Chapter 82: Grave
669 8 20
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Stanley ended up being forced to spend the next twenty minutes comparing various sets of underwear. The initial two sets were relatively mild and Stanley managed to calmly assess both of them for her.

Yet, after trying on the underwear and observing Stanley’s calm reaction, Elisabeth decisively threw them in the trash.

Elisabeth’s excuse?

She retorted easily, “If your siting there calmly as an attractive and willing woman in her lingerie standing in front of you, it's obviously not impressive enough.”

The situation deteriorated from there.

Stanley found himself incapable of refuting her, Elisabeth easily managed to pressure him into comparing more underwear.

She took advantage of him using pretenses such as, “Were you lying when you promised to help me?” and “Are you truly unable to help me with such a simple task?”

As time went on, Elisabeth’s selection in lingerie became increasing risqué. Eventually the lingerie reached the point where it became transparent and could easily be seen through with the naked eye.

That was when Stanley refused to continue this charade any longer. After an argument, Stanley left the room and Elisabeth reluctantly agreed to get properly dressed.

Although he’d escaped, the sights from inside the room ‘haunted’ him and replayed in his mind.

Stanley is an extremely stubborn person… but, even then he was barely holding himself together.

He was barely managing to remain calm and sane by thinking about the consequences of such actions and the reason behind Elisabeth's seduction.

Considering Stanley only met Elisabeth about a weeks ago, she clearly wasn’t acting like this out of love. Instead it was some misguided belief that this was the best way to repay him.

Accepting such misguided repayment would be wrong. Stanley could tell that Elisabeth didn’t want a relationship. After her repayment, she would probably completely ignore him.

Even if Stanley was mistaken and she did want an actual relationship, Elisabeth certainly wouldn’t be willing to leave her people on this planet behind to travel. Meanwhile Stanley refused stay here with her.

Overall, getting together with Elisabeth was too complicated. He isn’t the kind of person to sleep with someone then abandon them.

Besides… he already had Tracy.

Although the two of them weren’t literally a couple, they were partners who fought and survived together. If Stanley were to say that he felt no romantic feelings for Tracy, he would be a lying…

Although Stanley would never admit that and didn’t mind if nothing romantic ever happened between them.

Still... Stanley didn’t feel as if it was worth the risk of jeopardizing his current relationship with Tracy. Sleeping with Elisabeth, who he’d only met a week ago would certainly put that relationship in jeopardy.

There was the possibility Tracy wouldn’t mind… but it’s also possible she would.

Regardless, Stanley knew it could cause a crack in their partnership.

Especially considering how terrible Stanley was at lying. That combined with his wildly sporadic luck meant, if Stanley ever gave in and accepted Elisabeth’s offer, it would be impossible to purposefully keep it from her.

If Tracy ever found out, he could at least assert that he never actually did anything with Elisabeth… beside staring at her in lingerie and catching glimpses of her naked body.

Although Stanley hadn’t considered the situation enough to realize that even what he'd already done was enough to cause its fair share of problems. Going further, at this point, would only be putting icing on the cake.

Despite Elisabeth taking advantage of the earlier situation to wear extremely… revealing underwear, the situation has temporarily been resolved. However, Elisabeth’s near constant seduction has caused Stanley to feel utterly exhausted. Stanley had gotten out of bed less than an hour ago, yet he already felt like going back to sleep.

Stretching his hands out as he yawned, he spotted Elisabeth walking out of the bedroom wearing a black dress.

Stanley gestured for her to lead the way.

Instead of setting off, she performed an impromptu twirl to show off the dress and asked. “How do I look?”

“Formal. Based on your previous dresses and attitude, I didn’t think you even owned formal attire.” Stanley answered, trying not to leave any gaps in his words for her to latch onto.

He also wanted to ask why she was wearing a black dress.

Elisabeth’s black dress would fit in at a funeral, but Stanley uncomfortably dismissed it as a cultural difference. He didn’t even know if this universe had ceremonial funerals, not to mention specific funeral clothing.

In the end, he deciding against asking her about it. Stanley didn’t want to say anything that could encourage her to change clothes again if he could avoid it.

“Not exactly the compliment I was hoping for, but it’ll do.” Elisabeth sighed at his attitude, before briefly saying. “Come on, follow me.”

Elisabeth led the way forward through the maze that was her mansion.

Along the way, they passed by several open courtyards with doppelgangers inside working and training. It was only after passing through several areas with different styles and themes that they arrived at a locked door in a courtyard.

“Where exactly are we?” Stanley asked staring dubiously at the gate.

“My uncle’s grave.” Elisabeth answered, taking out a key from around her neck that she must have acquired after he’d left the room.

Stanley was stunned at her words and couldn’t quite believe his ears, “Sorry, did I hear that correctly? Did you say grave? Is your uncle dead?”

“No, no. He’s not dead.” Elisabeth shook her head quickly denying his question, “I suppose it makes sense that the word wouldn’t translate correctly.”

Although Stanley had run into situation where concepts hadn’t translated correctly, this was the first time he’d been on the receiving end of the translation’s confusion.  

“You really should disable auto-translate. It’ll limit your exposure to new words, languages, and concepts.” Elisabeth stated with a frown that expressed her disapproval and disdain for the feature, “Anyway, the word roughly means, their final resting place. Specifically referring to the location where someone bind themselves in exchange for immortality.”

Stanley mentally noted down her advice regarding the translation function. Even if it wasn’t something he ended up using, knowing that auto-translate could be disabled might be useful.

Elisabeth continued clarifying, she understood the previous explanation wasn't quite good enough, “When someone’s lifespan starts to run out, using a specialized technology, they can bind themselves to a single location to obtain immortality in exchange for never being able to leave that location.”

