Seeing the other side lost in thought, Cedric continued the conversation.

  “Tanael, your name is known to us. You’ve done quite a lot of damage in these few years. We’ve been searching for you. Those in the know have already suspected you are an otherworlder. With the stunts you pulled in the Tower, I guess you’re no longer hiding your origin.”

  “So?”

  “What is your purpose here?” Cedric's tone became steely.

  Tanael chuckled. “Are you asking me to reveal my evil plan to you? I feel insulted, but I’ll give you a chance. Mister Cedric, what do you know of One Piece?”

  “The dress? What about it?”

  “Blurgh,” Tanael rolled his eyes in disgust. “What an uncultured savage. Pitiful. If that head is not a decoration, deduce my purpose.”

  “...You’re after the otherworlders kept in this Tower,” Cedric said after a while.

  “So you do know about them. Seeing you’re not in a cage like them, you must be one of the guys that the Church turned into their domesticated dogs. Tell me, how many of your kind are there in the kennel?”

  Cedric’s Victa flared out and he clenched his fist. “You-!”

  “I used to wonder why the Church hunts us. But I’ve pieced together a few facts throughout the years. The ones that don't agree with becoming the Church's lapdog got sent down here.”

  “You know nothing of what you’re talking about!” Cedric slammed the table. “The Church always approaches our kind with good faith first, in peace! I’m with them not because I’m forced to but because I chose to! Those who agree with common sense are left alone. Only the guys who refused to see reason and insisted on doing what they wanted, the Church acted against. Even if this is not Earth, there are rules here! Too many of them are causing great disasters because they have a power that they are unfit to wield! They deserved to be punished!”

  “Sure. I get that. Punish them all you like. Doesn't matter to me.”

  “Your past criminal records aside, just by breaking in here and aiding the cultists already earned you a one-way ticket to a room below.”

  “Now that part is what I take issue with. In case it isn't clear to you, I don't like people telling me what to do. Back on Earth, I’ve got to fall in line, cuz of society and such. But here... hehehe... oh, but here, I have freedom that I’ve never imagined to possess.”

  “Having the freedom to act does not free you from the consequences of said action.”

  “I’ve heard your argument in a million different variations. I’ll still pursue my dream to the end. It’s my Path. I’ve caused suffering to others in the past, and will cause more in the future. The most I’ll give you is that I’ll try to limit those numbers to the minimum and mostly aim it at the people who are deserving.”

  “Not. Good. Enough. And you’ve yet to answer for your past crimes,” Cedric said resolutely.

  “I figured you’d say that. The Church won't let a guy who disagrees with their vision be stronger than them so they crushed them before that. Isn't that fascism? Authoritarianism? Whatever-ism that doesn't sound good.”

  “The good of the many must come first before the good of the few, Tanael.”

  “I mostly agree. Pretty much my policy, when I’m the one at the top.”

  Cedric squinted in anger before his face turned normal again, the anger buried under his civility. “It appears you're too stubborn to listen.”

  “Call it strong-willed, Cedric. I’m going to the top, no matter what. Now I kick the ball to your side. What do you want, Cedric the otherworlder? You’re a Level 4, you’re with the Silver Legion. What do you want in this new world?”

  Cedric paused for a long while, shifting through his mind before he found his answer.

  “I want to go home.”

  Tanael took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  “I see... Now it is clear why we will never get along.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are the type of otherworlder that wants to go back to the life they had before, while I'm not.”

  “Do you not want to see your family again? Friends? Or... lovers?”

  “I left it all behind,” Tanael said with a measure of finality. “You must have had a good life if you want to go back. Seeing you’re still here, you haven't found a way back. Not surprising, given how difficult it usually is. Still, good luck, I suppose. For what it's worth.”

  Cedric opened his mouth.

  “Before you ask, I don't know how to go back to Earth, and I don't care.”

  After that, the two of them glared at each other in silence before the sound of a distant explosion reached their ears.

  “We’ve talked long enough, I think,” Tanael said with a tension in his voice that wasn't there before.

  “Despite the very slim chance, I hoped it wouldn't come to this. All right, the fight is on,” Cedric said straight to the masked man in front of him. “We begin.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “It’s already finished.”

  Cedric’s eyes widened the moment he realized the implication of those words but by then it was already too late. A blast of screaming souls rose up from below and ate Cedric whole.

  The man screamed but the blast was continuous. The closest comparison for Cedric’s situation was being hit by a flamethrower that cooked his soul. The soul blast was so powerful that it destroyed his defenses. The pain robbed him of movement and further action. The only thing he could do was scream.

  Ten seconds later, Cedric’s agony stopped. It felt much longer than ten to him.

  Cedric had been alert and vigilant the whole time for any foul play Tanael might pull.

  He was so focused on Tanael who sat in front of him that he failed to sense that the villain had woven his trap on the lower floor of the guard station. While they were talking, very subtly, Tanael kept making the Arte below stronger and stronger.

  Cedric wasn't a weakling but he underestimated Tanael and his mastery over soul techniques.

  Back when Viers first created the persona of Tanael as a mere Level 2, it started with three Artes: Vengeful Spirit, Desolate Dive, and Howling Wraiths.

