Looking at my side, I saw Elliot running towards the group of soldiers without stopping. Everyone else moved slowly except for me, Shin, and River because he used his [Time Freeze] on them.
"Dark, let's go."
"Right."
Tearing my eyes away from the soon-to-be skewered Elliot, I moved towards the door of the basement. In five more seconds the [Time Freeze] will stop and a few more minutes after that, we'll get blown into powder if we don't escape.
Click.
The door closed and the three of us started walking in the hallway, gazing at the spacious basement room in front of us.
Lights lit up every corner of the room and in the middle of the area was a small yet holy-looking altar with a gold rock in the middle.
I could tell.
Even without someone telling me so, I know what that rock is.
Just witnesing the stone made adrenaline shot through my body. I felt electricuted. My blood burned and the bones inside my body quaked in anticipation.
"Hehehe! Hihihi! Hahaha!"
Unable to hold it any longer, laughter errupted from my mouth as I ran towards the golden stone.
"Dark."
"Hey! Dark-san, is that..."
Shin and River followed me but I didn't pay them any mind.
The closer I got to the stone, the more I felt like it was only the two of us. I could hear angels singing and playing with their lyre.
Finally, I arrived in front of the stone.
"Haa. I'm finally one step closer to surviving this shit of a place."
My murmurs did not go unheard by the other two.
They stopped after sensing the weak voice that left my mouth.
I'd rather not look weak but what can I do? We've been walking on thin ice this whole time and surviving with barely any resources.
I always worried.
What if we got targeted at random?
What will happen to me if River got killed and Shin ran away?
What if I get betrayed?
Because I understood this world better than anyone else, I knew how hard it would be to trust people. That simple thing could kill me.
'Now, it's going to be different.'
To have an 'official name' means having your own power to protect yourself. With this, I can finally stop depending on other's survival for my own security.
"Huu."
Taking a deep breath, I reached for the rock and whispered in an unsteady voice.
"Here goes nothing."
I clutched the ancient stone until the skin on my hands tore open and blood seeped throught it.
Shh!
The ancient stone glowed in a golden holy light and my blood moved together and formed a name. Though the name disappeared immediately, it remained engraved in my mind.
"What..."
I was left speechless.
Shin took the rock from me and did what I did and after him was River. My mind didn't follow what happened after that.
All I could think about was my 'official name.'
Names, the first one in particular, were better long than short because they decided how many 'unique spells' a person would have.
Take for example, Elliot's full name.
[Vin Sho].
'Vin' is just one syllable which means Elliot only has one unique spell. It was [Time Freeze].
Mine is three syllables.
I won't know how what my unique spells are until I apraised them but that's not what matters at the moment.
My name.
It was [Diablo Luciferieo].
Not only was I named after the Earth's greatest demon of all time, my first name is literally 'devil' when translated.
'Seriously? What kind of joke is this?'
I mean, I know I'm not a saint. Heck, I'm well aware that I'm a crazy bastard but I'm not evil enough to be deserving of those names.
If this is not unfair, I don't know what is.
"What the fuck is wrong with that stone-"
"Dark-san!"
Before I could complain, Shin suddenly went to me with a beaming face. His face was so bright that it almost seemed as if an angel kept blessing him whenever he breathes.
Tilting my head to the side in confusion, I asked.
"What?"
"My name is Kaylus! Kaylus Miriam."
"What the-"
With widening eyes, I placed my hands over his mouth and openly glared at him.
"You stupid idiot! What are you doing after all the time I spent teaching you how important an official name is? Huh? Are you crazy?"
"Pwee! I'm not crazy, that's you."
Shin slapped my bony hands away from his mouth. Then he looked to the side, no, he looked anywhere else except my direction with his right hand climbing to scratch the back his neck.
"Well, it's not like I trust you and River compltely or anything..."
"Are you serious?"
I turned to River with hopeless eyes. River, who was looking at the ancient stone with a complicated expression, walked to us with his eyes still on the stone.
"River, do you know what Shin did just now? He told me his official name."
"Mhm."
River nodded at my complain. After a while, he finally tore his eyes away from the stone and looked at me.
"Hmm?"
"You understand, right? Tell him. Shin can't go on like this. He's too innocent, he's going to die."
"Matchitehew Tacio."
"Yes, tell him Ma-"
Stopping, my slowly shrinking eyes widened again.
"What?"
'Machitutaso?'
River did not let me recover from the shock. He quickly confirmed my suspicions.
"My official name is Matchitehew Tacio."
"N-Not you too."
With my mouth hung open, I stared at both of them. They looked back at me with serious expression unlike the indifferent and goofy face I usually see.
I know.
They're not forcing me to tell mine.
'But why do I feel like such a bad guy?'
"This is crazy. You're both out of your minds."
Sighing, my hands flew to my head. It was starting to ache badly. It's not because of River's awful sounding official name but becase of how a pain in the head my companions are turning out to be.
'Did they even learn something from me?'
Oh, right.
I forgot what kind of people they were.
Though he improved a lot, one was a vampire that I convinced to live. If he did not trust me at all, he would not have followed me in this place.
The other is a vicious theif but for some reason, he's innocent to a fault.
I'm just a crazy bastard that they met by coincidence. I'm bad mannered, too secretive, and very weak.
The only thing I'm good at is scheming things.
Despite that, they were people who would trust someone like me.
'Didn't I say that I'd meet their trust halfway?'
"Haaa."
Placing my hands down on my side, I sighed and opened my mouth to speak.
"My name is-"
KABOOM!
But before I could say my name, a loud explosion rang around and the walls of the basement collapsed.