Chapter 23: Six Forms

Greed.

The desire to always take more and more of the things you like and want.

A tricky concept that people often misunderstand.

Most people consider it a sin, some people treat it as a natural instinct, other people see it as the godfather of progress and improvement.

So, is it really evil?

You might be greedy for women or greedy for love, greedy for money or greedy for happiness, greedy for attention and connections or greedy for friendship and true affection.

Greed is indeed a sin, but it mostly depends on you and whether you can control it or not.

What exactly are you greedy for?

What are you willing to do for your greed?

¢¢¢

ROAAAAR!

Above a big rock, a white wolf roared before leaping at the figure in front of it.

That figure, a handsome black-haired boy, simply extended his hand. Instantly, a segmented blade burst out of his forearm.

The wolf let out a loud cry as the blade pierced its stomach and kept extending until it crashed into a nearby tree.

The wolf tried to bite the blade as a last struggle, but a blue mana bolt silenced it forever.

[Your Greed Knows No Bounds]

You have slain a pathetic rankless Dire Wolf. Spirit absorbed: +0

’Are the wolves in this world edible? Wait, even if they aren’t, can this body eat the inedible things?’ The boy wondered as the blade returned to his hand and turned into a centipede tattoo.

Obviously, that boy was Dante.

’It’s been half an hour now, I guess.’

Half an hour had passed since Dante left the ancient ruins. He was now heading toward Beatrice’s house.

Dante would have avoided that place if he could, but he didn’t know any other place to visit.

He could only hope she had a map or anything that would lead him to the nearest civilization.

He didn’t know if it’d be a city, a kingdom, a village, or even a floating island. The dragons had exiled Fafnir without telling him anything about the outside world.

He only knew that there was a place nearby because of two reasons. The first was that Beatrice kept talking about *selling* him to become rich, and the second was in her belongings.

Dante put his hand on his pocket and took a round object out. It was a bronze coin.

’If she has money, then there should be a place to buy a few things and live.’

It seemed that some things never change about humans. Even in another world, they still wore clothes and invented coins.

Of course, Dante only wanted to know where that civilization was for now. He wasn’t planning to go into it right away.

He was a demonic dragon. One of his bloodlines made him a walking treasure, while the other was something cursed and hated.

He had to find a way to hide his eyes, but if the worst happened, he’d throw his draconic eye away and hope that no one would notice the other eye.

For some reason, his black eye’s appearance wasn’t affected by his demonic bloodline, so it was safer than the other one.

Dante walked to the wolf’s corpse, slightly feeling uncomfortable at the sight of blood, and stored it in his ring.

’This is the second.’

He had killed two beasts until now—a wolf and a boar.

He didn’t know for how long he’d stay in this forest, so all the resources were welcomed.

’But what’s wrong with this stupid relic?’

Dante looked at his tattoo and frowned. For some reason, it started calling the weak creatures *pathetic*.

Was that because he now had a class?

And why wasn’t it able to absorb the weak spirits? Why was the description of this thing calling them unworthy?

If it was able to simply absorb all spirits, Dante would have tried to find some ants and kill them all to become overpowered.

’What a shame. Wait, what if there were rank 1 ants with strong spirits?’

As Dante was lost in his thoughts, he suddenly felt as if something touched his leg.

’Oh, Fafnir. Yes, you can come out.’

That was a sign that Fafnir used to communicate with his owner.

Instantly, Fafnir materialized. He was wearing a similar outfit to Dante, but it was essentially made of shadow and didn’t have any durability or abilities. It was no different from his skin.

Fafnir pointed at Dante’s ring.

Curiously, Dante asked: ’You want to see the things inside?’

Fafnir nodded.

Without hesitation, Dante emptied his ring, leaving only the cores of existence and the corpses.

Appearing before him were all Beatrice’s belongings and the skeletons’ weapons. Fafnir jumped into them and started searching for something.

Beatrice had left 2 axes, all her clothes, a bag filled with 50 bronze coins, and a small dagger.

Dante only took 5 coins and wore her boots, leaving everything else as it was.

A moment later, Fafnir came out with two silver swords. He gave one to Dante and held the other one.

Dante understood the meaning instantly: ’I almost forgot… I can’t show the demonic sword. But how are you supposed to hold your sword when you turn into a shadow?’

Fafnir froze and scratched his head. He didn’t think that far.

