Hell Difficulty Tutorial Chapter 886 - It is complicated

Any further questions are met with clear annoyance from the Great Elder.

I try to ask a few times. Once by trying to fish him into continuing, the second by asking another question, and the last time by asking something easy, with no true value, in hopes of getting him into a mood to talk again.

None of this works, and as I look at him, I feel the tips of my fingers start to tingle with the urge to lift my finger gun at him.

My back, chest, and lungs are tingling as well, but I guess they’re just still healing after my use of my Ignition Heart. All this healing is getting messier and messier. My blood, trait, the lacking rarity of my healing passive, and the damage being caused by the Champion-grade heart that seems to be acquiring a hint of anti healing properties.

Well, either all that, or my body’s just starting to get lazy.

I’ll test that later.

Until then, I think of what Lissandra would do if I actually pointed a finger at the Great Elder. Would the Orbital LissBeam come down to strike the beast? Something inside me tells me it would. She wouldn’t give a fuck at all.

This excites me as much as it raises beads of sweat on my forehead. If I did that, the fight would start, and I bet Sandra would win, but there’s a fairly high chance the Great Elder is one of the wolves keeping their patriarch in slumber, and that would cause the planet devouring beast to awaken.

How simple it would be to set this off and add to the list of evil achievements of the Ruler of Diligence. I mean, he reportedly used to pick fights with a young dragon, and lately, he’s been provoking a dragon that’s moved into the Domus neighborhood.

It’s not really that out of character for Diligence to start picking fights with the Ancient Wolf too. Likely in hopes that the wolf would devour Xyphos or something. That would greatly reduce the amount of talnium available in our universe. Such a thing would cascade to the prices of Spatial Caches going even higher. And who’s the main supplier of Spatial Caches?

Yes. Exactly.

I can’t believe the Ruler of Diligence would do that.

The giant wolf growls, and I shake my head. Then I notice Biscuit is looking at me as well, with a question in his gaze. I smile at him and press my face against his. Just how much I’ve missed this silly little creature, and knowing we’ll be separated again soon, I savor every moment.

“I know you might not care much, and to you it’s up to fate whether Biscuit lives and regains his primordial energy, but I’m still thankful,” I say to the Great Elder, keeping my eyes on Biscuit all the while. “And I know you think of me as a system slave and all that, so you might not believe me, but I will make sure to repay that debt.”

“And Biscuit apparently feels the same.”

“As if you ever could do something to help someone as powerful as the Great Elder!” Biscuit’s disciple snaps in a haughty tone, “Stinky human, just let go of my master and leave already. Your stink is filling this place too much, to the point I will have to go and wash in the river to get rid of it otherwise, someone will think it is me who stinks, and that is not a-”

His words trail off as he stops talking as the Great Elder leans in closer. I can feel his breath like the winds of a powerful storm, and suddenly a single golden eye fills the whole of my vision.

And he just looks at me without saying anything. That huge eye blinks once as he, without any further speech, withdraws, resting his head back on his paws. All three eyes then close in unison as he drifts back to sleep.

Deciding not to bother him any further, I boost myself through the air and move us to the edge of the highest step, where I sit with my legs dangling over the edge. The Great Elder is sleeping behind me while I’m left with an open view of the enormous statues, fang like mountains protruding from the ground, the gigantic tree in the background, and the environment around them, teeming with monsters.

I tap the place next to me a few times and then lift Biscuit up to look at him. Wolfy grumbles but shrinks in size and moves in closer to keep an eye on Biscuit, who I’m currently swinging from side to side.

“You know, I wouldn’t mind even if you never got your primordial energy back.”

“I guess,” I smile. “But I wanted you to know that. Okay?”

He mimics.

“Stupid,” I say this time.

He says, his tongue lolling out.

“Stupid me, stupid you. Stinky disciple,” I add seriously.

