Novel Full 372 Forgotten deal
“I think that sums it up,” Mathew said after roughly a total of an hour’s worth of negotiations has passed.
Despite the early ease at which the mind operating his clone would agree to his terms, the more Mathew attempted to gain, the harder it became for his requests to go through.
“Let’s sum it up, then,” Mathew’s clone said as it stretched its back before releasing a long yawn. “We turn your wives independent, meaning, their situation won’t change at all save for how they will no longer have their systems and levels related to you. You will get a total of forty percent of your current stats, with all of the currently locked ones turning into stats that you can freely distribute within your status. Your skills and abilities won’t be touched, more, they will receive an additional scaling through your statistics.”
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“On our end, we will be locking most of the exploits that you’ve used so far, but we will keep the stuff you can get at the merchant’s the same. Not a single of the features you unlocked already, save for leveling through merchants, will be affected either.”
“And in exchange, I will lose the ability to gain statistics from the growth of my wives. I will also no longer be able to freely bestow my system upon other girls by simply topping off the most intimate action they performed with someone else in the past,” Mathew then added, filling in the details that could be taken as a loss on his end.
“And as the final point, you will be allowed to pass on some hints regarding the matter of the third phase with your message while giving us the right to force you into following the discussed steps by gradually locking more and more of the settlement features if you refuse to do so,” the being finished up with the last part of the arrangement they had discussed.
This was something that Mathew actually proposed in spite of how it affected him only in a negative way. He willingly gave them the authority to lock in the benefits that he worked so hard for with his wives and all his allies to get. And it was all for a very simple reason.
“I’m a rather distrusting guy. Now that we’ve talked for some time, I’m…” Mathew took a short pause, not wanting to utter a meaningless lie just to get the other party to look at him more favorably. Because, due to their ability to read his thoughts, rather than earning him some brownie points it would end up doing the opposite.
“I’m somewhat willing to accept the current arrangement. But once you wipe all of my memory regarding our contact, there is no way I will trust in a single word of the message, even if I will be the one passing it down.”
This was Mathew’s reasoning behind his willingness to go for somewhat unnecessary concessions. Yet, rather than empowering the other party to bully him in order to keep him in line, it was a simple measure aimed at forcing his hand when it came to the matter of the developments that were already planned for all those who unlocked the third phase of their growth.
‘I never expected I would go that far just to save some random girl I know nothing about,’ Mathew thought, rolling his eyes over his own gullibility.
He never really cared about all sorts of tragedies that were happening beyond the scope of his vision. He was a simple human, unable to care for things he was unaware of. And while he often sympathized with the victims of abuse, violence, or other unpleasant things, Mathew wasn’t as conceited as to try to pose as someone who could help by just screaming about the topic.
Mathew couldn’t care less about the things that he didn’t see. But when he bore witness to a blatant and extremely unpleasant abuse, his instincts to protect would be greatly tickled. And unless he did what he believed to be right, he would never get rid of the itch caused by his desire to do the right thing.
“Well, I guess this concludes all that I wanted to discuss with you,” the clone said. It then stretched its hands to the sides before looking down at its own body. “Still, I didn’t expect having a fully flesh-based body would feel so nostalgic,” it then added in a tone Mathew didn’t hear it use yet.
“You don’t need to try to make me any more sympathetic towards you anymore,” Mathew countered what he instantly assumed to be a small tactic to manipulate his feelings.
After all, even if he were to forget about all that happened, his natural attitude towards whoever was currently residing in the copy of his own body would remain deeply ingrained into his soul.
“I’m not trying anything like that, man,” Mathew’s clone said, slowly shaking its head as it stretched out its hand forward and slowly moved it around. “The feeling of the air brushing against your skin, the cold, the pain, the hunger…” it listed out a few relatively unpleasant things, “for you, those might be a bother. But for me…”
The clone turned silent, leaving Mathew in a strange, pretty damn uncomfortable situation.
‘Am I supposed to just stay silent and let him have his moment?’ Mathew asked himself, only to slap his own face when he noticed his mistake.
The being within the clone could read his thoughts. As such, it would become aware of even this awkwardness-borne question.
“Damn,” Mathew cursed a little right as the clone curved its lips in a small smile. “I thought this mind-reading thingy was annoying, but now it’s just plain awkward,” he commented.
“Let me give you one last piece of advice before we all go our separate ways,” the clone said, lowering its hands and sharing a small smile as it returned to the very position it was in when it first appeared within the time-stopped scenery of the forest. “Training your mind to have full control over your own thoughts…”
The clone’s smile turned wider before its entire body started to turn transparent.
“It can greatly improve your ability to wield mana,” the clone’s voice turned into a whisper right as its presence dissolved into the greenery behind it along with all the memories that Mathew had regarding the meeting.