Chapter 186: Not Again

“Greed, I decided.” Dante whispered: “I think I want you to be completely mine instead of destroying you. That would be great.”

“It’d be a shame if I lost your abilities as a mask or your sharpness as a sword.”

Greed stared at Dante with a daze for a few moments before chuckling: “And how are you supposed to do this? Will you now start absorbing the other relics instead of destroying them, or do you think that keeping only the weapon and the mask would make me controllable?”

Dante shrugged: “I don’t know, that’s just a random thought I have. I’ll figure out a way somehow. Or is it ’we’ now? I should consider the one living in my body from now on.”

Dante thought seriously, remembering the parasite that was now not only a part of his soul, but also his body. The only thing that separated them from being the same creature was likely their different minds.

“Hey… are you comfortable there?” Dante asked curiously: “How does it feel to be… I don’t know how to explain it.”

Just then, a slimy black mass extended from his chest and stopped in front of his eyes. It had a mouth and two eyes that were fixed on him.

The mouth opened: “It’s better than the Wheel! I can do a lot of things and move freely!”

“Oh… good for you, I guess.” Dante nodded and allowed the parasite to return fully into his body.

It was weird to feel that a sentient being was literally living and moving inside of him. It was truly weird!

However, he didn’t mind that much. The parasite deserved to be happy considering that it would start working with him later. They would have to figure out a way to be uncontrolled together.

“By the way, why are you even absorbing misfortune like that?” Dante brought a cigarette to his mouth and asked: “I thought that it had something to do with the Wheel, but you’re still doing it even now.”

The parasite responded immediately: “Oh, it’s because I eat misfortune! I just eat some and keep the remaining misfortune stored for emergencies!”

“…”

Dante brought a finger to his ear and cleared it, hoping that he heard it wrong.

“Can you repeat it?”

“What? I have to store the misfortune to eat it later.”

Dante inhaled deeply, his expression turning deadpan.

“So… you’re telling me you didn’t have to fill my Wheel with a pillar of misfortune and you could have just stored a small amount, right?”

The parasite didn’t speak for a long moment. Then, it said with a low tone: “…It’s safer to keep as much as I can… for emergencies.”

Dante inhaled again: “You damn bastard!”

“What? Should I just starve to death?”

“No, just eat whenever you’re hungry! You don’t have to be greedy!”

“You of all people are telling me not to be greedy? And how am I supposed to ensure that you won’t fall into a place with no misfortune? I had to keep it for emergencies!”

“And turn my life into misery?”

“Blame the centipede, it’s not my fault!”

Dante and the parasite argued for a few seconds before he rubbed his temple: “And what about spreading that very same misfortune you were keeping? What was the purpose of that?”

The parasite let out a sound that was similar to a sigh and responded: “It was… the centipede. I don’t know how, but that thing was forcing me to do this. If it were up to me, I’d have just kept eating in peace.”

“What?” Dante glanced at Greed, only to find that he wasn’t there anymore.

“That bastard! Of course it was him!” Dante gritted his teeth and kicked the ground to let out his frustration.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to remember that for his revenge. Someday, he would definitely return everything to him!

“Anyway, let’s hide those annoying things.”

After saying that, a blank mask covered Dante’s face. The next moment, his Crown mark, his exoskeleton and scales, his horn, and even his claws disappeared.

Everything about him was now normal and humanoid.

“Oh, wait, I forgot.”

Then with a simple thought, his Crown turned into thousands of shiny particles that went into his forehead.

Additionally, he made sure to hide the parasite and all the misfortune it was absorbing. It wouldn’t be noticed unless someone could see the misfortune in air being absorbed, which even Dante couldn’t see.

More safety was always better. He even went as far as to hide his emotions just in case someone could use them.

Everything he could think of that could be hidden was completely concealed.

Everything was natural now.

CRACK!

Another piece of the space shattered, making Dante fully alert.

“Now what?”

He had opened the gate to annoy whatever was going to emerge from the abyssal gate, but he didn’t want to be the one to face it either.

Maybe he was a bit curious about what would emerge from it, but he wasn’t suicidal… unless his suicide would bring him profits.

Maybe he could use a life to explore that other world…

“No, that’s stupid.” Dante shook his head, dismissing that idea: “The time there might be different from here. In the worst case, I might spend a minute there and find that a year has passed here.”

Greed told Dante that it was possible for a time user to accelerate the time of an entire world. Dante wasn’t interested in experiencing such a phenomenon yet.

“Maybe you should try to find Michael. He can’t be that far.” The parasite suggested: “Just search on the way of the Holy Kingdom and you might find him.”

Dante nodded: “Fine—!”

“That crap is finally stable enough for me to pass. How can an abyssal gate be that big yet not stable?!”

Before Dante could complete his sentence, a huge shadow loomed over him, followed by a voice that he had never heard before.

Without hesitation, Dante turned around with a slice of his relic in a sword form, charging it with demonic energy to use abyssal slash.

His mind was completely altered by the corruption. He wasn’t afraid of mental corruption anymore!

Clunk!

However, his sword felt as if it had hit a wall of unbreakable steel, sending vibrations across Dante’s arm and causing the sword to recoil with a broken edge.

Dante’s sword, a fragment from Sin of Greed, almost broke from the impact!

“Did you really attack me with kill intent without even seeing my face? What the hell do they teach you in the academies? My little heart can’t understand such cruelty.”

Dante immediately registered that person as a big threat.

He tried to retrieve the syringe from his ring, but his body suddenly solidified, turning into a statue.

A literal statue!

A metallic statue!!

He lost the ability to move, use his energies, or even talk. The only thing he could do was move his eyes helplessly.

’…Not again.’

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