A cloud of dust obscured his vision and invaded his lungs. Because of this, Crisas was unable to see the aftermath of his brother’s actions. The explosion of energy not only sent him and everything around it flying, but it also rattled his brain, making it difficult to think properly.

  Move! he yelled internally.

  He had tried to yell with his mouth, but his entire body refused to respond.

  Move! Crisas continued, determined.

  Even as doubts and worry began to flood his thoughts, he tried his hardest to ignore them. His internal screams were not only his true desire, but they were also a way to ignore what he himself was thinking.

  That attack… it uses his lifeforce. Move! Just using it already puts his life at risk—MOVE! Being directly under it… he couldn’t… how could he—MOVE!!

  His internal struggle was useless as he lay in the rubble, surrounded by damaged test subjects. Upon realizing this and seeing more clearly, his eyes widened in disbelief.

  Even though the damage that the test subjects had suffered was extensive, they were already beginning to recover.

  Why did he sacrifice himself for?! Why?! Why?! Then finally, his mouth responded, “Why?” he said with a weak and hoarse voice. He repeated that one word over and over. “Why?! Why?! Why?!”

  When he heard rubble being moved, he assumed that the rubble was still settling. It was only when he heard the distinct sound of footsteps that his words began to falter.

  There was still a thick cloud of dust, but he could make out the silhouette that rose and began walking.

  Wait, where is it going? Crisas asked himself.

  To his surprise, the figure didn’t make its way toward him. It instead began to walk around the room in a disorderly fashion, as if looking for something.

  The figure first walked toward the edge of his vision, disappearing. When it reappeared, it would briefly stop at various points. Then, as if noticing him, the figure began to make its way toward him.

  “Come you bastard. My brother isn’t the only one with a surprise,” he said, barely audible.

  Even though he said that, Crisas was having trouble preparing said surprise. The power that coursed through him refused to follow his will. He wished for it to move toward his core, were he would cause an overload that would devastate the entire area.

  Desperation began to overtake him, when he heard something that he didn’t expect.

  “You guys have the worst luck, huh?” the figure said as they crouched.

  Before Crisas was the perfectly healthy captive that they had brought along. He was meant to be nothing more than a carrier for the treasure that would serve as the foundation for his clan’s future, and yet, here he was, free.

  “Not going to answer or can’t answer?” the walking treasure box asked. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, at the end of the day, I’m still going to rob you.” With little care, he proceeded to strip Crisas of any and all jewelry, a necklace and two rings.

  “This one’s mine,” the treasure box said, holding a ring in his fingers. “And these two are payment for bringing me to this fucked up place. I just wanted to do the quest normally.” He paused, considering something. “But knowing me, I would probably have ended up here anyway.” He paused again, this time focusing on the ring that belonged to Crisas. “Here,” he said, putting a potion flask beside him.

  “And I think that with that, we’re even. Now if only I could—”

  “Step away from him, you novice cretin!” someone shouted from behind the treasure box.

  “Uggh,” the treasure holder groaned in displeasure. “You know, suicide attacks should stick to the suicider. I didn’t like getting myself blown up just because you saw no better solution to the matter at hand.”

  “Shut it! You are nothing but a novice! We saw your battle with your test subject, and it was completely pathetic. Even now, you only killed those that me or my brothers had already weakened…” the speaker’s words began to fade.

  Crisas’s eyes widened with genuine emotion.

  Brothers? he said to himself, focusing on one of the words that had been spoken. With a faint hope that was surging to the surface, Crisas spoke, “Crezo?”

  “Don’t waste your words. Let me first deal with this pathetic—”

  Crisas saw as their captive rose and kicked his brother to the ground. Under normal circumstances, the captive would’ve been unable to do what he did.

  Either he would have stopped him as soon as he saw his leg twitch, or his brother would have avoided it completely, not needing his help. But this wasn’t a normal circumstance, both of them were heavily injured, while their previous captive was basically unharmed.

  He had even taken the time to change his clothes before he decided to interact with him.

  Crisas was about to muster the strength to protest, when a boot was already descending on his face.

  ----------

  Moving his head from side to side, Eric cracked his neck after rising from his crouching position.

  He lowered his head, focusing on both of his hands.

  On his left he had a ring and a necklace. “This is Crisas’s, and from what little I heard, he was the most important of the three. So, there should be some good items.”

