[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 169 - Uncomfortable Questions

Based on what his nerves were telling him, Freddy was floating in some sort of gelatinous substance. The flow of time had flipped, and now, the healing felt like it was coming at half the speed, but it was still coming in large amounts.

Yet, his body wasn’t healing for some reason. His nerves had mostly healed, but for the rest of his body, it was almost like his healing was being sucked into a bottomless void.

Panic overwhelmed him. For a few long moments, he seemed to just be floating there, his fate uncertain. Then, he started to move.

From what he could decipher between the chaotic input of his scattered nerve endings and from his spirit sense, Sophia had likely picked his brain up and was now pulling it out of the jelly-like substance.

And then, his nerves started getting tangled up.

Unspeakable pain overwhelmed him. It was the worst thing he’d ever felt in his entire life. All of his nerves were grinding against each other, some getting stuck and tearing out. He couldn’t form a single coherent thought from the sheer amount of agony he was being put through.

For a while, he existed in this state of nothing but the worst pain that man could experience, and then, the healing finally untangled his nerves and started putting his body back together. Sophia likely made and burned more sparks to speed the process up, judging by the foreign energy he felt rushing into him.

After a while, his eyes finally healed enough for him to at least see something. Everything was still blurry, and his hearing was nothing but muffled echoes that sounded like someone was aggressively smashing cans of beer together. He felt a numb sensation against his left cheek, as if something was repeatedly smacking against it.

“I’m… fine…” he eked out, guessing that Sophia was probably panicking pretty hard and slapping him to get him to wake up.

The slapping stopped, and he swore he could feel the woman finally stop losing her shit. After a while longer, his body was finally healed enough for him to use it. He could see and hear well enough, and he had regained control over his body, even if it was still far from perfectly healed. “Well…” he muttered. “That didn’t go as planned.”

“What the hell happened!?” Sophia screamed at his face. “One moment I was touching you and the next you just… melted!” She made a disgusted face as she swung her hand around as if trying to shake off an imaginary goo. “Ugh, god, that feeling is going to haunt me for the rest of my life!”

“Help me to my feet,” he said.

Sophia obliged and pulled him up. He walked over to the Freddy-shaped mold of crimson metal and looked inside. It was full of brown, stinky sludge. He suddenly deflated as he shook his head in disappointment. “It’s a failure,” he said.

“What is?” she asked.

“Hundred Thousand Wet Hells. This ability is impossible to use.”

“Oh…” she said, looking back at the sludge. “Yeah. You weren’t healing at all. Do you know why this happened?”

“Because the ability obliterated me,” he said with a self-deprecating scoff. “It turned my body into a soup of chemicals, removing all signs of it ever having been my body in the first place. While supreme-quality healing can heal all ailments, this goes beyond injury. It tore me apart so thoroughly that the healing had to put a whole new body back together. But with the sludge in the way, it couldn’t do that.”

Sophia sighed as she realized what he was aiming at. “And if the healing can’t recover your body, the effects of the tempering don’t come into play.”

“Bingo,” he said, laughing in self-derision. “You know, when the literal concept of insanity told me this was a bat-shit crazy idea, maybe that should have been a sign that I’m taking it too far.”

“Didn’t you say that Insanity didn’t give you any stupid choices?”

“I did say that.” He groaned. “But the thing is, nothing is impossible. There has to exist some sort of way to get around this. But it sure as shit won’t be simple. If there’s a solution to it, it’s beyond what I can do right now. Or maybe ever.”

“So what are you gonna do?”

He pondered that for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m tempted to start over and find another path. But I don’t really have the time to do that right now.”

“Yeah, I think you’ve got your work cut out for you for the next while.” She patted him on the back. “You’re completely naked, by the way, so maybe you should put some clothes on.”

