It was already evening, and Dante found himself going back to the dorm alone. Miguel and Alexander were both dispatched outside the city and probably won't come back until tomorrow, and even Rain was away at her part-time job as she does every day. He was the only jobless one out of them, and he liked that. Having some alone time allowed him to relax a bit.
Rain's job was also interesting, as it made him rethink how humans see Blessings. She worked with the power company, SAF Electric. It was a common thing for the Blessed to hide how their Blessings truly work. If humans were known for anything, it was their ability to find loopholes and exploit them. Dante was certain that she hid how her Blessing truly worked, but the explanation she gave him at least made sense.
Thanks to both her Blessing and the Lightning Whisp she made a contract with, her body is constantly charging itself up with electricity like a high-voltage battery, and she has to discharge that energy periodically so as not to hurt herself.
That is where her part-time job at SAF Electric comes in. She goes to them almost daily to discharge that accumulated energy and get paid for it. It wasn't much, just a few hundred Sparks a day, but it was a decent income that she could rely on.
That was also the way she fights. Her entire body is a living and breathing taser. When Dante first met her, he was suspicious of her, so he tried to get her to leave him alone and asked for a handshake, hoping to crush her hand and start a fight, only to get electrocuted and lose consciousness.
She had even dared to ask him to pay in cash for the electricity she just wasted knocking him out, as she was planning to sell it. Of course, Dante didn't pay her a single Spark. She should've warned him.
That incident made her stick to him like glue, as that was her first human contact ever since she got her Blessing, which didn't end up with her spending a night in jail for almost killing someone.
As Dante returned to the dorm room, he immediately walked into the shower. This had been a long day, and he wanted to get himself cleaned up. That hypocrite ManaGym instructor really made him sweat for no reason at all. So now that he had a bit of time at hand, he pulled his stat screen again to check his ability and see if he could figure out anything that he missed before.
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Soul Sense description: [As the cleaner of souls, you need to be able to see souls. God had given you the ability to see souls]
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The description was divided into two sentences, and it was the first one that drew his attention. "As the cleaner of souls…" Dante wondered why it called him a cleaner here while his title is that of a watcher, which made more sense in the context of being able to see souls.
It also brought his attention to the curse's description, which also called him a janitor.
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Curse description: [God had made life, and now, it is your responsibility to clean up after him. Pick up your mop, and get to work, janitor. He even made you an immortal so you may never retire. Isn't he such a good employer?]
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What does it even mean to be God's janitor? Can he clean the abominations' souls and turn the infected back to normal, or does it just mean killing them? Since the system says [Soul Harvested and Cleansed] each time he kills an abomination.
But it didn't end here either, as in his Curse Price, he is called the master of souls, which is a whole other description.
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Curse Price: [You are a master of souls, and thus, none can rule over your soul, not even death. You are an immortal being, destined to suffer in agony, and watch all those around you perish to the daunting will of time.]
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^So I'm a watcher, a cleaner, and a master of souls… That doesn't make much sense.^ Dante stood there thinking about his Curse for a while before he decided to just use it and see what he could do besides seeing souls.
Looking at the bath's wall, he could see two souls in each of the three rooms beside his, and that was expected. His range was about ten meters, and the rooms were three meters wide. Then, he could easily tell that all six souls he was seeing were Mundane Beasts. None of them had ranked up yet, just like him.
He then noticed something interesting. While nothing seemed to be able to block his [Soul Sense] besides his own eyelids, souls seemed to disappear when going behind each other. That was a rare case due to how small souls were, so Dante didn't notice that until now.
Then Dante tried to turn his [Soul Sense] off, and sure enough, he was able to do that by just focusing on his eyes. After a few tries, it became quite easy for him to switch it on and off, but there was one problem. Having his [Soul Sense] off felt as weird and restrictive as walking around with his eyes closed or his ears plugged. He had already gotten used to it as a part of his senses, and quickly decided to keep it active all the time.
