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Chapter 20: Double Agent

You couldn\'t be more wrong. I am a city guy. Well, I am roleplaying the character of the \'sole survivor of the village you destroyed\', so I guess, I won\'t be correcting you.

What? Why am I roleplaying?

Well, I gotta have some back story, I also need to kill this guy since he, in the future will give the location of this place to the demon and the demon will, with his beast army attack causing lots of blood to be spilled.

Of course, this demon is the same one who has Elina\'s brother on his leash, so yeah Elina\'s brother will also be attacking us. The protag team with everyone else in the future of course succeeds in killing the demon and beasts but lots of people will die.

Now, initially, my thoughts were to let it happen, I mean I get to kill lots of higher ranked than me, which will make me level up faster but.. I can\'t let these people die so effortlessly, you know I gotta save the world too, it would be easier if things were not chaotic, for now.

Hence, my actions thus far. I have tried to kill him and as you would expect, I couldn\'t kill him but that doesn\'t matter I achieved what I wanted to.

"Agh"

Edward grunted as he stood up, recovering from the poison.

That\'s right. I poisoned him. How did I get the poison? I simply killed one of the beasts known for its poison before coming here and extracted the poison from it. It\'s a lethal one at that.

The rest of the work was simple, I put the poison on a small piece of sharp bone that I successfully attacked Edward with, without him realizing, the splinters of the table shouldn\'t have been dismissed.

And what do you know? SS-rankers can be poisoned.

In other words, they can be killed. The question is, will I get the EXP for killing someone by poison? By indirect methods? I don\'t know ..but I will find that out someday.

For now, what\'s important is that I can kill the SS-ranker through assassination tricks.

Not only that, but it also means, that, unlike monsters of dungeons who have tough skin that can\'t be pierced with a weak weapon if their level is high, humans, beasts, and other species are different. Their skin can be pierced by even a sharp but weak weapon.

Of course, certain conditions are attached but it works.

"First, let me apologize. You are right, in the past I did destroy the lives of many people and helped the demon and yes, I worked with the demon Elina\'s brother is working with."

Um.. What\'s with this sudden confession? When did I ever ask it?

I could hear the gasp of Elina, an insistent self-proclaimed guardian of mine.

Hm? I noticed late, but what\'s with the past tense? Who are you fooling, dude?

...

I know this drill!

I-I am gonna do some fortune-telling, now he is gonna say he isn\'t with th-

"I am not working with him anymore, or more accurately, I am working for him but deceiving him"

Don\'t interrupt me in the middle!

Tch, so, it\'s a good old double agent.

"I know, the lives I have destroyed won\'t come back even if I apologize, no matter what I do I could never bring them back to living," Edward said with his quivering voice.

No buddy, what\'s with the regret in your voice? You don\'t kill if you are gonna regret it. I gotta say, this guy got like, no resolve at all.

But hey, I am not here to listen to your regrets. Keep your sob self-reflection to yourself I wanna know important bits, so like.. what I am trying to say is, where\'s the damn skip button?

"I don\'t expect for you to forgive me, even so, please let me apologize," Edward said as he bowed his head towards me.

Man, didn\'t you just say it\'s pointless to apologize yourself?

Make your damn mind.

"..Does everyone in here know about it?" Elina asked looking around at each one of the council members.

Duh, you dumb elf.

The moment Edward opened his mouth it was clear that everyone in this room knew about it but... this wasn\'t in the novel, Edward clearly betrayed everyone.

So.. what in the good name of hell is going on?

Taking their silence as an answer, Elina closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath as she reopened her eyes focusing on Edward.

Dramatic as hell today, aren\'t we?

"You said, you have been working for the demon and now you are deceiving him? If you can deceive him then that would mean you don\'t have a slave mark on you, how?" Elina asked her voice firm.

Very dumb, this elf is.

Ahem ahem.

"As I said, I worked for the demon. Back then, I truly believed that it was impossible to win against them and that it was better to give in. So, I went to him, to work with him. I was ready to enter the slave pact with him but instead he ...took my wife and my kids as insurance instead. Afterward, I worked for him, bringing him new people, enslaving them.." With a weary voice, Edward continued "Then one day, he asked me to create a place, a shelter, for any survivors, for people who wish to rebel, for people who are looking for hiding and to grow this place until ..one day he will come for everyone here, that\'s when I understood why he didn\'t enter in a slave pact with me."

