The lich stood there in silence. One has ever asked him for something with a smug look before, but rather than being angry, he was… pleased. For the first time in a long time, someone had outsmarted him. Or maybe it was his arrogance that brought him to his 'fall'.
"Very well then." The lich mumbled, "I told you, you could take anything from the inventory, and since I'm standing here along with the cloak, it also becomes a part of the deal. You are surprisingly cunning for a human…"
After a couple of moments, the lich smiled at Astaroth and took off his majestic cloak. The second the cloak was off of him, his intelligence and mana dropped by 20% as they had been boosted by the effects of the cloak.
[You have obtained: The Grim Reaper's cloak. 2/10 items have been collected.]
[Intelligence and Mana would be increased by 250% and 350% respectively upon equipping both the pieces of equipment.]
With the shiny black cloak in his hands, Astaroth was done picking whatever he could from the treasury. There were a couple of more things he wanted to get his hands on, but for now, it was enough. Too much greed would lead to his grave.
'Just woke up and already got a secret base of operations along with a security guard no one on the planet would mess with. Maybe this kid's luck ain't all that bad, eh?'
Astaroth smiled, however, as he did that, a strong explosion shook the ceiling. Something was going on there. He turned his gaze towards the lich who appeared to be just as clueless as him.
None of them knew what was going on. But that wasn't it. Astaroth slowly began to realise his control over Ashton's body was slipping away. Just like it did in the arena all those weeks ago. If the kid woke up while the lich was around, who knows what the idiot would do.
"I have to leave. Please do me a favour and seal this place up again as soon as I leave." Astaroth requested the Lich.
"As you please." The lich nodded in agreement.
He didn't bother to know why his successor was in such a hurry or what was that explosion. The action showed him the confidence he had in his strength. No matter who the foe was, the lich and his army were more than enough to take care of them all.
Sadly, it wasn't the same case with Astaroth. For all he was worth in his previous life, he was still pretty weak. It would take him years to even get himself back to a tenth of his previous strength. But for now, he had to run away before Ashton woke up.
'I'm not going to let a moron's foolishness take my life away. Not again!'
Astaroth thought and rushed out of the Palace with all his might. Hell, he even activated [Stride] skill to make sure by the time Ashton woke up, he would be far away from the Lich and the Palace altogether.
Slowly but surely his control over the body began fading away. Thankfully he was able to make it out of the third corridor before he completely lost control of his limbs.
"I hoped that fucker Lucifer would at least contact me before this brat took his body back. I guess I'll have to wait for him to either lose his control or get grievously injured to do anything else."
Astaroth mumbled as his legs gave out and he collapsed right where he had taken over Ashton's body, "It was a fun run… I hope you get stronger when I've awoken the next time brat."
As darkness covered his vision, Ashton woke up once again. Not knowing what had inspired there in a couple of hours he was knocked out. His vision slowly cleared up, but his memory was still hazy. But not for long.
A moment later he sat right up, breathing heavily as the memories flooded his head. He remembered facing against the automatons that proved to be a bit too much for him.
Then he remembered the grenade exploding right in front of his face. How the shards punctured his eyes and chest. He instinctively touched the parts he knew for sure were injured. Yet surprisingly, he wasn't injured at all.
He felt a bit tired as if he had been running a marathon, but apart from that, everything was just fine.
"Was it an illusion of some sorts?" Ashton mumbled in a sleepy voice, "No… there's no way it was an illusion."
he immediately opened his inventory and there they were. The broken pieces of all the automatons he had slain. But something was odd. There were a lot more automatons than he had defeated. But that wasn't all…
"When the hell did I get these things?"
The grimoire, the automaton skill book and especially the cloak. He could have mistaken getting the number of automatons wrong but he sure as heck would remember getting his hand on stuff like this.
As seconds turned into minutes, his confusion only grew bigger and bigger. There were a lot of things unaccounted for, even if he ignored the things within his inventory. As far as he remembered, there were quite a few automatons remaining when he was 'defeated'.
But now, there were none. Not having the answers was killing him on the inside. He was scared, confused and bewildered at the same time. Then as he looked around himself, he could see that someone else must have fought there. Someone, not him.
"What the hell happened here?"
But before he could ponder about it any further, he heard footsteps rushing towards him. Although he was fatigued, the sudden boost of adrenaline was enough to put him back to his feet and ready to fight. But there was no need to fight anyone as the people who entered the corridor were his well-wishers.
"Your highness and mistress? The two of them here…. no, why the heck are they here together?"