Chapter 321. I Still Need Him As Bait (His Life Is Already In My Hands)
At this hour, the Underlayer possessed a distinct quality unmatched by any other location: it exuded the calmness of a space that had recently endured a significant event but had since returned to its usual routine. The air was thick with a feeling of quiet thought, as if the walls themselves held the stories of what had happened.
In the corners, shadows danced softly, whispering secrets to anyone who would listen and inviting people to think and explore.
Rex sat on the edge of the room’s low sleeping platform and looked at the wall across from him. He went through the night’s events in the same way he always did: by starting with the most recent information and working his way back.
[VISCARIA AMORPHIS — MAXIMUM BOND ACHIEVED: 100/100]
[FIRST MAXIMUM BOND BONUS: +1000 ENERGY POINTS]
[CONFIRMED IMPREGNATION: VISCARIA AMORPHIS]
[ADDITIONAL BONUS: +1000 ENERGY POINTS]
[PSYCHOLOGICAL DOMINANCE EVENT — GELION AMORPHIS]
[ADDITIONAL BONUS: +1000 ENERGY POINTS]
[FREE SKILL SELECTION UNLOCKED — ONE USE]
[EVENT THRESHOLD REACHED: MAXIMUM BOND + CONCEPTION + PSYCHOLOGICAL DOMINANCE]
[SESSION ENERGY TOTAL: +3000 ENERGY POINTS]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 6,000 ENERGY POINTS]
He noted the numbers with the unhurried attention of someone reviewing an accurate account, and then he looked at Viscaria, who was sleeping on the far side of the platform with the deep, thorough quality of someone who had arrived at a specific resolution.
"Ah yes... I didn’t realize that being intimate with a strange monster could provide such a unique sensation," Rex said, gently stroking Viscaria’s thigh. "It makes me want to experience all sorts of different monster women out there."
"And of course, I’ll take advantage of this mechanic—if they have a husband or boyfriend, it’s already a win-win for me, especially if I can make them pregnant."
"It provides benefits for both parties... and I’m aware that she’ll be birthing genuine offspring carrying my genes and the best of human DNA," Rex chuckled.
When Viscaria slept peacefully, she emitted a faint bioluminescent glow, a natural trait of a slime entity in a comfortable state. This soft light illuminated the room more gently than the fungal installations found in the Underlayer.
Rex got up and walked across the room to the door without waking her.
Gelion was still sitting in the chair.
Lilith was standing behind the chair in the patient position she used when she was on watch and had decided that it wasn’t too difficult to do so. When Rex came out, she looked at him and gave him the look that said she was ready to follow orders and wasn’t going to ask questions that weren’t relevant.
"Master, I apologize if I acted outside of your orders, but his mental state was shattered, so I had to use my dream manipulation technique to help him forget what you did to his wife and his own mental state."
Rex raised his eyebrow. "You have dream manipulation too, huh?"
"Yes... he’ll remember everything you just did to his wife when he’s asleep because it’s going to be his everlasting dream."
"I can just kill him right now, Master, unless you’re probably still need him for something, right?"
"I don’t know... I’m going to end him right here and now, but I’ll do a double check on him."
Rex walked over and knelt down in front of the chair so that Gelion could see his face.
"You need to start following orders from me," he urged, his voice low but firm, "or this won’t end well for you."
Gelion turned to face him. The human form was fully displayed again, but the expression in his eyes had shifted from the intellectual confidence of the morning to something that suggested he was undergoing a different process.
Just by observing him, Rex was already formulating a brilliant plan for delivering his final punishment soon enough.
"Alright, let him live..." Rex said to Lilith.
"As you wish, my master..."
"Here’s what’s going to happen," Rex said, and his voice had none of the heat from the courtyard.
"The second-stratum retrieval team is going to stand down from the northern shaft until I give clearance. You’re going to communicate that to them tonight."
Gelion’s mouth moved. "The contact window—"
"It is still open," Rex said. "I didn’t close the contact window; I simply adjusted it."
Gelion stared at him.
"The Key to the Underlayer doesn’t leave the canyon system until I’ve had a conversation with the second-stratum representative," Rex said. "Not because I’m opposed to contact."
"But because contact conducted through ambush and manipulation of information is not the type of interaction that leads to the outcome you truly desire."
He looked Gelion in the eye.