“Pffft.” Dante laughed softly before taking everything into his ring again, leaving only the sword with him. That shadow was a bit naive, but Dante didn’t mind.

He was glad he had someone to talk with. He didn’t have any friends in his past world, but who would have thought Dante’s first friend would be his own shadow that was by some strange runes?

’Wait, if you’re made by the runes to reflect the older owner of this body, then are you completely made of me and my memories or do you have a few of Fafnir’s personality?’

Fafnir scratched his head as he raised his hand slightly.

’More than a few?’

Fafnir raised his hand a little more.

Seeing this, Dante sighed: ’So that’s why you have Fafnir’s appearance instead of me. You are more of him than me.’

Dante and Fafnir were technically the same being, but that was only because of their bond. If Fafnir had free will and the ability to speak, he’d have returned to the life that Fafnir lived.

Fafnir returned shamefully as a shadow, meanwhile Dante was busy thinking about a few things.

The runes never explained everything, there were always a few things which weren’t written.

Regarding his shadow, the sharing senses and his different personality were two of them, and the copied outfit was another—but there was something more important.

His shadow was technically immortal.

If he was harmed, he’d need to turn into a shadow for a few minutes to heal anything, and if he was killed, he’d return again in an hour.

In other words, so long as Dante didn’t die, his shadow would always return, no matter what happened to him. That was why Dante wasn’t afraid of testing his spells in Fafnir.

Thinking about that, a creepy smile tugged at Dante’s lips, and Fafnir flinched instinctively.

Another thing that wasn’t explained in the runes was his sword forms and styles.

His sword technically had only 6 forms.

’First form is the normal one—the Longsword form.’

Instantly, his onyx-black sword appeared in his hand. It was long and slender, with very sharp edges.

’The style of this form is about graceful and precious slashes and stabs, while extending the blade and activating the legs only when needed.’

With a simple thought, tens of tiny needle-like blades burst out of the blade’s edges, looking like a centipede’s legs.

They were curled backward, working like tens of sharp grippers. Dante was sure this thing would cause tons of pain if it stabbed someone and they tried to move away.

’Unfortunately, it makes the edges less sharp. I won’t be able to make good slashes with it.’

’Now for the second form.’

Immediately, the sword returned to Dante’s arm, then only the blade came out of it.

That was the form that Dante had used against the barbarian—the Arm Blade form.

It was better than the first in surprise attacks. It reminded him of something about assassins that the kids in his school used to like.

’Now for the next form.’

The relic returned to a sword again and its long blade suddenly fell, as if its solid chain turned into a soft robe.

Or to be more accurately, the sword in Dante’s hand looked like a whip!

Dante squinted his eyes as he focused on the blade. Surprisingly, it started moving as if it was alive, but it suddenly fell again when Dante lost his focus.

’This form is really complicated.’

This was the third form of the relic—the Whip form

He could use it directly like a whip, extend it more, or even use its legs if he needed them, but there was something that made the style of this form chaotic.

Dante could mentally control the blade!

He could control each segment and move them like a living being, but this form was really complicated for the current Dante. He could barely move it a bit.

’The next two forms are simple.’

The sword returned into Dante’s arm as a tattoo.

But just then, the segmented blades burst out of Dante’s arm and coiled around it, taking a strange conical shape.

’Fourth form is… an Arm Drill.’

The drill started rotating for a few moments before stopping and returning as a tattoo.

’Damn it, that was cool as hell!’

Dante didn’t know why he would even need a drill, but the feeling alone was really cool.

The fifth form was Blade Drill, which was just using a hilt to hold the drill instead of his arm.

’Now for the last one—Shield!’

Just like the drill, the blade segments gathered together, but this time they took the shape of a sharp-edged arm shield.

So he had two sword-like forms, one whip form, two drill forms, and one shield form.

’I should master the whip form next. It looks cool.’ Dante made up his mind and continued walking.

For the first time since arriving in this world, Dante felt truly relaxed.

He didn’t feel a real urgency to practice the dance of greed or mana control—he only wanted to do it because it was cool.

Of course, he didn’t forget about his innate trait—Misfortune Attraction.

This trait put a hidden pressure on Dante’s heart. He was stronger now, but this trait was unpredictable.

’I can only keep improving my comprehension over the Misfortune Aspect until I find a solution.’

A few minutes later, Dante finally arrived at his destination, a complex expression spreading across his face.

He could clearly see Beatrice’s house.

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