  He had come a long way since then. All those Hollow Knight inspired spells had been upgraded. Shade Soul, Descending Dark, and Abyss Shriek.

  It was the -somewhat modified- third technique that Tanael used. The soul blast reached far above the station’s ceiling but didn't destroy and walls, only living beings would be damaged by this Arte and it had reduced Cedric to a helpless prey before a predator.

  “Ah... Urhh.”

  He was somehow still alive and conscious. He looked uninjured but his soul was in very bad shape. He sat as if there weren't a working muscle on his body.

  “...That’s it?” Tanael was on guard for Cedric’s cheat or whatever tricks that he would pull out of his ass but there was none. “For an otherworlder, you’re very meh. Are you authentic?”

  Tanael thought otherworlders should be much harder to deal with, with their bag of tricks, lucky fortunes, hidden potential, plot armor, and so on.

  Just like himself.

  But somehow, Cedric was not... impressive.

  Could it be?

  If Cedric was a true otherworlder and not a fake, Tanael had a theory. Somehow, Cedric’s MC factor, his Fate’s weight, or whatever else it might be called, was lacking. Tanael suspected that by subordinating himself to the Estellian Church was one of the causes, if not the cause.

  It was the unfairness of being a main character in some story that made otherworlders very fearsome. Their accumulated prowess from their previous life added with their current life. The Fables allowed him to make a study of this fact.

  That said, not every MC needed to be an otherworlder. In fact, otherworlder MC was a pretty new vogue in the scope of storytelling history. There were lots of exemplary and incredible stories that the protagonist wasn't an otherworlder.

  Incidentally, same-world reincarnator and regressor Tanael also crammed into this category. Even though it wasn't accurate on the term otherworlder, it was close enough.

  Therefore, even though Viers and Cedric were both otherworlders, their significance was simply incomparable. Because one was actively strengthening his MC factor and accumulating destiny, the other was... wasting away.

  That was why Cedric lost to Tanael, who was only Viers’ clone, without the power of his Horizon.

  Compared to average Level 4, Cedric, who was a Silver Legionnaire, might be very strong, but MCs were another dimension entirely. They possessed something that couldn't be quantified by mere Levels.

  Tanael didn't imply that Cedric was simply lazing around all this time like a sloth. He was definitely training and growing as a Pathseeker under the Church. However, when he was pitted against Tanael, that wasn't enough.

  And now came the reckoning of defeat.

  Thin MC factor or not, Tanael had no reason to let Cedric live. Even more so since he was in the Silver Legion.

  Tanael materialized a handgun and pointed it at Cedric’s head.

  “Hasta la vista, baby.”

  “Cedric, what happened!?”

  Before Tanael pulled the trigger, a magic circle appeared next to Cedric’s ear, carrying the voice of a woman.

  A voice that Tanael recognized.

  “Your life sign is flickering. Tell me you’re fine... Cedric!”

  “Fre...ya...” Cerdic rasped.

  She’s here... Tanael inhaled sharply.

  In the next five seconds, Tanael’s brain worked on overdrive. Freya kept calling but Cedric was unable to reply.

  “Saved in the nick of time. A second later and pieces of your brain would be on the floor. Guess even rotten, your MC factor still functions.”

  Tanael knocked out Cedric with a hit using his handgun and cut off the communication with Freya.

  He’d decided to let Cedric live.

  Even though being otherworlder usually meant earning a deathmark in Tanael’s book, Freya had entered the equation as a variable.

  He had a feeling that the Church been trying to force an encounter between them through subtle moves these few years, since Freya failed to capture Viers all those years ago. He had avoided such ‘random’ encounters a few times, even abandoning some benefits in the process.

  Tanael’s true body had a strong suspicion that the Church, with all its shady work through Fate, was trying to make Freya his nemesis.

  In other words, they were making a destined blade to slay him.

  Cedric seemed to be Freya’s friend. Her concerned voice was proof enough. In the event of a villain killing a hero’s friend, or, God forbid, lover? It was a surefire way of earning the nemesis crown. Empowered by the flaming righteous vengeance, Freya’s lethality towards him would grow tenfold.

  And so Tanael made a choice. A choice that his real body would also make because they were the same person in two bodies.

  Was leaving Cedric alive the right choice? Frankly, Tanael didn't know. He wasn't a mastermind supervillain with a genius intellect that could create plans inside an invisible plan inside a fake plan.

  He was a genre-savvy villain, and so he followed his nature.

  Not because he was afraid of Freya. Definitely not. This nemesis thing... Tanael simply wouldn't give the architect of this plan the satisfaction.

  “But, after saying Hasta la vista, it’s not right for me to just leave.”

  When Tanael walked down to the fourth floor, he had a copy of Cedric’s soul memories in his pocket. A treasure trove of intel about the Silver Legion and Freya.

  Tanael never walked away empty-handed in a confrontation.

  He mended Cedric’s soul a bit so he wouldn't be a permanent human vegetable, only a couple of months of coma.

  Probably.

  The Estellian Church didn't seem to get the memo. Making an enemy of him was never a good idea.

  Through Cedric’s memories, Tanael would peel Freya naked. Should the time of confrontation ever come, he would slide a knife to her tender weak spot.

  Just... slide in. Snug and cozy.

  Tanael bet it would be a very pleasurable experience.