Chapter 87: Even More Lies
"Careful now. They might be risking their lives for the greater good of the world right at this moment." General Dragovic said.
Atsuo stood up and flapped his jacket. "The Gold Stream revealed itself. Because of those foolish Priests. What are they investigating about? A second Gold Stream? Stop kidding yourself!"
"Maybe. Are you even sure there isn’t a second one?"
Atsuo stayed silent. Samuel was right. Atsuo wasn’t sure.
"Before the Eldritch Knight, the Priests kept telling us that the Gold Stream is our saving grace. They even attacked Blackburn. Some even despised him for killing that Priest. A reasonable measure in my honest opinion. I would have slaughtered them all if I knew they were lying." Samuel continued calmly. He held a cup of tea on his hand.
Suddenly, a soldier came over to Samuel and whispered to his ear.
Atsuo raised an eyebrow. He noticed Samuel’s expression was filled with relieve.
"Good news?" Atsuo said.
"The best of news." Samuel nodded. "Carter Caine has returned. Zeneros probably has too."
"We will need his assistance."
"I can’t make any promise. He is not under our control. However, you can rest assured that we will reach out to Carter Caine."
"That is enough."
Nina and Quill were the first ones that met Carter when he got back. They were in the Metabolic Institute after all, right next to Carter’s Mansion.
"You said you would return within two months." Nina said.
They were in his office with Carter turned the back of his chair against them.
"Complications." Carter turned back to reveal a broken arm.
Carter did some ’touch-up’ last night. It was, obviously, completely fake.
"What happened?" Quill blinked in surprise.
"We met Dracula." Carter said.
Quill wasn’t from Earth so he had no idea what Carter was referring to. Nina knew.
"Dracula? As in Count Dracula?" It seemed like Nina was also from Earth or a dimension with Dracula’s tale.
"You met him before?" Carter’s expression darkened.
"No. He’s... a character in a novel I once read." Nina shook her head. "He’s real? He’s here?"
"He’s real. But he isn’t here. Me and Zeneros were caught in some kind of teleportation trap. When we woke up, we were in Transylvania. Some hideous city that didn’t have even a spot of sunlight."
"There’s a Transylvania in my home world. But it doesn’t sound like what you’re describing?" Nina said.
"Maybe it’s a variation?" Quill said.
Both Nina and Carter looked at him in confusion, so he continued to explain, "A variation is a dimension that is very similar to another. It might have the same name, the same geography even. But it has a completely different history and people."
Carter rubbed his chin, "Probably. Dracula is very dangerous. Even Zeneros lost to him. We were lucky to escape. Some doctor saved us."
"A doctor?" Nina said. "It would be very funny right now if you said his name was Frankenstein or something."
Carter stared at her.
"Umm... So Dr. Frankenstein saved you?" Nina’s jaw dropped.
Carter nodded his head, "That man is a good fellow. He followed us back here. He’s with Zeneros right now, doing god knows what."
Nina tapped her chins repeatedly. "Did you perhaps... see anyone else?"
"Who are you referring to?"
"I don’t know." Nina shrugged. "Lucifer the Devil, maybe?"
"There was only one devil there. And it was Dracula."
"Okay, I am very interested in whatever world you haven entered. Please tell me more." Nina didn’t hide her enthusiasm.
’Uh... I was just making stuffs up. Better distract her with something else.’
"I need to rest right now. I’m just here to tell you that we’re back and Zeneros’s wounds are extremely serious. He would need quite a lot of times to recover. Dr. Frankenstein is caring for him right now."
"Where are they? I want to meet Dr. Frankenstein!" Nina said.
"They’re in a secret location for safety. You will meet Dr. Frankenstein soon. I intend to let him help you break the Awaken Rank."
"He can do that?"
"Probably."
After that, Neros and Piper also arrived.
"You look like shit, man." Neros said.
Carter chuckled. "At least I am better than Zeneros."
The two Invokers, of course, asked about Zeneros. Carter had to figure up even more lies to keep them from meeting him.
’Ugh! The issue with doing everything yourself is you can’t act two roles at the same time! I need to find a cloning power soon!’
He informed the two Invokers that Zeneros will be out for a few weeks. They didn’t take the news that well but they couldn’t do anything about it.
"Oh and one more thing. What happened with all those dead Invokers?" Carter asked.
"Dead Invokers? Their bodies were delivered to their family." Piper said.
"I see... I will be cutting a part of Caine’s trust funds to help with those family. It’s the least that I can do for them." Carter said.
"You really don’t need to do that. General Dragovic already helped them."
"Please, I insist."
Carter wasn’t trying to play a good guy. He just wanted to know where all the bodies were so he could farm some Invoker Skin Shards.
’Invoker Skins are coming!’
Once night fell, he didn’t equip Shadow Apothecary right away. Instead, he slipped out of the mansion and went grave robbing. All those Invoker Shards weren’t going to farm themselves.
With System Ghost’s power, Carter easily hacked into the government database and found the locations of those Dead Invokers. There were actually a dedicated cemetery for them.
’Well, sheesh. It would be stupid of me not to rob them all.’
[ELDRITCH SKELETON KNIGHT EQUIPPED]
Carter landed on the ground as a skeleton with purple cloak.
’Let’s the grave robbing begin!’
[+1 Minor Invoker Shard (Awaken)]
[+1 Minor Invoker Shard (Awaken)]
[+1 Medium Invoker Shard (Awaken)]
[+1...]
Carter dug like there were gold underneath those tombstones. The truth was, there was something even better. A new type of power.
Carter carefully filled each grave back when he finished with them. He didn’t want to tell anyone that Invoker’s graves were being robbed.
Hexilia might not care about human graves being robbed. But they would care about Invoker for sure. Carter didn’t want his job to get harder.