Chapter 96: Lucky mutt

The child heard that, and its face suddenly twisted into something feral. Both eyeballs dropped out of their sockets, hit the floor, then melted like two pieces of malt candy.

Its skin began to liquefy too, sliding off in slow sheets, splattering onto the ground. Its crying warped into something grotesquely distorted.

Rover didn’t care much. He looked at the female wraith, frowning. “Can you deal with it?”

The wraith nodded, but didn’t move, still hovering in place, her feet about ten centimeters off the ground.

“Deal with it and I’ll give you a spot in my room.”

The wraith: “…”

“More accurately… I can take you out of here.”

The moment she heard that, the wraith twisted her head 180 degrees to look at him, then turned back toward the child that was melting like chocolate.

Rover pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a bit exhausted, when he suddenly remembered something.

He pulled a chain from his backpack. Yeah, the chain that could strike the soul.

Rover turned off the [Gate of Truth]’s lighting function, but the brat was actually smart, still staying far away, not daring to come close.

He decided to put the [Gate of Truth] into his backpack. Nick immediately shouted, “Are you insane? If you put that thing away, that monster will kill us. Hurry… take it out!”

“Can you shut up for a second?” Rover frowned. He was about to say more, but then he went silent.

Nick also sensed something, slowly flicked his eyes to the right, and saw two empty eye sockets so close he could smell the stench of a rotting corpse, foul beyond words.

He swallowed. The stink punched into his nose so hard it felt like there were maggots stuck in his throat.

Nick trembled, looking at Rover with pleading eyes.

Rover shrugged and grinned. “I can’t help you. Pray.”

Nick gritted his teeth, furious, but he couldn’t really blame Rover either. In the end, he stammered, “In my room… a Rank B item.”

“Ah.” Rover smiled. “And why would I believe you?”

Nick pressed his lips together, wanting to say something, but the darkness was already creeping over his body. The child’s skin melted away completely, exposing slabs of flesh and organs within, crawling with countless insects and maggots so disgusting it made your scalp crawl.

Rover sighed. “Ah. Fine. I’ll believe you.”

He wrapped the chain tight around his hand and smiled. “Let me help cleanse this evil soul, with a… physical method.”

Rover swung his fist at the child. With his absurd physical strength, the chain around his knuckles tore through the air with a shrieking whistle.

The child opened its maggot-filled mouth and sneered, like it thought that punch couldn’t hurt it at all, but…

BAM!

Rover’s chain-wrapped fist slammed into its face. The impact was so brutal its lower jaw flew off, its skull caved in, and chunks of flesh sprayed everywhere.

Woo! Woo!

A tortured wail tore out of its mouth, but Rover didn’t give it a chance to escape.

He charged in, driving punch after punch straight into its face.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Nick and Nanoe stared with mouths hanging open, faces full of disbelief.

A moment later, Rover stood up, panting, looking down at the child’s body, smashed into countless pieces, like a pile of mud on the floor.

“Phew!” Rover let out a breath of relief and laughed. “Hope this poor kid’s soul can be a good kid in the next life.”

Nick curled his lip inside, cursing silently, ’For fuck’s sake. You beat it like that, it’s not reincarnating ever again.’

Rover also felt oddly pleased. If he’d known his fists could solve problems this easily, he wouldn’t have needed the [Gate of Truth].

After all, using that eye, its light had scared off a lot of monsters. Even though the [Gate of Truth] had an auto-attack function, its damage wasn’t higher than his fists, and it even gave these wraiths room to run.

More importantly, punching made Rover feel good. All the negative mood from being tossed into this bullshit mission got wiped clean.

“Hm?!” Rover frowned, seeing the wraith lowering her head, using her hair to absorb the remnants of the wraith’s corpse he’d just smashed apart.

He reached out. The hand wrapped in the chain immediately grabbed a fistful of the wraith’s hair, making her shudder.

She tried to wrench herself free, but couldn’t. Rover’s strength against these wraiths was absurdly, impossibly strong.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?”

Nick and Nanoe jolted when they saw Rover grabbing at empty air, talking like someone was right in front of him, but when they looked closely, there was no one there.

Nick asked shakily, “Rover, who are you talking to?”

Rover snapped, “How is that any of your business? You attacked me earlier and I still haven’t settled that with you. You believe I’ll toss you back into that spider nest from before?”

Nick ground his teeth and muttered something, but Rover couldn’t be bothered to care.

