Chương 227: Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Twenty-Seven

Beck had a contemplative look on his face after Adam explained what Yenna had told him, and what he theorised about the points and why the vendors desired them.

"Luvicidix and Alivida are likely following the same system, then, right?" Beck asked.

"I hadn't considered that, but I suppose so." Adam almost mentioned Fal as well, but managed to stop himself.

"Let's go to the garden."

"What? Why?" Beck asked, confused.

"Because there's someone I've gotta show you, and maybe she can shed some more light on this." Yenna paused by the door as Adam started walking away.

"I have changed my mind," she said.

"I would like to return to listen to more of their conversation, even if I can contribute nothing." Adam nodded.

"I'll probably have more questions later."

"Of course, Adam," Yenna said and went back inside. Beck trailed after Adam as he hurried south of the player house, casting a glance back at the wasp.

"I'd just like to point out, none of my NPCs have talked about the vanity upgrade like you described."

"It's likely a side-effect of using it on three different denizens," Adam guessed.

"Once I've got a real handle on this looping power, I plan to fully explore all the weirdness Interim Island has to offer," Beck remarked.

"Have you seen those holes in the back wall of Sköll's cave?"

"You went back there?" Adam asked, surprised. He would have assumed it'd been suicide to enter after Nwetrou had made it clear he wanted him dead.

"Mainly to kill the squid, but yeah. I didn't stick around though, since the black pond started bubbling like mad."

"I know what the holes are for," Adam said.

"Another time-looper told me you have to use the Abyssal Tooth on the denizens to obtain the keys."

"So that's why there were engravings of insects inside!" Beck realised.

"Wait… One of them was a moth."

"Yeah. I don't think it's worth it, no matter what's inside. I was told whoever I sacrificed would come back, but that seems a bit too convenient," Adam said.

"I doubt Nwetrou would spit them back out, just because they are NPCs," Beck agreed. When they reached the garden, Adam was surprised to find that Meilo had already rearranged the flowerbeds. No longer were just dahlias growing from them, but instead it was a plethora of different plants, and, he noted, plants he had already encountered in previous stages, including some of the ones that he'd specifically harvested for Sprite's quest.

Tiny insects also moved between the plants, which was unusual, and after watching for a moment, Adam realised they were all moths. There were four types: black, dark-grey, white, and one with transparent glass-like wings. Adam hoped Beck wouldn't notice the dark-grey moth and ask the obvious question that would lead to. If he took any of Fal's soul bargains, he might die and all of Adam's work would be for naught.

"Who is that?" Beck asked as he spotted the Gardener rather than the tiny moths, much to Adam's relief.

"That's Meilo," Adam said.

"She's a hawk-moth." Beck looked at him.

"Does that mean she's related to the twins?" Adam nodded. The hummingbird hawk-moth noticed them and flitted over, landing before them.

"Why is she made of glass?" Beck asked.

"I was unaware you had visitors," Meilo said.

"This is Beck," Adam introduced his friend.

"You've met my siblings," Meilo remarked, and Adam was glad she didn't allude to Fal. Likely she could tell which of the moths they'd each met, or maybe the System was making sure she didn't reveal secrets to those who didn't know them already.

"Why are you made of glass?" Beck asked her directly.

"I created her by using the rotmaker idol on the glass tree," Adam explained.

"You did not create me," Meilo said.

"I was trapped within the acorn, and you simply released me."

"Crap, I didn't keep the rotmaker," Beck remarked.

"So, what does she do?"

"Why do you keep speaking around me?" Meilo asked Beck, zipping close enough to be face to 'face'.

"Force of habit," Beck replied, undaunted by her proximity.

"I haven't spent a lot of time in other people's dimensions, and I keep assuming you can't hear me. You seem different than most NPCs though, they normally don't mind." Meilo scoffed and backed away.

"Well, I do. And to answer your question, I am a gardener. I grow plants." Then she looked at Adam.

"Have you realised my true worth yet?"

"That's not why I'm here. I actually wanted to ask you about something," Adam admitted.

"Wait, you can grow anything?" Beck asked.

"Yes," she replied, not looking away from Adam.

