Chapter 31: Come Back (Part 1)

[ The Calamity Tree: New Section Discovered (!) ]

[ Cenotaphs Discovered (!) ]

[ The Gauge Discovered (!) ] 𓂃🖋

"The academy first."

Milo looked left, over to Aldous’ corpse.

The man was too much of a coward to put up a decent fight. In fact, he put up no fight at all.

One strike of the Iron Turnhook to the head knocked him out. That left Milo to do the finishing work himself: stabbing at the unconscious body’s sides, letting it bleed, and reproducing the skin-peeling attacks the Plague Host had demonstrated.

Looking down at his hands, he recalled how clean they had been right before their repeated obliteration. What Aldous had just suffered didn’t compare.

But was it even real?

"Ugh! He heard me." Milo faced the sheet. "New Section?"

[ The Calamity Tree ]

[ First of its trait, the Shroudwalk seeds a Section. ]

[ The Plague Section takes root. ] 𓂃🖋

"I know that. Plague Section."

[ Please choose The Primary Branch. Upon being chosen, it will open onto further Primary Branch related skills. ]

[ One grows. The rest are pruned. ]

[ — Ministry ]

[ — Asylum ]

[ — Genesis ]

[ Further growth is shown when it is reached. ]

[ The choice is permanent. ] 𓂃🖋

Milo scratched his head and scanned the field. A crow watched from the lone intact length of fence, hardly an intimidating witness.

"Ministry?"

[ Do you wish to permanently adapt the branch of Ministry? (Y/N) ] 𓂃🖋

"NO YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"

He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth. Knowing the sheet, the word no translated directly into a wish to permanently discard the branch of Ministry instead.

"I wish to see what it does."

[ Ministry ]

[ Permits the User to command Plague particles within his reach. ] 𓂃🖋

Milo pictured the schoolyard, everyone packed together after tests that had found nothing wrong.

If he could command the Plague, he could tell it to stop.

Hero...

"Show me Asylum."

[ Asylum ]

[ No Plague particles may affect the User. ] 𓂃🖋

At last, the strings attached.

A separate branch existed solely to exclude the User from the particles’ effects. Ministry on its own, it followed, had no answer to sickness-related attacks.

Pushing Aldous away simply shared the temporary fever outburst with everyone nearby. The shivering and the black spots eating into his vision had been a stalling move, time bought while the Host shuffled around hunting for the bricks’ source.

Furthermore, he could walk into every classroom untouched and leave the students exactly as he’d found them.

"Genesis?"

[ Genesis ]

[ Permits the User to produce Plague particles of his own design. ] 𓂃🖋

The engineer’s path. Very aggressive, considering no mention of the User being immune to the produced particles. Designing the particles to avoid their creator looked simple on paper, but given the sheet’s pettiness, it would be harder than that.

Milo bit down on his nails, eyes darting, making sure no one saw him near the Warden’s body. Yet, he stayed in place.

"Command. Affect. Produce! What am I supposed to build from that? Do I just order particles I’m not even sure exist to... move? Attack organs?"

[ The basic mechanism is explained upon selection. ] 𓂃🖋

"What about the skills the chosen branch opens onto? What are they for Ministry?"

[ Further growth is shown when it is reached. ] 𓂃🖋

"Right."

He straightened and walked over to the corpse, crystals crunching under his soles.

From what he understood, not only could he fulfill his initial heroic goal of saving the academy, but gain control over all the students, too. Eventually, anyway.

Ministry struck the best balance of offense and defense of the three. Would all Primary Branch dilemmas look like that? Becoming immortal, becoming lethal, or merely enduring and harmful?

"I guess I’ll take the Ministry, then."

[ Do you wish to permanently adapt the branch of Ministry? (Y/N) ] 𓂃🖋

"Yes."

All of the ink smeared itself off the sheet, and a fresh output took its place:

[ The Plague Section ]

[ Root: Ministry (!) ]

[ Magnitude: I ]

[ Stored: Null ]

[ Available: Broad Recognition (!) ]

[ Matter of a claimed trait is stored upon Absorption. ] 𓂃🖋

"Can I really command the Plague now?" Milo let the breath shake out of him and looked for the crow. Gone; it seemed the fucking idiot remark had cleared the field of critics. "Broad recognition? What’s that?"

[ Broad Recognition ]

[ Price: 1 Minute ]

[ Sense the presence of Plague particles within fifty meters. ]

[ Grow Broad Recognition? (Y/N) ] 𓂃🖋

"Yes?"

[ Insufficient Material ] 𓂃🖋

"Yea, okay. Now tell me the promised basic mechanism of Ministry."

[ Root of Ministry ]

[ Command Plague particles within a range of fifty meters. Carried by intention. ] 𓂃🖋

Milo stared off past the sheet and onto the hills beyond which lay the school. Slowly, he extended his arm forward.

"So I can tell it to stop making them sick?"

With a story in which he hadn’t killed their Warden, he had to get back inside and reach the students before anyone locked him away again.

An empty field with a dead man on it was also not the ideal place to explore the extent of his powers. And he had yet to hear what Cenotaphs even were! The Gauge!

Between those two and everything else, the floating paper’s answers would outlast the daylight.

Bending over, Milo picked up Aldous’ flail.

The moment his fingers closed on the haft, the sheet wiped its writing on his powers and printed the relic’s details instead.

[ Grade: Blessed...

"WHAT?"

Relics of a Blessed grade had no business fighting Hosts. Ever. That tier covered fragile but useful items, such as Brother Ansel’s Soles.

How in the living hell Aldous swung something like that at such speed, Milo had no idea.

"Go on."

[ Name: A Nimble Flanged Flail ]

[ Type: Arms ]

[ Longevity: Minute ]

[ Mercies: Bent Path, Fast Hold ]

[ Litany: Unavailable ]

[ Description: Flanged steel, often re-consecrated. Credited with twenty Turnings, by testimony. ] 𓂃🖋

A Minute left. He hadn’t burned it all. The bastard would never leave himself completely helpless.

In fights, he’d burn most of his Longevity away for the finishing strike. Still, even considering how many omens a Host shed, that couldn’t have been worth it.

Beyond the weapon’s two mercies, a closer inspection of the body put his relic count at seven, minimum.

A quantity merchant.

Unfortunately, taking anything would rewrite Warden heroically dies Turning Plague right into Warden robbed and killed after Turning, which was an easy path to jail and the gallows.

The flail, however, Milo had to take...

═══════════════════

⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Come Back (Part 2: Finale)" ... ⤵︎ [!]