THE RISE OF WHITE CONQUEROR

Chapter 104: Blatant Lie

’Are these the deeper changes she talked about...? The changes in my psyche... in my mind...’

"...I burnt him."

Kei’s voice pulled Kelly back from the depths of his thoughts, and he looked at her awkwardly.

"What... burnt who?" Kelly asked.

Kei furrowed her brows, staring at him in clear perplexity. Still, choosing not to think too deeply about his increasingly strange behaviour which, in her opinion, was getting more and more out of hand she repeated herself.

"When I woke up, your summon’s corpse was there. I didn’t have time to bury him, so as a final farewell, I burned his body."

"..."

Silence followed. The two of them simply stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, Kelly spoke in that now familiar cold tone, his voice carrying almost no emotion at all.

"Okay. Good."

Once again, Kei was left baffled. She had prepared herself for Kelly to rage at her to shout at her for doing something like that without his permission. After all, no one expected practicality from a grieving man. She had even braced herself for him to break down completely. But nothing happened. Kelly gave her no trouble at all.

He simply accepted it. Calmly. Quietly. As if it were nothing more than a small detail.

’Hell... it feels like he wasn’t even listening to what I said... Is he okay?’

Thinking that Kelly was about to disappear into his own thoughts again, Kei decided to interrupt before that could happen. Looking at him curiously, she asked,

"So... what happened? How are you so different?"

Kelly didn’t respond for a few seconds, as if carefully thinking about what to say. Finally, as though he had simply given up trying to explain, he spoke.

"I don’t know myself."

Kelly said it with clear uncertainty in his voice.

’A blatant lie.’

That was Kei’s immediate thought. However, she stopped herself from pointing it out or pushing him further. After all, she had her own secrets she had no intention of sharing with him either.

"Fair enough... it’s not like I’m dying to know. But do you have any idea where we are? How did we end up here? We should be dead by all means..."

She asked it as if Kelly somehow had all the answers to her questions. She didn’t know why she felt that way. But she did. And so she looked at him, hope clearly visible in her eyes.

’Should I tell her?’

Kelly didn’t know what to tell her. Even for him, everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours was hard to believe. What was he supposed to say?

That they were trapped inside some kind of trial created by someone or something he didn’t even understand? That there was a woman living inside him? That he could now eat souls?

None of it sounded sane. So, in the end, he chose the easiest route. With a casual shrug, he said as nonchalantly as possible,

"I don’t have any idea."

Kei was left completely dumbstruck. Her lips pressed tightly together as she fought the urge to call him out. She wanted to refute him. She wanted to accuse him of blatantly lying to her face. But she couldn’t. Not without proof. And so, after a long sigh of frustration, she forced herself to continue.

"Hahhhh... anyway, wherever the fuck we are, we have to get back somehow, so it’s better if we know each other’s strength. I’ll show you my status."

Kelly barely heard the rest of her words. The realization hit him like a bolt of lightning. He had forgotten something absolutely crucial.

’Right... my status.’

’Fuck, I totally forgot.’

For a moment, all other thoughts vanished from his mind. There was only one thing left.

’Open status.’

KELLY KAMIMURA, AGE: 18, MALE

JOB:NONE

LEVEL: 10

WISDOME:10

STAMINA:120

STRENGTH: 50

SPEED:150

ENDURANCE:80

SOUL STRENGTH:99

MAGIC:LIGHTNING MAGIC, SUMMONING MAGIC

SKILLS: GLUTTONY, HOWLING, LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

Unlike last time, the changes were staggering, to say the least.

’Are these really mine?’

Kelly stared at his status in disbelief, unable to fully process what he was seeing. The last time he had checked it, almost everything had been in single digits except for his speed, and even that had only been around ten or so.

That was before entering the dungeon. Of course, after everything he had gone through fighting, surviving, pushing himself through the dungeon he knew he must have levelled up quite a bit.

But even then, he had only expected his stats to maybe reach the twenties. Not this. Not triple digits. It was absurd. Almost unreal.

’Is this because of Gluttony...?’

His eyes moved further down.

’I even have one more skill... Howling, huh... this must be what that beast used...’

His mind drifted back to that fight the moment he had come so close to killing that beast. At the very last second, it had used some kind of air vibration attack, a terrifying burst of force that had thrown both of them back.

Instinctively, Kelly reached up and touched his throat, feeling along his vocal cords. Earlier, he had been so overwhelmed by all the changes in his body that he hadn’t noticed it. But now, focusing carefully, he could feel it. The strengthened muscles inside his throat. In that instant, he realized it. He could do the same thing. The same kind of attack that beast had used.

Of course, he could already tell it wouldn’t be nearly as powerful as the original.

’Figures... even after getting the skill, I still need to train it. I can’t expect it to be on the same level as that beast right away... and there’s also a massive difference between my vocal cords and that monster’s. It might function differently for me. I’ll need to test it to be sure... however...’

Kelly maintained a pensive expression as he tried to piece everything together, digging through every bit of knowledge he had gathered from the books he had read in the library to the things he had learned by questioning the captain and the royal guards around him.

’I’m fairly certain this is at least a D-Rank skill... maybe even something that can evolve.’

Pulling himself out of that line of thought, Kelly focused on his status once again, still struggling to believe what he was seeing. The sheer difference was absurd.

’These stats are almost equal to Agawa’s when he was at the same level... some of them even surpass his.’