Chapter Thirty-Three
DWINDLING LIFE
'I want to sleep so badly . . .'
In a seat that was out in the middle of the road, Incidamus sat. There, he was planning on waiting until Dionysus walked past him to deal with him.
'I told him that I didn't want to do this, but he still assigned me to deal with him.'
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaah . . ."
Tired with what he had to deal with, Incidamus sighed. He truly did intend to just wait until Dionysus passed him on the street one day. He didn't care if he'd have to wait a single day, a week, a month, or maybe some years, he would wait.
'He's bound to pass by here at some point, right?'
Incidamus wondered about that as he drifted off to sleep.
Luckily for him, he had set up shop only two roads down from where Dionysus' bar was at. For that reason, the chances of him seeing Dionysus weren't actually half-bad.
'Incidamus, if you don't hurry up and get to work, I'll kill off both you and the four others.'
"You think I give a shit?"
With only that singular reply, Incidamus heard nothing more from Veritas. In reality, Incidamus did care if he lived or died, but he knew that Veritas would have to go out of his way to make new pawns if he killed off all of them, and it would be too much of a hassle. Along with that, he had personally witnessed Incidamus and his friends grow for many years now, so he surely understood that they were much more valuable than the average person.
Incidamus garnered some attention on the street, but being the lazy person that he was, he couldn't care less. No, it was incorrect to call him lazy, as unmotivated fitted him better.
'Still, to think Negata got his flame put out . . . well, time to sleep.'
He let out just a single yawn before his head drooped down and fell asleep, just like the rest of his body.
--- SEQUENCE 2 ---
"What do I do, what do I do . . ."
Meanwhile, Dionysus was making his way back to the usual bar. After finding out just how the situation was, despair was constantly biting at him. He was resisting, but he was also losing hope.
'Do they really intend to make me fight that man?'
His mind flashed back to Negata, an extremely powerful foe rivaled by almost nobody that he had seen before. Even without an awakened ability of his own, his strength far surpassed that of Dionysus', who had both of his abilities awakened.
'He actually dedicated time to building that body, unlike me, who just naturally gained it.'
While it was true that it was more likely for a person who had both abilities awakened to be stronger than someone who didn't, that didn't mean it was impossible for someone with less abilities to be more powerful. Simply put, abilities gave someone a higher physical roof, and while his physical roof far surpassed that of Negata's, he didn't actually build on his potential.
'I couldn't care less about fighting, please just leave me alone . . .'
He quickly arrived back at his bar, and when he entered through the front entrance, he drew a pair of very serious-looking eyes towards him. They belonged to his boss, a tall, imposing bald man who was very honorable and polite.
While Dionysus didn't know what he did while he wasn't at the bar, he looked like that type of person.
'What the hell? I didn't come in late, did I?'
Dionysus didn't have a clock to look at, so all he could base his sense of time off of would be the position of the sun.
"You're late, rookie. Get behind the counter, I've places to be."
"Sorry, boss. I'll get right to it."
Unexpected to Dionysus, he was actually late. He quickly bowed and apologized before getting behind the counter. His boss took a long trench coat from below the counter and threw it on before heading out.
'Seriously, I should trail him at some point and see what he's got going . . .'
While he didn't think his boss was doing anything bad, he did suspect him of some stuff. For one, he didn't know why there was even a position to work here, considering that this bar averaged only one or two people in a single hour, which was absolutely horrendous for sales.
Yet, the bar was constantly stocked to the brim, as if the boss was actually expecting a bunch of people to walk in here and drink everything they had. With how business was going, this place should've either shut down or quickly sold off a large, large majority of its drinks to continue.
'Also, now that I think about it, we're getting nearly no sales and customers, but how the hell is he constantly able to keep the shelves full?'
Dionysus decided that was enough of that topic, but he couldn't just shrug it off. Fortunately for him, thanks to his awakened ability, he was slowly but surely getting information about his boss. He'd only gotten about a fifth of his life by now, but it was slowly building up.
'Slow and steady wins the race, they say.'
DING
The front door opened, and before he could even see anyone walk through it, Dionysus welcomed the person who entered.
"Hello, welcome to the Mag-"
'Huh?'
Dionysus realized that nobody walked through the door. He waited for a few more seconds, but the door just closed on its own and nobody entered the bar.
"Tch."