"You want the surface to acknowledge the underlayer as a real entity with standing," Rex said. "You’ve been running a three-hundred-year strategy toward that acknowledgment."
"And your plan for the final step was to let a nine-person expedition team serve as inadvertent cover for a covert retrieval."
Gelion didn’t say anything after hearing that.
"How does that produce acknowledgment with standing?" Rex said.
The silence resembled the moment when someone confronted a question they hadn’t fully formulated in their own mind.
"If the Key disappears and the dimensional resonance shifts," Rex continued, "and the surface figures out what happened, the first conversation they have about the Underlayer will not be about integration."
"It’s going to be about the threat that destabilized their dimensional boundary without warning... and every apostle network response for the next ten years will be shaped by that first conversation."
Rex stared at him for a little while longer.
"I’ll have the surface conversation," Rex said. "On terms that produce the result you actually want, rather than the outcome you’re currently pointed at."
Gelion’s expression had been moving through its revision cycle since Rex started talking, and it arrived somewhere quieter than where it had been.
He said, "You’re better at this than I was."
"I’ve had more practice," Rex said. "Now tell me about the second-stratum personnel in the canyon. Names, system types, and current position."
"As you wish..."
"Lilith, prepare your notes." Rex said while turning his back on him.
"Yes, Master~!"
...
The briefing lasted forty minutes, and Lilith took notes like someone who had been doing this kind of work for a long time and was no longer confused.
When it was done, Rex stood up, looked at Gelion one more time, and said, "Lilith."
Lilith looked up from her notes.
"Take him to the monitoring sector," Rex said. "Not the cells."
"He’s going to be useful for the next few days, and useful people don’t work well from cells."
He said these words while looking at Gelion.
"Eh? Are you sure, Master?" Lilith was surprised. "I was all ready to punish him with all my colleagues!"
"What he just said to Master... he doesn’t deserve to just go back to work like it’s a normal thing."
"Shut up." Rex’s tone turned serious as he faced Lilith. "We need to focus on our objective, not personal grievances."
"Gelion’s insights could be crucial if we want to get ahead."
"Okay, I’m sorry..."
"Gelion is going to be cooperating with Pavellia on the monitoring network’s security review," Rex said. "The three unsecured interface points you’ve been using are going to be the starting point of a complete audit."
He paused.
"Consider it your contribution to the Underlayer’s actual security posture."
Gelion looked at him with the expression of someone who had been maneuvered into a position that served someone else’s interests and recognized the maneuver clearly enough to know that recognizing it didn’t change the position.
"I’ll cooperate," he said. "And I promise that..."
"I won’t do anything reckless from now on... I’ll follow your orders."
Rex nodded once and turned toward the corridor’s exit.
...
The walk back to Castle Nocturna resembled the early Underlayer morning, if "morning" is the right term for the shift in the fungal light from the deep blue of the overnight cycle to the slightly warmer amber that signified the Underlayer’s dawn.
Lilith walked next to him for a while before she said anything.
"Master."
"Mm."
"Are you really going to let him walk around?"
This question wasn’t posed in the typical way Lilith asked when the answer was obvious. Instead, she approached it as if she had genuinely been pondering the matter.
"Considering everything that transpired tonight... what he operated on and what he said in the hall..."
"Yes."
Lilith was quiet for another half-block of Underlayer stone.
"He’s not going to stay cooperative," she said. "Reincarnators who lived in the underlayer like Gelion don’t stay cooperative because he’s not a native here."
"They adjust their model and find a new angle, and in three weeks he’s going to have convinced himself that the new angle was his idea."
"I know," Rex said. "And here I am... the same as him, not a native on both sides."
"Then why—"
"Because the Key is still in the canyon," Rex said. "And when it moves, someone is going to try to redirect it."
"Someone who knows the second-stratum network well enough to do it quietly." He looked ahead at the castle’s outer lights catching the amber fungal dawn. "When that happens, I want to know exactly which direction to look."
Lilith processed that.
"You’re... using him as a bait," she said.
"His life is already mine," Rex said. "He just doesn’t know the deadline yet."
"I see..." Lilith laughed. "As usual from my master~!"
"Pure evil as always~!"
Rex then said, "I do have to thank you for what you just did to him by making him forget all the fucked-up things I’ve done to his wife."
"No one can recover from that, you know."