After getting inside a private room, Jin quickly stated to the human who is scared shitless right now.
"Strip."
"What?" The human raised his eyebrow and asked for a repeat, not believing what he just heard.
"I said strip, boy. I don't have any time." Jin's eyes glowed in red as the human's body shuddered and he quickly stripped while leaving his underwear.
"W-why am I stripping." The human stuttered and asked.
"I just don't want to touch your bloody clothes." Jin said and before the human could react, Jin suddenly slammed his chest with his palm.
"Gaaggh!" Just as the human thought he had been lured in a trap and killed in such an embarrassing appearance, he suddenly realized that he was floating!
"What?" The human looked at his transparent hands and body, dumbfounded at what he was seeing and feeling.
"Don't worry, you're in your spirit form. Just stay calm and nothing bad will happen."
"Uhm, what if I don't manage to stay calm?" The human asked worriedly, fearful of what would happen to him if he's not calm.
"Then I'll slap the shit out of you, that's why stay calm if you don't want that to happen. I'm sure you don't want it to happen, right?" Seeing the smile plastered on Jin's face, the human gulped his saliva and nodded his head several times like a chicken pecking its head.
Jin then used his God's Authority to scan the human's memories and found nothing, so he then checked his soul and finally found what he was looking for!
It might not be visible to his naked eye but once he used his God's Authority to scan the human's soul, he found a small gap on his torso. Like a small key hold. Or a missing puzzle piece.
"That's weird, is this some kind of side effect or a consequence for being brought back to the living?" Jin scratched his chin and mumbled to himself.
Hearing the contents of his words and not understanding any of them, the human decided to just close his eyes and hope that this nightmare would be over.
Or maybe his monster friend would come and save him.
"Tell me your name, boy." Jin asked after scanning his soul, wanting to make sure that there are no other gaps in his memories like forgetting his name or where he lives.
"Conor." The human or now known as Conor, answered after taking a small breath.
"I see, Conor. Can you tell me more about your monster friend." Jin asked, surprising Conor whose eyes widened.
"D-don't hurt him please. He didn't do anything wrong. We used to be friends when I was a child." Conor's shocked voice and attempt to protect his monster friend made Jin determine his true character.
"I won't, don't worry." Jin calmly smiled and assured him, making Conor sigh in relief.
"I already know who the monster is, but the question is why did he help you here? You said you USED to be friends, right? Which means something must have happened that broke you both away." Jin asked, he's not asking because he wants to know but because he wanted to distract Conor.
"...We met when my mother was gravely ill...." Conor looked down on the ground and started his story, while Jin started operating on his soul silently.
He wanted to know more about the 'gap' in Conor's soul and if possible, turn it back to how it was.
A few minutes have passed, Jin has gathered several key research materials that might help him in solving the problem.
First of all, the gap can't be fixed by any means. Jin has already tried it by reversing time using God's Authority but nothing happened.
Second, he can't place something inside the gap like replacing it with another part of a soul. Which also enlightened Jin that every living being has different souls that are unique only to them. Which means it is impossible to replicate someone's soul and remake it into a new one.
Once a soul has died or ascended/descended to heaven or hell, there's no going back.
Lastly, souls are very complex. Even for Jin who has the God's Authority as a helper. He even tried to use God's Authority to cheat his way by giving himself the knowledge of everything about souls but it only gave him an infinite number of knowledge that seems like a mumble, which made him force it to stop lest his brain explodes.
However, although the knowledge he received might be useless to him and unable to understand, Jin knew someday it would be useful. Maybe not now but in the future.
At the same time, Conor is finally done narrating his story and Jin was amazed that such a monster exists in the human world.
It goes like this. When Conor was a child, he had a rough family and his mother was dying due to an illness. Conor cannot accept that she will die and wanted to join her in death, unexpectedly a certain someone showed up to him.
Obviously this certain someone is the monster that he befriended, Conor said that this monster takes up a form of a large tree behind his home.
After a few shenanigans and interactions, Conor has already considered this tree monster his only friend. This monster not only helped him overcome the grief of his mother's death, but also taught him how to be brave and courageous.
When he finally overcame his mother, the tree monster disappeared. The large tree was still there but the monster isn't. At first Conor thought it was just his hallucination when he was a child just to overcome the death of his mother until he joined in this war.
Thanks to this, Conor met his long lost friend again. But this time, his friend is a walking tree instead.
After a few reunions and such, Conor was saved by his tree friend but still died at the end.
The end of the story.
"That's a lovely story, Conor. But your time is up." Jin said, shocking Conor and making him shiver in fear again.
"I-I have outlived my use? A-are you gonna kill me now?" Conor gulped his saliva and asked two questions out of fear.
"Kill? No no, I mean your time here is up. It's time to go back to where you belong." Jin clarified while grabbing a small part of his soul and dragged him back towards his body.
Conor only felt a gust of pull from his face and before he knew it, he was back to his body.
Touching his body several times and in different parts, only then he sighed in relief.
"Ok, stand up now and leave this room. Just tell Dracula to bring you back to your fellow humans and he'll take you there." Jin said but before he could kick Conor away from the room, he suddenly said something unexpected.
"Uhm, can I stay here?"
"Sorry what?" Jin cleaned his left ear with his pinky finger before asking for a repeat.
"I said can I stay here?" He repeated.
"You? Want to stay here? In a place full of monsters?" Jin pointed his finger at Conor, disbelieving of his words.
After receiving a nod from him, Jin continued.
"Either I tweaked something bad on your soul or you're out of your mind. But I think it's the latter." Jin closed his eyes and nodded his head a few times before speaking.
"Tell me why." Jin crossed his arms and asked.
"....I have no more family back there. It's only me and myself in my home. I'd rather stay here where my childhood friend lives. And besides, its a fresh of air to live with a whole different species. New York is quite boring." Conor said and shrugged his shoulder at the end of his words.
"Say that again if you're living in Marvel." Jin muttered to himself before continuing with a normal volume.
"Ok, tell Dracula you want to stay and he'll handle everything from then."
"Thank you!" Conor smiled excitedly while bowing his head.
'I guess monsters ain't that bad like we depicted them to be.' Conor whispered to himself mentally before walking out of the room with Jin's permission.
*Thud!*
As soon as the door closed, Jin grinned and said to himself.
"Now that he's gone it's time to experiment with my soul instead."
Ever since Jin discovered the complexities of a soul and its wonders, Jin has grown curious about his own soul and how unique he is.
Jin snapped his fingers and blocked the entire room for himself. He doesn't want any interruptions while experimenting with his soul.
If something bad happens and he makes a mistake, he might disable himself, much worse kill himself out of a mere mistake because of a distraction.
The first thing that he did was to separate his soul from his body, similar to what happened to Conor earlier.
*FWOOOSH!
Looking down at his body that has fallen on the ground like cutting the strings of a puppet. Jin smiled and held his laugh at seeing his body being in such a funny position where his butt is raised high in the sky while his face is plastered on the ground.
"Alright, let's focus." Jin snapped out of his witty side and focused on the matters at hand.
"Let me scan my soul first." Jin said before using God's Authority to make a scan on his entire soul.
"WHAT.THE.FUCK?!?" The scan hasn't reached its end when Jin suddenly yelled in surprise at a discovery.
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[Next Chapter: Ch. 164 - Souls are such a complex thing]
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