[Description]: A necklace crafted by a skilled artisan, but… it's not done yet. Even if it's useless, it carries a long, sad tale. The necklace is bathed in the blood of the queen—a maniacal woman who drowned herself in bottomless hatred and rage toward her husband. If someone cleanses the poor queen out of the necklace, it'll become a delicate piece of jewelry.
"I see. My item's not only useless, it's also cursed by some pathetic queen… super useless. No one wants to buy a cursed item."
"But I'll use it properly. Just cleanse that damned queen out of the necklace, and it'll be valuable. and then I'll get money after selling it."
His voice was a bit irritated after going through that horrible streak of bad luck, but since he had experienced it many times, it wasn't a big deal.
He rubbed his chin and looked over the necklace, trying to figure out a better way to use it for now.
The necklace was around one meter long, with two small hooked ends. It looked more like a raw chain than an actual necklace, and on top of that, it was much larger than normal. In truth, it wasn't fully crafted yet.
Seeing the faint ghostly glow coming from the jewelry, the slave didn't want to hang it on his neck at all.
"I'll be cursed if I put this on my neck."
He clicked his tongue and wrapped the necklace around his right hand, turning it into fist-wrapped chains.
Now he had two weapons: the chain linking between his hands, and the fist-wrapped chains.
He had intended to pick up Butler's sword, but he figured it wasn't a good idea. After all, Butler's master was still alive. That sword would be a clue pointing to the slave if he ever tried lying his way out of killing Butler. Even if he managed with a clever lie, it'd still raise needless suspicion.
The genius of legendary clans was not a stupid guy like Butler or the fat man to be easily tricked by him.
Alaric finally noticed the skull piece and picked it up. And he summoned his system. He guessed that now, the normal missions had recovered. By now, he thoroughly understood how his system operated. Well… he had to pick his missions proactively. His system wasn't like the trash novels where the system would enthusiastically support him.
—
Normal Mission (0/1)
Status: ✅ Discovered
Life-or-Death Mission (0/1)
Status: 🔒 Undiscovered
—
[Normal Mission]: Climbing to the peak of the mountain
Just like that, Alairc resumed his journey toward the gathering spot on the peak of the mountain.
It was an easy task for him at this moment; after all, he was a friend of stone. He could easily look for a proper and safer route to head toward the peak. But his damned illness still tormented him along the way.
Resting for a short moment, he continued climbing the slope, over cliffs and everything else, only to see the peak still towering higher.
"Curse! This fucking thing doesn't fit me."
"And it hurts."
He had already taken off the boots he stole from Butler's corpse halfway up the mountain, because he wanted his soles to be scratched by the sharp rocks. Even with the blessing, he tried to hurt himself on purpose to boost the possibility to trick geniuses once he performed it on the mountain peak.
He had to look as wretched as possible to trick them about the death of his partners.
Sure, uh, but the slave had accidentally hurt himself too much, but it was worth it—now he looked really, really pathetic, as if he had just crawled out of a slaughter done by a pack of fiends.
Most of his body was scratched and bleeding in countless spots, but he wasn't stupid enough to let himself die from blood loss. He had wrapped his jagged clothes around his wounds.
"A-Almost there."
The slave's vision grew blurred and messy. His senses were almost gone; he couldn't even feel the biting wind passing through his body. The rhythm of hellish, ghostly noise of hell no longer reached his ears.
He just kept climbing ahead, not thinking about where he was going. He fully entrusted his blessing, and his stone friends to lead him toward the mountain peak.
At some point, he finally stepped onto a weathered rocky platform—then collapsed motionlessly. Of course, he had completed the mission he activated from the beginning: climbing to the peak of the mountain.
[You have completed the Normal Mission]
[Reward: 5 Chaos Points]
"It's him! That slave." Curry quickly ran toward the slave, and Morris followed behind.
"But…where's Chelsea?"
While Curry seemed worried about the absence of his butler, Morris just clicked his tongue in relief.
"Fortunately, he's at least carrying the skull piece."
Morris slowly approached the slave and reached for the slave's right hand to take the final skull piece, but then frowned in annoyance.
He couldn't pry the skull piece from the slave's hand. The slave clutched it as if it were his whole life. If Morris wanted it, it was obvious he would have to break the slave's hand.
To be honest, Morris had begun to consider that very action at that moment. However, his brutal, devilish impulse was quickly stopped by Curry.
"He has willpower. He must have gone through terrible things to get here. So, we'll wait for him. It's respect for all he's done."
Morris grimaced for a moment before shrugging, his voice cold:
"I have an advice: don't show kindness to a slave. He's just a lucky worm for making it here."
Then he quickly turned and walked leisurely over the nearby rocks to wait.
After about thirty minutes, the slave finally recovered a bit, thanks to a kind of potion from Curry.
However, with his illness, even that potion hadn't worked very effectively. At least he could stand and speak.
Now, both geniuses were waiting for an explanation from the slave. But in reality, only Curry truly cared; Morris just wanted the damned, bullshit thing over and done with as quickly as possible.
The slave, his face soulless and pale, answered in a sad voice—but behind it was a calculated plan he had set up.
"I'm sorry but both of them are already dead…They weren't killed by the horde of fiends."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Curry frowned, gazing at the slave, trying to read his reaction to see if it was a lie.
In fact, Curry wasn't a stupid man; he was cautious, always noticing any detail that could affect his plans.
In this case, the slave was someone he had been keeping an eye on from the start. He knew the slave's achievements weren't by chance.
The slave was truly clever and devious. As soon as the slave arrived here alone, Curry somehow felt that the slave had killed the fat man and Butler—even though he knew how ridiculous that reasoning was.
But he never doubted his blessing… the blessing of a royal archer. It allowed him to sense potential dangers, though it only had about a twenty-percent chance of predicting things right — and that percentage increased the more he dug into the matter.
If there had been any flaw in the slave's reasoning, he would kill the slave without hesitation—not just for revenge for his friend, but also to comfort his life principle.
Yeah. He would have killed anyone he judged deserved it.