Chapter 55 - 21: [Undead Legion and Undead Elite]

Chapter 55: Chapter 21: [Undead Legion and Undead Elite]

"When he had lost all that money again and the debt collector came to demand payment, his gambling addiction flared up. He made a huge fuss, insisting on a bet with the collector.

"If he won, he would keep the house. If he lost, he would hand over his last remaining possession—his son, me—to the lender as a slave.

"I was eleven that year."

Eliot let out a harsh, slightly neurotic laugh.

"The debt collector was dressed entirely in black leather. He was tall and thin, his face muffled by a black scarf, wearing a black leather hat and a long coat. He looked like a shadow stretched long by the faint glow of a midnight candle.

"Surprisingly, he accepted the challenge. He played two rounds of cards with my father, winning one and losing the other. They played two rounds of dice, and amazingly, the result was the same. The dice rolling across the table looked like little skulls, and the friction of the cards sounded like the blade of a guillotine.

"This went on from morning until night, when darkness finally fell. That shadow-like collector glanced out the window and said it was getting late, so they shouldn’t waste any more time. They would play one last game of guessing a coin toss—heads or tails, one round to decide it all.

"Then, he pulled out a Skull Gold Coin. One side was a skull, the other a crown.

"My father bet on the crown, and the collector bet on the skull.

"As the collector prepared to toss the coin, I stood at the side of the table and saw his fingers flick deftly against the edge of his pocket. He had already swapped the coin for one with skulls on both sides."

Eliot smiled.

"I didn’t say a word. I just watched my father lose the bet, watched him roar hysterically, watched him lunge at the collector, and watched as he was precisely stabbed over a dozen times in an instant by a serpentine Curved Sword, collapsing and struggling in a pool of blood.

"The debt collector was an assassin. He had taken massive contracts from the rich and powerful in the Floren Royal Capital, mingled with gangs on the filthy streets of the Ederic Empire, and lived like a wild dog among the bandits of the Barren Land. In the end, he was tired. He wanted to find a quiet place where no one knew him to settle down, so he needed a house.

"The loan shark boss knew him, so he offered him a job: deal with the gambler himself and take the house. From the very beginning, he wasn’t playing cards or dice with my worthless biological father at all; he was just waiting for nightfall, because it would be easier to make his move in the dark.

"He didn’t sell me off as a slave. Instead, he shoved this double-skulled gold coin into my hand and told me that there was a kind of spider that slaughters ants and lives in their colonies, pretending to be one of them. He was that kind of spider. He needed my father’s house and identity to hide from his enemies.

"So, the two of us teamed up to drag my worthless father’s body onto a carriage and transport it far away to dispose of it. After we returned home, he settled in and became my highly-priced adoptive father. He taught me how to kill, how to blend into a crowd, and how to infiltrate heavily guarded places. Gradually, he turned me into a spider just like him."

He sighed and held up the Skull Gold Coin, staring absentmindedly at the skull pattern on its surface.

"This is no lucky coin. I don’t believe in luck. My biological father believed in luck, and look where it got him. Bah!

"This gold coin doesn’t symbolize luck; it symbolizes the future. Just like my adoptive father, I don’t believe in luck, only in the future. Perhaps one day in the future, everything in your life will undergo an earth-shattering upheaval overnight, and the things you once thought were so painful and terrifying won’t seem so bad anymore." Eliot coughed softly.

"People like me have cheap lives, but we’re tough to kill. Even if I’m stabbed by some stupid, life-draining broken sword, I can survive.

"Whenever life gets tough, I look at it and think about that night. The desperate, agonizing version of me in that nightmarish quagmire even wanted to die. But by gritting my teeth and pushing through that mud, I welcomed a completely different life.

"Unless you experience life for yourself, you never know what’s going to happen." He smiled. "It would be such a pity to give up halfway. There are plenty of good things waiting in the future."

He pressed the Skull Gold Coin against his chest.

"There will be," he said softly, gazing quietly at the unfamiliar, ruined white stone ceiling of the beacon tower.

If his gaze had shifted just a bit, he would have seen a Demon Crow perched in a gap at the corner of the ruined ceiling. It was holding a brownish-yellow clump of mold in its beak, watching the scene inside the room with great interest.

Unfortunately, Eliot’s focus was scattered due to his injuries, so he failed to notice the Demon Crow’s presence. Even if he had, he would have at most assumed it was some sort of wandering, harmless small monster.

Everyone in the room was busy with their own tasks. Only Randall suddenly heard the sound of flapping wings and looked up toward the source of the noise.

The gap at the corner of the ceiling was completely empty. There was nothing there.

He figured it was probably just the wind, so he paid it no mind. With the Samo Cultivator and Talan Cultivator—both possessing strength comparable to a Seventh-level Adventurer—standing guard outside, it was perfectly safe here.