Thinking about the implications of such a technology left Stanley stunned. Immortality? Many people would probably kill to obtain it. Although you’d be trapped in one location forever, if you were going to die anyway…

Stanley briefly paused, “Wait, don’t doppelganger have control over their cells? Couldn’t they just… I don’t know regenerate them.”

“Actually all monsters are immortal upon birth, we don’t die from old age.” Elisabeth answered proudly before whispering quietly, “That’s why they’ve always been jealous of us…”

“Then…” Stanley connected the dots and realized the implications.

“Yes-” Elisabeth moved to unlock the door with the key and continued. “-My uncle’s not a monster.”

Stanley fell silent at the news.

He wasn’t sure what to think. Although Stanley didn't know the real situation, but from her words alone he could tell there was a complicated story behind the situation. Unlike Elisabeth, this would be the first… real native he’d met. Yet, it’s also someone who betrayed Elisabeth and tried to kill her.

Flickering in an alternating pattern between excitement and irritation, Stanley stared at the open ‘grave’. Curious as to the exact mechanics of immortality and the popularity of the method, Stanley questioned her for more information, “Does everyone use this type of immortality?”

“Pft… Hahahaha-” Elisabeth burst into laughter and nearly fell laughing at his question, “-Oh, you’re so innocent… Never change, Stanley. Never change….”

“That’s a no?”

“The council would never let people get away this method of immortality. It’s highly, extremely highly illegal.” Elisabeth explained after managing to calm herself down and stop laughing, “What do you think would be the result if the council let everyone get away with using this kind of immortality?”

Stanley felt uncomfortable as he stared into the dark grave knowing that people had apparently deciding the technology had been deemed so terrible that it had been outlawed. “I don’t know… What exactly are the downsides that caused them to make it so illegal?”

“The only downside is the technology is too good at its damn job. Whoever uses it becomes near impossible to kill and will never die so long as they have a constant supply of mana.” Elisabeth explained, “The only solution is to drain the entire area with mana, but that would be extremely expensive and increases in cost exponentially with the amount of mana in the area."

Upon hearing Elisabeth's explanation, he vaguely understood why they outlawed the technology to prevent people from becoming immortal.

"That's not the worse part though. What do you think would be the optimal location to use this technology?" Elisabeth quizzed with a smirk on her face.

"Obviously, somewhere the density of mana is relatively high."

Clearly enjoying herself, Elisabeth gestured around the area, "Low and behold, where do you think we are?”

“The teleportation beacon… it’s a mana collector.” Stanley realized and remembered their location.

“Bingo. Tell me, what do you think would happen if everybody began using this type of immortality around the teleportation beacons?” Elisabeth asked, gesturing toward the dark and drearily grave with her tail.

It didn’t take long for Stanley to come up with a scenario and cautiously voice it out, “The teleportation beacons would either become starved of mana, or they would become oversaturated with these graves.”

The only thing Stanley couldn’t understand was the story behind Elisabeth letting her uncle such a technology to obtain immortality. Especially considering the fact that doppelgangers needed a high mana density to speedup their growth rate.

Elisabeth leaned toward him and purred, “Correct~ Either way, with how expense mana collector’s and teleportation beacons are to create, how could the council be willing to let them become people leech off them?”

“What if people utilized their own mana collector to power the technology?” Stanley asked curious as to the extent of their illegality. “If they created their own, they shouldn’t have had a problem with it, right?

“Do you think it’s easy or cheap to set up mana collectors of this magnitude? The density of mana is incomparably higher on planets with mana collectors and increases even further in direct proximity to them.” Elisabeth stated, placing the key back around her neck.

Stanley casually regarded his surroundings and didn’t feel particularly impressed with the density of mana in the air. He hadn’t even registered that there was mana in the air to before she mentioned it.

Although that was probably because Stanley having gotten used to Hell Difficulty, even breathing could be difficult at times due to the density of mana.

...Or it could be the result of a combination of the grave and the dragon sleeping nearby swallowing up the majority of the mana.

Whilst Stanley did his comparison of the surroundings for mana and found it lacking, Elisabeth mumbled to herself. “…it’s possible that that they might leave you alone. Especially if you set up your the mana collector on some deserted asteroid that nobody knows about, without benefits or publicity, the council wouldn’t bother with them… Although, the council would probably target them for the express purpose of making an example and ‘commandeer’ the materials used for the beacon afterward to cover their expenses.”

Apparently satisfied with her conclusion, Elisabeth turned toward Stanley to answer him properly, “While it’s possible they wouldn’t bother someone who created their own mana collector, I don’t think it’s particularly likely.”

After speaking, Elisabeth began moving to enter the grave. Following after her, as he didn’t want to be left behind, Stanley entered the dark tomb-like building. The stone floor caused their steps to echo with every step they walked.

After a brief time, they arrived at a secondary door inside. Elisabeth came to a halt at the door. She turned around and looked Stanley in the eyes, “This is where we part ways. I need to confront my uncle alone.”

“Eh? After all that buildup, you want me to leave at the finish line?” Stanley stared at her in disbelief, “No way, I want to meet him.”

“Fine… Just so you know, this conversation is likely going to dissolve into a fight.” Elisabeth easily relented, apparently unable to refuse his request, “Do not get involved if a battle happens.”

Nodding Stanley, stood back with mixed emotions.

Even though her uncle was connected with the traitor and he should dislike him, he still felt excited to meet him. Logically he knew this person probably wouldn’t even bother with his existence, however he still felt excited at seeing an immortal and a native of this universe.

After all, if Stanley was extremely lucky, he might even understand the situation here and even potentially learn how to get back to his own universe.

20