Chapter 37: Invitation
The instant that question left Mona’s mouth, Morden’s mind was already in an accelerated state. Thoughts of the perfect response came rushing down into his mind.
He kept quiet for a bit, not daring to make even the smallest sound while he stared straight at Mona.
"Your time is counting down," Mona said in a nonchalant tone.
Those words increased the pressure on Morden, making him forcefully try to speed up the process. If it weren’t for his low vital energy, he would have used Boost to increase his intelligence stat, right?
A few more breaths passed by before Morden finally opened his mouth to speak.
"Can I ask a few more questions before I answer?"
Mona felt taken aback by such a request, but he was even more shocked by his calm tone.
’It’s not every day you see someone capable of keeping their cool at the point of death,’ Mona thought.
Little did Mona know that he wasn’t a stranger to being at the point of death.
He faced it with a smile last time; he will face it with a question this time.
Impressed by such a response, Mona decided to let Morden have a go at it.
"Alright, but you only have one question," she said.
’Just a single question, uhhh, I think I know what I should ask then.’
During his life as an office worker, Morden always loved playing puzzle games; not just puzzle games, he loved doing anything that worked his brain, and that was the exact type of scenario he was about to create.
"If I die now, what difference does it make?" Morden asked.
Having expected Morden to ask some dumb question like, "Why should I die?" or something like that, Mona was shocked for the second time in a row to hear him ask a question like this.
’Instead of asking a question to save himself, he asked a question that mostly affected others.’
’That’s a plus,’
"If you die now, then we have basically averted a catastrophe before it even happens. As I have said earlier, everyone with an attribute has always caused one huge problem or the other," Mona answered.
"Hmmmm, that seems like a valid point, but that raises another question."
"Are you sure killing me will actually avert the catastrophe?"
"How are you sure that the fact that you killed isn’t the reason the catastrophe will even be set off?"
"Or that the catastrophe hasn’t already begun somewhere,"
"Like you said before, you don’t know everything that has happened to me the past few days."
"What if the bomb to the catastrophe has started counting down and killing me doesn’t change anything?"
Morden’s voice was slowly growing louder the more he spoke, but Mona, on the other hand, didn’t change in any way. Her expression remained unchanged despite all that Morden had spouted, and at the end of it, she responded.
"All that you just said is undoubtedly crap, and I am sure you know it," Mona said with icy cold eyes.
She had previously thought Morden was actually heading somewhere with that question, but after hearing his response to her answer, she had lost all hope.
"Yes, it might be Crap, what am I even saying? it is crap, but it’s good crap since it got me the answer to your earlier question in fact it got me two questions."
"Why shouldn’t you kill me?"
"Because of two things, firstly because you have no reason to and secondly because you don’t want to," Morden said in a firm and confident voice.
"Oh, really?" Mona asked with a surprised smile while she repositioned herself.
"Tell me more," she added.
"It is just as I have said it; you have no reason to kill me, and the reason for that conclusion is the fact that despite having an attribute, I haven’t shown any signs of causing large-scale trouble."
"From your words, it’s obvious that almost everyone that has an attribute almost immediately causes large-scale trouble, right?"
"I, on the other hand, have had quite a peaceful time if it weren’t for this man you sent after me."
Mona didn’t say anything to confirm or reject his words, but the lack of obvious changes in her expression was good enough to say she agrees with it.
"And to explain the second reason, you don’t want to. This is the most obvious one of the two."
"You shouldn’t kill me because you don’t want to; if you wanted to, I am sure you would have done that immediately after you got the mission, so I deduced that you are either skeptical about the Omnisphere itself or you are worried about something else."
"Though I am leaning on the first option, since that explains why you sent this man that you already planned to kill since the beginning."
"That concludes my answer," Morden said with a deep sigh while he looked straight at Mona.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"I have to give it to you; that was a really impressive deduction, a really great one, but you just forgot one very, very important detail."
"Uhmmm, though the detail is only important if you want to survive for long."
"What is that?" Morden couldn’t help but ask.
"You forgot you are in the Bearer world. Logic doesn’t always apply."
"That fact alone changes everything."
"What if I didn’t need a reason to kill you, what if the only reason I needed is because I can?"
"What if the reason I didn’t want to kill you is because I didn’t want to sully myself with killing the likes of you?"
"Those are both scenarios you didn’t think about due to the restriction called Logic,"
While she slowly got towards the end of her statement, Mona stood up from the shadow chair she had conjured not too long ago and began approaching Morden, one clean step at a time until she was standing right above him, like they were in that interrogation room.
"Your deductive skills are quite impressive; killing you will be a waste."
"Instead,"
"Morden Tales. You are being invited to join the Watchmen,"