Gambit Of The Living Weapon

Five years have pa.s.sed since the night he first met with Marceus and his band of weirdos and decided to become one of the weirdos himself. He now lives with them on their base, a big mansion hidden in the farthest corner of the city. Apparently one of Maceus candidates had the power to create illusions so even if someone tried to find the mansion it would just start running circles around the city like a madman. Only people covered with Marceus"s energy could see through the illusion and find the mansion.

Daren asked what the point of such a trick was to which they replied "If people knew the strongest weapon on the world lived here we wouldn"t get one second of peace...". Apparently Marceus was in fact rather popular. Daren spent most of his adulthood either enjoying the time with his wife or cla.s.sing after the glutton spirit so he never bothered hearing of any type of news like this.

Life as a user candidate was rather simple to Daren"s surprise. It seemed like they had a trusted source that would give them information about places that needed immediate help and Marceus would use of these scenarios to experiment teaming up with the candidates to find out which one he was most compatible with.

One time they were request to act as escorts to the king and her daughter while they traveled to outside of the kingdom and protect them from a.s.sa.s.sins. Another they heard about a monster that was terrorizing a family by eating all of their farm animals each first day of the month. There was also the time they found out about a spell-caster that was using dark magic to summon goblins to seize a village and capture all the victims to sell as slaves.

Most of these requests were very serious and required a lot of consideration and preparing, but every time Marceus would stay calm and just spout some words to each occasion "Alright then... who should i bring with me this time...?" making Daren feel lees like a guardian warrior and more like a shoe being picked from the closet.

Of course Daren didn"t have to go with every mission with Maceus. Because of his condition of only being able to turn into a beast when the sun was gone there were many requests that he was forced to refuse such as the time they were asked to help defending against a siege in the castle. By the time Daren would be able to fight most of the members of the castle would already be dead.

But honestly Daren rather liked when he didn"t had to go with Marceus. Those were the few moments when he would get some peace and had time to relax. Whenever they didn"t get requests Marceus would make his candidates train against one another to iron-out their skills, and since Daren could only act at night, Marceus would constantly interrupt his sleep time to practice with him.

As he was thinking about his last few years and a.n.a.lyzing his new lifestyle he started to wonder how much longer that guy would take to pick his partner. Then he suddenly heard a knock on the door.

"Mr. Daren may i come in?"

"Yes Lilith... Come in..."

Lilith came inside the room wearing her maid outfit. She was one of the caretakers of the mansion charged with helping the candidates with their training. She looks like a regular girl at first, not too pretty but not too ugly either. Daren always felt she was the pure definition of "normal", with the only exception being her especial transformation.

"Good morning Mr. Daren. Master Marceus has requested for you again today."

"Again...? It"s the tenth time in a row... Can"t he use anyone else for this mission?"

"He said that since you were the latest addition to the group you should try to work harder than the rest!"

"Wait... I"m still his last addition? He hasn"t recruited anyone else as a candidate in the last five years??"

"I think he mentioned that he decided not to recruit any more candidates for the time being. He said that meeting with you made him realize that cheating was bad or something... And that he should try to be more faithful towards his "husbands" and "wives"."

Daren heard that and started to lose the little energy he had to get off the bed. Marceus"s training and missions were already pretty draining but having to deal with his irritating form of humor was what really motivated Daren to want to quit sometimes. At first he believed that he was teased to try to help him deal with some personal issues when they first met, but so much time has pa.s.sed and that guy would still not quit with his mockery.

"If he can joke like that then it must not be anything serious... Tell him I"m not coming..."

"Mr. Daren please... I think this might be important."

Daren stiffed his body when he realized Lilith"s eyes. They had went from their normal green to a s.h.i.+nning golden. Her transformation was also a blessing from the G.o.ds just like Marceus, and allowed her to have eyes that can see into the future. If Lilith is saying it"s important it"s because it is.

"I see... I"ll be coming in a second."

"Thank you Mr. Daren."

Lilith let out a bright smile and left the room. She actually used to be a candidate herself, in fact she appeared to be the best choice to be Marceus"s partner. With her future sight ability the two were unstoppable. The only problem was one day Lilith got traumatized by an incident that made her completely afraid of fighting ever again. It seems like on one of their missions she was asked to join in the front lines of a war zone, but ended up getting carried away and completely annihilated the entire enemy army by herself. Since she was constantly looking at the next opponent with her power she never realized the mountain of carnage she was leaving behind. Marceus tried to stop her by screaming and trying to transform back but her control over him was bigger the they expected. When she finally calmed down and took a glance at her surroundings the scenery was so devastating that made her feel sick for a whole month. Marceus promised never to ask her to fight again after that.

