Courting Death

The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, casting a golden glow over the forest. The air was crisp and cool, and the only sound was the gentle rustle of leaves in the breeze. Midas and Julio were walking through the forest as the layer of grass and leaves would create a crunch beneath their step.

"Hey Midas! Are you having a flashback about that little girl again? Listen brother, let me tell you--" said Julio but before he could continue on with his advice, he was interrupted by Midas who rolled his eyes while saying:

"No, I'm not thinking about that. I'm just reminiscing about what I did during the night."

They were currently walking through the forest toward the North side in an effort to find the river and thus water. They weren't alone on this path.

They had come across multiple people going up towards the river and down towards the Shrine. It seemed that the river really did exist and everyone was in good spirits because of it. Even if they didn't have food, at least they had water for now.

Midas knew that a normal human could survive for over 2 weeks without food, but without water, that number becomes a mere three days. He needed to find an edge, and he figured he had already found some clues for it.

"Eh? What were you doing?" said Julio.

"I was reading the Testament Zero of the Holy Book. It's actually a way to learn the language, you know. I was also investigating this place and I found out that It's actually not safe." said Midas with a serious look on his face while controlling the volume of his voice to its absolute lowest levels possible so as to not be heard.

"I know. It's the people right? You didn't see it back there, but I saw a guy spit fire out of his mouth to start a fire back at that camp. What kind of Magic Skill is that?" whispered Julio incredulously to which Midas nodded seriously. Before Midas could say anything though, Julio said, "By the way, why are we whispering when there is nobody around here?"

"You never know Julio, what if someone had a Gift that made their hearing better? I'm merely trying to make sure that people don't know what I'm thinking or doing. Especially people from back there…" said Midas secretly while pointing back towards the direction of the Shrine.

Julio nodded in understanding, but he still couldn't get why Midas was so guarded. There was something else Julio wanted to know that had been bugging him for a long time.

"I've been wondering, why didn't you buy the apples?"

Midas merely looked at him with a cunning smile and asked, "Would you buy an apple for 10,000 dollars?"

Julio was stunned, and then he laughed and said "It's obvious, It's a No."

"Fine, what about 10 million dollars?" asked Midas. Julio felt like this was an obvious question so he said:

"Hell No!"

Midas laughed and then he said "Then why would you buy an apple for 10AC?"

Julio looked sceptical at him and asked "So you mean that AC might have the same value as a million dollars?"

"I don't know yet. And that's exactly why I will guard my AC with my life. Who knows what uses there are for it? Why would I spend it on 100 calories worth of energy?"

Seeing that Julio was starting to get it, Midas continued:

"Julio, a human needs approximately 1500 calories a day. That's 15 apples which is 150 AC. Imagine… And, what's worse is that if someone eats too many apples, there could be serious consequences to health. But of course they would never tell people that, would they? They are just trying to accumulate AC because they are sure it's useful, even if they have to make people sick to do so."

"What? Apples can make you sick?" asked Julio to which Midas responded:

"Too Many apples can make you sick. It's okay to eat one or two, but after that, the fibre inside the apple will make you constipated and maybe even bloated. There are even worse things that could happen due to blood sugar inflation and so on and so forth. You get it now? This is also the reason why I didn't join their group back then. If they are capable of smiling to our faces while keeping knives hidden behind their backs, are they even worth respecting?"

Julio thought about it and after some time he nodded to himself. Midas kept a straight face from the side, but inwardly he felt like he was on the right track. The seed was already there. He would just have to nurture it and it would grow into something beautiful and useful to his own ends.

And what were his ends? Midas wanted Julio to rely solely on him. Julio might not be the strongest, but that did not matter because Midas could handle him. Midas knew he would need a bit more time to convince Julio to think negatively about the group, he even slightly exaggerated his points just to bring about a slight mistrust.

As long as there was a slight mistrust, Julio would unconsciously pay more attention to any negatives and naturally grow his mistrust all by himself. This mistrust would then end up becoming a paranoia of all the groups that could form.

This was just how the human brain worked. Whatever a human pays attention to ends up growing in his mind. They think more about it, until they start seeing reflections of their thoughts in reality.

"You know what, I knew that those guys were fishy. Did the big guy attack you earlier on?" asked Julio with some anger on his face. Seeing that he was about to turn back and do something he would probably regret, Midas held him back.

"Hey! What are you doing? Yeah he kinda attacked me, but it was a mental attack I think. You felt it too right? It was a killing intent kind of thing or something. I don't know, I couldn't tell." said Midas vaguely, while turning Julio back towards the North and dragging him away.

