"Beautiful, isn't it?"
My urge to fling my fist right on Sir Edward Stein's face skyrocketed past the point I could even bare.
I just clenched my fist tightly while staring at him, for a moment I thought he sensed the feelings I was harboring then he turned around and kept walking forward.
I tried my best to keep my eyes down so as to not see the things around me.
I ignored the screams and wails and just kept following him.
I was trying to understand why he would do this.
Was this also as a result of his boredom?
If that was true then he is much more formidable than I thought.
I even contemplated on whether I could take him.
If I could survive in a fight with him.
I had barely just grasped the idea of accumulation and release of Energy and how to use it to strengthen my attacks and boost my speed.
But for someone like Stein that concept isn't even equal to child's play.
Whether or not he could utilize Energy efficiently mattered very little because I was very sure the crooked shadow beast; Kage that he controlled directly could do all that and much more.
… And he had the two other goons; Hoax and Yagi would indeed be able to do some damage, so I had no other choice.
"My Inner Circle as you have so rudely put it was chosen on the basis of the most Successful failures, Hoax was pretty good in actuality. He had strength, could manipulate Energy correctly, can manifest an element and use a good Sorcery Variant. He is also a well-versed Swordsman of sorts. He failed because his ability diminishes tremendously when exposed to cold environments. He has the head of a reptile so I believe it was due to their cold bloodedness. Yagi took the form of the fiendish minotaur, but he fails hard in the physical strength aspect. I doubt he could lift you up even with your empty stomach, but he excels in efficient energy manipulation and can even minimize input to the barest minimum and maximize output."
[A/N: Stein talks too much.]
"Basically my 'Inner Circle' is the most irritating to me. you know why? If you are a failure, why don't you be a perfect one. Why don't you fail completely? These ones complete the failure trope and even fail at being failures."
He continued using the cigar and tainting the air.
Decisively leaving out the fact he just took me through a torture cave.
He seemed to love my confusion; it gave him a feeling of triumph.
"T-The torture corridor from before …, Why?" I hesitantly asked the question.
I had no idea how to even put it in a way that wouldn't further reveal my emotions.
"Hehe. Oh that. You may have already thought of it. Those are some of my Nigh immortal failed subjects. Naturally I would have maybe let them out to go reproduce and create more beast species or probably just leave them to live here as long as they don't get in my way. Some even work for me, but those ones in particular posed a particular threat- "
"Revealing the location of your facility and putting you and your research in danger?"
I immediately cut in after his chuckle and explanation.
"You seem even dumber than I thought, Tsk, I may actually have to do 'That' now. It's not because of that. You fool. No one can find my facility even if you are given the most precise directions. In fact, even if one did, which is highly improbable, the sheer number of beasts that are around here of my own creation should be enough to devour or exhaust any intruders, and there are still other beasts out there that aren't from me. Other than that, if by the slim chance you do survive and get far enough to see my glorious gate and enter the facility's land you would just completely lose your sense of direction and orientation due to the sheer size of my facility and most likely get lost and either die of starvation or get eaten by the resident humanoid beasts here. I can go on and on. The reason they are kept here and tortured is rather too complicated for you to understand. So, it's best to forget about it actually. Aha! I did say I'd amaze you, didn't I? I Succeeded."
He was quite loquacious; filled to the brim with irrelevant conversations.
-{STEIN; DERANGED PSYCHOPATH}
For the very first time my own individual thoughts matched those from the Words perfectly.
"When do the other trials start? let's get them over with."
I said this attempting to clear my mind of things that didn't concern me.
I had other things I needed to understand and the one with the highest priority is why I have thoughts on knowledge that aren't mine and how I can exploit it.
"If that is indeed your desire, then may we waste no more time, your next trial wasn't something I expected you to be so excited about actually. I honestly haven't even thought about what it should be. If you didn't know, I haven't gotten this far before." Stein said.
"Hmmm. I just tested physical attributes and resistances with my 'Natural Selection'. So maybe mental strength now, I guess. Let's see how much you can learn, and what you can understand and deduce with the information you possess."
Stein pulled out a folded piece of paper from an inner pocket in his white lab coat while he still smoked.
I actually even wondered how the hell he had been smoking the same cigarette for some hours now and hadn't even replaced it.
Stein unfolded the map and then examined it while squinting his eyes and sometimes even moving it closer to his eyes so he could see it better.
It seemed he had some eye defect.
It was hard to believe that someone as brilliant as Stein makes himself out to be, he couldn't accept the fact he had an eye defect and engineer himself some glasses.
Stein then reached behind him and his palm dug into Kage who was always where Stein's shadow pointed.
He pulled something out that looked like a pen of sorts and he marked our very location with a large letter 'A' to denote where I was.
"I did say I'd get you new clothes. Well, if you make your way to the entrance of my facility I'll give them to you and possibly a nice present you'd like. I expected you to be empty minded and impressionable but you seem to know basic things. You may have a lot of questions and thoughts, I'll fulfill any request if you succeed, I have nothing to lose so I'll do it just this once."
Kage would then make a little hop and hit Steins back head first.
Kage's body then seemingly began to bubble and fuse into his back then four dark tentacles that would lift Stein off his feet and before I could even react he and his goons vanished and the map was left with me.
"Didn't plan this far? What a joke! He intended to do this from the beginning." I complained.
"Ahh. What should I do? this map doesn't even have routes, it is just a bunch of jumbled lines, where exactly is the entrance?"
In my confusion I just held the map out in front of me and marched forward.
What was to be ahead was oblivious to me.
I just walked along and kept cursing Stein and my wretched existence under my breath.