The Villain has Perished

'Ah, kill me! That was too embarrassing! Who talks like that!?'

After dealing with Matthew I was returning to the lake of purity. But the events that occurred in the past few minutes kept replaying in my mind. It made my face burn from shame!

'Speak. I shall decide your fate after listening to your words.'

'Ahhhhh! It would've been fine if I spoke those words jokingly, but I did not! I was serious back then!'

Is this what they call 8th-grade syndrome? Just thinking of the words I spoke to Matthew was sending goosebumps across my body.

'I need to find a way to stop the discrepancy between my intentions and my actual words! Or, everything I speak in the future will become a black history like today!'

It took me a few dozen minutes to calm down. With that, I rearranged the order of events in my mind.

'I wasn't able to read Matthew's mind as I could do originally. He was under someone's control.'

Reader attribute didn't give me a proper mind-reading ability. It only allowed me to read snippets of someone's intentions and thoughts. Also, if a person had good control over their expression, habits, or subconscious actions, they can fool my Reader Attribute.

In the past, I could read Matthew's intentions albeit barely. But today, I couldn't do that at all. It was similar to how I couldn't read Varnish's thoughts yesterday, when he came to disturb me and Lumine over dinner.

'Like I thought, someone had been following my every movement since the beginning. I don't know if I should be happy or sad though.'

'Well, I should be happy right? After all, someone admires me so much that they are sacrificing their sleep to watch over me. What a good fan, but …sniff sniff… I'm sorry, my fan. I can't answer your love.'

Imaginary tears slid down my cheeks as I realized how heartbroken my fan would be if they knew my thoughts.

As for realizing the existence of my fan, it wasn't really that hard.

After my first baby tarantula died in the Lionel Estate, I was aware that someone might have seen it. Nevertheless, at that point, I couldn't be sure that someone connected the spider with me. I wanted an answer to that but I had no chance to do that.

The chance did come, however. It was the spar I had with Matthew. I realized that I could use this chance to see if someone was keeping an eye on me.

I could've rejected the spar or lost, but I purposely acted unlike my previous self and won. My actions that were different from my previous self served to make the ones following me suspicious.

At the same time, 2 baby tarantulas that I used in the town died. This reaffirmed my doubts about someone monitoring me.

Baby tarantula can only be killed by someone of 1st Mortal Awakening or higher. However, knights are rare and baby tarantulas' description explicitly said that they avoid danger.

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It was too coincidental that a knight of the Rapthial Town found the baby tarantulas in such a big town and killed them all while the two baby tarantulas were unable to escape.

The one who killed wasn't a knight.

What confirmed my doubts was Varnish resisting Lumine's charm. It was only possible if the one controlling Varnish had a higher rank than Lumine.

In short, I purposely acted differently in the Raphtial Town to pull those hiding in shadow into the light. And it worked wonders. They took the bait and used the situation I set up to see if I was actually different from my past self.

'The one following me has to be someone among those 7: The 5 Daemons in my family, Melione, or the one who poisoned me during the banquet.'

'If I go through the process of elimination, it can't be Melione, Yula, or the one who poisoned me.'

Yula, my personal maid, would be busy creating the map I told her to. A map with the requirements I asked for wouldn't be available even in the black market. It had to be done by Yula personally. She won't have time to follow me.

Melione was a goddess originally. But after reincarnating with me she must've lost her abilities. Of course, I can't be sure until I meet her. However, looking at the time I spent with her, I can confidently say that she isn't bright enough to make a plan to test me. She seemed like someone who would head first into a problem and think of the solution later.

As for the one who poisoned me at the banquet, they should've already killed me in this forest. Since I was alive, thus my fan was someone else.

'It is probably Jared who is following me alone, or all the daemons have a hand in it.'

Jared was a special case even among the Daemons. He was one of the two direct aides of Solomon. It was possible that he knew more than the other daemons and had reasons for keeping an eye on me. As for the 2nd aide, they never appeared in the novel nor was their identity ever revealed.

'Well, they can watch all they want. After all, they can't harm me after knowing that I have an ability similar to Solomon.'