Midas had a placating smile on his face, but inwardly, he was sweating. What did this guy think he was going to do by going back there? Frank's stats were double of Julio's stats. Julio would get destroyed. Annihilated.

"Yeah, I felt it." said Julio while letting himself be dragged away. Seeing that, Midas decided to add "I think that guy might even be stronger than you Julio… Who knows he might be an A rank. Or maybe even…" said Midas. He shook his head and released Julio from his grip saying, "Are you trying to die?"

"Pfft. Even if he was an S Rank, I would smash him if he tried anything." said Julio while following Midas. Midas kept shaking his head while chuckling.

"Oh yeah, that tall woman wearing a dress. What else did she say?"

"Gwen? She basically tried to sell us apples and then she said that we should share any information we find. And I think she tried to use a Charming skill on me. Actually, I'm sure she did it."

"What? Woah, these guys are something else. How did you notice it." asked Julio with incredulity written on his face.

"I was normal, but then I found myself unable to breathe and I wanted to bow down to her. I felt like she was the centre of my world. That's so unlike me. It was really scary, Julio, just be glad you were not the one that she did that to. Actually… Now that I think about it, she might be using her skill on people to make them work for her…" said Midas. This was a logical thing as if he had her Skills, this was what he would do too. Julio was livid though.

"What? We have to tell people about this!"

"Tell them what? We have no evidence. She could deny it, and the people she has under her could deny it under her orders too. Basically from now on, I'm gonna try to stay away from her. I think she's more scary than that Frank guy."

"..."

Julio kept quiet, but Midas could tell that he understood the situation. More than anything, Midas was trying to implant the idea of mistrusting anyone that wasn't him into Julio. If Julio kept seeing how dangerous other people were, he would try his best to stick with what he knew. And what he knew, or at least thought he knew, was Midas.

"Now you understand why I wanted to get the fuck away from those people as fast as I could? Hey, let's stop talking about those guys. The book. Make sure you read it. I'm serious Julio. My intuition is telling me that the book is really important"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, Mister intuition…"

"I'm serious. It might allow us to get food in this place, or maybe learn the secrets of where we are or even why we're here. So you have to promise me."

"Haha, okay I promise! You know… my little brother liked books…" said Julio with a smile on his face.

"Oh… Julio..." said Midas with a sympathetic expression on his face.

Julio shook his head and said, "It's okay."

Midas could tell that Julio was feeling some homesickness at this time. He also figured that he may be the overprotective brother type with loads of regrets and when he thought this far he formulated some ways to get Julio to trust him more. His homesickness would go away soon enough. Midas would become his new home.

Midas and Julio travelled like this, passing by some other early risers on the way to the river. Midas kept thinking about and analysing the Indexes he swiped from the people he passed by at the Shrine location. Most of them weren't anything special.

He also decided to show them to Julio to keep him aware of the stronger people. There were 7 S Rankers at that place, and some of them had the most interesting abilities.

Julio, upon seeing the Index screens was even more surprised. Midas explained this as his [Eye of Judgement] and he also explained that he only reason he used it was because those guys used their Skills on him first. Otherwise, he would never violate someone's privacy like that.

After hearing Midas' explanation, Julio was even more sure that Midas was a good guy. He was just a bit shy, that's all. He started going through the Indexes with Midas and was shocked at the variety of abilities.

|————————————

|| Index ||

—————

Earth Name: Frank Delfidero

AC: 10,200

Gift: Gift of Transformation (S Rank)

—————>

| The Gift of Transformation (S Rank) |

[Your Form can be whatever you desire. You are all forms and no forms simultaneously.]

Skills: [Morph(Lv. 1)], [Evolution(Lv. 1)], [Matter Contortion(Lv. 1)]

|————————————

| Morph (Level 1) |

[You can change your body according to your understanding and imagination for a certain amount of time.]

————————————|

|————————————

| Evolution (Lv. 1) |

[You can adapt to any environment quicker using the most efficient physical adaptation]

————————————|

|————————————

| Matter Contortion (Lv. 1) |

[You can change the shape of objects you touch based on some conditions.]

————————————|

<—————

Conditions and States:

—————>

Nature: Chaotic Neutral

Trait: Destroyer

Mental: Antisocial Personality, Machiavellian Personality

Physical: -

<—————

Stats:

—————>

Dexterity (Agility, Flexibility) → 2.2

Strength (Speed, Power) → 6.2

Constitution (Endurance, Health) → 5.7

Intelligence (Memory, Reasoning) → 2.0

Charisma (Charm, Persuasion) → 2.0

Wisdom (Intuition, Adaptability) → 1.0

Spirit (Mental State, Character) → 1.2

<—————

————————————|

"This Frank guy is a Destroyer huh… " said Julio in contemplation. Could he win against this guy?