  His sight shifted to his right hand, which held a small brown pouch that was tied with string.

  “This is… What was his name? Crazo? Crez? Crezo? Whatever, anything is better than nothing. And that fucker owes me.”

  After having and using both the bracelet and the ring storage for some time, Eric had begun to distinguish certain properties of both storages. He had no idea what each individual thing did, but he focused, and semi succeeded in distinguishing what he considered their most important aspect: size.

  It wasn’t an exact science; he had just gotten the ability to compare them.

  Grabbing two of his new storage items, he sent his mana inside, comparing the sizes. He had no intention of using the storage pouch, but he still compared it. It never hurts to have more knowledge.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  After a short while, he came to a quick conclusion.

  “The necklace is the biggest of the three, but I’m not wearing that. Don’t want people to confuse me with any of you,” he said, looking at the necklace in his hand.

  The necklace was a simple metal string that melded effortlessly with what appeared to be a small clan token. He couldn’t read the characters, so this was as far as his guess got him.

  “And the ring is no better,” he added, looking at the ring in his other hand.

  It, just like the necklace, had a symbol engraved on it, the very same one.

  “I could turn it upside down, obscuring the symbol. But if someone, anyone happens to see it, it can only lead to misunderstandings,” Eric told himself. “Sure, there could be some benefits, as people could be allies, but what if their clan has enemies. Not going to risk it. Alex’s ring it is.”

  Without question, he began to distribute the items from all three storage items into his tattoo storage and Alex’s ring. But he hadn’t even properly begun when Alex’s ring told him that it was already at capacity. It was then that Eric remembered that he had already filled it with various technological pieces that he considered interesting and of possible use for Marcus.

  “Am I going to have to use one of their storages. If only they had a normal one, then I would have—what about the eldest?” he asked himself, remembering how he died. “If I’m lucky than his storage item, if he had any, is probably intact.”

  He first searched around his torso, or whatever remained of it, but found nothing. “It’s possible that it was destroyed,” he told himself, keeping his hopes under control as he followed the blown off pieces.

  After searching for a bit more, he found a total of three rings. One had been attached to an almost complete left hand and the other two were scattered about.

  “It looks like the eldest was either the wealthiest or he was in charge of the cargo,” Eric mused, examining the rings. “This one’s a normal ring, this one is broken and this one… works fine. But it’s exactly the same as the other one with the symbol. Fuck.”

  After observing the rings for some time, he came to the only possible conclusion he could. He stuffed all the items into both rings, shoved them into his interior pocket and only wore Alex’s ring.

  “I’m lucky that this set of clothes had an interior pocket. Now I just have to remember the rings whenever my clothes are destroyed.”

  Like most of the clothes he had taken while climbing the tower, he was once again wearing a robe. Only this time, not wanting to search for the right combination, he wore a completely white robe in its entirety. Whether he wore it correctly or not, he didn’t care.

  Having finished with his most urgent matter, which was obvious loot, he turned back to the morgue building. The dust was almost completely settled, and his sights fell upon the shining portal that was deep inside the still standing part of the morgue.

  About half of the morgue had been completely decimated from the sphere’s burst and it actually revealed an enormous machine that occupied most, if not all, of what had once been the back wall.

  Curious and still feeling that his new rings could contain more items, he returned to the building.

  “It’s not like I can avoid it, the portal is inside.”

  Once inside the building, he stored a couple of the dead test subjects. The way they were recovering was miraculous by Earth standards, he was sure that Marcus would appreciate them.

  “After he gets over the fact that it was very likely that all of them were like Frankenstein’s monster,” he told himself, letting out a light chuckle.

  Eric had very easily put two and two together. That being said, it wasn’t a particularly difficult thing to conclude. If someone wanted bodies to experiment with, then the best place to get any would be from a cemetery. A morgue, Eric supposed, was a step up.

  “Now, only one question remains, who? Who would do something like this and why? Were they building an army? Was it simple scientific curiosity? And more importantly, why is no one here?”

  While there was a lot of rubble, and Eric had no way to be 100% sure that there was no hidden room or basement, he was almost sure that what he saw was all that there was.

  “This cant be all there is. The quest hasn’t even been completed. Does that mean that the scientist escaped or were they never here to begin with?”

  A short time later, and still not finding the slightest trace of a lab or of another sentient person, Eric finally turned his focus toward the giant machine.

