Knight of Corruption (LitRPG)

22 - Danton

I looked like boiled shit.

Cali hadn't said anything, and Sakura had no frame of reference, but I could tell right away when I looked at myself in the mirror the morning after we turned in the bounty. My already squalid complexion had turned even paler, and the infected veins running under my skin were becoming more prominent. I had thought that these changes had stopped, and they had for a time, but ingesting the power of a second cursed item had started it up all over again.

I had no idea what was happening to me, all I knew was that if it made me look like a dead man walking it couldn't be good. Nobody knew anything about the cursed items, how they worked, or even the full consequences of using them. The users had a very short life expectancy after all. When I borrowed the bathroom in Sakura's home to clean myself for the first time in a week, I realized just how bad it had become.

I didn't feel it though.

If anything, I felt like I had grown much, much stronger. The initial pain from absorbing the Eye faded after a few hours. Stigma had gained all of its abilities. I didn't have much use for an unconditional brainwashing tool. I refused to even use the weaker version of that power that Stigma had originally arrived with.

Sakura's home was unusually comfortable. It disquieted me, too adjusted to sleeping outside in the cold and wet, or at best a cheap hotel room with the very basics. Sakura's home was a home, with everything that came with it. Portraits of family, cushions and pillows, fabric draped across the walls, personal possessions tossed onto surfaces and into cabinets. I was turning green with envy.

That wasn't her fault, it was just the shitty hand I got dealt when I reincarnated.

With that said it wasn't the most comfortable sleeping experience I ever had. I was waiting for the penny to drop, to find a body under the floorboards or wake up to her sinking a knife into my gut and stealing Stigma away from me. Nothing nice ever happened to me. I was happy to awake the next morning with my insides still inside.

"Good morning Ren-san!"

I grumbled a response and planted myself down onto a wooden chair beside the dining table. Sakura had quickly slipped back into old, Japanese habits, even though we were the only two people who could understand them. She had decided to prepare breakfast for me and Cali.

"There's no need to feed us as well."

Sakura had grown a little more confident when speaking with me, "No, it's okay. My parents said I could use all of these ingredients before they return – yet I'm nowhere close to using all of them. It would be a terrible waste to throw it out."

"Do they know about your adventures outside the house?"

Sakura froze up, that answered that.

I tried to appeal to her sense of reason, "What's wrong with just... kicking back and enjoying what you have? You could get a good job, one that doesn't involve risking life and limb for shitty pay. Your own house, maybe find a partner to share it with. Things that normal people do."

"Hm. But... wouldn't it be a shame to have such an amazing weapon and not use it?" she pondered, "I always thought that I'm here on this planet for a reason. I want to change the world, go on a grand adventure!"

"They say the grass is always greener on the other side. Adventuring means toughing it out in the wilderness, not having enough money for anything, watching out for bandits on the roads, and taking on jobs that everyone else is smart enough to keep away from."

I made it sound more romantic than it really was, and Sakura was immediately infatuated. She sat down across from me and cupped her face in her hands, "Oh! Do you have any interesting stories?"