While walking through the mansion towards the mission room Daren would greet the other candidates he saw.

"Morning Daren. You not gonna take breakfast?"

"Morning Carlen. I will in a minute, just gotta hear the mission first."

"Hey Daren, is you shoulder feeling better?"

"Hey Terry. It"s almost fully healed. I hope i never have to deal with flying enemies again. Falling from that high was not a fun experience."

"Yo! Lion man! Ready for some action tonight?"

"Yo, metal guy! Sorry, seems like i"ll be going on a mission tonight."

Daren had a surprisingly easy time getting along side all the other candidates. Maybe it was due to him just being another weirdo among all the weirdos? Or maybe they were just being nice towards the newbie? Or maybe everyone was just glad that they could take a break from Marceus since he was focusing so much on using Daren all the time.

"Oh G.o.d... Please be something simple this time..."

Daren entered the mission room. It was a big room with one round table in the middle and many books stacked on a shelf on the left wall and a picture of a G.o.ddess on the right wall. It seems like that G.o.ddess was the one that gave Marceus his ability. Daren was never interested on Marceus story of how he became a living weapon so he never got much detail on the subject, but apparently she saved his life when he was on the brink of death and gave him that power to protect him. Why would a G.o.ddess give such an amazing power to this one dying guy in particular is anyone"s guess.

"Oh good, you are here!"

Marceus was sitting on a chair near the table holding a piece of paper, probably the request description. Alongside him were three other candidates with serious looks on their faces. A young man who looked to be between twenty-five or thirty years old with blond short hair and blue eyes. That was Gustav, one of the candidates a.s.sistants who had the ability to speak inside the minds of people and allow then to speak with each other. He was really useful to coordinate team missions.

By his side was a strong looking bald man with carrying a bag by his foot. Auren, the team"s healer. he had the ability to make any kind of injury disappear in a matter of seconds, however it gave him severe headaches making his head burn with intense pain.

Lastly was Ria. A girl with black long hair and dark skin that had the ability to transform her arms into a pair of claws that could create scars in the air opening a portal to another location of her desire. She was great for transportation, but only to places she has been to before. Because of that she was constantly asked to travel around the world to find more spots to teleport to, causing her to barely ever being seen in the mansion. Daren was extremely jealous of her job since it looked like a constant vacation time.

These three definitely have amazing powers but Marceus never managed to find great use of them as partners, thus they never became candidates. They didn"t seem to mind it thought. It"s not like getting along well with Marceus was something to strive for.

"So... what do i need to fight this time...?"

"My my Daren... Asking for a fight this early in the morning? You used to be such a cute kid before... When did you became so violent?"

"As if you ever call me to do anything else. For a guy who"s looking to create world peace you sure enjoy using me as nothing but a fighting tool..."

"Don"t worry, this time is nothing like that. It seems like two dragons were attacking a village and the people want us to put a stop to them."

"You want me to fight dragons...??"

"Didn"t you just heard what i said? There is no need to fighting this time. We figured out that they are just parents looking for their lost baby. I think one of the villagers stole a dragon egg and mama and papa are going crazy looking for their baby. I want you to use your lion nose to find the child."

"... How am i supposed to catch the smell of a baby dragon?"

"We just need to visit their nest and have you sniff around it, simple right?"

"Visit their nest!? So instead of dealing with two angry dragons we will be dealing with a whole bunch of them?? I rather just fight the two dragons."

"Nope! We are the protectors of peace! We find ways to solve the problems without too much conflict. Just like i solved yours remember?"

"Ugh... Fine..."

"That"s my boy!! I knew you would come around!"

Daren gave a glance at the rest of the individuals in the room, who all had expressions that said "I"m so sorry Daren, please bear with it!".

"By the way, how long until you find you definitive partner from the candidates?"

"What are you saying? You guys are all my children! Are you asking me to choose my favorite among you? What a heartless thing to say Daren!"

Was this guy planning to keep me here forever? Is what Daren imagined to himself. He left the room frustrated and headed towards the kitchen to have breakfast. There he encountered Lilith setting the table for him and a few other candidates who were already eating.

"Hey Lilith... Is this mission really that important...? I feel you tricked me."

"A Mr. Daren. I believe this might be our most important mission yet. According to what i saw at least."

"What did you saw exactly...?"

Daren asked while taking a piece of bread and putting in his plate.

"By the end of this mission, Mr. Marceus will have chosen his definitive partner!"

The entire room stooped whatever it was that they were doing and looked straight at Lilith. And then followed by looking at the person Marceus had choose to take with him on this mission, Daren. He himself was in shock and released one word towards Lilith.

"... What...?"