"Even plant-based relics?" he asked. Adam was surprised by the question. That would actually be quite useful.

"No. Relics are not plants, even if they look like them. Not the edible ones. Not the tree-shaped ones. They are magic crystallised into physical form for a specific purpose. They are not alive." Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

"Bummer," Beck remarked.

"Once I get the alchemist going, I should be able to experiment with her plants," Adam said.

"Is it possible to eat the plants to get some kind of special effect?" Beck pressed Meilo.

"No."

"So, she's only worth having if you have Sprite?" he asked, looking at Adam. They hadn't talked about unlocking Sprite, but since Beck had only been two achievements short when Adam had first met him in this loop, it made sense he'd gotten the little psychotic alchemist as well.

"Did you do his quest?" Adam asked.

"I'm missing one more plant," Beck replied.

"Wait, couldn't you just use a wishing coin to obtain the rotmaker?" Adam suggested.

"You'd be able to unlock Meilo as well."

"The coin doesn't work on secret relics," Beck said.

"Damn."

"I dislike the way you two talk about me," Meilo remarked.

"It feels as if I am simply an object to obtain and not a living being."

"That's actually what I wanted to ask you about," Adam said.

"Since you're a moth, and you're aware of your siblings." Glass scales drifted away from the hawk-moth, freezing Adam and Beck's cubes in place.

"Ask," Meilo said.

"The vanity upgrade, the points that vendors collect, and the mastery shards Alivida wants, do you know how they work?" Adam asked.

"Of course," Meilo replied.

"But I cannot tell you."

"What if I gave you a vanity upgrade, would your answer change?"

"Possibly," she admitted. Adam and Beck shared a glance.

"Is there a benefit to your skills besides the synergy with Sprite?" Beck asked her.

"Yes, but I cannot say," she replied.

"Are you trapped like the other denizens?" Adam asked.

"Like my siblings, I am forced to play my role. When my player is absent, I am made to wait. I have not experienced it yet, but I assume it will be unpleasant." Adam frowned. The image in his head was not doing him any favours. It sounded like paralysis, similar to how Heiner had poisoned him and his team in the last stage, but lasting days on end. Any sane person would lose their mind, so the fact that they all managed to maintain their roles was admirable, though worrying.

And using a lot of the vanities have made the others realise there's a way out of it… Before, they might have felt a sense of unity, since they were all dealing with it, but now it's clear some are chosen and the rest are not. I need to be careful that they do not grow to resent one another. The only saving grace is that their memories are reset when I loop. But that thought led Adam to another realisation. When I die, so do they. I hope they don't feel that pain. It would be too cruel.

But he'd seen what'd been left when he'd met Fal. The destruction had been total. At the time he hadn't realised the implications, because, truthfully, he had not considered the denizens to be entirely real. Adam was pulled out of his thoughts by Beck's following question.

"Are you able to meet Alivida and Luvicidix? You're here the entire time, right? So couldn't you accompany us inside the tent over there, or follow us to the centre of the island?" Meilo, despite having a face that didn't allow for expressions, looked pained by the question.

"I cannot."

"What if you had the vanity?" Adam asked.

"I… I am unsure," she replied. He noted a hopeful tone in her voice.

"Why does everything have to be so mysterious," Adam remarked as they were making their way to the market. Beck had agreed to help Adam with his build, although he professed to having very little knowledge about dagger-based builds, and it was his first time seeing the Ghost evolution of Backstabber.

"It's fun, isn't it?" Beck responded.

"A little bit," Adam admitted.

"But it feels like digging a hole in the sand. The deeper I go, the more sand falls back in, making it impossible to reach the bottom."

"Don't you think it would be boring to have all the answers?" Beck replied.

"I mean, even the Absolute of knowledge is defined by his search for knowledge, not the knowledge itself."

"I suppose you're right, but I just can't help wonder which of these rabbit holes manifests into something I can use, and which are merely distractions to keep time-loopers from going out of their minds with the boredom of endless repetition." Beck grinned.

"So, tell me about your build ideas so far," he prompted.

"I was thinking of going for an afflictionist build, since I have the mantle of atrophy and afflictionist's corset."

