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Chapter 191 - Morality Vs Efficiency

"You are a part of an organisation that wants Lecia, right?"

"Yes," Tristan readily replied.

Hmm, that was a bit too basic, now that I think about it, but hey, anything for passing time. As long as I don\'t have to handle the wankers back at the Guild.

"And the reason the organisation likes her so much is because of her special skill."

"Yes."

"And if I\'m guessing it correctly, the skill, which can heal any wound as long as the person isn\'t dead, comes with a price. The price, which Lecia has to pay, is to either feel all the pain that the person she\'s healing is feeling, or to bear a set amount of pain depending on the severity of the wound she\'s healing."

It\'s most probably the latter.

After all, when she used the skill to heal me after almost choking me to death (in her eyes), she groaned and grunted, as if she was hurting. However, I hadn\'t felt any pain from her pathetic attempt at non-kinkily choking me.

So unless I am so far gone that I cannot even register pain, it would be safe to say that what Lecia feels is different to what her patient is going through.

"…" Tristan\'s eyes widened slightly.

"And in case it\'s the latter, there should be a base penalty for invoking that skill itself, even if it heals absolutely nothing."

After all, even though I hadn\'t sustained any wounds back then, Lecia had suffered.

That also sounded about right considering the System.

"…It\'s almost like you have experimented with her skill."

"Not really. Anyone who has a basic grasp of how the System works could have understood that."

And at this point, the System and I are like an age-old married couple who are in a love-hate relationship.

"…" His eyes shook. "I feel that \'grasping\' how the System works is way harder than understanding Lecia\'s skill."

"For normal people, that is."

And according to Tristan, I would have to be incredibly delusional to believe that I\'m normal.

I mean, he\'s not wrong, but what an incredibly rude thing to say to a 12-year-old child.

Tristan, you fucking asshole.

He\'s the reason why children suffer from trauma and turn out to be murderous psychopaths. In fact, I wouldn\'t be surprised if every serial killer in this world had a connection with Tristan.

"…" He wordlessly sighed.

Anyway.

"I was wondering; the man who proclaimed to be Lecia\'s father, was he really her father?"

"You mean the guy you so killed right in front of everyone?"

"That\'s a completely baseless accusation."

"You didn\'t kill him?" He frowned.

"I did. I\'m just saying that you shouldn\'t blame someone based on just a hunch. It\'s incredibly hurtful."

And people call me an emotionless monster. Wow.

The more time I spend with Tristan, the more likely I\'m to turn into a genocidal maniac.

Sed,

"Was there really a need to kill him?"

"Was there not? His very existence was detrimental, so he had to be taken out."

At my words, Tristan clenched his jaw, "Still…"

What? Don\'t tell me that Tristan was close to that man.

"Oh, come on, don\'t be so sentimental. Do you know that that guy barged into our guild and demanded to either hand over Lecia or pay him some money?"

"What?"

"So you didn\'t. He actually had the audacity to ask for 50,000 Gold coins. Only an absolute maniac would pay that much."

Not to mention the fact that he made absolutely no effort to hide the fact that he was acting alone.

It was almost like he had lopped off his own head and served it to me on a silver platter saying, \'Please have this, Lord Samur.\'

Like, bruh.

That man was just speedrunning his death.

"So you killed him?"

"Obviously. I mean, let\'s say that I agreed and paid him the 50,000 Gold coins and he disappeared. What guarantee did I have that at some point in the future, that man would not try to come back in Lecia\'s life in order to extort even more money from her? Killing him made sense no matter which angle I looked from. Aside from the moral one, of course."

"You could have just threatened him."

"I don\'t like half-assing things."

Why try to manipulate him through threats when I can just take him out of the equation with a quarter of the effort?

As I always say, efficiency before morality.

"Anyway," I continued. "Was he really her father?"

"…Yes."

"I suppose he wasn\'t lying, after all."

And F for Lecia.

"What about her mother?" I asked.

"She was a prostitute under our-"

"Alright, that\'s enough. I can already guess the full story. Her mother is dead and was most probably killed by the organisation, right?"

Lecia\'s backstory gets a 6/10 from me. It\'s the cliché story of being born to a horrible father and a prostitute mother yet obtaining a seemingly heaven defying skill.

But she was somehow discovered by the organisation her mother was working under (I\'d say her father sold her) and was snatched away as a result. Her mother probably tried resisting and was disposed of.

"…Yeah…"

See? No wonder Lecia overreacted upon learning of my betrayal(lol).

Hmm, what else should I ask?

"Okay… ah, you sent some scouts to our Guild to investigate us some days ago, didn\'t you?"

"What happened to them?"

"Did you know that blood can make for a good dye?"

"No, it doesn\'t. It stays red in the beginning but eventually turns brown, or even black."

Could this guy be a fellow art connoisseur?

"Yeah, but there are other things you can mix in it so that it can retain its colour."

"You might as well use normal paint at that point, then."

"But what\'s the fun in that?"

"Is everything about fun to you?" He frowned.

Obviously.

"Nope, but if spending a bit of an extra effort can make a boring situation interesting, I don\'t shy away from doing it."

Sloth is important, but it still ranks below amusement.

"Right," he rolled his eyes.

Seems like he wasn\'t that close to those scouts.

"Though in hindsight, using their blood as paint wasn\'t the most tactical decision on my part."

"How?"

"I actually used their blood to dye the white shirt I was wearing back then. Satisfied with my piece of art, I went back to sleep in the morning, but for some fucking reason, some fucking idiots decided to just barge into my room."

"What?"

"Then they saw me and somehow arrived at the conclusion that my bloody shirt meant I was dead."

Fuck you, Arteria. I swear to fucking God I\'ll take revenge for my boi aka the door of my room.

"That\'s…"

"Ridiculous, right? And it all happened because of you."

Stupid asshole.

"Why are you blaming me!?" He exclaimed.

"It wouldn\'t have happened if you hadn\'t sent those scouts."

I had just left Arteria after manipulating her into cleaning my room when I encountered those fuckers.

If Tristan hadn\'t sent them, or if he had sent them at a different time, I wouldn\'t have met them, and I wouldn\'t have been tempted into using their blood to dye my clothes, and thus, my door wouldn\'t have been blasted into oblivion.

In other words, it\'s all Tristan\'s fault.