His tail begins to wag happily, and Wolfy, seeing it, doesn’t even try to fight back and, with a quick exhale, settles down to rest there.

I also reach out to him and gently pet his head. “And thank you too. Truly.”

“Stupid stinky human,” he mutters.

“Stupid stinky human,” I confirm.

When I let go of Biscuit, he levitates in the air in front of me with the backdrop of this gorgeous but dangerous world. Just like me, he has plenty of things he needs to do, and being separated from him again hurts a bit, but that’s only normal.

Maybe this is a true experience, having a friend that you see every day, and then you both finish school, only for them to move to another city. Or maybe it’s a silly comparison. I don’t know; it is not like I have much experience with it.

It’s also possible that I’m just overreacting. After all, it’s only going to be a few months, maybe even years, but I am greedy enough that I want to keep that bond between us, to have him by my side.

Biscuit floats closer and lands on my lap. For a while, we just sit there that way, and both of us take in the view from the pyramid while he nibbles on my fingers with his tiny, sharp teeth.

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Then I disappear without any warning. As if pulled by a rope tied to my waist, I am shot back to the orbit of the planet, now far below me.

That one winged, gray wyvern with its purple tinged scales floats there, and Lissandra is nowhere to be seen. So no goodbyes, I guess.

There still seems to be a charged or open path we used to get here. My mind begins to think about how we actually got here with no mana in this solar system. Maybe it’s some sort of ancient road that never required it. Did the wyverns open it together, meaning that my time here was limited by the one winged wyverns ability to keep it open?

And many other questions I use to keep myself busy.

I try to observe the process of our return, but there is barely anything I can see until I am in the orbit of Xyphos and the wyvern disappears quickly. Also no goodbyes.

Slightly annoyed, slightly amused, I float there like debris left to decay and watch the planet below me. I do it until a micro-asteroid pierces through my leg, burrowing a nice hole through it, so I raise the shield around me.

In the distance, I see some enormous ships floating in orbit, though some of them seem to be leaving already. It makes me wonder what could be happening here. The Aurate Consortium, The Slayer, The Magi, some other Corporations, and whatever Rulers gathered here. It must have been a really fun situation, and it probably ended with some strongarming to smooth it all over. Just enough to avoid making anyone too happy or unhappy.

With the wyvern’s domain and Liss gone, I can only guess Xyphos will be returned to where it was, and I am not sure if the 11th floor will be restarted, continued, or straight up cancelled.

If it were me, I’d choose the last option.

I wait for a while longer before someone else decides to yank me out of orbit, and I find myself crashing into the marble like floor of Ruby’s usual space.

Calmly, I stand up and dust off my clothes before turning to meet her gaze as she lazily sits in the armchair next to a table with plenty of bottles on it. Some of them are even empty. Given that the entire situation only lasted a few hours, that means she must have either hurried or avoided helping the other rulers deal with the consequences altogether.

I move my eyes from the bottles back to her and freeze, noticing her smiling at me as she takes another sip from her glass.

“Nathaniel, tell me, what do we have all these powers for? Why have I spent all these millennia training? Why did I go through so much just to get where I am? I fought so hard to escape that time-dilated hellhole Timeless Void trapped me in, and for what? Why?” She pauses and raises her voice, then, “Why can I destroy entire planets if I wish to do so, yet I feel like this?”

“Like a human?” I ask curiously as I slowly walk towards her.

“Like a fucking human.” She smashes the glass against the floor, and its shards spread themselves wide.

Then she waves her hand in a show of telekinesis, and all the shards move up, even specks as small as sand, and snap back into their previous place. When she pours in a drink, not a single droplet passes through, though there are clear cracks and chunks of shattered glass clearly visible.

“How rude,” I say. “I kind of like being human. Well, minus the way we’re born with nothing, unlike some other cheating races.”

I stop at her side, sit on the armrest of her chair, and look at her.

