Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The ever bright lands of Fortune shone on Skullius who was in his Penetrator form, his four sockets gazing down upon Yuyui who didn\'t shy away from his luminous flames.

The Limitless Body Null Demon Hound, Ferex, rested its large body behind Skullius as it watched the two.

They all sat on the free patch of land that could be found away from the forest, sea and mountain range, a silence having persisted around them for a while.

That was until Skullius spoke.

"You probably should have taken the test seriously then," Skullius said as he rested his bone arm over his knee. "You would have been stronger by now."

Yuyui puckered her lips as she sat with her legs crossed.

It had been quite a shocker for Skullius when upon reaching the destination for his first mission, he was greeted with a different Yuyui.

The scrawny Yuyui had gained some mass, her figure looking more feminine and healthy.

If not for the facial features, as well as the hair that remained the same, Skullius would have thought that an intruder had invaded.

Yuyui had narrated the changes she had gone through to Skullius, to which he had noticed, among other things that Yuyui\'s mana had spiked up.

A quick look with his guidance had him realise that her physical stats had increased three fold, and the second eye which she had awakened earlier, the one that came close to dispelling his [High Cosmetic Body], was called the Eye of Dispersal.

At this moment, it was dormant, the vertical slit on Yuyui\'s forehead where it spawned from closed up, leaving a thin line.

"I wasn\'t... really thinking about that Master. I didn\'t even know there was a test," Yuyui said with a hollow expression. "I\'m just not a fighter..."

The lime haired girl wanted someone to tell what she had just remembered but as she saw the Penetrator, she felt a great distance, keeping to herself.

She wasn\'t some orphan taken in by a new father, after all.

"Is that right?" Skullius said, his socket flames burning viciously.

Not a fighter, huh?

"What do you think being a fighter is?"

Yuyui didn\'t know the purpose of this question but she gave her own interpretation of the word.

"Doesn\'t it mean having the courage to fight against your enemies?" she answered.

"Hmmm," Skullius hummed.

How shallow, was Skullius\' thought of such a definition.

An enemy.

That was a very broad term.

He had recently realised that there was more to the word enemy than meets the eye. It wasn\'t simply a tangible person hindering your path. It wasn\'t simply an antagonist, but an antagonistic force.

Skullius unknowingly overcoming his fear of death and his overthinking of what his atrocious luck might do, what any wrong move he did could lead him to and so on, had lead him to learn that he had never been weak at all.

He had the capacity to exceed his limits.

It was the same with Yuyui.

Repression.

She had a powerful Hidden Class, something objectively known as something that could make someone stand at the top of Aigas, but she hadn\'t used it.

She wasn\'t using it.

\'Perhaps she just hasn\'t been in as many life threatening situations as I have,\' Skullius said. \'For her though, death isn\'t really the threat. It\'s a pastime. That\'s where we differ maybe.\'

The Penetrator shifted the point of the conversation at this juncture.

"Can you use this... Eye of Dispersal as much as you want?"

Yuyui shook her head.

"After that time, it just closed up. It hasn\'t opened since," she said while wearing her disappointment on sleeve.

Her father\'s words echoed in her mind again.

These were dangerous times indeed.

Skullius was also disappointed as he thought this eye was very useful.

Its description on the guidance field, as with the one for the Inhumane Eye, was \'?\', but he knew part of its effects.

"Hmm. Well, I\'ll take that chance. We\'re already at our destination," Skullius said as he stood. Even if Yuyui didn\'t know how to use her new eye, he would take her along.

"Let us out."

As Skullius said those words, he, Yuyui and Ferex appeared in the snowy lands of this region, a vicious cold whipping Yuyui who shivered.

Upon discovering that the Elimparidis Stone Staff reacted according to his will back when he was forging his mana core, Skullius had discovered additional benefits which he earned because of this right.

For instance, instead of having to walk to his destination, he could simply teleport there as he wished without using any of the charges in the Staff.

This was something he only discovered on the day he reached Genhuis City though.

The three saw a unique geographical feature with a small town built over it.

The Creeping Chill.

It was akin to a large mountain that was cut in half, the litter of houses that made up a town running roughly from a mile away from the peak going downwards.

The flat surface of this halved mountain was the place that many came to see, an extensive stretch of ice so hard and pure that it looked like diamond.

It was said that only someone with strength at the peak of the Master Stage could shatter a piece of this the size of a fist but most believed it was a cringey tale crafted by some random non-combatant.

At the base of the mountain, a thick white fog rose softly from what many would call a cold geyser, or rather a collection of them, carrying a crackling sound as it beat against the flat mountain surface.

Thick spikes emerged on the surface of the mountain here at the base, the fog continously licking it.

The generation of these spikes was so fast that by the time Yuyui commented on the beauty of this structure, four large human sized spikes had been formed.

"Woow..." Yuyui said as she looked at this marvel. "It\'s beautiful."

"Look beyond that," Skullius said as his sockets flared, to which Yuyui tried looking past the fog of cold.

"Oh..."

A vast crack could be seen behind the billowing fog, its large, dark blue coloured stretch which spanned for almost three hundred meters over the spiky base of split mountain up, placed diagonally.

A dense energy signature was masked by the horrendous cold that licked Skullius even from this distance, but that didn\'t detract from how unusual this Cluster was.

"We\'re going to be entering that?" Yuyui asked with hints of fear smothering her face.

"Of course," Skullius said with barely hidden enthusiasm.

The town was completely deserted, the civilians having been evacuated on account of the imminent danger, something Skullius had confirmed with Ferex\'s help.

This had lead him to wonder what the reason and judgement for leaving such threats untended to was?

The Cluster was just left here and he even had a mission that required him to dispatch Cluster beasts that had escaped a Cluster and nested in a woodland.

How was all this decided?

Wasn\'t it dangerous to leave things in this state?

Oh well.

This wasn\'t the time to think about this.

"Come on, we\'re going in!" Skullius said as he pulled Yuyui to himself and wielded the Elimparidis Stone Staff.

Ferex miniaturised leapt up to sit on his bald head.

"What are we—"

Before Yuyui could express her concerns about how they were going to enter the Cluster, she and Skullius vanished from the spot!

The three appeared in mid-air, about 500 meters near the split mountain with all its glory, the cold from the fog that kept rising past this height instantly beginning to act on them as they started to freeze!

"Master...!" Yuyui called as she saw Skullius\' bony image turn white with heavy frost!

She too experienced the same fate as she froze over in a few seconds!

Skullius\' sockets burned bright as he gazed at the massive tear on the mountain that was the Cluster, much larger now that he was closer, its staggering presence bearing on him in full force.

"There\'s definitely something atrocious in there! Let\'s go meet it!" Skullius said as he forced his right arm in the opposite direction and used [Mana Force], a large chunk of his mana being expelled from his body in a white streak that caused the fog to part, his figure being propelled towards the Cluster rapidly!

The three individuals, all frozen, sank into the diagonal streak on the mountain wall!

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