Bro, I'm not an Undead!
Chapter 1554: Crazy, Sick and Loved

Chapter 1554: Crazy, Sick and Loved

It was just before the Impossible Task.

Replicus mistook Kintar’s hesitation for anxiety.

She was yet to enter the space that had been prepared for her – a space where she would challenge the Impossible Task. She almost seemed content sitting on the floor, looking at her feet as though lost in thought.

This was unbecoming of her, Replicus thought. Kintar was always so lively, if a bit... strange. He had pegged her for a psychopath once, not that he could judge her for it. He had been a first-class psychopath too. Perhaps that was why she didn’t bother him as much as she did the others. They never could relate to her. Well, a few could.

"What’s wrong?" asked Replicus. "Are you getting cold feet? I wouldn’t blame you, you know? Even I would hesitate to enter a ring with multiple yous."

Kintar turned and looked at him with a bizarre expression that bordered on frustration. She rarely wore such a look. Or was that right? Now that Replicus thought about it, she had been donning that expression more and more since...

"How do you think Allora would have fared? Would she have beaten 1,000 other Alloras and earned your respect?" said Kintar. Her expression devolved to a forlorn one.

Replicus’ mirth vanished.

"My respect?" he said and he sat down beside Kintar. "All of you have my respect and my love. Admittedly, it took me a while to know what it feels like to love someone, but I know now. I know that I love you all – even without this Task and its results – and that... I loved Allora too."

Replicus sighed. "That’s why it hurt so much when she died in my arms. The way she expressed her contentment still... lingers in me. It still doesn’t make sense that she was happy to die like that."

Kintar’s eyes lingered on Replicus as he spoke, miming that moment when the masked man sent that nebulous lethal appendage piercing through her and destroying her soul.

Kintar made no comment about that. She and Allora had been thick as thieves. Everyone knew that. Allora was bubbly. Her height matched her attitude. Whenever she laughed, Kintar also laughed. It was almost bizarre to see them not walking with a pair of smiles – mostly mischievous ones.

Replicus remembered it now. Kintar never smiled as much anymore because, well...

"Look at me," he said, chuckling. "Truth be told, I never got the chance to really know Allora. I only began to pay attention to her after she successfully acquired a Hidden Class."

Kintar donned a meaningless smile. "Yeah. You didn’t know her."

That remark stung. Replicus had never really taken the time to know each of his Faction members before, unless they were classified as Unlimited. After Allora’s death, though, he was determined to amend this. Before he proposed the Impossible Task, he had used the Timemould Mirror Box to split himself and train each member individually. Because of this, he now had a good understanding about all his members’ personalities, powers, personal wishes and more. They were living, breathing people.

Kintar was still an anomaly, though. Replicus understood her, but also, he didn’t. He knew she was a common Mage, that she was very intelligent and driven, but not much else. He knew she was crazy too, wild when she wanted to be, but they were things he was missing; things only Allora knew and helped Kintar control.

Replicus didn’t know that Kintar suffered from intense depression, even though he was slowly starting to piece that together.

He also didn’t know that Kintar had bipolar disorder. Allora had helped keep that in check too. She had found a reliable Mind Caster back in the day to help diagnose why Kintar usually had sudden, dark slumps in her mood, some of which transformed her into a different person entirely. Sometimes she callous, sometimes she was sensitive. It was jarring.

This too, Replicus was quickly closing in on. He’d been surprised by how invested Kintar had been in a battle against a certain Cluster General named Savast just a few days ago. She seemed to enjoy herself a lot. After she won, she had requested for Savast to be spared, which Replicus promptly allowed.

After thinking about all this, Replicus got the distinct impression that Kintar was soothing her soul with the idea that making powerful friends that were forced to accept her, was the best thing for her. They wouldn’t die like Allora did, and even while they couldn’t understand her as well, they would still be able to endure her.

Before Replicus came along, before she joined his Faction, Allora had been the only one who bothered to understand her.

"Are you—"

"I don’t need your pity, Master," Kintar interrupted him. "You’re the one who needs it. You’re about to fight a demented version of you, right? That’s probably worse than what I’m about to face. You could actually lose... and I’ll probably laugh."

Replicus was dumbfounded at first, but then he laughed out loud.

"And I suppose you think you’re going to win easily? You actually plan to take on 1,000 of yours and win, don’t you?" he said.

Kintar shook her head. "Oh, I want more than that. If I’m about to fight more of myself, I want to see how high my potential is. What those others can think of that I haven’t. I’ll give them ideas, tell them about my current abilities, how to defeat me, and then fight them! Oh, that reminds me!" She jerked and poked Replicus’ arm. "You taught me all about your previous highest level mana manipulation skill, [Sorcery of Essence]. I get the concepts of [Sage Save] and [Sage Strain] – truly formidable – but what about the other insights you found? Your manipulation of mana has increased, right? You fought the masked man, Faction leaders, a dragon and a King of that Null Verse thing. You can’t be the same as before."

Replicus sighed. "You greedy little sockethole. I only taught you and everyone else about the properties of [Sorcery of Essence] so that you can all have at least that level of mana manipulation. You can’t handle more than that yet."

"I know, but I want more. If I’m not as crazy as you are, then I don’t want to be crazy at all!" said Kintar. She was suddenly supremely excited, twiddling her fingers. "I bet if I face the Impossible Task and try to apply those higher-level mana abilities in battle – even without understanding them – I’ll be able to learn and even evolve them. As long as I survive, of course."

Replicus folded his arms and snorted.

"That will take us a while. There’s a time limit to the Impossible Task, you know? We can’t stay here forever."

"I don’t care. Just teach me. What do you have in your arsenal right now?"

Replicus hesitated only for a bit before relenting.

"Well, rather than a single advanced mana manipulation skill... I learned many of them because of [Bringer of All]," he said. "There’s [Greatest Manamation]; [Manastanding]; [Core Demolition]; [Manamorphosis]; [Manalarity]; [Mana’s Whores]."

"[Mana Whores]?!"

"I know, right!"

"Hahahahahahahahahahaha! What else?" Kintar urged, beaming. "Show me some of your Null Life skills too."