Thankfully, he had stored his clothes away into the storage ring before getting started. Not-so-thankfully, he hadn’t taken his cursed items and storage ring off, so he had to fish them out of the soup. His finger brushed against something exceptionally dense. “Hmm?” he hummed. Then, he realized what he was touching. “Uh-oh…” he said.

“What?” Sophia asked in panic, taking half a step back.

Before he could answer the question, the blood that had been compressed inside the space in his heart finally decompressed, rapidly expanding and launching a small sea of metallic blood all over them, mixed with the brown goo, of course.

The two of them stood there, covered from head to toe.

“Freddy,” she called his name, but it came out as half a sob. “I really hate you right now.”

They left the interspace in a thoroughly foul mood.

Were it not for the doom slowly creeping over the horizon, they’d likely be done with the whole damn day right then and there. But, thanklessly, they were in no position to waste any time.

Sophia sighed. “I’m gonna go get started on some basic abilities. If I want to participate in fighting these things off, I’ll have to have some abilities ready to go.”

“Are you gonna take the death affinity?” he asked.

“Yup,” she said. “Thankfully, miasma is easy to use offensively.”

The green miasma was to the death affinity what life force was to the life affinity. As things rotted and decayed, the life force didn’t just vanish into nothing like essence, but rather, it transformed into miasma. This was the primary substance that the death affinity targeted.

It was, as Sophia had said, easy to use offensively. Kind of like fire. Even in its most basic form, getting hit by it still hurt, while other affinities required a lot more work to directly do damage.

“Okay then,” he said. Then, he paused for a moment. “Are you gonna try to… you know…?”

“If I have time,” she said. “It will take some work to ensure that I don’t manifest some sort of horrible monstrosity. Even with the danger that’s coming, this isn’t something I’m gonna play around with.”

“That’s fine. In fact, I’d prefer you focus on more basic stuff now. We can’t really send out waves of undead right off the bat. That comes only if we get desperate.”

She remained silent for a long moment, hanging her head. “Are you gonna force me to do it?”

He couldn’t answer the question for a few seconds. But then, he scoffed and shook his head. “What am I even thinking…?” He smiled at her. “I won’t force you to do anything. I promise. I’ll just, you know, gently remind you that it might be worth it if it can help us fight back against certain death.”

“Certain death, huh?” Sophia hesitated at that, and then turn to look him in the eye. “Are you not planning to run away if things get too bad?”

“What?” he asked. “Of course I am. What’s the point of staying to die? Is me dying going to help anyone?”

“What if it would? Would you die for other people?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not that kind of person.”

“Would you at least risk your life?”

He winced at the uncomfortable question. “I… don’t know. I don’t… think I would.”

“What about Valhalla?” she asked. “When they were attacked, from what I heard, nobody even expected you to show up. Yet you fought a whole army of people.”

“That was different. I was paying back the favour I owed to Thor. And I was getting revenge.”

“And what about me? You took a chance against a five-star to save me.”

“That’s also different,” he claimed. “I was pretty confident that I’d succeed.”

“How confident? Were you absolutely confident that a five-star, even weakened, wouldn’t have a hidden method to kill you before you could take him out?”

He was about to retort, but he realized where she was going with this. “That’s still different.”

“Oh, really? How?”

He opened his mouth. Then, he closed it. Then he stopped to turn to face her. “I don’t know; sorry, but why are you suddenly barraging me with questions about this?”

“I’m just trying to get to know you better.”

“Oh, please. We both know how that went the last time.”

“Hey!” She looked offended. “You’re the one who made things awkward back then.”

“No, you’re the one who made it awkward. I’m not the one with the habit of asking headache-inducing questions.”

She spat an aggrieved scoff and crossed her arms. “Excuse me? For the record, I make sure to try and ask meaningful questions that actually teach me something about the person I’m talking to.” Then, she turned around and muttered to herself, “It isn’t my fault you hate learning new things about yourself.”

“Okay, to be fair, it isn’t my fault that ‘things about myself’ tend to be rather unpleasant.”