My summoning was similar to Life Creation. This was why I had been flaunting my ability inside the forest. The daemons who are fanatics of Solomon will hesitate before harming me.

This won't work in the long run, I knew that. The daemons will eventually intervene personally. Nevertheless, it was enough as long as this trick gives me a few months of time.

'That's it about those thoughts! Let's focus on this!'

A screen was flickering in front of me.

|| User has eliminated Matthew Gosen, 2nd Mortal Awakening ||

|| +1 Soul Point ||

Back when I killed Matthew I didn't receive Life Points but something called Soul Point. This was a first for me too, so I was also confused.

'What is a Soul Point?'

The screen before me changed as if answering me.

|| Soul Points are the currency the user can receive from eliminating survivors. ||

'And what is a survivor?'

|| Survivor: The term used to refer to the residents of the 7 worlds that will serve as the foundation after the Coalescence. ||

'The 7 worlds that will serve as the foundation are the worlds that have yet to fall to the Apocalypse.'

'I don't know the use of Soul Point, but I don't think they would be useless. And I can get Soul Points by killing the residents of the 7 worlds.'

I nodded to myself.

'Is it just me or is my ability telling me to murder people to get stronger? Isn't that the job of the Apocalypse? Why me?'

Ding!

|| User has met the hidden requirement to unlock the Occupation advancement quest! ||

|| Hidden requirement to unlock Occupation Advancement quest: Soul Point ||

————

Occupation Advancement Quest!

Requirement: Destroy the cores of the 7 world spirits that serve as the base worlds. A World Spirit is the governing entity of a world. Your quest to destroy their cores and kill them.

Reward: Occupation - [Demon King of End]

————

"..."

I took a deep breath and reread the quest.

'Base worlds' was another term for the 7 surviving worlds. World Spirit is the entity that supervises the records of a world. Only the worlds that haven't fallen to an Apocalypse have a World Spirit. If all world spirits died, then the multiverse would also die.

At this moment, only 7 world spirits are remaining. And my quest was to kill them.

'Yep, it is asking me to become an Apocalypse.'

I closed the quest window with a smile. If the multiverse died then where am I supposed to live!? Also, I was a pure soul who couldn't harm an ant, let alone becoming the source of mass genocide. My heart was too fragile for something so cruel!

'Sigh, so are Soul Points useless?'

Ding!

|| Detected Soul Point with user ||

"What is this?"

|| Would you like to unlock the hidden avenue [Soul Avenue]? ||

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"He killed Matthew without hesitation~"

A figure was watching over Sol's retreating figure. He was sitting on a branch at the top of the tree hundreds of meters away from Sol. Yet, he could see every movement of Sol clearly.

"It was a good choice to have those two knights target Sol after manipulating them. They helped me analyze a good amount of data."

He smacked his lips and a smile blossomed on his face.

"Extreme change in behavior, no sign of recovering King Solomon's memory, black hair, and an ability similar to life creation or maybe it is life creation. My dear little brother, didn't you change too much too quickly?"

Unlike other Daemons, Jared never once believed that Sol was Solomon. To confirm his doubts, he manipulated Varnish and Matthew into attacking Sol. The two knights, Varnish and Matthew, didn't even know that their thoughts were being influenced by a third party.

It was even easier to get the answers out of Sol. It seemed Sol was impatient to grow strong because he knew about the Daemons possessing his family. Or else Sol wouldn't be exposing his ability inside the forest. After all, there was no guarantee that no one was following him.

"He is quick-witted to realize that Matthew would also target him inside the forest. But sadly, he doesn't know about me. If not, he wouldn't be showing all his cards out in the open."

Under Jared's gaze, Sol reentered the lake. Sol had recently broken through to the 2nd Mortal Awakening, and he was already trying to advance as much as possible before moving toward the middle section of the forest.

"Everything is happening as King Solomon had predicted~ His soul piece inside that body was destroyed and the body's original owner took control. He also gained his majesty's abilities to an extent."

He stood up and stretched.

"Well, his majesty had prepared a backup plan if those predictions were to come true. I should get going and retrieve the black skeleton before returning to monitor Sol."