Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Skullius sighed as he saw the figure of Elita standing behind the bars of the cell and between the two Knights. He couldn’t help but wonder what would go wrong now.

He had attempted to use his newfound ability to give the Knights the illusion that another enemy was at play here but unfortunately, he had been cut off before he could say much.

Apparently, using the new power within the Fruit of World Myths, [Crude World Projection] was extremely taxing on his ‘stamina’. His body had immediately felt heavy after he returned it.

He had been excited to use it but after he collapsed, the Knights had immediately given word to Gin who promptly called Elita.

After some time of feeling invincible through his advancement on the Null Life side, Skullius wasn’t yet accustomed to the severe weakness of his Discount Human form and the vast difference in strength between his two selves now.

He could only look up at Elita as he laid down motionlessly and possibly construct a few words after squeezing every bit of strength he could muster.

“Leave us,” Elita said to the two Knights that stood before the cell.

The two looked at each other before leaving and closing the door behind them. Even though they were more in favour of Gin’s opinion on how to handle Skullius, they couldn’t possibly discount the judgement and strength of a Paladin Champion.

As soon as Elita confirmed that the two Knights were out, she let out a sigh of relief and showed more emotion on her face than what she would normally do.

Frankly, when she had received word of what had happened here earlier, she had been shocked but at the same time, she couldn’t push away her thoughts any longer.

She had been surprised that Gin, whom she thought to be a shallow-minded fool had actually chosen to alert her instead of killing Skullius after suspecting him of being the cause of the odd creature that appeared.

Most people would have done that immediately but they would been very misguided.

“I’m surprised I managed to find someone like you, you know? You barely manage to find People like us in a lifetime. We are rare. There’s always strange occurrences when we appear. I would have probably killed you before entering the city, but this one fact that I have confirmed is what is keeping you alive,” Elita said as her pure hazel eyes stared at Skullius with a hint of emotion._.

“Huh?” Skullius was confused.

‘People like us? I’m not even a people,’ the Discount Human thought.

He had a strangely biased perception of humans, coming out of a journey where he had been taken advantage of and all that.

He didn’t look kindly to Elita despite her clear intention to not have him offed.

“You don’t know anything about me,” Skullius said with a frown.

Elita scoffed as she paced behind the cell.

“As I said. You and I are alike…” she said. “…as we are both acknowledged by the Voice of Worlds.”

…!

Skullius’ body jolted.

He couldn’t believe what he had just heard.

How on earth did she know?!

She too was a…

His shocked face was ultimately his confirmation to Elita who smiled.

“I’m no- I’m… Gah! How did you know?!” Skullius barked, clearly being unable to bullshit his way out of this.

Elita paced once more.

“It’s quite easy to recognise someone like us the stronger you grow. The more strength you gain, the more ‘it’ can do.”

“I… see. So you also have the…”

“Guidance field? Yes…”

“And you can see my…”

“Also yes… Skullius…”

“Do you know VOW bro?”

“…Who?”

“Nevermind.”

Skullius couldn’t help but quiver. He was used to seeing all sorts of things about other creatures and items but not himself.

It felt like he was naked.

Well at least she didn’t know about VOW bro, right? Right?!

“I must admit. Your name threw me off at first as it can easily be associated with Undeath. But… I choose to give those acknowledged by the Voice of Worlds the benefit of the doubt,” said Elita as she peered into Skullius.

Skullius wholeheartedly wished he could see himself through this woman’s eyes now.

How much did she know?

If she knew everything then…

“With that out of the way, I have questions. I’ll consider letting you off if the answers are not what I hope they are. I believe that people like you and me are here for a reason. A good reason. It might not be grand but important nonetheless.”

Skullius gulped.

‘Oh bro… it feels like Azila all over again.”

“First of all, are you aligned with the Green Neolists?” Elita asked while her body gained a dim yet vibrantly saturated shade of gold.

Skullius looked at her figure dumbly and answered.

“No. It was just bad luck, I guess. I just happened to have a scroll that belonged to one of the Green Neolists.”

Elita squinted her eyes.

She found it difficult to tell if this guy was lying or not as his face… his face was just so…

When she tried to listen to sound of his heartbeat, it just felt… it just felt so… off.

Unlike what Skullius feared, Elita could not see anything to do with his class or invasive status.

Even his race appeared as ‘Human’ not ‘Discount Human’.

The class name and skills were not there on her guidance field which was strangely different from Skullius’.

From the very beginning, she hadn’t bought that a level 1 like Skullius could just launch an attack on the Grand Priest with such a weak scroll.

Perhaps it really was a just a case of bad luck?

“Very well. Next question. Are you aligned with the Evenfall?”

Skullius raised his brow.

“What’s that?” he asked.

Elita squinted her eyes again but really couldn’t figure out if Skullius was lying or not. The completely clueless nature of Skullius’ response was believable though.

She intended to show Skullius some basic courtesy and not treat him like a criminal when only he and her were around thus she refrained from using any skills that might be too invasive, which was the bulk of her arsenal.

“The Evenfall is a group of cultists that follows Boron, one of the four Deities who created this world. Surely you know them right?” Elita said sarcastically, intending to just throw it in there as she explained and perhaps get more of a reaction from Skullius.

“Actually…” Skullius said, grabbing onto the chance to learn of this world. “… I actually want to know about this. I don’t exactly know about these…Deities are, br-…”

Skullius held himself as he had been about to say bro. It just didn’t fit for some reason. This was a female. The second one he had seen since Denille.

Elita was dumbfounded. Once again, if Skullius really was acting, then he was pretty darn good at it.

He didn’t know about the Deities?

Well… as she did a double take, she found that it wasn’t really that surprising considering that most people didn’t bother learning more about the Deities other than what they could gain from them.

It was possible that within the crevices of a small city like Eofel which was almost secluded from the other clusters in Pelian, some wouldn’t know.

The whole city was so deluded and ignorant that it barely counted as a city among the rest of the more prominent ones out there.

That added to the fact that Pelian was the weakest country within Feinheath, marred by the most tragic of royal lineages made the point more convincing to Elita.

Her conversion with the Grand Priest had also referenced this subject.

If it was true that Skullius didn’t know anything then perhaps the strange faced being before Elita was truly not aligned with the Evenfall or the Green Neolists.

“Strange. Let me explain then. It’s my duty to enlighten before anything else after all,” Elita said while her gaze locked onto Skullius, beginning to explain succinctly the grand world origin as she also tried to peer into Skullius for a flicker in what could be the best performance she had ever seen.