Novel Full Chapter 454 - Marionette
After Eisen, Bree and Sal had returned to where the others were waiting for them, instead of going out to hunt immediately, they made the decision to sleep first so that they could hunt as long as possible after that.
Since Eisen wasn't really all that tired just yet, he didn't need to sleep that much and soon woke back up in the early morning time, where he quickly noticed that there were three people speaking right behind him.
He had been leaning up against Cabarum as he laid down as well, so it seemed like they simply didn't see that his sleep-transformation wore off.
"Yeah, he's been acting a lot different lately..." Sky said quietly, and next, Kirisho's voice could be heard as she agreed. "Eisen is just quite angry, or rather frustrated lately, is he not?" She asked, and it seemed like even Bree had to agree.
"I haven't seen him like that yet, yeah... Especially in that town before? Where he... he killed that man..? Wouldn't he usually have stayed there to at least properly make sure that group stops messing around?" She pointed out, "It just seems like he's really focused on one thing..."
"From what we've heard, that's what Eisen has always been like, right?" Sky added, "In prototype, they said that Eisen was obsessed with creating artificial life... And now, he's obsessed with finding out... something. I'm not sure what exactly he wants..."
"I think it might have something to do with Otherworld Disease..." Kirisho added, and Sky seemed quite surprised at that. "Otherworld Disease? I've heard of it, but it wasn't a thing where I grew up... What is it again?" He asked, and Bree just scratched her cheek and responded.
"It's where you strongly start believing that there's a world other than this one... But Kirisho, why do you think it has to do with that?" Bree asked, and the Mist Spirit just lightly smiled at her and slowly shook her head, "I'm not entirely sure, sorry... But he asked me about it, and when I explained to him what it was, he just got incredibly angry, and... quite scary."
"Should we just ask him about it?" Sky suggested, but Kirisho immediately shook her head in response, "I don't think we should... He said he was working together with someone... It might have been a joke, but he said it was an Angel? No matter that, Eisen told me that he will explain everything to us when the time comes..."
"Then should we just let Eisen live with whatever's going on alone?" Sky asked with a deep frown, and Bree shook her head, "I think the others know what's going on... So Evalia, Brody, Jyuuk and Xenia... So if he needs to speak to anyone, then maybe he will speak to them?" She suggested, and in response, the others couldn't do anything but agree and hope.
"Don't worry." Eisen said in a voice loud enough so that the others could definitely hear him, and Sky immediately jumped up, "Y-You were awake?" He asked, and Eisen slowly stood up and turned toward them as he nodded his head.
"Yes, I was. And really, trust me, I will tell you once I find out what exactly is going to happen when I do. Because something will happen, it's out of my control, because this knowledge that I have is not something that you are supposed to know. And yes, I'm working with an Angel to get her to find out what exactly happens once such knowledge is revealed. Once I know, I will-"
"Are you serious? Just telling us is going to put us in danger? Is it some sort of spell that will influence us just knowing of it?" Sky asked with clear doubt in his voice, but Eisen immediately shook his head. "No, that's not it. The Asshole standing atop the Gods just doesn't want anyone to know. As I was saying, once I know what exactly is going to happen when I reveal it, I'm going to prepare countermeasures." Eisen explained, so Sky just slowly turned his face away.
"And when will you know?" He asked, but Eisen just slowly moved his fingers through his beard unknowingly. "I can't say that. The Angel will contact me once she knows. But while she is researching it, I want to go ahead and finish this task that I myself have given me that starts with reaching level 300. Or get as close to it as possible, at least." The old man explained in a clear tone as he turned around toward the three monster children behind him.
"We're going out to hunt for the day. Now then. Are you guys coming? If we go the right route, there's a shortcut at the other side of the plateaus that we can take. There's apparently a lot of monsters in that area though, so everybody here will have to fight a little." Eisen pointed out, and the three of them quickly nodded their heads before Kirisho picked up the small Fox Golem in front of her feet, while Aulu and Cabarum both stood up from where they were laying before, and Sky and Bree started picking whatever they had put down onto the ground as well.
