On the dawn of a brand new morning, William decided to head down to the ground floor to see how the rest of the people were doing; it was his duty as their boss after all.
Along the way, he decided to make a short pit stop over to the second floor, where Lian's store was.
The store was mostly finished at this point, with Lian coming up with the name 'The Gacha Store.'
William had to commend her business skills, as she offered the service of letting people pay her to use her gacha skill, then giving them the reward. Acting as a human gacha machine of sorts, of course, she also offered letting people buy expensive items directly, without the need for gambling with their hard-earned money.
He calmly strolled in while waving, only to see her collapsed on the nice wooden floor behind the counter, with Xiao Wei sleeping comfortably on her stomach.
It seemed she had fallen asleep immediately after returning to her store last night, and that Xiao Wei had accompanied her to the dream world.
William sighed with a calm expression, feeling a sense of nostalgia overtake him.
He then walked over to a nearby bathroom, grabbed a nice paper cup along the way, and poured ice-cold water into it.
William proceeded to mercilessly pour it onto Lian's face, shocking her awake instantaneously.
She coughed and retaliated by throwing Xiao Wei at William's face once she saw who the perpetrator was.
Catching the stray blob of shadow rather easily, William smirked. Before getting clawed in the face by an angry Xiao Wei. He ignored the stinging pain and continued.
"Get to work. Your shift just started."
In response, Lian stared at William with greedy eyes. It took him a second to understand.
"Fine."
[1200 Loreld has been transferred. 3492--->2292]
She giggled happily before investing the loreld into her Ingenuity stat, granting her the ability to use her core ability much more.
William sighed at the loss of precious money before continuing down to the ground floor.
A hard rock hit the back of his head as he tried to descend, thrown by a vengeful little shopkeeper.
Once he reached it, he took a look around, seeing what everyone was up to.
It looked to be a relatively mundane morning, with Sasha and Sang Pianyi ordering their subordinates around.
William smiled warmly and waved to them, to which they would respond with waves and smiles of their own.
It was a nice day.
[Progress: 9.34%]
After walking around the ground floor and greeting everyone, he came across with a nice smile and a simple "Good Morning...", or "I hope you have a nice day!", he decided to take a walk outside and get some fresh air.
As he strolled along the blades of grass outside, he saw a group of men walking along the path, aiming to enter the building. They looked rather nice and polite.
He read their facial expressions and put his acting skills to use.
William walked up to them with a smile as per usual, greeting the newcomers.
One of the men, most likely their leader, gladly shook William's hand with a smile.
"I'm Hou Hangyan! It's so nice to meet you, sir! You might have heard of me, actually..."
"Ahh, unfortunately, I haven't. Are you here to join us?" asked William, inquisitively.
Looking over the men's shoulders with his height that had recently returned to normal, William quickly checked the current situation with the security at the front gate.
Unsurprisingly, they were both gone, at least from his current position; it was unclear about the situation there.
Suddenly, William felt a sharp pain in the left part of his chest, as if a dagger stabbed through the coat and into his heart. However, no blade was there.
'An invisible blade?'
As the dagger was retrieved, the men's smiles would turn sinister as William bled out, thinking that they had won that easily.
To their surprise, William simply shrugged it off and checked the leaderboard rankings instead of caring about them.
[1. Paintress of a Forgotten World: 2466 VP]
[2. Echoic Slate of Emptiness: 1894 VP]
[3. Shadow Ruler of Darkness: 1238 VP]
[4. Insignificance of Mind: 1234 VP]
[5. Red Phoenix of Lava: 1295 VP]
[6. Azure Blue Dragon: 1205 VP]
[7. Spirit of Freedom: 1194 VP]
[8. Earth Golem: 1167 VP]
[9. The Priest of Strength: 988 VP]
[10.Curse of Silence: 953 VP]
'I've really fallen behind...It's probably for the best, being on the leaderboard would only attract more attention.'
The group of attackers watched as their target's heart began to regenerate rapidly, along with his coat.
Xiao Wei began to meow angrily at the attackers, before leaping at one of them and transforming mid-air into a massive panther, attacking him with great force.
Luckily, the man, who had soft green hair and savage eyes, stepped aside at the last second, or things could have ended badly for him.
At this time, the members of the watchtower noticed what was going on just outside, and they began to rush out and try to help their leader.
William calmly waved them off.
"There's no need for your assistance right now. I can handle these guys."
[1800 Loreld has been invested in Ingenuity.]
[Ingenuity Lv.13--->Lv.16!]
As his Ingenuity reserves expanded greatly and his All-Rounder buff was deactivated, he activated Bane of Existence, Point Blank, and cut the air around him with an Ingenuity blade.
Unluckily, he only managed to cut one of them down with that attack. He held back because he didn't want to destroy the beautiful garden, but it was still disappointing.
He dispersed the Ingenuity blade and activated Author's Note to get a better sense of the situation.
First, the green-haired man.
[Reader of Luck]
Then, the group's leader.
[Reader of Strength]
Afterwards, the man who stabbed him.
[Reader of Silence]
And the one he cut in half.
[Reader of Movement]
'Luck, Strength, Stealth, and Mobility. A well-rounded party indeed.'
[Core Ability: Writer has been activated.]
[You have 300 seconds to write.]
It seemed the word limit had been removed, though the limiting factor of ingenuity and probability still existed.