"Destroyer? Jeez. More like Monster, you would have gotten Destroyed if you started a fight." said Midas before he swiped the screen away to view Gwen's Index.

"Bah! I still have a chance." said Julio, not backing off in the slightest.

|————————————

|| Index || Network | Statistics |

—————

Earth Name: Gwen Cho

AC: 11,300

Gift: Gift of Influence (S Rank)

—————>

| The Gift of Influence (S Rank) |

[Your Voice cannot be ignored, your orders are obeyed by all in the World.]

Skills: [Dominate(Lv. 1)], [Mesmerising Eye(Lv. 1)], [Mindshift(Lv. 1)]

|————————————

| Dominate (Level 1) |

[You can create, control, negate and facilitate any functions of the Minds of others with some conditions.]

————————————|

|————————————

| Mesmerising Eye (Lv. 1) |

[Influence the Emotions of others, making them more friendly and trusting and attracted towards you and your ideas.]

————————————|

|————————————

| Mindshift (Lv. 1) |

[You have direct control of your mental structure and can influence your own mind as you wish.]

————————————|

<—————

Conditions and States:

—————>

Nature: Lawful Evil

Trait: Commander

Mental: Machiavellian Personality, Histrionic Personality

Physical: Anorexia Nervosa

<—————

Stats:

—————>

Dexterity (Agility, Flexibility) → 1.1

Strength (Speed, Power) → 0.9

Constitution (Endurance, Health) → 1.2

Intelligence (Memory, Reasoning) → 2.7

Charisma (Charm, Persuasion) → 5.9

Wisdom (Intuition, Adaptability) → 3.0

Spirit (Mental State, Character) → 6.2

<—————

————————————|

"Woah. Really impressive. And really dangerous. That Lawful Evil Trait is a big red flag haha." said Midas.

"Her charisma is so high, damn."

She had the makings of a tyrant. Actually, Frank and Gwen both did. He felt bad for all those innocent people who were going to be spun into their web. That is if these two people can even work together in the long run.

Midas continued looking through his findings with Julio on their journey.

He realised that the lower the rank of Gift received, the lower the stat changes would be.

F ranks would be more human-like.

Then E ranks would have stats multiplied by 2, while D and C rank would have some stats multiplied by 3 to 4 times of a human's.

Then B and A ranks would have some stats multiplied by 4 to 5 that of a human's and finally, S ranks would have stats multiplied by 5 to 6 times.

Midas thought about it and realised that his stats may actually be crazy. His intelligence was a whopping 9. Why?

Was it because of the Authority?

His [Divine Database] had also gotten some results which he was about to analyse by himself this time, when:

"Hey, you guys are going to the river too?"

Midas and Julio passed by a group that were apparently coming from the river. They looked like a mixed group of men and women who got along. When Midas focused, he noticed that they were now approaching a clearing. Supposedly, in the clearing, was a river with a waterfall on the right that flowed from right to left according to Midas' perspective.

"Yeah. Why? Is there a problem?" asked Julio.

"Problem? Maybe, maybe not. There's a bunch of people who are kicking others away while saying that they want to take a bath. The worst thing is that they're doing it upstream!"

"What?! There's no way! What did those others say?" said Midas with an amused smile on his face. Humans…

"Haha, they wanted to fight but there was a girl who froze some guy into a snowball so they figured they would let them do their thing."

"Pfft Hahaha!" Julio couldn't help but laugh to which someone at the front sneered and jeered:

"What are you laughing at? Caveman!"

Then there was laughter between another group of five who stood in the forest as if waiting. Midas noticed that one of those guys was pale and shivering with his teeth clattering. 'I see…' thought Midas.

These guys were humiliated and now they finally got a way to vent their frustrations. Losers.

Midas inwardly shook his head but outwardly, he was estimating their strength in case things got violent. Julio could take these guys. But he still held his hand up signifying to Julio that he shouldn't get affected but it seems like those men noticed this as one of them continued:

"No wonder he has a spear, he's walking around with a Black person."

"Pfft, backwards and uncivilised as expected." added another person to which the rest laughed.

"What else can you expect from a Fucking Monkey, am I right? Hahaha!"

"Kekeke!"

The laughs and jeers immediately turned the atmosphere a bit cold. This was when Midas turned towards the five men with a gentle smile on his face.

'Okay, you know what… Let's kill them'