*************************************************************************************************************************************
After finishing the cup, the conversation continued. By now, Luz felt a lot more comfortable around the two compared to before.
"Sis, I've got a question. What will happen after fighting with the parasite's soul twice, and what can go wrong during all the steps?" asked Luz as he placed his teacup down.
Sarah slowly fell asleep since the conversation between the two was just some boring stuff explained to her years ago.
"Concerning your questions, let me answer them as much as possible to my knowledge," replied Liv, hugging Sarah that tried to sleep on her.
Moving her hair aside, she explained:
"After fighting the centralized will, it'll shatter into million pieces and won't be able to regenerate or put any resistance against you, devouring it. Therefore it'll become one of you, and after the consumption, controlling these parasites will feel just as easy as breathing."
Playing with his beard stubble, Luz asked: "I get that part, but you still haven't explained to me what can all go wrong."
"Yeah, anyway. The more souls you consume, the stronger the hivemind will be in the end. You can also imagine what will happen if you fail against the manifested will, so there is no need to explain that part. Your case is especially troublesome," sighed Liv.
"How is my case troublesome?" Luz asked, puzzled.
"Your parasites aren't all the same and are in a weird and more developed state. In short, their wills are stronger compared to my case when my parasites had their own will, and it gets even worse," Liv said slightly.
"And what's the problem with that?" asked Luz as he laid against the couch.
"Even if you were to succeed and consume them all, if their collective memories far exceed yours, then their influence will still be strong on you. Their memories that contain their desires and behaviors will be a part of your memories," spoke Liv.
"But let's visualize your situation for a moment. The human body has around 37,2 trillion cells," Liv explained with a yawn.
"In what kind of number range are we talking about?" asked Luz, who didn't get the numbers.
Liv seeing his confused state, only sighed before explaining the number to him.
"We are talking in the range of 10^13. That's a number with 14 digits. If we assume each parasite has a memory capacity of one Bit, the number would still make a big dent," Liv explained.
"Now I'm curious how big the dent would be," commented Luz, as he continued to listen.
"To give you the order of magnitude of what kind of dimensions we are talking about, your brain can hold up to 2,5 petabites (merely a google search). On the other hand, the souls were to take up 0,1 Petabites," Liv continued with her explanation.
"But that doesn't sound much. I mean, I would still have 2.4 Petabites on my own memory, right?" asked Luz.
"No. As you just said, it doesn't sound quite much till you realize that we are talking about the amount your brain can hold and not the data your brain actually holds. It'll probably be around 30% of your total memories," sighed Liv as she slapped her forehead.
"I see… Now I'm truly unsure how I want to move forward, to be honest," Luz commented.
Shaking her head, Liv stated: "You don't have any other choice. The memories each parasite contains will grow bigger with each passing day."
"Can we not like seal away these memories?" asked Luz.
"That should be possible, but unfortunately, none of us here has such an ability. You need a well-versed master mage that focuses on souls for that," explained Liv.
Sighing, Luz agreed to still take the risk.
'I don't want to even do it, but what else can I do? Remaining in a state of cold warfare will only make it harder for me in the long term. If I let them develop more, they'll soon… surpass me.'
Gritting his teeth out of frustration, he asked Liv to teach him the technique to him. She agreed and bought him into a different room, looking more like a prison cell.
The room was three quadrat meters, and inside was nothing, except dirt and some chains. The place next to the chains was covered in straw. The door to the room was out of metal and had a small window, letting light into the room from the outside.
Looking at the room, Luz began to hesitate, thinking, 'HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE IN SUCH A ROOM FOR IDK HOW LONG? THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO THERE.'
"The room is designed like that, so you have nothing else to do except to finish your task. Only after reaching your goal will you be released. We will still bring you something to eat and drink," stated Liv with a smile to the hesitant Luz, before moving closer to him and whispering:
"Or do you want to enjoy the rest of your time till the parasite slowly overtakes you, ending up as a mind slave to it~?"
A chill ran down Luz's spine, and he gulped.
"I'll enter," he uttered before asking about the chains.
"It would probably be wiser that you use them for your sake. If you ever lose your mind these, chains will hold you in place," commented Liv. Luz nodded in agreement, and the squeaky door was closed behind him.
Sighing, he sat down on the dirty and cold ground before binding himself with the chains.
The chains were cold and heavy. Also, with each movement, their sounds resounded through the room.
He adjusted himself on the ground to a cross-legged position before closing his eyes.
"Time to devour," he muttered to himself before editing the contract. The clause about protecting the parasites was switched to only include the 5 princesses.
'Hehehhehe… they shouldn't even realize that,' he thought with a grin before beginning to devour their souls.
Thx for the chapter!
a big-brain girl that protects and takes care of a bunch of children, instead of running away by herself, is quite a lovely girl even if she had some weird tendencies when it comes to her siblings ;)