I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 107: A Life of Falsehood

“I’m sure you know that Horell is the most cooperative and supportive Pillar level member in our alliance, right?” Herellia looked at Aurus, who was floating beside her, and asked this question.

“Of course. He goes out of his way to help me tell you things that I don’t have time telling you.” Aurus replied with an affirmative aura, not having any second opinion regarding disagreement on this question whatsoever.

“Now think about it this way,” Herellia continued to talk, but her tone became slightly serious. “What if I told you…”

“I already had doubts of his superficiality from the start?”

“Eh?” Aurus was shocked for a bit, only for him to chuckle lightly as he said, “You’re kidding…right?”

“If you listen to my story of how I discovered Horell, then you might think otherwise.” This time, Herellia’s tone was now extremely serious, giving Aurus no choice but to acquiesce to her wishes, which was to listen to her story.

Seeing that Aurus was somewhat eager to listen to her story, Herellia did not dare to delay the story further, starting off with, “This story around one and a half years ago, a time when I was still halfway from maxing out my level as an X-grade Inanimate. The alliance was still in its early stages at that time, yet most of the Pillar level members had already been in the alliance by then. We were a tight-knit alliance of X-grade beings, united when standing, divided when falling.”

“One day, while I was talking with the other members at that time about the future of the alliance, we simultaneously heard a loud explosion not that far away from the base. Of course, you could guess what happens next, with me telling the other members to come check out what caused that loud explosion.”

“We only left around 3 alliance members to guard the alliance since only 10 of us were in the alliance at that time, the remaining 6 coming with me to check out the origin of the explosion. A few minutes later, with our very own senses of vision, what we saw was an unbelievably large crater, even larger when compared to the size of our base’s entrance.” At this time, Herellia could not help but sigh. Taking a few breaths through her body, she continued with her storytelling.

“We looked around the site of the explosion, wondering as to what might have caused such a crater to be formed. It was around this time did we discover Horell. To be honest, we only found Horell after searching every nook and cranny around the crater, only for us to notice that Horell was right at the extreme center of the crater.”

“With the help of one of my comrade-in-arms, Horell was healed back to full health. He was only a measly A-grade back then, just like you when you entered the alliance, but severely lacking in terms of power.”

“Nonetheless, we did not care about Horell’s grade at that moment, only wanting to know the causes to the explosion where he was found in. As for Horell’s answer, he only said that his memory before the explosion was a blur, as if he did not want to recall the memory at all.”

“At that time, a howl resounded throughout the whole Tempest Cliff, its origin you know very well as the Animate that the three alliances are fighting against. As we looked at Horell, it seemed that he shivered at the sound of such a howl, leading us to the conclusion that the crater might have been done by the Animate as Horell fought against it, with no chance of fighting back.”

“Since we pitied Horell at that time, we decided to take him back to the alliance and make him a member of the alliance since we were only around 10 at that time. Now, you’re thinking that where’s the evidence that made me doubt Horell?” Herellia took a deep breath before continuing, her aura slightly seething with rage.

“The doubt started ever since he joined the alliance. Most of the time, he would help out the other 9 alliance members with the tasks they do not have time to do, leaving them quite supportive of Horell. As for me, due to the sheer cooperativeness he showed whenever he would help others, I could not help but have a few doubts. So, with my powers as the creator of the alliance, I decided to scan through the whole alliance, not daring to look away from what Horell was doing for quite some time.”

“Now…” Herellia hesitated for a bit before continuing. “I don’t know if it was just him being careless, or it being intentional, but one night…”

“I caught Horell talking to the same Animate that howled when we found Horell in the crater.” Although Herellia was still unsure if it was just Horell being careless or it being intentional, it was still a good basis of her doubts. “They talked about plans of dissolving the alliance from the inside, and plans about taking over the alliance by force.”

“By then, I could not help but contact the other Pillar level members about this, and showed them what I saw, instantly deciding to be close with Horell from the outside, but hold multiple seeds of doubt from the outside.”