By placing everyone, from those who want to rebel to those survivors who are simply hiding, the demon managed to bring the problem of finding them to an end. Now, they are coming to him.

Basically, this is a farm in disguise.

And of course, the slave mark would have been a pain so taking hostage instead is a better solution, gotta say, that demon isn\'t dumb, it\'s a decent plan.

"..But that\'s his biggest mistake because I can rebel against him"

What about hostages? This whole thing isn\'t in the novel, so I am kinda lost.

On a side note, it\'s a sad thing that I don\'t have popcorn to eat.

"What about your family?" Elina asked hesitantly.

"They are ..dead, he ate them."

Hm? Information source? Must be the brother, right?

"I learned about it from your brother one day in secret, since then I have been thinking about how to kill him"

Yeah, you can\'t.

It\'s not about only being a high ranker. It might be possible to fight against the demon but there\'s also one thing you need to take note of, its life span.

Demons live for 1000 years.

Now let me ask, on one hand, you have a guy who is macho on the other you have a guy who knows martial arts and has decent strength, who is gonna win?

The macho guy is getting his ass kicked.

Even if that demon were to fight someone on the same level as him, the sheer experience would give him a huge advantage.

Back on topic, we have a guy who got deceived.

"Edward confessed to us and we all decided to use it to our advantage. Of course, you might think he could simply deceive us but we have entered a Mana Covenant with him" Elisa said, a hag who doesn\'t look like a hag because of the difference in life span.

Mana covenant? Make sense.

You see, a mana covenant is similar to a slave pact except you don\'t become some sort of absolute slave to the other party with it.

Basically, it\'s like a contract, this is how elves back in the day made people their slaves, it\'s a damn magic contract and Elves are good with magic, they scammed people hard.

If you break the slave pact you lose your life, if you break the mana covenant you lose half of your lifespan.

"How did my brother tell you about it, the slave pact wouldn\'t let any harm come to the master. They are absolute"

Yes, slave pacts are extreme, too extreme even, well, they can\'t be made one-sidedly. So, I guess, fair enough.

"He didn\'t, not by normal means. Every time I visited a prison there I would see a letter carved on the corpses and then... " Edward didn\'t say anymore.

"How are you going to use him for anything?" I asked, finally entering the conversation and taking back my spotlight.

How the hell is he gonna be of use?

"We can\'t answer that for you, not yet," Elisa said standing behind me, her eyes looking at me with complicated emotions as if wondering how she should treat me.

I see.

No need to answer. I already know it.

Well, shit.

I knew already. I knew that trusting the novel wouldn\'t be the right thing to do, using it as a reference is one thing but I shouldn\'t trust it completely, after all, the novel was written from the protagonist\'s point of view, it was his thoughts, his interpretations.

There\'s no guarantee he didn\'t interpret things wrong. Sometimes, even if you used the wrong method you can still reach the right answer.

2+2=4

Also, 2+2/2+1=4

Got that?

I went to the hidden dungeon, and put my life on the line. This point should be clear to me, and yet here I am, trusting the novel.

I looked at each one of them, their eyes in particular, there\'s a saying that eyes tell a lot about other people... and I am good at reading them.

Alright. I am leaving, these guys can go and suck each other off for all I care.

"I am leaving"

Before anyone could speak anymore or start their bullshit story, I turned my back and started walking away.

Lord knows!

I tried, I tried to save their asses but they are far too gone already.

Their situation is similar to the sunk cost fallacy, not really, but that stubborn part sure is.

Just as I was about to reach the door, the door was frozen.

I looked back, at the vampire.

Yes, a vampire is in the council. Look, they might not care about their tribe and all but individually they do care about themselves.

In this world, the domination of demons is at an all-time high, and no one wants to be food or slave of someone else, so yeah, we have a vampire cooperating.

"What?"

I am a busy guy, so make it fast, vampy.

"Did you really think you can leave from here that easily? We have some questions of our own, how about you answer them for us."

Fair enough. I came here, attacked their member, and learned about some confidential stuff, duh, you aren\'t letting me go.

"Elina, you were sent along with Edda but you were captured. Am I right?" Vampy asked.

