Chapter 127: Something Else
Rebecca had just finished eating the bread Tyler had given her. She was lying beneath the sheets now, her head resting against the pillow, but somehow sleep still refused to come. She felt tired, perhaps a little intoxicated from the drinks earlier, yet her body remained restless. Her heart was beating much faster than it needed to, making it impossible to settle down.
She stared up at the timber planks crossing over one another along the ceiling, her eyes tracing their uneven shapes in the dim light. No matter how hard she tried to clear her mind, her thoughts kept returning to Tyler.
She knew one of the reasons he had stayed. She had already told him about the Black Cloud Guild's skill, Kindred Flame, and how it could be used to track and find him. But even knowing that, a part of her still felt that wasn't the only reason he remained by her side.
Maybe he wanted to help her.
The thought seemed ridiculous.
She turned onto her side and pulled the sheets slightly higher. She remembered how Tyler had made it clear from the moment they met that he didn't want to be involved with her situation. Even now, there were times when the way he moved around her, the way his expression tightened, made it obvious that he was uncomfortable.
She rolled onto her back again and looked at the ceiling.
*He could just run away.*
She rested her wrist against her forehead, staring blankly at the timber above her. She knew that if Tyler truly wanted to leave, he probably could. He could simply travel out of the region and put as much distance between himself and the Black Cloud Guild as possible. It wouldn't be easy, but it certainly wasn't impossible.
*Then why isn't he?*
Her brow tightened slightly.
*What does he have to lose?*
She turned onto her left side, pulling one knee slightly toward herself as another thought entered her mind.
*Is it family?*
She didn't know. She wasn't even sure why she was thinking about it so much.
Still, she understood that Tyler, unlike her, seemed to have someone who genuinely cared about him. She remembered the woman at the hunter base, the worry written plainly across her face as she had spoken to Tyler. Her emerald eyes had been filled with concern and hesitation, as though she was unsure of what might happen to him.
Then she had looked at Rebecca.
That worry had disappeared beneath something sharper. Anger. Suspicion. The woman's expression had changed, looking at Rebecca as though she were a threat capable of hurting something precious to her.
Rebecca sighed softly at the memory.She closed her eyes and tried to push the thought away, hoping that eventually her mind would quiet down enough for sleep to take over. For now, though, the events of the past few days continued to circle endlessly through her thoughts.
Meanwhile, Tyler sat at the edge of his bed, his bare feet resting against the floor. He held the necklace out in front of him, the pendant hanging loosely from his palm as he examined it.
His thoughts returned to the woman in the forest and the moment she had looked at him and said he was a C-rank. Even now, he still felt embarrassed knowing that she had somehow been able to see everything beneath his clothes.
He had practically been naked in front of her. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get rid of the strange feeling that came with the thought. *I didn't even know a skill like that existed. Of course it does. In a world like this, there are probably countless skills and abilities I've never even heard of.*
He opened his eyes and looked down at the necklace again. There was no point dwelling on it. He needed to focus on what he was actually trying to figure out.
He wanted to know whether what had happened in the forest could be repeated. Could the necklace really point him toward whatever it was he wanted?
He stood from the bed and narrowed his eyes, concentrating on his surroundings. He needed to choose something obvious, something he already knew the location of, so there would be no doubt about the result.
He focused on what he wanted.
Almost immediately, the pendant lifted from his palm, pulling the chain forward until it pointed directly toward the door.
Tyler's eyebrows rose. "Wow," he breathed. *It actually works.*
A grin slowly formed on his face as he remembered what had happened in the forest. At the time, he had wanted to go to Rebecca. He had focused on the thought of seeing her, and the necklace had responded.
*So the Dracos weren't a coincidence."
The pendant suddenly lost its movement and dropped back, dangling uselessly once more.
Tyler stared at it for a moment.*Huh... Is it because I'm not focused anymore?
An idea suddenly clicked in his mind.
*I gotta test this out.*
He turned around and placed the necklace back on the bed. Almost immediately, the pendant changed shape, the metal folding in on itself until the necklace became a small sphere.
Tyler crouched beside the bed, and the Terror Dagger appeared in his hand. He placed it on the floor in front of him, then reached down and picked up the sphere.
As soon as he held it, it transformed back into the necklace.
Tyler lifted it again, letting the chain dangle from his palm as he concentrated on the dagger.
The pendant rose slightly and rotated toward the weapon lying on the floor.
"Awesome," he breathed.
His eyes remained fixed on it.
"But what if..."
Before he could finish the thought, the dagger vanished from the floor and disappeared into his inventory. The iron sword then materialized in his hand instead.
He placed it on the ground and opened his palm.Another iron sword appeared and he placed that one beside the first, close enough that he could clearly tell them apart.
Then he focused.
This time, he didn't concentrate on one sword specifically. He focused on both of them.The pendant rose again, but after a moment, it turned toward the sword on his left.
"Oh."
Tyler's eyes narrowed with interest.
*So it can only lead me to one thing at a time. That means it chooses a single target instead of showing me everything I want.*
He stepped forward and crouched down, picking up the sword. After examining it for a moment, he took a couple of steps back and placed it on the floor again.
This time, he changed the way he thought about it.
Instead of wanting both swords specifically, he focused on simply wanting either one of them. It didn't matter which sword the necklace chose.
Then he changed his focus again. He concentrated on wanting an iron sword, specifically one that he had crafted himself.
The pendant rose once more.It turned toward the closest sword. Tyler's grin widened.
"This is great," he said, looking at the pendant in his hand. "Not only does it show me what I want, but if there are multiple things of the same type, it can point me toward the closest one."
He looked down at the necklace, already thinking about the possibilities.
"With this, finding ingredients is going to be a lot easier. I can finally craft so many more potions and weapons."
Tyler turned and sat on the mattress once more. The moment he settled down, the system panel flashed into existence in front of him.
[PLEASE DO NOT USE ITEM]
Tyler's brow furrowed.
"Why? This gives me such a huge advantage. You keep telling me not to use it, but you're not telling me why."
The panel disappeared, replaced almost immediately by another.
[THE ITEM HARMS THE SYSTEM]
Tyler stared at the words, his confusion deepening.
"If it harms the system, how come it was there in the first place? You're the one who made it. You made it when you glitched and turned it into whatever it is now."
The panel vanished. For a moment, nothing appeared in its place.Then another panel materialized, this time with a circular loading bar slowly forming across the screen.
Tyler's eyebrows rose. He had never seen the system do that before.
After a few moments, words finally appeared.
[THIS ITEM WAS NOT CREATED BY THE DIVINE SYSTEM. ONLY CONTAINED. HOWEVER, THE SYSTEM CANNOT CONTAIN THE ITEM ANYMORE, FOR IT IS NOW FULLY CORRUPTED, HAVING LEFT THE INVENTORY]
Tyler read the message twice.
"Corrupted?" He frowned.
"How? And if you're not the one who made it, who did?"
The system panel flickered. Then it began to glitch violently.
The words on the screen broke apart, individual letters twisting into meaningless strings of characters before becoming completely unreadable. Tyler watched in silence as the panel flickered several more times.
Then it disappeared. He remained sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the empty space where it had been.