She shot him a confused squint. “No, no… I’m pretty sure that your fault just, like… by definition.”

“That’s enough,” he said with a raised hand. “We’ll have plenty of time for idle chats in the future. For now, let’s focus on the problem at hand.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” she spat the last word out as if it were a scathing insult, and made sure to accent it with an exaggerated eyeroll.

He jokingly made choking gestures at her. In response, she gave him a shit eating grin and blew him a kiss.

They made it out of the underground training chamber and parted ways. Sophia was headed to the library to get ahold of some tablets for meditation purposes, to try and speed up her ability aquisition.

Meanwhile, after steeling his nerves, Freddy headed outside the building. There, he unraveled his compact bike.

It was finally time to head for the adjudicator’s compound.

The drive there didn’t take all that long. The compound was just a bit up the nearest mountain, with an obvious path leading to it. The road was exceptionally well maintained, because of course it was. There were also no trees along its length, with at least twenty meters of land cleared on both sides.

Before long, Freddy reached a gate leading through a tall fence.

“Halt!” a man shouted as he left a small building beside the gate. He was wearing a black uniform, and, to Freddy’s surprise, the man was actually well into the third star.

It was pretty damn shocking that someone with the power to own a small business empire in the Northern Belt was acting as a damn gatekeeper for the adjudicator. That only went to show how powerful the man truly was.

The gatekeeper marched forward until he was standing a few meters before him, directly blocking the road forward. “Two-stars and below are not allowed near the adjudicator’s compound! Please turn around before I am forced to remove you myself!”

Freddy cocked an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea who I am, dude?”

For a moment, the man seemed like he was about to scoff. But he restrained himself. “I have no interest in your alliances, Sir. If you wish to qualify for entry, you must reach the third star.”

With evident confusion, Freddy didn’t know what to do, so he just pointed a thumb behind his back and said, “I literally own this whole city. The adjudicator offered to take me out of the Northern Belt entirely, how the hell don’t I qualify to talk to him?”

The guard simply stood there in silence for a long moment. Then, with a scowl, he pressed a button on his ear. He started talking, but something seemingly muted the his voice, likely some form of privacy enchantment. The man asked some sort of question. When he received his answer, he scowled and mouthed a shocked “Seriously!?” into the device, then glanced at Freddy.

The man let go of the button. “I apologize for the misunderstanding, Mr. Cliff. I was briefed about your situation, but I clearly failed to catch on that you’re…” The man coughed awkwardly. Then he moved out of the way, bowed, and waved his hand. “Feel free to proceed!”

Chuckling, Freddy stepped on the pedal. “No problem, man. You were just doing your job.” With the bike blowing right past the man, Freddy continued on his way into the compound.

The buildings inside were far from ostentatious. They were mostly brute concrete, with severe, sharp corners and no joy whatsoever. Freddy had seen and been in less depressing prisons.

There were only a few structures standing there, with the biggest among them being even smaller than Valhalla’s main building.

As Freddy pulled up to the clearing in the middle, several servants left the biggest building and walked out to greet him.

A rather young man—or young-looking, at least—walked up to him. He had vivid brown hair tied into a ponytail. His gathering was at the peak of the second star—same as Freddy’s. “Welcome, Mr. Cliff,” the man said. “If you will.” He gestured behind him. “The adjudicator asked me to guide you.”

“Well thank you. Lead the way.”

He followed after the man. As soon as he stepped into the main building, he instantly realized what the gimmick was. Sure, from the outside, the buildings were disgustingly ugly, made to look intimidating, certainly on purpose. But from the inside, they expanded into vast, opulent halls, with intricate floor tiling and numerous wall decorations, lighting richer and warmer than even sunlight, and so many plants it could be called half a jungle.

And when the servant said he would “guide” Freddy, he really meant it. The internal expansion in this building was a lot more extreme than anything Freddy had ever seen, and the halls wound in intricate mazes that would be impossible to find his way around without help.

