangerous individuals seeking that information.
Aaron drained the remaining lemon soda in his glass before grabbing the bottle and pouring himself another drink.
"Do you know any of the names among those nine figures?" Aaron asked while sipping his soda and peering at Zavi through the transparent glass.
Zavi wasn't completely sure, but he remembered two names from the original Zavi's memories back when he actively investigated occult matters.
"The Elusive Sorcerer. Rhythm Mystical."
Although Aaron didn't know this, he wasn't sure whether the names of the remaining legendary figures and myths spread across several kingdoms throughout almost the entire world could make someone shiver uncontrollably and fall asleep in extreme terror after witnessing something unexpected.
As though they had been directly observed by the mythical beings themselves.
"Where did you hear those names?" Aaron asked cautiously as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up while his trembling hands could no longer properly raise the glass to his lips.
Seeing Aaron react exactly the same way, Zavi quickly answered before something terrible happened.
"From my neighbors talking about them."
Even though Zavi had already mastered his memories from Earth, the original Zavi's memories were still fragmented, and he only remembered those two names from neighbors who lived around five houses away from his home.
Aaron immediately nodded as the trembling in his hands intensified until the glass slipped from his grip entirely.
The sound of shattering glass made the room fall even quieter than before. The air itself seemed frozen, their heartbeats slowing as something resembling shadows wrapped around them from behind, turning their faces deathly pale before the sensation vanished after several silent seconds.
Both of them immediately tried breathing steadily again despite gasping heavily while clutching their throats, feeling as though that sensation still lingered on their bodies.
Zavi and Aaron suddenly collapsed backward as dizziness struck their heads and violent nausea churned inside their stomachs before rising into their throats. Both of them immediately ran in opposite directions. Zavi toward the sink on the left side of the room where they had been talking, and Aaron toward the bathroom on the right.
Moments later, both of them vomited blood mixed with a thick black substance before the vomited blood transformed into writhing maggots, making both of them recoil instantly.
And from this incident, Zavi finally realized why the mysterious deaths that authorities could never solve truly existed beyond the logic of human reasoning.
'Just talking about them can make me end up like this?'
Then Zavi vomited blood once more, this time in large amounts, turning his face pale like a living corpse. The same thing happened to Aaron as strange sensations churned violently inside his body, though they did not worsen further to the point of bringing death upon him.