One-Eyed Monster

After Bern said a few sentences, he was left panting, as if those few words had cost him a great deal of effort.

"You are, in the end, nothing but ants!" Bern, lying in the chair, spat out the words with contempt, as though none of the people standing before him were worth a glance.

Igor and Kadi were naturally very familiar with this line. They had heard it again and again—back on Guru Mountain, that Wizard Reed had said the same thing; later, when they crossed paths with members of the Circus, they’d heard it several more times. And now, in front of Bern, they were hearing it yet again.

Ants—this was a form of disdain for human beings. But why did these people all harbor such contempt for their own kind? Igor couldn’t figure it out. They were all human—so why insist on dividing high from low, noble from base?

Igor didn’t want to dwell on these things; for now, he simply hadn’t reached the height needed to ponder such questions.

He only wanted to know what connection this Circus had to that hidden enemy, and what Lord Bern actually knew.

"Bern, in my impression of you, you were never a ridiculous man. Why is everything you’re doing now so utterly absurd!" Popovich felt more than a little disappointed in Bern; up until now he had always defended Bern in his heart.

"Absurd? What is absurd? Whatever you fear, whatever you hate, whatever lies beyond your reach—does that count as absurd?" Bern, breathing hard, struggled to argue back.

"Why are you doing this? You and I are old men—why, at the end of our lives, would we do such things! What good does any of this do you?" Popovich still couldn’t understand why a man who ought to be enjoying his twilight years would run off to make trouble in this chaotic world.

Bern said nothing. He had always looked down on Popovich.

"Don’t tell me you covet the power of those Adventurers with Class as well. That’s only a division of labor—no Adventurer with Class could ever possess the kind of wealth you have!"

"Heh heh... cough, cough... cough..." Bern started laughing and then broke into a violent coughing fit. It seemed Popovich’s words had only made his ridicule harder to contain. His gaze told everyone that he held nothing but contempt for what those guesses implied.

"What are you laughing at?" Lord Popovich was utterly baffled by Bern’s reaction.

"There’s no need to ask him anything more, Lord Popovich." Igor said softly from the side.

"Hm?" Popovich turned his head to look at Igor, clearly puzzled by what Igor had said.

"Look at his body—it’s shrinking. His features are slowly aging. Clearly, this is the result of having been controlled by Energy earlier." Igor pointed at Bern. Bern’s body was shaking violently with his coughing, but from every angle, that body was showing the signs of advanced age.

Igor could feel Energy bleeding away from Lord Bern’s body—and that Energy hadn’t belonged to Lord Bern in the first place...

"You Scholars, aren’t you supposed to be able to deduce the future!" Bern, still coughing violently, forced out another sentence, the tone clearly full of mockery.

"He’s just like the other Circus members—he’s been Devoured by a Soul Devourer." Igor said with certainty.

Lord Popovich did have some understanding of the term Soul Devourer. Scholars, after all, constantly research new things. In his brief exchanges with Hoffman, he had already gained a rough understanding of it.

To be honest, he’d been shocked at first; later his mood had leveled out. The enemy was hidden deep in the shadows, which had suddenly made his sense of pressure skyrocket.

Now he finally knew that there were still so many unknown forces in this world.

And those unknown forces were right beside him...

Looking at Bern’s appearance, Popovich couldn’t help feeling a surge of emotion at the twists of fate.

"You Scholars are the most detestable things of all!" Bern’s emotions suddenly flared. It seemed that just mentioning the Scholar profession was enough to agitate him.

"Although he’s preserved most of his own consciousness, a lot of the time his existence is being propped up by that Energy. You could say that his former body is no longer that Nothingness Bern; only his thoughts remain Bern."

"Most Soul Devourers seize other people’s strengths to make up for their own weaknesses. In many cases, that’s a form of plunder." Popovich added. He too had done a short study on Soul Devourers, and now, combining that with what he saw, he’d arrived at a small conclusion.

"Plunder? Hah, hahaha..." Igor and Popovich’s discussion made Bern, muttering to himself, burst into another mocking laugh.

Popovich and Igor both stared at Bern in bewilderment; plainly, they were waiting for Bern’s explanation.

"Before overwhelming power, you are nothing. Plunder? This is not plunder—this is a gift." Bern, still gasping for breath, laid out his view.

"You’re taking what doesn’t belong to you. If that doesn’t count as plunder, then what does?" Igor retorted.

"The weak are meat for the strong to eat—that’s how this world is. Whatever doesn’t deserve to exist should vanish. Whatever wastes resources should vacate its place for the strong."

"If this world were made up only of you so-called strong, what would it become?" Kadi suddenly raised the question; he was genuinely curious.

"This world would become more optimized." Lord Bern answered matter-of-factly.

Popovich and Igor sighed in unison. Popovich sighed because he felt Bern was raving like a fool; Igor sighed because he felt Bern had been deeply poisoned by the Soul Devourer.

"He truly is a pitiful man." Igor said quietly.

"And a very pathetic one." Kadi added.

"Why do you think he’s pathetic?" Igor looked at Kadi with curiosity. He didn’t understand Kadi’s conclusion at all.

Lord Popovich was equally puzzled; they both felt Kadi’s judgment was somewhat out of the ordinary.

"He worships power, yet he cannot possess it himself. He has to rely on others’ alms to obtain it. Isn’t that pathetic?"

Kadi’s explanation struck Igor and Popovich as rather unusual.

Even Bern, who had been laughing at them a moment ago, now showed a hint of astonishment.

"If you worship power, then you should strive to improve yourself, not beg for some so‑called grace from others. And of course, plunder is wrong as well." Kadi suddenly seemed much more profound.

"If you want returns, you must pay a price. If all you think about is possessing, about gaining power for yourself without regard for others, then you fundamentally don’t understand the most basic law of this world: Equivalent Exchange." Kadi went on.

Igor and Popovich exchanged a glance. They hadn’t expected Kadi’s words to be so sharp, and every point he made was so simple and direct that it was hard not to be taken aback.