  While the machine was big and it piqued Eric’s curiosity, he shoved it to the back of his mind, thinking that it was only meant for morgue stuff.

  “It probably embalms bodies automatically or cremation. And judging from the conveyor belts that connect with what is clearly a cargo area, this is very likely an automatic process,” he mused, tracing the conveyor belts. “It might even build form fitting coffins or something.”

  Walking to a medium sized screen that was a part of the machine, Eric tapped, hoping it would turn on.

  The screen was damaged, and while Eric was no expert, he was able to tell that the damage was older than anything that he or the brothers could have done.

  “No…” he muttered, an idea forming in his head. “Really?”

  His light taps slowly turned into full blown strikes.

  “If it works with Earth technology, why wouldn’t it work with alien? I mean, other than because it’s alien…”

  Eventually the screen began to flicker to life and his thoughts were confirmed as he let out a tired sigh. On the screen, damaged as it was, were the following words: “Morgue O— —human —izat— Enhanc— Retrieval.”

  “M, O, something, something, E, R,” Eric said, reading the first letter of each word. “That’s mother. There is no doubt in my mind that this machine is mother. Yet, how did this morgue machine begin making the test subjects? And why was the one from the warehouse so sentimental when it asked for mother?”

  Looking behind the screen, Eric saw that there was only a single cable that connected the screen with the machine.

  “That could be the power cable, or literally anything else, including everything necessary for this to function properly.” He considered what he was about to do. “Eh, this is Marcus’s problem. It’s not like I can take the whole machine.”

  With a powerful yank, Eric removed the screen from the machine, and quickly stored it within his bracelet storage.

  Eric took some more time to look around the morgue building. His eyes peeled for more things of interest and more importantly, for a way to clear the quest. What did the quest say, again?

  Quest: Mother.

  Objective: Cease the continues production of test subjects.

  Rewards: +10 Reward points.

  “Cease the continues production… that means that even without the screen, the production continues.” He walked back to a somewhat burnt panel that he had found previously. “There might be something here.”

  Summoning a weapon, he pried the panel open, revealing something that he didn’t understand.

  “It kind of looks like a motherboard… but not quite. Hmm…” His sight set on what was before him, he pondered. “Hmm… yes… why did I go to college?”

  Seeing no solution within reach, Eric considered leaving and finding someone, but then he heard sirens. They were nothing like back on Earth, no, these sirens grated at your ears. It was like the very siren was a tool that was meant to disable you in case you were trying to run away.

  “If I’m right, that’s kind of cool,” Eric said with a smirk. “But that leaves me with no options.”

  Infusing the sword with what little mana he still had, he decided to destroy everything, starting from the exposed panel. Luckily, the panel’s destruction was more than enough to complete the quest.

  Quest complete!

  “Time to get out of here,” he mumbled, storing his weapon and covering his ears. When he was only a few steps from the portal, he turned to look at the two unconscious brothers. “Good luck, or not. Who—”

  The world began to slow, color began to leak into each other, blending and separating oddly. Suddenly, the world lost all color, becoming a mess of black and white, accompanied by a constant ringing.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, Eric saw a figure enter his line of sight. And he recognized them. His mind went back to his first day on the Frontier, when he was walking around with Ondal.

  “Those are the Followers. They only appear when a large amount of death is going to occur. Normally, even the destruction of an entire galaxy wouldn’t be enough to make them move. Yet, here they are.”

  A tall, thin person that wore a large red and black coat that covered their entire body, stood before the deceased brother. They had long hair, and their face was androgenous. Whatever else could hint toward a truth about them, was obscured by the coat.

  The Follower reached into his coat, taking out a pearl white chain necklace. They held it above the deceased brother, and after reciting some words that made Eric’s ears bleed.

  There was clear reverence for what they were doing, a level of respect that went beyond normal.

  The air around the dead brother’s corpse began to shake, vibrating in a powerful but orderly fashion.

  A faint ghostly image of the eldest brother rose from his corpse. He tried to move, only for the Follower to shake his head, telling to not even attempt it. The ghost looked longingly at his siblings before ultimately vanishing into lands unknown.

  The Follower recited a couple more words, then they turned to leave, stopping when they reached the edge of Eric’s vision.

  “At times… when you have nowhere to go… we are the ones who claim you…” Their voice was low, and somehow cold to Eric’s ears, but the Follower wasn’t done speaking. “It is nice to be seen…”