He understandably nodded, before I sat down next to him, my hair still soaking from the bath. I helped him chop up some of the vegetables while we sat in silence, our teamwork when preparing this meal was almost flawless.
"Where's Bella?" I finally asked, breaking the silence as soon as we finished up. The stew was ready and the fragrant smell had already permeated throughout the entire camp and forest. Some of the smaller critters had even come to us, but I shooed them away before Aisa could catch them and cook them for an extra snack.
"She's hunting with Luna. I assume they won't be back for a while so just chill out and eat something," Orion muttered, handing me a bowl of soup. I was a bit taken aback by his sudden act of kindness since he had never done something like this before, but in the end, I took it, not wanting to waste this chance to see him so differently.
"Thanks."
For what seemed to be an eternity, we all sat in silence, just eating our food. There was no real conversation between all of us as the exhaustion had crept up. We were all tired of these dull surroundings… trees burnt to the ground, charred grass, and seemingly radioactive fish, just like me.
…
"Don't dig into my memories like that," I muttered, brushing off the pale white hand dug into my pitch-black hair. Beelzebub's smile was gruesomely suspicious to the point where there were so many paths of evil and harassment that he could take that I had no idea which one could be the most likely. Also… "What do you really want?"
"What are you talking about? I just came here to train you," He smiled, sitting down on the tiny island beneath me. "But it seems you aren't making any progress. Need some guidance?"
He was chuckling to himself out of my own humiliation. He was making fun of me just by seeing the entire island that had only been chipped away by a few centimeters. So, I was nowhere near my goal of this island that had a diameter of two meters.
"I'm not asking about this current training. I'm asking why you decided to make me and my friends your little toys… What do you really want from all of us? Not just you, but the other demon lords as well."
"It seems that purple-haired boy did numbers on you. You were never so inquisitive the last time we met…" His expression darkened, sending a shiver down my spine. "I don't like it."
"So is that a no?"
"Tch… you can find the answers here… I knew you would be curious anyway since that Orion kid is annoying as always… *sigh*... yeah, you'll find the answers here," The demon lord rolled his eyes, losing interest in this conversation immediately.
"Can't you just-" He disappeared instantly, way before I could even finish my sentence. "Dark bastard… this is why you have no friends…"
…
An entire year passed and I was still stuck. I knew there was something deep within my chest cavity but I couldn't find it. It was obvious it was the control center of my mana and whenever I used a skill it would practically throb like a beating heart, pumping enough mana for my skill to actually be used.
Also, I had figured out there was a surface. By spreading my senses thin and directing it upwards like a string, I was able to sense that there was a surface to this ocean of darkness I was in. My goal for the time being was to reach that surface as the answers Beezlebub had hinted towards were most likely going to be there.
『Status』
[Name: Cy Benoit]
[Race: Demon] I think you should take a look at
[Class: Knight of Darkness]
[Level: 50/50] (200/200) XP Needed
[HP: 100/100 MP: 50/50 SP: 80/80] - Above Human
[Strength: 155] - Above Human
[Defense: 155] - Above Human
[Magic: 155] - Above Human
[Speed: 155] - Above Human
[Skills: [Spear Coating] [Spear Enhancment] [Magic Sensing Radar] [Miasma Sensing Radar] [Haste] [Empower] [Eagle Eye] [Presence of The True Night] [Complete Shadow Magic]
[Wave of Darkness] [Portal of Darkness (Partial)]
[Knight of Darkness Skills: [Armor of The Abyss] [Spear of The Abyss] [Determination of A Battle-Hardened Knight] [Undying Will for The Lord]
[Passive Skills: [Poor Man's Greed] [Broke Man's Hunger] [Lost Man's Heart] [Lion Heart] [Constitution of a Tarturling] [Prisoner of Tartarus] [Iron Speech] [Demon's Gluttonous Stomach] [Potion Organs]
[Rune Path: [Darkness of The Night Spear Cover] [Throne World: Funeral of The Living] [Locked] [Locked] [Locked] [Locked]
[Equipment: [Magic Ring] [Storage Ring] [Blessed Dark Spear]
…
With the power of the dark energy, I was able to raise my stats by a few points while also upgrading a few of my skills. For example, [Complete Shadow Control] had become [Complete Shadow Magic]. In addition, [Presence of Darkness] had become [Presence of the True Night].
"I'm becoming more and more of an emo lord…" I scoffed, drifting my eyes upwards.
There was one thing that terrified me about this place and that was the surface. Sure, I was excited about knowing that there was actually something above me, but once my senses had scraped the sea foam and rushing water, the atmosphere completely crumbled and dismantled my senses in an instant.
It was terrifyingly powerful and that was the only thing holding me back from teleporting me up there with the [Portal of Darkness]. I was sure that if I went up there, my entire body would crumble… yet this curiosity of mine had been fermenting over the course of a year and just like alcohol, without popping the top once and getting a whiff of that bitter goodness… it was bound to explode eventually.
"[Portal of Darkness]," I muttered, activating the only skill that had a strange portion to it. It was incomplete or as the system calls it, "partial" which I thought was a bad way to describe it since it was more incomplete. Instead of creating a portal with two sides, I had to create two portals, meaning I had to be aware of the location I was going to teleport. And with this knowledge, I stepped through the whirling gate of darkness and reappeared on the other side.