'Probably some brats enjoying themselves.'
Dionysus took a seat on the single wooden chair that they had behind the counter and just observed the bar. It wasn't run down, but it most definitely wasn't maintained. Everything looked like it was fine when it came to quality, but that was the highest level of compliment one could give to this establishment.
SQUEAK
One of the stools in front of the counter made a sound, but when Dionysus looked, there was nobody there. He stood up and leaned over the counter, but he also saw that nobody was there either.
'Wait, what squeak?'
He then proceeded to forget about the squeak, just like how he had forgotten the door opened and closed with nobody entering.
Unknown to him, there actually was somebody here, but he just couldn't see them.
Actually, it wasn't that he couldn't see them, but that he couldn't really remember them.
'Wait, I'm gaining information, but it's not about the guy who's sitting in the bar.'
There was one guy sitting at the corner of the bar, at one of the tables, just drinking himself to sleep, but that wasn't who Dionysus was getting information from. Instead, he was apparently gaining information from someone sitting right in front of him, on one of the stools.
'Wait, no, there's nobody there, but ther-'
"Gah!"
Dionysus let out a yell of pain from his mouth, something which absolutely nobody paid heed to. The guy that was drinking at the corner of the bar ignored him and continued to drink, but there was somebody who was surprised by it.
'What the hell? Why did he just yell out in pain?'
Dionysus could sense that someone else was in here, but he couldn't tell who. As evidence, he could hear the thoughts of that person as they questioned why he just yelled out in pain.
'No, there's nobody else in here, or is there? Damn it all to hell, I don't know!'
The two had contrasting abilities which directly countered one another. While one of them had the ability to directly erase their presence at the very root of the universe itself, making it so that they aren't able to be traced or remembered, the other one of them was the ultimate information gatherer, unable to forget a single thing.
Dionysus didn't know why he was in pain, but in due time, he would understand it was because he was doing something that shouldn't be possible.
'No, calm down, there's someb- no, there's nobody here.'
THUNK
Fed up with the current turn of events, Dionysus quickly threw himself off the chair and tried to run out of the bar. His brain was in immense pain, but he couldn't understand why.
'What? He's leaving? Guess I'll follow him.'
Again. Dionysus could hear thoughts that didn't belong to him or the guy in the corner, but then,
'No, I didn't hear anything.'
Once again, he also forgot them almost immediately.
However, while Dionysus was forgetting the things that directly related to the opponent, his information was slowly building up about the opponent as well, all the way from the birth to now.
"Veritas . . ."
He learned about his opponent, even if it was only a slight amount. It was a boy by the name of Veritas who was born in the slums of a nation that fell around a decade ago. This nation fell to the empire that Dionysus lived in today, and veritas was born to it.
Compared to when he gained information from anything or anyone else, this was at an extremely slow pace. However, due to the nature of Veritas' ability, it could be considered a miracle among miracles that Dionysus was even learning anything.
'Did he just . . .? Interesting, to say the least. Hey, you five, you're all connected to me, right? Watch, as someone, without a contract, surpasses all of you fools.'
"Who's following me?!"
Dionysus was in fear, but not the normal type. He wasn't in fear of death or anything of the sorts, but was afraid of the unknown. After living through everything that he had lived through, although he wasn't that old, Dionysus knew that there were many things worse than death at this point, or at least in his mind.
He couldn't speak for the rest of humanity, he didn't know whether or not they'd take some of the other stuff over death, but he most definitely wouldn't.
Nobody replied to his scream at seemingly nothing, which was only to be expected by others. However, to Dionysus, this only served to worry him even more.
However, suddenly, he felt that unknown presence disappear, leaving his radius. He was still a bit worried, but, thanks to human nature, Dionysus let out a smile of relief, glad that he was no longer in any serious danger thanks to the presence disappearing.
'Wait, no, I can't let my guard down! That presence might have do-'
Before he could finish the line of thought, he proceeded to forget all about the presence again. At this point, the only thing he remembered about this whole encounter would be the beginning of a life, Veritas'.
"Where . . ."
Dionysus, having fully forgotten everything relating to the encounter he just had, only had the information relating to a person called Veritas, who he had no idea where he met.
Forgetting nearly everything, Dionysus could only come to a singular decision, which was . . .
'Well, I'll just head back to the bar.'