One day ago, in the Association headquarters.
"Actually, I learned a new skill recently..."
A grin appeared on Rio’s face, which made Raji feel interested.
She’s already been working with Rio for four months now, and she knows that Rio rarely ever shows his real emotions on his face.
Usually, he’s like an emotionless robot with no facial expressions or any changes in his eyes.
If he’s smiling today, then it means that he definitely has brought something worth listening to.
"Hoh, tell me about it..."
Rio nodded his head and spoke in a calm voice.
"In the last mission I went to hunt down an S-rank criminal called Snegnar; I tracked him down to a border town and caught him red-handed murdering a family..."
"Unfortunately I couldn’t arrive earlier and only the young girl was left alive; both of her parents ended up dying before I could rescue them..."
Rio’s eyes narrowed as he continued explaining.
"The real twist came when I noticed that Snegnar was actually using threads to attacks that were embedded with his own ’Soul Power’... which means he was controlling his soul itself to enhance the power of his weapons..."
Rio not only tortured Snegnar but also skimmed through his memories of creating his own skills and training, which gave Rio a lot of knowledge about what Snegnar was doing.
"It turns out... by using the ’soul’ as a bridge, he managed to influence the girl’s father’s ’sea of consciousness’ to some extent..."
"In doing so he bypassed the defensive capabilities of a soul and controlled the other person’s soul using his own soul threads... I have copied that skill; using that skill, I can sneak into the hidden base undetected!"
"I can cut off their communications methods and everything from inside before they can even react while also saving all the victims."
Raji leaned back on her chair and spoke in a surprised tone.
"That... why does that power of yours sound kind of... You know, very weird. what do you mean you can now... like manipulate a person’s soul and sea of consciousness to some extent..."
"That sounds very horrible to be honest... If not for the fact that I am not sensing any miasmic corruption from you, I might have already started to get suspicious..."
Rio shrugged his shoulders at those words and didn’t dare tell Raji that he can in fact even read a person’s memory through their soul and corpse.
He can even do mind manipulation, brainwashing, forced mutation, and all kinds of horrible stuff if he likes; he just doesn’t do that to innocent people.
’Hmm, come to think of it... I did use a little bit of memory manipulation on that girl whose family got slaughtered by Snegnar... I reduced her trauma to prevent future complications...’
’I wonder if manipulating her brain could be considered bad in such a case... aren’t I already a criminal if we look at it this way... err...’
Rio stopped his mind from wandering in random direction and continued saying,
"Well, I won’t really be using this kind of power on innocent folk... err, don’t look at me with such suspicious eyes; I wouldn’t have told you about my skill if I was going to do something suspicious with it..."
Raji shook her head at Rio and sighed.
"Forget it, you are already given the title of a ’Hero’ because of your merits and you have already helped the nation so much... there’s no point in doubting you; it’s just me being cautious..."
She was under tremendous stress, as the entire nation’s burden was on her shoulders, and she couldn’t afford to make a single mistake in such a critical time.
As long as Ashtel Rex wakes up, she won’t have to worry about troubles like Rio going rogue and using skills for bad things.
She just has to maintain balance for now and keep the nation stabilized.
"You didn’t tell me all this solely because your ability to sneak into the base has improved, did you?"
"Get to the point..."
Hearing Raji’s words, Rio hesitated a bit and spoke.
"Err... first promise that you won’t get angry, okay... I know you have a, you know... kind of moody temper..."
Rio scratched the back of his neck in awkwardness as Raji glared at him with an irritated look.
"Hmph! I am not hot-tempered at all! It’s just that I am frustrated that I have to do all this work! I haven’t even slept once in the past six months, you know!"
"Ugh, don’t be so wishy-washy; just tell me straight. hesitating like that doesn’t suit the image of merciless lunatic who’s been slaughtering criminals horrible for several months..."
Rio could only shake his head in helplessness at those words and speak as calmly as possible.
"So, well... as you know, I have very powerful ’Sword Intent’ that can even penetrate and work against ’SS-rankers,’ right?"
"Err... Also, I now have a skill that can influence the soul and sea of consciousness of a person, right?"
"If we like combine them... I can now puncture right through a defenceless SS-ranker’s sea of consciousness, bypass their resistance against everything and can... cough... ahem... do various ’stuff’ to them..."
*SHATTER!*
The moment Rio finished saying those words, the wine glass in Raji’s hands fell on the floor and shattered, spilling the wine everywhere.
Her eyes widened in shock, and her jaw was opened so wide as if it was about to fall on the floor.
Rio’s words shocked Raji so much that she almost could not process it for a second.
"Y-you... W-wha..."
Even Raji, an SS-ranker, felt a chill run down her spine, and she hurriedly backed off a bit from Rio.
It took her a long while to process what Rio had said, and she looked left and right before asking in a suppressed voice.
"Tell me the truth... Are you perhaps an illegitimate son of the ’Demon King’ or something like that?"
"Don’t tell me that the battle between you and Alverto happened because you refused to call him your big brother and wanted him to call you big brother instead?"
Rio frowned at those words and gave a wry smile.
"I-it’s not like that; hear me out okay-"
Raji didn’t even let Rio finish his sentence and spoke,
"What do you mean hear you out!? Why are you researching such weird and creepy skills!? Miasma was okay; I could make excuses for that... but if the world found about this..."
"I can’t even fathom what kind of chaos will ensue... Perhaps the entire world’s SS-rankers will rush over to smash you and all of us who are supporting you!"
SS-rankers are beings that stand at the pinnacle of this world, and none of them wants anyone to mess with their soul or sea of consciousness at all.
If anyone found out about Rio’s horrific skill, they won’t think twice before attacking him at all.
’I only told her one of my weird skills and she already had a such an intense reaction... I think it’s a better idea to not tell anyone about my ’other’ questionable skills...’
Rio could only sigh and shake his head at the thought, though.
"Well, I only mentioned this to you because I think we can use this skill... as you know, the entire nation has been suffering for half a year now..."
"Even if we keep killing more and more criminals every day, there will always be more, as crime never ends... we need our ’absolute deterrent’ back..."
Rio’s eyes narrowed as he spoke in a solemn voice.
"I want permission to use this skill on ’Ashtel Rex’ and ’Jin Walt’ to help them wake up and get them back on their feet!"