Bro, I'm not an Undead!

‘Alright… calm down and think…’ Skullius thought to himself after delivering a few lines to the people before him that lead them to narrow their eyes and think deeply on what he had said.

Cursed?

This was a new one.

What manner of story would this man weave now?

With a bit more thought, Skullius discovered a few things about Damilla’s Divination. They were practically obvious.

What had shaken her was undoubtedly his Penetrator form which she had seen seemingly out of context within her mind. She wasn’t able to tie it to Skullius.

She also didn’t mention it being a skeleton, which meant even that was vague to her.

Perhaps she couldn’t see it all, otherwise she probably would have said everything he did in detail.

Furthermore, her account seemed to be centralised around a single event, naturally, but extending to the events of the next day when Skullius had been reading the stolen books in his Penetrator form.

There were many things to consider, but the main thing of note which he was quite sure of, was that Damilla didn’t know everything.

With that, a quick weave of lies was woven and spat. He had limited time but every ounce of his intelligence, he conjured everything he could think of._.

“The curse that is upon me… summons the tall creature you saw in your… whatever that was… It appears anytime of day and then demands something from me. On that particular day when I burnt the library, it appeared suddenly, causing a panic and then demanded that I burn down the place or else, it would kill everyone I had associated with until now.”

Deep suspicion and complete disbelief smothered the room.

Skullius’ words were not believed in the slightest and he began to sweat profusely.

Of course, he hadn’t expected to be believed so casually but such a reception made him nervous.

Damilla showed her disdain as clearly, she had already labelled Skullius as a member of a particularly infamous group according to the image she had seen.

“Hmph! So you expect us to believe that all this was because of some mysterious curse? Don’t make me laugh! Even if it’s true, you’d have to be charged for endangering the welfare of millions by being so careless!” Damilla said accusingly.

Terian had not yet formed an opinion but he was inclined to believe that Skullius was lying, as was Erkus.

Silrat on the other hand was amused by the tale.

Skullius wore a troubled expression as he weaved in some more stories to distort the subject. This was the best way to tell a lie.

He played his trump card, a mystery that he had had after roaming the streets of Inhone these few days. A truth for him and an unknown for others.

“I did try to get myself help but…” he paused and faked a sigh. “I was in Eofel a few days ago. The Green Neolists attacked when one of those shiny knights, a Paladin something they are called, was escorting a priest. The whole city was in chaos but I helped with the situation along with the female Paladin whatever. Her name was Elita. I think that was when I got the curse and it even affected her after we finished fighting the enemy.”

“…”

Erkus turned more serious with this. This was not what he expected the young man to say.

Was this true?

“It’s unwise to tell lies of such a scale, Festos, especially when they concern the Purity. You have even brought the identity of a Paladin Champion into your story,” Terian said with a serious gaze.

“You are free to have… this kind woman do that thing again to check it out. She’ll see that I am telling the truth,” Skullius said with a resolute expression that still shook slightly at Terian’s gaze.

That was it!

Even after living in this city for a few days, Skullius had not heard a single thing about the incident in Eofel, which had boggled his mind.

The only conjecture he had come to was that people here simply didn’t know and he had placed the thought to the back of his mind, not knowing that he would be using this detail to try and save his life.

Erkus was mulling this over.

If such a serious event truly happened in Eofel, it wasn’t outlandish for there to be no news that had reached Inhone or any of the nearer cities as Eofel was pretty much cut off from the usual networks because of the City lord’s pride.

There wasn’t even a Guilds Association branch there, which limited communication lines further.

Perhaps, this was actually true.

“If you can, please look into this,” Erkus said as he turned to Damilla who had also wore an unsure expression after seeing Skullius’ resolve.

Unbeknownst to them all, the Discount Human was betting on the fact that Damilla’s ‘sight’ was somewhat obscure to the full detail. Even if she saw more clearly, what he had said was the truth.

The woman walked up to Skullius and gazed into his shaking eyes.

‘A few days ago is it?’ she thought as she laid her thumb on Skullius’ forehead. She didn’t ask Skullius for a specific time frame as she sought to look into other bits of him.

Her eyes turned white as she tried to anchor her powers towards a few days prior.

The first thing she saw when she slid through the bounds of time in Skullius, was a tall gremlin with freakishly long arms, then an obscure figure lying down seemingly broken into pieces.

‘Is this a Cluster?’ Damilla asked herself as she turned back the clock, seeing Skullius being carried by an armoured Knight, then a bunch of scrambles as the Discount Human seemed to be practising something in the night and then…

“Hmmm?” Damilla murmured to herself.

“What is it?” Terian asked.

“I see… I see, a woman. That armour she’s wearing… it really does belong to the Paladin Champions…”

Erkus narrowed his eyes as he turned to Skullius who was frowning in discomfort from the tingles he felt from his soul.

With a foggy vignette that bound the borders of her vision, Damilla also saw a large figure with a dark armour battling the Paladin Champion and the same silver armoured Knight that had carried Skullius in choppy frames which made her frown with bits of sweat trickling down her brow.

‘Dear Quintess! What is that monstrosity?!’

At the edge, she saw Skullius unfurl a beautiful scroll from where a deep red light shot and brought down the creature with a long arm from which other smaller ones protruded!

‘He wasn’t lying?’ Damilla thought.

She hesitated as she kept trying to pry more information, pacing up the time to see if she could see what happened after the fight.

She saw the Paladin Champion start screaming and roiling on the ground pitifully, the vision she saw cutting on and off.

Skullius’ face kept scrunched up as it seemed like this Divining was jabbing a little too deep at his soul.

Why was it even able to affect his soul?

Was that how it could derive other aspects of what the user sought to find?

Still, the Discount Human persisted on.

‘Hasn’t she seen all she needs to see? Even if she sees my Penetrator form, there is not much she can say now. Unless… if she goes back a few more steps and…’ Skullius gulped as he cut off this line of thought.

Damilla suddenly drew back her thumb from Skullius and faced him, her eyes returning to normal.

“What he said is true. About Eofel at least. There truly was a creature that he, a certain Knight and the Paladin Champion battled. Also, at the end, it really did seem like something happened to the Paladin,” she said.

‘Yes!’ Skullius internally celebrated.

He might as well celebrate all the small victories right?

Erkus looked concerned. This was a big deal.

“There was also something else that I didn’t understand…” Damilla as she directed her gaze to Skullius before asking with a bit of hostility in her voice. “As I was about to dig deeper, a naked young girl appeared in my vision. She seemed to be pale and cold, screaming at someone that… felt like you. How does this girl relate to you?”

Skullius’ eyes once again widened as his mouth gaped open!

‘WHAT?! NO! NO! WAIT! THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE!’ SOMEONE WHO FELT LIKE ME?’

This girl was appearing again?!

The expression on his face only served to make Damilla more suspicious as she drew in closer to him.

“Your face says much, Festos. Fine. I’ll just look into it myself,” Damilla declared as she hurriedly clutched his forehead and dove again.

This time, she put her back into it, as in her thoughts, she thought Skullius to not be the innocent individual he tried to portray himself as.

If he had been defiling children too…

Damilla’s body blew with a ferocious might as Skullius then felt what had merely been jabs at his soul turn into murderous stabs that tormented him with excruciating pain!

“AHHHH!” Skullius yelled in pain.

Damilla kept a focused expression as her eyes turned white, ignoring his cries.

Then…

[An external force assaults your soul. Doom Factor 2 takes advantage. 12%]

…!