Bro, I'm not an Undead!

1432  Gurron-Lavaan's Passing

"The job was pretty hard on him. He always used to say that he wouldn't have come here to monitor the Purge Banner and manage the bounty hunters if he had found a female from his race. Well, sadly – perhaps you wouldn't know – but females from his race were few and far between. To reproduce, the males had to… well, I'd rather not talk about that."

Skullius, Serenity, Sila, Weaver and Araeyn were still unsure about what to make of the being expositing to them. He – if he could be attached to a gender – was making them tea in the padoga kitchen. He claimed even Serenity would be able to enjoy it, which baffled them all, including Serenity herself. She swore she had no idea what that thing talking to them was.

"When he passed" – the thing sniffled – "I wish I had called more of his friends. It was just me and his Apostles. He said he didn't care for anyone else attending his funeral. I always thought that was a lie… but maybe that's how he really felt." @@novelbin@@

Skullius had something to say about this, but when he saw the thing, a large sheet of paper cut into a flimsy humanoid shape, handing him a grey mug filled to the brim with a hot vapour-like substance, he wore a polite smile, accepted the mug and swallowed his question.

Everyone else followed suit. Only Weaver looked unperturbed by the sight of the creature. He even gave a "thank you" to the creature.

Only when everyone held a mug and was snug in their seats did the paper cut out sit on his own chair, stare at them and wipe a tear from his face. It looked drawn on, as did his eyes, mouth and every contour that attempted to express the details on him. It was dull, flimsy work.

Serenity finally tore herself from the questions of how in the world a creature like this could be a decent evolutionary path. She gave a sip of the vapour in her mug and to her surprise, she could taste it. It swept through her humanoid flame body, spreading to the tips of all her appendages. It gave her a tingly feeling that she had never felt before.

"This is… good," she said. She would shown her surprise if she had a face.

"Thank you. That means a lot coming from you," said the paper cut out with a little bow. A crooked, drawn-on smile appeared on his face. "I'm sorry you missed Gurron-Lavaan. He would have loved to see you, I'm sure."

The individual Serenity had been hoping to see for some insights about all that the Nullmancer Class could do, had sadly passed on sometime between Serenity's last visit to the Null Verse and her current. He was a powerful Nullmancer named Gurron-Lavaan; he had all ten Apostles, all Ranked and all with Traits.

He was a force to be reckoned with even without the Apostles, however. The point of the Nullmancer Class didn't only have to do with summoning creatures, after all. It was supposed to quickly enhance the comprehension of foreign magical concepts in the user.

The paper cut out was a friend of Gurron-Lavaan, a fellow guardian and monitor of the Universal Purge Banner, Unnio Lak. Apparently, he and Gurron-Lavaan were on equal standing as guardians in the padogas. He had received the group after seeing them circle around the collection of padogas, searching for the late Nullmancer.

"How did he perish, if I may ask? I'm sure he had retired," Serenity asked while the others were still reeling from how good the 'tea' was.

Unnio Lak's roughly scribbled lips trembled.

"Yes. He had retired, but he still wanted to watch the Banner. What races and individuals would be knocked off and which ones would find their way onto it. He had a sick obsession, I'd say," he said. "One day, a bounty hunter came by. He wanted to eliminate a fierce colony of Haunted Shacks in the North. They had seen a dramatic rise on the Banner because of how their rapid evolution. They disguised themselves as ruins and poured out attractive energies across solar systems, luring young, enthusiastic wanderers. They had been taking too many lives. For a time, the numbers almost rivalled those of the Timeless Adamantine Beetles even though they were only ranked tenth. As you can imagine, we were glad someone volunteered to get rid of them."

Skullius narrowed his eyes.

He recalled the Adamantine Beetles. He had been offered an evolutionary option like that when he reached the Fourth Tier. They were magnificent creatures that could replicate indefinitely and could come up with counters for any attack that reached them. They were a nice choice, but their Flaw was rather terrifying.

An Adamantine Beetle could spill out a series of miniature beings with an appearance and powers similar to theirs. These extras would go off on their own after birth and grow stronger, but inevitably – eventually – they would hunt down the original to kill them. It didn't help that they could change appearance, making it hard to see them coming.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1101.)

Skullius had hard-passed on the option. He wouldn't have liked to live a paranoid life where he saw everyone as a potential enemy.

Unnio Lak continued. He sounded somberer than before.

"Bounty hunters can register with us first before going on a hunt for any of the creatures on the Banner, or they can come with evidence of the kill afterwards and grab their reward. Null Life Essence signatures from the kills suffice. We'd seen cases of both means millions of times by then, so perhaps that day, we were just too complacent," he said.

"The bounty hunter was not bounty hunter at all. It was a creature on the Banner disguised as a valiant warrior, come to knock a few of us guardians off the Null Life subscription. We were no strangers to some of these abominations coming to erase their names from the Banner, but in the last three million years, none of them had ever tried to fight us directly. The bastard was powerful. Really powerful. It took nine of us to kill him and we lost three during the fight. We soon found out later that it was an alliance of these fiends on the Banner. This fake bounty hunter was supposed to kill a few of us and then after a few million years, others would strike once we had forgotten the incident. They wanted to destroy our organisation and then take over management of the Banner. That would be a disaster, especially if they managed it without anyone knowing. We guardians are hermits who stay locked up in our padogas half the time, after all."

"Gurron-Lavaan was injured during the battle. Well, he was poisoned. The enemy had been an Espoxes Apothecator, a vile practitioner and brewer of Null Life poisons ranked twenty-sixth on the Banner. It was unfortunate, but…not even Gurron-Lavaan could have survived having his Null Life Core poisoned."