CHAPTER 164: ODD CONVERSATION

Odd Conversation

To his surprise, though, the reaction he got from his friends was a lot... milder than he’d imagined.

"So you ARE some hidden son of heaven!" Kurt grinned and snapped his fingers, as though something he’d been suspecting was confirmed.

"That explains a few things. Actually, that explains a lot of things." Irene rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "For a poor orphan, you are oddly good at a lot of things."

’Ouch.’ Osho barely managed to keep his expression neutral at that.

"Heh, so my inadequacy isn’t so extreme. I don’t have some hidden super-powered cult supporting everything I do. So maybe I’m not so bad." Sam muttered with a satisfied look on her face. Ellie didn’t say anything, but she too looked like the explanation had confirmed a few things in her mind.

Their reactions... threw Osho for a loop.

"You guys... You guys aren’t mad?" He asked carefully, wanting to see if this was just some initial reaction or if they truly weren’t that mad.

"Well, I don’t know about the others, but I can totally see why you’d keep something like this as a secret. I’m a bit miffed, sure, but to be honest, everything you revealed is actually pretty heavy and shouldn’t be shared lightly. So I’m not happy about it, but I’m not so selfish as to act like I don’t understand your reasoning." Kurt explained his point of view, and indeed, there was a hint of dryness in his tone when he responded, but also understanding.

"I more or less knew you were hiding something like this anyway, so I’m just happy you finally told me." Ellie said, sounding more satisfied than anything.

"I’m in the same boat with Kurt, but I’m a bit less miffed because, as I said, my inadequacy sort of has an excuse since I’ve been moving with a guy who is backed by an entire mysterious cult." Sam shrugged and Irene gave her a look.

"So you’re saying you’re okay with being second place if the person you’re competing against has more background support than you?" She raised a brow, and Sam snorted.

"When you put it like that, it makes me sound like an unambitious loser. Be real, influential people have a greater advantage than common people for that reason. It’s a valid excuse in my mind." Sam shot back.

"Actually, Osho has more or less been estranged from the cult. He barely gets help with anything. So most of what he’s done at this point was through his own efforts." Peter chimed in happily, and Sam’s face contorted while Irene laughed softly behind her hand.

Annoyed, she pointed her finger at the boy.

"What’s your deal anyway? Why did you come to find Osho. Also, aren’t you like... 9? Why are you in this place?" She asked, changing the subject.

"13, and certain rules don’t apply to me. Also, Osho has a bit of a reputation among us ’siblings’, and I haven’t seen it for myself, so I’m a bit curious." He said while waving his loose sleeves.

"Certain rules don’t...?" Sam’s annoyance faltered into confusion, and the others looked at Peter with interest as the boy happily explained.

"Well, I guess it’s a secret so I won’t go into details, but each sibling has a... unique trait, so to speak, so we can do things that don’t exactly fit in with the norm." Peter pointed at himself and gave a cute smile. "In my case, I can do things I shouldn’t be doing at my age, like being a Beast Tamer." The revelation stunned the others.

"I thought you just said you wouldn’t go into details." Osho said with thinly veiled annoyance.

"Oh come on, that’s way too vague to produce an accurate assessment." Peter waved him off.

As for the implications, well, this was surprising because it was a sort of general rule that people couldn’t become Beast Tamers until they hit a certain age. Typically 16. The reason was that one’s soul wouldn’t be able to sustain a bond with a beast, and it was one of those long-established rules that didn’t make a lot of sense to suddenly be able to break.

So the fact that Peter could do this, and possibly more...

"Huh... So I’m guessing you had countless beast eggs to sift through before they found one befitting of your potential." Ellie said with narrowed eyes. "Your position among your siblings must be something akin to a prodigy, right? You said you are the ’Rising Star’ after all." She asked carefully.

"Oh? She’s a sharp one." Peter giggled and looked at Osho. "Let me guess, she’s the female lead or something? Good choice." Osho’s brow twitched, but he chose to ignore the statement.