He began to write once more, a paragraph to defeat his enemies.
[Writing has concluded.]
As time began to flow once more, William leveraged his greater reserves of Ingenuity to...
[The Record: The Odyssey, Chaos Edition, has descended into reality.]
William used his flame and light manipulation to create a small sun above them, unlike the Sun Summoning ability that drained all of his Ingenuity, this was much more controllable.
Afterwards, he used Moon Wielder to initiate the same form he had used when he faced the King.
'Equinox'
In this state, a Silver Moon would appear in his left eye, while a Golden Sun appeared in his right, granting him an iridescent heterochromia.
The artificial sun and the moon stood together high in the sky, powering William. With them, his ingenuity output skyrocketed, allowing him to produce more powerful moonlight and sunlight and pool more Ingenuity into his attacks.
He'd draw a line in the air using his finger, passing through the bodies of the Readers ahead of him.
This time, with the combined efforts of the Sun, the Moon, and Destruction, they cut through the bodies of the enemies. Corroding the wounds in the process.
How unlucky.
He'd force himself to smile and laugh maniacally.
"You're all pitiful compared to that King. A single attack from me took you out?"
The severed bodies of the men all stared in horror, seeing as the artificial sun overlapped the moon.
[You have gained 145 Vp!]
[You have gained 332 Loreld!]
[Title acquired: Demon of the Eclipse.]
The writing was as follows:
[The Reader of Luck here will realize his side has the disadvantage due to the power imbalance, and start to assist the Reader of Lore, or at least stop helping his allies and disengage from the battle.]
[The rest of the cohort will be oblivious to this happening and continue the fight as planned.]
William looked around for the Reader of Luck; it seemed he had run away.
While he observed the surroundings, a hand would grab onto William. It was the Reader of Strength. He was bawling his eyes out in pain. Clinging onto life with everything he had.
"Why...Why do you get to have this...It's...not..fair! What...is..this...Why....why...I...want..to..be...a..hero..too..."
Another blade formed of Sunlight, Moonlight, and Destruction imbued into Ingenuity would swiftly appear and sever the arm, causing it to fall to the ground while William calmly patted the dust off of his coat.
He suddenly turned serious and said quietly.
"I am no hero, that's why I have this power. No one should follow my example. I'm just a paid actor."
He then snapped, and the blade would pierce through the man's body, further corroding him, yet he clung to life.
'Such tenacity...'
Suddenly a invisible dagger was plunged into William's neck. The Reader of Silence had silenced William's own thoughts about him through great effort, allowing him to then silence his own movements and land a nasty blow on the Truthseeker.
The Truthseeker was then repeatedly stabbed by the man, causing his blood to paint the ground red.
"You have no idea what we've been through to get here...We fought tooth and nail for a chance to beat you...You don't understand pain....do you...damn..bastard..Why do you get to have all this power, screw your cryptic words; you and I both know something isn't right here! " The Reader of Silence proclaimed.
However, he was ignored, because while he was stabbing the Truthseeker repeatedly and ranting his heart out, his enemy was staring at something far more strange.
In the distance was the corpse of a green-haired individual. Mysteriously killed without even a sound.
This alarmed William extremely. Someone who could kill a Reader of Luck that quickly was extremely close, perhaps even the reason that attack had wiped these men out, after all, even he hadn't expected them to simply take the hit without retaliation.
"It" was close.
"Something" approached.
"Something" that held no malice, yet desired for his entire world to burn.
"It" was close. Yet William could not see "It"
He couldn't sense anything at all. Yet his gut wrenched with unease.
"It" had arrived.
A true monster.
------------------------------------------------------------
In the next moment, William blinked calmly, before yawning. Deactivating his skills.
'What was I doing again? Oh, right, finishing these guys off. Let's see, one, two, three bodies! Nice, all is well. Another easy win.'
William stabbed the Reader of Strength in the head using his own invisible knife, finishing the man off and taking his archive.
[You have gained 988 Vp!]
[You have gained 300 Loreld!]
'Must've spent it just before coming here...'
He'd then proceed with collecting the archives of the Reader of Luck and Movement.
However, a nagging feeling ate at the back of his head.
'Am I...forgetting something? I hate when this happens...'
He then returned to the watchtower, still feeling off, but welcomed warmly nonetheless.
He rubbed his temples constantly, trying to remember as hard as he could, to no avail.
Then, all of a sudden, he moved on with his day. As if those thoughts were silenced.
Walking into the ground floor, he was showered with praise. With many cheers and joyful laughter. All of them happy to have him as their leader.
He smiled and headed up the stairs. The workers decided to let him rest, he had worked hard to protect them after all.
William stopped by the second floor, looking for Lian.
As soon as he reached the second floor a bar of soap come flying at him from a teary-eyed Lian. A prize from her gacha. It was unclear if she was crying from having to give away such a valuable item, or that she was worried about him, however it was likely both.
"It's magical, it'll clean you up..."
William thanked her before heading to the top floor. He was pretty exhausted after that battle, so he collapsed onto the sofa after using the magic cleaner to clean his clothing.
No man can remember every detail of their lives, we forget the things we don't care about and the things we don't want to recall.
To forget, is to guard your mind from what it rejects.
Truth is subjective and biased, and Lies permeate existence itself.
The one who thrives within them? Well, this is his story.