“And now… that doubt has finally been cleared a week ago.” At this time, Herellia was now teeming with rage at the thought. It took Herellia a while to compose herself as they continued to traverse where the inheritance lied before continuing to tell her story. “At that time, Horell decided to tell me about him leaving the alliance. Of course, at first, due to me being caught off guard, I was dumbfounded. But then I remembered that he had connections with that Animate, prompting to use the skill I used on you back then to see through ulterior motives. It seemed that the truth was now solidified as my skill would never lie.”

After that, Herellia could not help but sigh. With Aurus radiating an aura filled with slight melancholy. He had a feeling that it had something to do with his bad luck, but at the same time, he could not point it to his bad luck since he was not in the alliance at that time.

In the end, Aurus could only say, “Let us move on from this, Herellia. The past is in the past. Let’s just find a way to fight against the inevitable battle that I presume will happen in the near future.”

“Alright.” After letting out a long sigh, Herellia agreed with Aurus’ words. “Let us make haste, there’s a certain time for us to enter the town with higher chances of entering the inheritance unscathed.”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

And with that, their movement speed was boosted by a considerable amount, allowing them to reach the unnamed town within a few hours.

…

With the sun at its peak, Aurus and Herellia landed on the ground around a half kilometers away from the wall of the town the inheritance was situated. Not wanting to attract the Animates’ attention, they gradually rolled their way towards the gates, making sure that their movement seemed natural to the Animates. This ordeal was somewhat hard for them since it took them around 30 minutes to traverse such a distance.

Finally, the two were now at the gates of the town, only needing to head a few hundred meters along the perimeters of the wall before reaching the inheritance according to what Herellia told Aurus after talking about Horell’s life.

Whoosh!

Before the both of them started rolling, Herellia abruptly transformed her body into a small pebble that seemed inconspicuous, slightly shocking Aurus for a bit. “You have a morphing skill?”

“Yeah,” Herellia replied. “Don’t you have a morphing skill as well?”

As a reply, Aurus also morphed his body, compacting his size into that of a gray pebble that was around the same size as Herellia in her pebble form. Slightly chuckling, he replied, “Does this answer your question?”

Looking at Aurus for a bit, Herellia then said, “Let’s hope that not many people are around that place. Let’s go.”

Swoosh!

Not long after that, the two pebbles then started to roll towards a certain direction, with Herellia leading the front. Due to their small size, the speed at which they rolled was considerably faster when compared to their speed when rolling as a branch, since they are affect by lesser air resistance.

And so, around 15 minutes later, the two pebbles were then greeted by the entrance to an abandoned mineshaft… well what seemed to be an entrance to an abandoned mineshaft. Right now, only a small space was left as an entrance to the mineshaft, most of which have been covered by wooden planks that have already been covered with moss, or perhaps the stone that fell from the mineshaft’s ceiling.

Thankfully, the two of them were small enough to fit through the small entrance, reverting back to their original forms once they were sure that they were finally inside the mineshaft.

They then started to hover through the mineshaft’s pathways, before arriving at a dead end a few minutes later.

This dead end was unlike the other dead ends they saw along the way as the wall that served as the dead end was extremely smooth when compared to the rough walls of the other dead ends. Not only that, if only looked very closely, one would see a gray magic circle carved on this smooth wall.

“We’re finally here,” Herellia could not help but sigh as she said, landing on the ground as she looked at the gray magic circle. Aurus landed as well, looking at the direction where Herellia was looking.

“So…how do we enter the inheritance?” Aurus could not help but ask. Although he knew a lot of places that held inheritances, he only remembered the methods of entering a scant few inheritances.

“You just have to reply to the words that we will hear not long after,” Herellia replied before asking Aurus to remain silent, to which Aurus became silent not long after, waiting for Herellia’s words to come true.

And only a few minutes later did the two faintly hear a single word resound throughout the dead end they were in.

“Creeper?” This was the word they heard.

At that instant, as if it was an impulse brought by his memories, Aurus replied with, “Aw man.”

Whoosh!

Not long after his reply, the gray magic circle started to glow a very faint light as the two of them were transported to another space, not leaving a single trace of them being in the mineshaft in the first place.