"Yes, Edda and I were spotted, so I used myself as bait and helped Edda get away but why are you asking me this? I am sure Edda already told you what happened."

"You are right, she told us about what happened 10 hours ago. Do you understand what that means? You are here in front of us already, how did you come back so early even with those restrictive chains? I am guessing it\'s something to do with that boy over there" Vampy asked with a smirk on her face.

Why the hell are you smirking?

"...That is correct."

Elina? Why are you answering while hesitating? Are you feeling ashamed of admitting your ass was saved by a kid?

I didn\'t expect that from you. Give me my credit in full.

"How?"

"T-that.."

Hm?

Ah.

So, that\'s why? Dumb Elf, I don\'t care what you tell about me to others \'coz I will never show you anything about me that I don\'t want anyone to know about to begin with.

Basically, I don\'t care.

"I have a mapping skill, let\'s me see the surrounding area. We avoided running into any hostile beings thanks to me, my skill I mean."

"Oh? Really?" Vampy asked, surprised.

"Nah, just kidding."

You don\'t believe me the first time? Don\'t, no one cares.

"Brat.."

Gritting her teeth, Elisa looked at me, she sure is pissed at me, isn\'t she? Why?

"Hahahaha! So, you have a mapping skill, got it. That skill will surely be useful"

Yeah, it\'s useful to me and it\'s exclusive to me.

So, any other questions?

"..What did you do to Edward earlier?" Elisa asked anger evident in her eyes.

Oh! So that\'s why!

Do you love him? Guy got a damn wife and kids! You homewrecker, stay away!

..or maybe anger on behalf of a friend?

It\'s hard to guess, well...

"I used poison I extracted from one of the beasts I encountered before coming here"

"You were able to kill a beast with such a potent poison while you had those restrictive chains on you?" Elisa\'s baffled voice reached my ears.

"That\'s what you are surprised about? I damn poisoned an SS-ranker just moments ago lady." I shook my head.

Elisa\'s eyes scrunched, taken aback by my response.

"Well, that was definitely on Edward for letting his guard down," Oliver said stretching his hand up in the air.

"So, what are we gonna do with this kid? Orson?"

Like you can do anything to begin with.

"Ал келечекте бизге пайдалуу болору шексиз, андыктан аны четке кагуу акылсыздык болот (He is undoubtedly going to be useful for us in the future, so discarding him would be foolish)." Edison, the dwarf spoke.

It seems like he can\'t speak human language, human language is a global one both in this hidden dungeon world and the one outside.

Why you ask? Well, ours is the largest population.

But that still doesn\'t mean, everyone knows how to speak it.

Edison spoke in the dwarven language, which must have been interpreted in their own language for all the council members.

Why? They are wearing earbuds which helps translate the language for them.

As for Elina, she looked confused, she didn\'t know what he meant on the other hand, I knew full well what he said.

Try discarding me and you will see what hell is like.

It wasn\'t like I had no way to kill these guys, I could theoretically and practically kill 3 people here and get away with it.

"For now, I think it would be better to enter Mana covenant with them to make sure no information gets out of this room" Ella, the elf who had given me lots of subtle looks during the whole meeting spoke.

My charm is just too irresistible.

"I concur!" Vampy said.

Hm? I knew this would happen, now\'s the time for you to shine, Elina!

"Elina will be the one to create the contract if not then I am not entering it"

Elina, is dumb, naive, kind ..totally the type of person you can use at times like this.

Basically, she is my ticket to not get scammed!

It\'s only been around 19 days since I entered the new world! I can understand theories and the gist of how things work but actual applications? Yeah, no. I am gonna get scammed hard.

That\'s why I brought Elina, I knew this would happen. That\'s why I brought her here and made her stay till the end after I verified her nature was the same as in the novel.

"I am okay with anyone creating the covenant, so I don\'t mind" Oliver answered.

And following on his queue, everyone else also agreed on it.

"...I will prepare the covenant." Elina said, her voice a bit tired. Must be a lot for her to take in.

Soon after, Elina began to enchant a spell, as a magical circle with lots of inscription on it appeared in the center of us all.

Everyone stretched their hands out, touching the magic circle, the moment my hand touched the magic circle I felt my mana being drained at a rapid pace and after few seconds, the magic circle glowed blue and broke into pieces signifying that it was complete.