"It looks great on you, by the way," Beck remarked drily.

"What else were you thinking?"

"Well, if I can get my hands on the wishing coin a few times, then I would go for the boomerang pendant, belt of the harpooner, and ranger's lucky charm." Beck paused for a moment to consider that.

"That's a lot of focus on throwing your weapon, which makes ghostly copies, right?" Adam nodded.

"They will likely be countered by elementals and most demons," he remarked.

"The Ghost copies of my weapon can bypass physical defences."

"Hmm, but not all forms of physical defences might be considered. Take a Capgras demon, for example. Or heck, even a normal human mimic. Their bodies are made of metal. I'm sure you've seen what people with the duellist's glove achieve against them."

"I haven't, actually," Adam replied, "but I know it didn't work against the Patriarch's body." Beck nodded.

"Exactly. Natural defence is not the same as physical defence and armour, at least not always. Granted, it's apples to oranges, given that the duellist's glove has a different description that only mentions piercing armour. But, if the ghostly copies considered all types of physical impediments, you would have a useless weapon, since the copies would pass through everything except magical enemies."

"So, I should be practising first?" Adam asked.

"It'd certainly help to know what can and cannot be bypassed. I'd recommend trying to get something like the golden fortress crossbow bracer though, since you said Ghost affects all thrown projectiles and the crossbow's cooldown is short."

"But it's a crossbow," Adam replied, wondering if he was missing something.

"Again, it's the Trials being weird. Since the bolt is launched with a crossbow, it's considered 'thrown', compared to if it was propelled by magic or something less mechanical. Bows are different though, and their arrows are better described as being 'released'."

"Weird."

"You've gotta find the weirdness to exploit it properly," Beck lectured him.

"Yessir," Adam replied with a mock salute. Beck grinned.

"That's more like it."

"Wait, does that mean if I had a crossbow as a secondary weapon, it would benefit from Ghost's power?" Adam asked.

"Indeed. Sadly, the guy who figured that out in my last run is already dead. Last time he made it to stage eighteen with his orbiting boomerang throwing-knife crossbow build. His name was Cliff Mac… something. He was fucking insane," Beck said.

"Anyway, if you're willing to ditch your suicide cape, you could use the barrage master's coat and barrage glove to make a scary build like Lasse." Adam thought about it.

"That might not be a bad idea," he conceded.

"Consider this," Beck started, stopping in front of the vacated fountain that Yenna normally guarded.

"You throw a dagger—""Kunai," Adam corrected.

"You throw a kunai," Beck said, stressing the word while making a face, "and two ghostly clones appear. Then your barrage glove triples them, giving you nine, and then your barrage coat multiplies those by twenty-one. Or maybe it's the other way around, I'm not sure about the order." Adam laughed.

"And how many are ghostly?"

"Who knows!?" Beck exclaimed like a madman.

"That's the fun part!"

"Damn, I really thought afflictions were the way to go," Adam admitted.

"When a game hands you multiplicative buffs, you've gotta exploit the shit out of them!" Beck replied eagerly.

"I'm starting to understand how you made it to the Singing City," Adam remarked. Beck waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't give me too much credit, invisibility just breaks so many things very easily."

"I should've picked up the tainted dagger from the twins," Adam said regretfully.

"You got the invisibility dagger to drop and didn't pick it up!?" Beck replied, incensed.

"Yeah…"

"Goddamn it, Adam!" Beck scolded him.

"That's considered a rare drop! Normally every team kills the assassin first, and then the shield guy, so it's always the spear and shield that drops. It's just a knock-off Gorgon Slayer."

"At least I inspected the dagger for the ' All Secrets' bonus. I should be close to getting that one for the stage already."

"Yeah, well, imagine if you'd actually picked it up."

"A lot of things happened, not to mention a legendary relic dropped at the same time."

"Alright, fine. I forgot to mention it anyway, so the blame is partially mine. Nothing to do about it except wince in painful regret until the end of your days," Beck replied, making it clear what he thought about Adam's missed opportunity.

"Let's go gamble at Lucca's casino and see if you get lucky."