"Hey, Osho. What is your ’unique trait’ then?" Irene asked curiously, and while they tried to hide it, they seemed pretty sure of what it was.

They were wrong, though.

"How do you think I killed the Abyssal Scrounger?" He asked simply, and everyone’s eyes widened.

"Oh, I heard of that! Some parasitic Corrupt Mana-based entity that could take control of people’s souls. Yeah, terrible match-up." Peter laughed.

"You know about that?!" Kurt exclaimed.

"Of course. Corruption is quite the heavy topic, to the point where even we keep track of it. Granted, it’s pretty subtle, so what happened to you guys is quite the extreme case." Peter said casually, like they were discussing the weather.

"... Wait, so Osho you..." They all glanced at him.

"I knew corrupt Mana existed, that’s it." Osho immediately said. He essentially said that he knew about corrupt Mana but had no idea the deal with the Harbinger of Abyssal Scrounger would happen.

This caused sighs of relief among them all.

"Hm. Back to Peter." Ellie looked at the boy again.

"So what exactly do you want to confirm with Osho? You said he was an outlier and you wanted to ’confirm something’. What is that?" She asked curiously, and the boy beamed.

"I’m glad you asked." He glanced at Osho who seemed like he’d rather this entire conversation just didn’t happen.

"Osho is one of the best among us when it comes to pure hand to hand combat. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I hear that he can even match the eldest, but I’ve never seen it for myself, and with how long he’s been gone, I kind of doubt it to be honest, so I want to see for myself just how impressive he is in that regard." Hearing this, everyone stared at him with both surprise and disbelief.

"What? I know Osho is strong but it can’t be THAT exaggerated." Peter snorted.

"Not that... just... you are a child, and he’s..." Sam gestured to Osho’s existence, which just made Peter roll his eyes.

"Please, age and size difference scarcely matter between us." He shrugged.

"He’s right." Osho decided to chime in. "None of the 9 stars are weak regardless of their builds or ages." Hearing this, they decided to leave that matter.

"Even then, do you WANT to fight him? I mean, no offense, but fighting a kid doesn’t seem that... appealing." Kurt asked carefully.

"The only reason I haven’t punched him across the room is because he’s not worth it." Osho said with a deadpanned expression, causing everyone to fall silent.

Up until Peter started laughing loudly, waving his loose sleeves through the air like a happy child.

"Hahaha! So I’m not the only one." He grinned, but his smile was not amicable at all, and everyone felt a chill when he stared at Osho like that. There was an odd darkness mixed with blood lust that really shouldn’t have appeared in the eyes of someone so young. But alas...

"Do you guys wanna watch?" Osho said as he stood.

"Huh?" Ellie tilted her head.

"The fight. Do you guys wanna watch?" Osho asked lightly. "There’s an arena under my lab, so we can go there." He offered.

"You have a lab?" Peter asked with surprise as he also stood.

"Wait... You’re really gonna go ahead with this?" Ellie asked with worry as the others stood.

"Don’t worry, stuff like this is pretty normal among us." Osho assured them.

"Yup! Now let’s go!" Peter said and led the way.

"It’s not that way!" Osho called out and followed him.

The four others just stood there, surprised.

"You know. They both do and don’t seem like siblings, if that makes any sense." Kurt said while rubbing his chin, and the others nodded.

"That said, I don’t think this Peter person is so simple. We should probably go and watch. Just in case." Ellie said with some worry, and they quickly followed after the two.

***

(A/N: I’m probably should have done this earlier, but I’m not the most reliable person as yall have probably noticed. But I’m working on it. Anyway, I wanted to give a formal apology for the Chapter mixing that happened recently, and I genuinely wish there was a way to fix that issue, but alas, authors aren’t allowed to delete Chapters that have been made premium, which is prime BS, but it is what it is. All I can promise is that I will try not to let this happen again. I have no excuse. Thank you for reading.)