But right then, the chain in Rover’s hand seemed to sense something and instantly absorbed the entire sludge-like mess on the floor.

“Ah! This is…” Rover flinched, but then he remembered the chain also had a hidden function that required absorbing a full 100 soul points to unlock.

The female wraith struggled frantically, trying to fight him for it, but Rover shoved her flying backward into the distance. When she tried to rush him again, that sludge had already been completely absorbed by the chain in Rover’s hand.

She seemed furious. Strands of her hair stabbed into the floor, turning into dark, shadow-like tentacles that slowly spread toward Rover.

He curled his lip and pulled out the [Gate of Truth] again. The light returned once more.

Sizzle! Sizzle! Sizzle!

Woo! Woo!

Those tentacles were instantly seared by the light, making the female wraith wail miserably. She immediately retreated, keeping her distance from the [Gate of Truth]’s glow.

Rover couldn’t see her expression, but he could feel the look in her eyes, like she wanted to tear him into a hundred pieces.

He didn’t care. If she could hurt him, she would’ve done it long ago.

Rover looked at the chain and saw a notification panel appear beside it.

[Soul Points: 40 / 100]

Rover’s interest was piqued. What would happen if he collected a full 100 Soul Points?

Even if he couldn’t use superpowers, with this chain and his physical strength, he could still clear this mission.

Nanoe noticed something then and frowned. “Do you see how the pictures on the wall seem to follow some kind of pattern?”

“Hm?!” Rover frowned. “You mean…?”

Nanoe didn’t answer. Her eyes stayed on those images. A moment later, she said, “That’s… Morse code.”

She didn’t explain further. Guided purely by her own reasoning, her slender fingers tapped lightly against the wall.

A sequence of sounds rang out, and then a door abruptly appeared right in front of them.

Rover, Nick: “…”

Rover glanced at Nanoe, completely stunned. She’d taken one look at the wall and immediately cracked the mission’s code.

Was she the protagonist or something? Otherwise he couldn’t explain why her intelligence and adaptability were this terrifying.

Nick clearly had the same thought as Rover. He clenched his teeth and cursed, “Huh. Lucky mutt…”

Rover raised his fist, threatening Nick.

Still, he had to admit Nick wasn’t wrong. He really was lucky to have Nanoe: not only beautiful, but smart too, with EQ so high it was unreal.

You could say she was perfect, flawless to the extreme.

Nanoe didn’t think it was a big deal at all. She smiled. “Rover, let’s go.”

Naturally, she took his hand and tugged him toward that door.

Rover opened it. Outside was a narrow path leading to an old wooden church. On top of it was a symbol of two wings, with a circle wrapped around them.

“The church… we finally reached the mission’s point.” Rover let out a breath, feeling like this nightmare was finally nearing its end.

But the moment they stepped through, the door vanished, and countless wraiths emerged from the fog to surround them.

Wraiths of every grotesque shape, bodies twisted and deformed, shrieked with ear-splitting screams.

Seeing it, Nanoe frowned. “Rover, run inside the church. I’ll hold these wraiths back for you.”

She gripped her gun, her heart trembling a little from just how many there were.

But most of them were humanoid wraiths. Nanoe felt she could stop them long enough for Rover to charge into the church and finish the mission.

As long as he completed it, these wraiths would probably disappear.

Then the wraiths parted, revealing a massive figure, like a human-spider with twelve legs, nearly four meters tall.

It was human, yet it had twelve legs, long and gaunt, with feet grotesquely oversized like a spider’s. It had no head. From its neck, tentacles writhed outward, squirming like octopus feelers.

It had four arms, each over two meters long. Where its hands should’ve been were spinning saw blades, rotating so fast you could hear the shriek of wind.

Nanoe felt a kind of despair she’d never experienced before.

Yet she still held her gun tight. In her eyes there was no fear, only a resolve that would never break.

Rover glanced at Nanoe, patted her shoulder lightly, and smiled. “Don’t worry…”

Nanoe wanted to say something, but she didn’t understand why she couldn’t force out a single word. She could only watch his back and smile with complete trust.

“Oy! You… you’re really letting him go?” Nick said shakily.

Nanoe smiled. “I trust my man.”

Nick glanced at Nanoe, gritted his teeth, and spat, “For fuck’s sake. You’re a lunatic, and he’s a lunatic too. You two being together makes perfect sense.”

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