Eventually, they stepped into a room with glass walls, and outside those walls was water, putting them in the middle of a massive aquarium with all sorts of exotic animals. There were a few couches in the middle, surrounding a large desk of what appeared to be pure diamond.

“You may sit down, Mr. Cliff. The adjudicator will be here shortly,” the servant said. “Would you like something to drink or eat in the meantime?”

Freddy thought about it. “Nah, I’m good. I’ll just wait.”

“As you wish.” The man turned around and left the room, leaving Freddy to wait in silence.

He could stop himself from looking around a bit. His fingers absent-mindedly trailed the leather of the couch. It felt soft yet sturdy at the same time. And it was damn comfortable to sit on. Although he tried to act unimpressed, the table of solid diamond was really freakin’ cool, and his eyes kept involuntarily glancing at it. He clicked his tongue. “I literally have billions of dollars… Why the hell do I suddenly feel poor again?”

Before long, the adjudicator stepped into the room, beaming with a sincere, broad smile. “Mr. Cliff!” he greeted enthusiastically. “How nice of you to pay me a visit!” He walked over to Freddy and gave him a hearty handshake. “How come you weren’t served anything?” he asked with a brief flash of anger crossing his face.

“Oh, no, no, no.” Freddy rushed to correct him. “I was offered, I just didn’t really… feel like taking anything.”

“Oh. Good. That’s all right. But do say if you wish to have something—we have all sorts of interesting things, in fact”—the man whistled—”Peter!”

The same servant appeared from behind the corner and walked up to the table with a pleasant expression. “Yes, Your Honour?”

“Please hand Mr. Cliff a menu. Perhaps he might change his mind after scouting the options.”

The man nodded, and then, with a wave of his hand, summoned a menu out of thin air and handed it to Freddy. There was actually no visible storage ring on the man’s finger, which left Freddy a bit confused.

While trying to figure out the trick, he ended up reflexively accepting the menu, even though he had no actual intention of ordering anything. He smiled stiffly at the list in his hand and then half-heartedly raised it in a “got it, thank you” kind of gesture.

Given that it was already in his hands, he decided to at least take a peek at the options.

In the food category, leviathan steak was the first choice on the menu. The second was tautrine filet mignon, which he vaguely recognized as the meat of a bull monster. It was considered quite the delicacy if he recalled correctly. But his eyes went to a different option. “Excuse me,” he said. “Could I maybe have a wyvern burg… bourgie…”

“Wyvern bourguignon?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

The servant smiled. “It will be done in fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you. And also, I would like to try this… papitter… uh… What…?”

“Papietrotine bean esspresso?”

Freddy grimaced awkwardly. “Yes I would like one of those, please.”

“Schtilen or Jeffrey-Quizzak style?”

“Uh… Both?”

The man scowled in confusion.

“I mean, the second one.”

The man went back to a polite smile, although it was a bit strained. “Would you like it before your meal or alongside it?”

“Whichever one is more convenient for you,” he said, then laughed a little too aggressively, then suddenly and rapidly deflated and handed the menu back. “Just bring it with the food.”

“Sure thing, Sir.” The servant took the menu and then walked away.

“So,” Freddy turned to the adjudicator, coughing to dispell the awkward atmosphere. “I thought I’d come to talk about—”

“Before you continue, Mr. Cliff, I have an important question for you.”

Freddy quirked an eyebrow. “Oh? What is it?”

“Do you plan on doing your absolute best to save this city?”

For a brief moment, Freddy couldn’t think of the answer to that question. Was he? He was planning to give it a solid go, but… He snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

“All right then. I am assuming you’re here to secure more resources to help you with the process. Before you waste time trying to negotiate a deal, I will give you my counter-offer.” He looked Freddy dead in the eye. “I have searched every single corner of this city and the surrounding wilderness. By now, I have absolutely no doubt about my guess.

“You, Freddy Cliff, are the man who calls himself Skull.”