Chapter 42: Lies Mixed With Truth
"And why would you do that?" Jake asked almost instantly, his voice filled with doubts about his statement.
In Eris’s eyes, his behavior and attitude were way too rude. If possible, she wished to execute him for such crimes.
But Ethan, on the other hand, revealed an eerie wide grin. He was waiting for him to ask that!
Ethan leaned back against the throne.
"Relax... I’m human too."
The words thundered down Jake’s mind like an unforeseen calamity, disrupting the flow of his thoughts.
A sharp, static note rang through his mind as he opened his eyes wide in shock.
He had not expected the situation to unfold like this!
Since the moment he got to know about this meeting, Jake had been simultaneously running several simulations.
By the time he had entered the seventh floor, he had memorized several basic situations and questions.
In the end, however, this was all done considering that the so-called "king" was but another monster.
’Wh-What does he mean he’s a human? That’s impossible!’ Jake refused to believe him.
Naturally, it made no sense for intelligent monsters like the blood ant queen to follow a human.
It was simply unheard of!
Hesitantly, he curled his lips and chuckled sarcastically. "You expect me to believe that bullshit?"
As soon as he uttered those words, he felt a chilling killing intent shroud his mind with hostility.
Even without being able to see, Jake could easily tell by the pressure that it belonged to the blood ant queen.
But he didn’t waver.
He had been keenly observing everything. From what he had managed to learn, Eris couldn’t kill him without the king’s permission.
Even that was only if he didn’t cross a certain line.
---
———————————————————
[#/Status/#]
———————————————————
Name - [Ethan Graves]
Title - [Path Progenitor (Unranked)] [Equipped]
Race - [Zombie]
Class - [Zombie Overlord (SSS)]
Rank - [E+ Rank]
Level - [23]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Vitality - [35 +5] / [150]
Strength - [54 +5] / [150]
Agility - [21 +5] / [150]
Endurance - [37 +5] / [150]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[EXP]
└ ■ 11,000 / 11,500
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Unallocated Attribute Points]
└ ■ 25
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Miasma]
└ ■ ???
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Racial Traits]
■ Undead Physiology (D)
■ Temperature Resistance (D)
■ Regeneration (C)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Traits]
■ Zombie Sovereignty (SSS)
■ Infinite Evolution (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Class Skills]
■ Undead Command (SSS)
■ Flesh Assimilation (SSS)
■ Dormant Infection (E)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Authority]
■ Authority of Sovereign Inheritance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Awakened Energy]
■ Miasma
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Evolution Progress - [0%]
Undead Under Command - [841]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[System Functions]
└ ■ Information
└ ■ Undead Registry
└ Named Boss Registry
---
"Eris," Ethan called out as he switched his gaze from the system screen, his voice low and suppressed.
Eris flinched almost instantly as she hurriedly straightened her head and bowed. Without seeing for herself, she could feel her king’s cold gaze cast towards her behavior.
Maybe it was the effect of his class skill—zombie sovereignty—that allowed his subordinates to understand his intentions.
Or maybe it’s something else.
But whatever the case might be, she couldn’t help but tremble slightly.
’Wh-What am I doing?’ she stuttered inwardly, realizing her mistake. ’If my lord is letting his discourteous behavior pass and even going as far as to associate himself with mere humans, he must be doing it for a reason! How foolish had I become...’
"Yes, you heard me correctly." Ethan chimed in, putting on a gleeful smile on his lips. "I am a human, just like you."
"Your suspicions are understandable. Even I wouldn’t believe someone who hides his identity before even engaging in a conversation. But I... had no choice." Over time, his voice grew heavy, mirroring the deep sadness that could flood his heart at any moment.
The more Jake heard him, the deeper he frowned. To some degree, he had unconsciously begun to empathize with him. It was an unreal development, especially for someone as sly as him.
From Ethan’s perspective, this only came around as natural, given that Jake had revealed everything about himself almost instantly.
Sitting on his throne, Ethan was smiling victoriously, a hint of alertness still visible in his eyes.
He had intentionally told him that he was human.