"We're coming..." Bree said quietly as they were doing so, and Eisen just smiled at them in response. "Alright, then let's go." Eisen said with a smile as he turned around and started walking, with the others right beside him.
And so, then they started hunting again, although everyone else beside Caria, Melissa and Sal was just acting as support in case something was wrong. And soon, the three of them had a relatively good tactic going. Caria would use plant control to tie the monsters down, and she and Melissa would do as much damage they could do over time through thorned vines or numerous different types of Bees, all the whilst Sal was preparing a good spell to attack and hopefully finish the monster off with.
And during that time, Sal even unlocked his element! It was a conceptual element as well, so it was a combination of the Light and Dark elements.
Sal's element was called 'Marionette'... It seemed weird until Eisen actually thought about why this was the case. For one, he did everything with his threads, probably just to practice and out of fun, and even picked different things up with the threads. And on top of that, he usually would control his own body with the help of his mana, or rather support his body's movement with his own body, although it was rather the first sometimes. His mana could react quicker than his body could, so he used it to dodge incoming attacks, for example.
In that relation, it somewhat made sense, although Eisen still felt kind of bad that it was this kind of element instead of one related to Dance, something that Sal apparently would have rather gotten.
"Don't worry, bud, like this, you might be able to dance even better!" Eisen pointed out as he spoke to the spider boy about it, and soon it seemed like he himself didn't mind having it either.
For now he couldn't really do all that much with his element yet, but that would come later on after he practiced with it a bit.
Although, it did seem like he was able to control his threads a lot better already, just having his element at Rank 0... Due to his 'condition', he was practically a highly magical creature, after all, so it somewhat did make sense.
Either way, after Sal got his element, the hunting only sped up, especially considering that the three monster kids were leveling up pretty well, so soon enough they moved on to Rank 5 monsters to make the leveling-up pick up speed even more. But even then, they still didn't manage to rank up in a single day, despite slaughtering nearly the whole population of this particular monster on top of these plateaus.
It didn't really seem like they would be able to rank up anytime soon, until a certain wolf lady found something pretty interesting.
"Oh? Is this a cave?" Eisen muttered curiously as he squatted down and looked at the narrow hole in front of them, and then slowly turned toward Bree. "Can you get out CR-1?" The old man asked as he turend around toward her, so Bree nodded her head and dropped her backpack of her back and got the rolled up Camera Rat Golem out of it, swiftly handing it to Eisen, who just made it activate and crawl right into the hole, soon seeing something pretty interesting down there as he looked at the display screen in his hand.
"Well then, this is quite interesting..." He whispered with a grin on his face, and quickly placed his hand onto the rock in front of him, quickly pouring his mana inside of it, using a combination of his Mining Ability to crack rock down easily and Transmutation to quickly widen the whole in front of them into an entrance they could all fit into.
"What's down there?" Sky asked, and Eisen just turned around with a smile. "More monsters. Rank 5 and 6. They're the same kind, Thick-Skinned, Quadrupedal, weird mixture of boar and bull. The few Rank 6 ones are pretty big though, so we might need a better strategy for those..." Eisen muttered quietly as he started stepping into the cave entrance he just widened up, and continued to 'dig' the path until they finally got to an area where that wasn't necessary anymore.
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Sky asked, just to make sure, and Eisen nodded his head in response. "I do, yeah. We should be able to do this pretty well, and especially with the Rank 6 monsters that I can see, the three of them should be able to Rank up once more by morning. Might require a bit of assistance from everyone, though. Especially you, Kirisho. If you're fine with it." Eisen pointed out, and after looking back at Eisen slightly startled at having her name called all of a sudden, she just nodded her head.
"Sure... What do you want me to do?" She asked quietly, so Eisen just turned away, quite aware that she was pretty uncomfortable around him right now. "Just spread your mist around in there and manipulate the monsters to somehow split up, so that we can attack them one after another." The old man suggested, so Kirisho slowly nodded her head in response.
"Alright, got it..." She said quietly, so Eisen just nodded his head and made his way deeper into the cave, wishing that he could just get this all over with already.