Chapter 108: Touch Me's First Time
Lucian held Sebas's gaze and said it anyway.
"When it comes to the legend of powerful warriors being reborn, the core criterion is still the [Innate Ability]. And Touch Me doesn't have one."
On the surface, Lucian was denying the possibility of Touch Me being a reincarnated warrior. In practice, he was quietly reinforcing Sebas's conviction that [Innate Ability] was the key to identifying such a soul.
Sebas said nothing. The last small light in his eyes went out, sinking into a still and quiet darkness.
"So you should let go of that fantasy, Sebas. Touch Me is only himself."
Lucian kept his voice low, as though he were carefully peeling back layers of already-damaged wrapping, afraid of shattering whatever had grown fragile inside.
Sebas was silent for a long while.
He rose, his movements half a beat slower than usual.
"Thank you for telling me, Lord Lucian."
His voice was exactly as it always was.
But that steadiness was held together by force, like a wall that had already begun to crack, barely managing not to fall.
Sebas turned and walked out of the tent.
The tent flap settled quietly behind him, concealing a silhouette that stood perfectly straight yet somehow carried an inexplicable air of loss.
The tent fell silent.
Lucian sat where he was, watching the flap still swaying gently. Morning light slipped through the gap and landed on his face, catching it in an uneven mix of shadow and light.
He lifted the cup of tea from the table and took a small sip.
However disappointed you are right now, Sebas. That's exactly how happy you'll be when the truth finally comes out.
Lucian leaned back in his chair.
His thoughts drifted a long way back.
When Touch Me was two years old, Lucian had already found him, through the resources of the Theocracy.
But he had done nothing except quietly change the boy's name.
He had left him to wander the capital. Left him to see its darkness.
Touch Me's childhood had been spent beneath the contempt of nobles and the cruelty of his peers. He was stepped on and laughed at and treated as something worse than garbage. Those nights that cut to the bone, the days of empty hunger, the moments spent crouched in some alley corner licking wounds alone...
Lucian had not intervened.
So what he had told Sebas was the truth. He had never thought of himself as a good person.
Climb was a child who would not rot in the dark. The bedrock of his soul was the kind that would not be blackened even at the bottom of the deepest mud. But only by living through the same darkness as in the original story could he be shaped, to the greatest possible extent, into the upholder of justice and light that Lucian needed him to become.
It was also something Lucian had to do to leave absolutely nothing to chance.
His original plan had been to use his Blessing, his own Innate Ability, to grant Touch Me something designed specifically for the moment of meeting Sebas.
[Justice Descends.]
When Touch Me activated the ability, four bold characters would appear behind him: Justice Descends.
An ability like this would cost Lucian relatively little in experience points, yet it would carry exactly the kind of unmistakable recognition that the Touch Me from the game possessed. After all of Lucian's careful engineering and arrangement, Sebas would probably be completely undone.
What expression would the old butler make, watching that young man raise his sword on the battlefield while those four characters he had known so well shimmered into being behind him?
That had been his thinking.
But after actually knowing the boy, after spending real time with him, he had hesitated.
He had watched Touch Me grow up, day by day.
Watched this child swing a wooden sword on the training ground over and over again, clothes soaked through with sweat, refusing to stop and rest. Watched him look up with those deep blue eyes and say: I want to become someone like Lord Lucian. Then I want to bring light and justice to more people.
Lucian had already changed this kind-hearted child's entire life without his consent. The person Touch Me was now had been shaped into someone else entirely by Lucian's hands.
He had taken the conviction to uphold justice and protect the weak and pressed it into the boy like a brand, made it the whole of his reason for living.
How closely that mirrored what Renner had done in the original story.
Wasn't this just another form of manipulation?
Lucian had no intention of simply handing Touch Me a hollow Innate Ability and then watching this young man become a toy pulled along by carefully engineered coincidences.
He had decided to give him something that truly belonged to Touch Me, something both unmistakably recognizable and genuinely powerful.
[Dimensional Slash.]
The exclusive skill of the YGGDRASIL [World Champion] class, granted to Touch Me.
It was probably the greatest compensation Lucian could offer.
But when he actually tried, he found that this exclusive skill of the [World Champion] class was something his current store of experience points could not support at all. Just probing the cost of the ability sent a near-suffocating jolt through him, a palpitation deep enough to make his vision swim.
So he tried weakening it. Again and again.
Something like [Spatial Cut], a spell capable of producing an attack that sliced through space, would be enough, as long as the fundamental property was there.
Still it couldn't be done. The experience cost still far exceeded what he could bear. That near-death warning, the premonition his body sent him without asking, was clear: if he forced it through, he would die.
After that, Lucian changed his approach. He would add restrictions.
Strict enough restrictions, and any ability could be granted. And restrictions, handled correctly, were not necessarily a disadvantage.
This was also why Lucian had always refused to bring Touch Me into the Dragon Kingdom's wars.
He had been waiting for the right moment.
He wanted Touch Me to find the ability sleeping inside him in a moment of absolute extremity, naturally, without any prior knowledge, without knowing any of it had been arranged.
Like the protagonist of a shonen manga.
And this trip to the Dragon Kingdom was the best opportunity for Touch Me to discover and use his Innate Ability for the very first time.
Sebas would be the first witness.
Let Sebas be there for Touch Me's first time. Let him witness that moment, the one that belonged to a shonen hero and no one else.
The impact of it would drive Sebas's current disappointment straight to rock bottom and then send it slamming back up.
And having Sebas see with his own eyes the young man's ability to cleave through space would carry a conviction that no amount of verbal description ever could.
Lucian looked toward the direction Sebas had gone.
He noticed that as Sebas crossed the edge of the clearing, his footsteps had paused, just briefly. One tiny hesitation, then he walked on.
The direction he had paused toward was where Touch Me was.
Lucian turned his gaze away, toward the other side of the camp. There were still military matters waiting for him, and preparations that needed finishing before the battle ahead.
Sebas, I think you'll like the gift I have for you.
The wind came down through the valley and moved across the camp, lifting the Aindra family banner above the tents. The standard with its embroidered upright black sword snapped and billowed in the wind, as though announcing something that was about to begin.
***
I kinda like and hate this "hesitation". on one side he is human, on the other side YOU KNOW WHAT AINZ IS FUCKING CAPABLE OF!! thats a threat to humanity! ..... forget it, I don't like the "hesitation" anymore....what would you do in the MC's situation?.....ahhh that's a stupid question lol, we switching to Ainz side, hahahaha......but that's also a gamble in itself, considering the NPcs around ainz.....fuck... hopeless situation