Why? Because it was a small test for Jake to reveal his true self!
’No matter how you look at it, it was shocking for a human to rule over intelligent monsters. But still, it couldn’t simply be called impossible.’
’There may be a skill or a class that could influence monsters into submission. With how the world had progressed by now, nothing was absurd. Even my own class was something I would never have imagined by myself...’
Squinting his eyes, Ethan showed a doubtful gaze as he scanned Jake’s body thoroughly. Because of his recent evolution, his body had improved significantly.
His eyes, which were previously able to barely see through the darkness due to his trait—Undead Physiology—could now see everything as though it was day.
’If he had acted cautiously and reacted to my words rather calmly, it would’ve become difficult for me to figure him out.’ Ethan silently observed his breathing for further confirmation.
Zombie blood ants had already reported about Jake’s lightning powers and arrogance, as well as his resolution to accept defeat.
’Someone arrogant would never accept his defeat willingly. His unkempt reaction easily revealed his arrogance. Although he acts as if he has been defeated, even now, he wishes to survive.’
"I don’t know how long it has been since I fell asleep, but I woke up nearly two weeks ago. By then, the world I knew had completely changed. Buildings I did not recognize, and monsters I had not seen before had already spread wide all around me." He spoke, vigilantly monitoring every movement of Jake.
"The last I remember, an apocalypse had fallen on Earth, and zombies had become the utmost threat for humanity. But when I woke up, I was greeted with a system window, one that said I had been awakened. Using my powers, I was able to slowly but effectively gain control over a blood ant colony."
"Frankly speaking, you’re the first human I’ve seen since the day of the apocalypse. As I said, I have no intention of hurting you. I just want to gain some information about what has become of the world while I was unconscious. If you help me with that, I’ll treat your wounds and let you leave immediately."
For a brief moment, the room fell completely silent.
Ethan had already said what he needed to.
Jake, on the other hand, fell into a dilemma.
’I can’t trust his words blindly... But my condition is worsening at an extremely fast rate. Moreover, if he has awakened a class or skill that can help him subdue an E-rank intelligent monster, then he could easily do the same to me... But he hasn’t done that... Could he be telling the truth?’ His mind was flooded with doubts.
As he continued to stress over this issue, Jake’s breathing unknowingly hastened. The more he contemplated, the more his mind drifted towards the state of panic.
It was then that Ethan was able to see his final card in action. It was something he couldn’t control but could use to push Jake towards his desired result.
Time.
Every moment was precious for him. If his powers couldn’t be recovered, it was only a matter of time before his previous enemies killed him.
Still, if he somehow survived, how could he possibly save himself from getting humiliated by the other stars?
Being too proud and arrogant could bring more harm than good. It was in that moment that Jake was able to realize its meaning.
Gritting his teeth, he asked helplessly. "How can I trust your words?"
Just hearing this, Ethan’s eyes brightened ever so slightly.
"Will you really let me go?"
"I have no way of proving my intentions," Ethan replied, his voice full of dread despite his playful smile.
"Then—" Jake had just begun retorting when Ethan’s voice cut through, making him silent once and for all.
"But do you really have any more time to waste?" He blatantly poked Jake’s biggest issue.
"I know you’re running out of time. The faster you solve my doubts, the faster you can go wherever you want. If you don’t, you’ll stay here untreated even if it means you die right before my eyes. Do not interpret this as blackmail, because it’s only the truth."
’Urk...’ A few veins bulged on Jake’s forehead.
Ethan’s words were indeed the truth. And because of it, they felt rather bitter to Jake.
’Ah, fuck it... I’ll die either way... Might as well die after trying...’
He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say anything, Ethan calmly introduced himself.
"Well, I’ll go ahead first to make things easier for us. My name is Noah Reed. I awakened a B-rank class that allows me to subdue monsters that are weaker than me by a whole rank. During the time of the apocalypse, I was 19 years old. Even now, I have quite the same appearance."
"What about you?" He extended his hand forward, waiting to hear his response.
"Jake Mercer," Jake said, his voice low and heavy.