CHAPTER 471: MIXED FEELINGS

Monsters?

Damien stared at Lane blankly, completely taken aback. There were so many questions on his mind that he didn’t even know where to start. But...

"You... can possess monsters?"

Lane had never mentioned anything like that before. Even though he had told Damien a lot about his ability (and the abilities he had plundered), somehow, this had never come up. However, if he were asking about that now...

"Mn. Apparently I can." Lane stumbled into the living room, plopping down on the couch. "I’ve also just found out. I was in Ava’s lab earlier, and one of the sp... monsters bit me. That’s where I realized it."

"Oh."

That explained Lane’s injury.

But at the same time...

For a monster to be able to injure Lane like that, it had to be on the stronger side. The wound might not have been serious, but Lane was an SS-rank Esper. Not every monster was capable of leaving his finger so red and raw.

Which begged the question, how was such a monster allowed in the lab? Damien was aware that it was possible for Guilds like ManaTech to obtain permits to bring living monsters out of the Gates, but as far as he knew, it was only restricted to the lower-ranking ones.

After all, raising monsters outside dungeons not only created a risk for the environment, in case the monsters escaped, but also increased the chances of Manaforming... And no safety measures that ManaTech had in place could entirely prevent that.

Damien quickly pushed those concerns aside, though. Perhaps he was thinking too much, and everything was according to the protocols. Lane probably couldn’t tell him more, anyway, since stuff like that was bound to be confidential information.

Besides, he was more concerned about what was going on in his boyfriend’s head.

"Why would you do that, though?"

Possessing monsters? While Damien disapproved of Lane’s past actions, he could at least more or less understand why he had done what he had done, given his circumstances. But monsters? Why would he...

"Why indeed..." Lane groaned, sinking deeper into the couch. A shudder passed through his spine, as he recalled the hazy memories of the past few hours...

Ugh. Although he no longer gagged this time, he still felt sick.

There really wasn’t any good reason for him to possess monsters, unless Ava needed him to do so for another experiment. And after what he had been through, he most certainly didn’t want to do it ever again, if possible. Ava might have said that things would likely be better if Lane were to possess a monster with a well-developed brain (of course, she mentioned it only after Lane had finished possessing all the slugs), but still. Lane wasn’t curious enough to go around testing that.

However, that only applied to his Possession ability.

"Well, I’m asking hypothetically... And not just about the Possession, but also about the Plunder," he corrected his question. Although he actually had been asking about the Possession, at least at first, since he had planned to tell Damien about the experiment... On second thought, he decided to skip it for now, as he didn’t want to even think about the slugs right now. He would just fill Damien in once they had some results.

He still wanted to know how Damien felt about it, though, for future reference. While possessing monsters had been a terrible experience, plundering their abilities was perfectly fine.

Especially with monsters like the slugs, that had nice, ’easy’ abilities. Ones that didn’t require any organs Lane didn’t already have. Lane would gladly plunder them to his heart’s content.

"That..." Damien hesitated, not knowing how to respond.

Technically, there wasn’t anything wrong with it, no matter whether Lane wanted to just plunder, or even possess monsters. The main issue that Damien had with Lane’s abilities was that they were hurting people, and he didn’t support the idea of growing stronger at the expense of others. That concern naturally didn’t extend to the monsters, which they had to hunt down and kill anyway...

It was just that,

"Are you sure it’s a good idea?"

"Hmm?" Lane furrowed his brows. "What do you mean?"

How could that not be a good idea? He had asked just to be in the clear, but he hadn’t expected Damien to have anything against it. After all, prudent as the man might have been, surely even he wouldn’t say it was ’immoral’, or feel bad for the monsters, right?

Damien didn’t. To be honest, he hadn’t thought that far. Because more than the ethicality of Lane using his ability on monsters, what worried him was, "Is it... safe?"

"Hmm?" Lane blinked, tilting his head. "Why wouldn’t it be?"

"Well... Those are monsters we are talking about. Are you sure that taking their abilities won’t have any side effects?"

Lane blinked a few more times. He thought back to the spider monsters, and how weirdly their ability manifested in him...

In the end, though, he just laughed. "Nah, come on. Why would there be? Since I can do it, it must be fine. Have you ever heard about an ability that harmed the user?"

Damien opened his mouth, wanting to say something more, but then he closed it again. Lane’s argument... made sense. There indeed hadn’t been any such case, as far as he was aware. The only time when the abilities hurt the Espers who had them was when said Espers went on a rampage. But then, it didn’t matter what sort of abilities they had. Even healing abilities could become harmful. As for the severity of the backlash they suffered, it depended entirely on their ranks, not their powers...

Still, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

"Just... be careful, alright?" he just said with a sigh, before leaving the room to get some ointment to treat Lane’s finger. He knew that if Lane wanted to do it, Damien couldn’t do much about it. Especially since those were monsters they were talking about. Any reservations that Lane might have had with people would no longer apply. Thus, rather than trying to stop him entirely, Damien was hoping to at least slow Lane down... Make sure that he wasn’t running around randomly plundering every monster in sight.