Irium

Sometimes, when you are really smart, you think everything will go your way.

Sometimes, when you are really smart, you become stupid.

At those times, you need a reminder; a reminder like this.

"Stop, Irium, stop! Or you will regret this for the rest of your life!" As my ankle has started to touch the ground, I am doing best to stop him for lobotomizing me totally.

"Well, I have many regrets already, what"s one more?" He says calmly as my and Niviks" descent into the floor continues.

"If-if you don"t stop, I … I-"

"What! What will you do? What can you possibly do after becoming the freaking floor of this room?" He mocks me and, consequently, gives me an idea.

"If you don"t stop, my men will lose their leader."

"So what!?"

"So, they will go wild and attack whatever place they want to. And you want to know the first place they would want to attack?"

"What?"

"Glice."

And all of a sudden, the descent stops. I and Niviks breathe a sigh of relief. But then, Irium"s murderous glare makes us look back at him as cautiously as possible.

"I don"t wanna regret this too much later on so I"ll give you a chance to explain yourself."

His glare is like a mighty G.o.d of war looking at a petty non-violence enthusiast.

"Well, since there was a big chance that Dues that b.i.t.c.h would annihilate us if we tried to spread chaos throughout this planet, we decided to bring in some back-up."

"And?"

"And that back-up happened to be Glice."

"…"

"We sent them an offer and they accepted. So they are backing us now." I say, constantly swinging my gaze from him to Niviks to floor to back to him.

"What did you offer?"

"Me."

"You?" He looks at me as if I"m worthless.

"I"ll have you know Irium – I am Robin Hood level criminal back on Earth these days."

That may not be true but well, not important.

"…" He stays silent as if he doesn"t believe me.

"Oh, I just wish that you actually had an ability to tell lie from truth. You"d be gazing at me in wonder right now."

"I wouldn"t gaze at you in wonder even if you become a Joker level criminal." Before giving me the time to answer, he grabs my shirt and pulls me up as he asks, "The dots still don"t connect though."

"Oh, they do. The thing is – ever since the beginning of this whole plan, my men have wanted to absolutely destroy Glice. Why wouldn"t they? I mean, they are a bunch of greedy crooks and Glice is luxury unlimited." It"s true. They really do want to destroy it. "Anyway, since your two friends have been tasked by Dues to find and capture me, they accepted the offer so they could get to me. That is why they are going to send their forces outside of Glice and into this planet. If you kill me now, my men would use this opportunity to enter Glice and start plundering."

To be honest, it"s pretty unlikely to work that way. Roswaisa could probably destroy them all singlehandedly. But since she has gotten that strong recently, I am hoping that Irium is yet to know about her power-up and realize how little of a threat my men are to Glice.

And thankfully, it works out. Irium lets go of me and I fall back on the chair. Immediately getting off of it, I see that what was once a chair now looks not much more than a cushion covering the ground.

Irium, casually, leans back on the floor. He asks, "So what reason was really there to send those idiots after me?"

"Well," I say, taking a glance at Niviks only to realize that we have no chance of beating Irium even if we combine forces, "They were originally hired by Dues to do the exact same thing that they were trying to do. We couldn"t stop them without suffering ma.s.sive loses so we just told them to try to recruit you instead after making you show them your ability. We gave them more money and so, it kinda became a job from us."

"Huh? Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds didn"t tell me anything about that."

"I would suspect that when Dues found out that Niviks had bought them with this kind of deal, she made them forget about the deal with her or something like that." I say, beginning to regain my composure, "She has done this kind of thing in the past."

"Alright, let"s say that I believe you. I still can"t completely let the "after making me show them my ability" part go.

"Well, I just thought that I could find out what abilities you have come to possess over the time." I say. "I always thought it was more likely though that you would beat them all up and be completely fine doing so too."

I look back to Niviks and he starts nodding as notices that.

"H-he"s right. He did predict that … that what would happen." He says; looking cautious in every action he takes.

"See?" I turn back to him and see the expression on his face fallen back to neutral from angry.

"Well, I suppose I could try to believe you." He says. "But what guarantee is there that you would never try stabbing in the back?"

That – is the problematic situation. The guarantee that I am about to give him will be a big hint to my plans. Therefore, before giving him that guarantee, I need his first.

"What guarantee is there that you would never stab me in the back?" I ask in return.

He looks at me with narrowed eyes and then scoffs as he says, "I hate Dues ex machina. I hate her enough to pair up with the devil to take her down, as long as I can trust him of course. I won"t do anything like that. That"s all the guarantee that anyone should need."

He"s not wrong. His visible hate towards Dues is a better guarantee than anything. So,

"Well, then I guess I can tell you a secret as my guarantee of not stabbing in the back."

I prepare myself by taking in a few long breaths and finally say,

"The real end goal of my plan is not just to climb up to the mage world but … but it"s too …"

*****