“Is it part of my subclass, my Greed? Is it an error in the system’s functions? Did the system truly fail to mimic what the gods are to such a degree? Or were the gods always like this, so tied to their nature that they couldn’t bring themselves to change?”

“Or maybe it’s because, as you said, you’re only human,” I say, and then take the bottle from her hand. I take a sip straight from it and stop, surprised to find that it doesn’t affect me at all. “That does not seem too strong,” I note.

Ruby takes it back from my hand and pours herself again. “Just how lame it would be if I couldn’t control my stats however I wish.”

“Reduced constitution?”

"It’s a complicated process, you asshole. And wipe that look off your face," she snorts, her expression hardening. "Yes, for now, I’m no different than a pre-system human." Ruby pauses, as if realising something, and her smile turns sad and fragile as she looks up at me. "The method I used… all my power is anchored elsewhere, it’ll return in a few hours. If you had the spine for it, you could kill a Ruler right here and now."

She does not take another sip, and an almost painful silence spreads through this place as we face each other.

Ruby reaches out, caresses the back of my hand, and looks at it for a while.

Then she grabs it gently and puts it on her throat as she leans closer and looks at me with those big eyes. “Just imagine the achievement. What kind of ridiculous Primary Class would be offered for killing a Ruler like me? It would be like nothing anyone had seen before. The levels alone would take you close to level 600. Just how easily could you deal with Adrian then? Were you not angry at me because of what I did? Look,” she puts her hand over mine that is on her throat and squeezes, “Just a little bit, it would be so easy.”

“But I don’t want to,” I say simply.

“Why?” she asks almost desperately. “I would rather die by your hand than by-” her words choke off. “I don’t..." she shakes her head, "Why, why don’t you want to do it?”

I gently slip my hand from beneath hers, reaching instead to take the glass. But the moment my fingers touch the rim, it breaks. The glass shatters back into the jagged shards that formed it, and the drink spills out.

Reflexively, I halt the kinetic movement of the mass and cause it to hang suspended in the air. For a second, I stare at it, surprised at how easily I made the move. My body didn’t even think of moving away from the liquid or trying to catch it in my hands. I went straight for the skill.

Ruby ignores it all and stares at me. “Why?” she asks again in that weak tone of voice I just can’t get used to hearing from her.

“What do you mean why? Because I don’t want to. You helped Vega, and you’ve helped me many times over.”

“But I let Adrian invade your planet and threaten all your people. I even still have hope that he’ll surprise me and become powerful enough to fight that man.”

“I am a bit angry because of that, but it’s complicated.” I shrug.

“So why-”

“I don’t know!” I shout at her. “That’s why! Look, I can solve this, I have a plan. And if I fail, I’ll probably be dead, and there’ll be no one left to hate you. What you did was a dick move, but damn, I’ve made my own share of mistakes. With Tess back on Earth, the twins on the 1st floor, Hadwin on the 2nd, and more. I made my own shitty choices. And hell, maybe I do not want to do it only because I had a nice day, so I do not feel like murdering someone.”

“You will not get this chance again.”

“I don’t need it.”

“You will regret it.”

And at that, I bite back my response. I find her eyes and make sure she’s looking at me.

It’s been getting easier for me to smile as of late, and another climbs its way onto my lips as I look at her. “I might bitch, I might complain, but I will not regret it. It is my and only my decision, and I will bear its consequences.”

Hearing that, she looks away from me and stumbles to reach for another bottle, but I lean over her and fling it from her hand, causing it to shatter and spill on the ground.

Ruby freezes and looks back at me, blinking.

She then reaches for another one, and I do the same. Even as she mutters about their value, I entirely ignore it. There’s just no way for these drinks to cost that much.

Once all of them are gone, shattered, Ruby just sits there looking at her hands, and I mutter, “You can’t send me away because you got rid of your powers for the next few hours.”

Without looking up at me, she hesitates, but then she awkwardly nods as her red hair covers her face.