After finding out that there wasn't that much to his Curse for now, he shifted his attention to his magic instead. Now, he had nine whole droplets of mana. That might sound like nothing, but it was already more than he needed. A single droplet can make a punch from him feel like a mace hit, so with how fast he can throw punches, messing someone's face won't be a problem.
Dante doubts even Miguel, who is a Touched, could keep standing if he hit him with a three-hit combo. He had already knocked Alexander out with one punch, so that only left Rain. After thinking it over for a while, Dante decided that he wouldn't even try touching that live wire of a woman.
There were also two methods he knew of to use that mana to reinforce himself. He could either infuse the mana into his own muscles and bones to make his strikes stronger and faster, or discharge it directly into the target's body to deal internal damage.
Dante had already noticed that his use of mana resembles the Sword Saint's Style of Aggression, where mana is used to enchant physical capabilities to gain greater speed and strength, but there was one key difference. The Style of Aggression seemed to use a lot more mana all at once to get an active buff with a duration, unlike him, who only uses what mana he needs. He can't use that now, as the cheapest physical enchantment spells need around ten mana droplets, and he had already tried it and failed.
While both methods should deal approximately the same damage to an unarmed target, there was a huge difference between them in several cases. If the target wore armor, discharging mana would allow Dante to deal damage through the armor, unless it was enchanted. It was safe to assume that only objects with greater mana could block mana.
The first method of infusing mana into his own body also allowed him to accelerate quickly when used on his legs and could unlock a whole other level of athletic potential if used correctly, which is impossible with just the discharge method.
There was also the matter of weapons. It was hard to discharge his mana through a weapon that was too big, like a sword, due to how little mana he was using, so reinforcing his body might be the best option there.
He walked out of the bath, dressed up, and then threw a glance at Alexander's desk, where several mundane weapons were left unattended. There were two large camping knives, a brass knuckle, an old baton, and even a spare Mundane Zweihander sitting in the corner and collecting dust. Dante had also seen that Alexander had several firearms locked inside his private closet.
That had made him sad, as he was probably the only one in the entire Academy who didn't have any weapons, and he didn't want to waste money buying something that he wasn't even sure that he'd use.
He reached toward Alexander's desk and grabbed both the brass knuckle and one of the two large camping knives. Both of them were small enough that he could discharge mana through them and also punch.
With the brass knuckle in his right hand and the knife in his left, he threw several punches with both hands and got a feeling for it. They both felt good. While a longer weapon would be preferred to fight the abominations, those are perfect for being up close and personal with people.
After playing a bit with Alexander's weapons, Dante left the dorm room to head to the city wall and see what Alexander was talking about when he asked him to check it out. He wasn't sure what he would find there, but just to be safe, he had borrowed Alexander's brass knuckles and hid them in his clothes.
On his way across the streets, Dante got a bit of time to appreciate the architecture that didn't resemble anything in the books of the ancient civilisation. All buildings were built from concrete and armored with sheets of steel and alloy. He could see several cameras and turrets in each corner, and there were even gates that separated every street from the rest. Everyone was armed. Even kids seemed to carry small knives with them, and what amazed him more was the floating cars that used propellers to float instead of tires, since rubber had gotten so damn expensive.
Even though the Blessed were just a small number of the population, the fear in people's eyes when he passed by them, since he was a member of the Blesseds' Academy, was clear. The people didn't carry weapons to protect themselves from the abominations, but to defend themselves if a Blessed decided to go rogue.
If he decided to kill, even as an unarmed Mundane, he could still leave a trail of corpses before getting caught. God is neutral, and he had given power equally to all people who can fight the abominations. Now, humanity is free to decide how to use that power. Would they band together and survive, or kill each other as they did before?
As he approached the city walls, he saw Rain heading in the other direction, returning from her job. She immediately spotted him looking at her, so she approached. "Where are you going? It's almost night." She asked with a faint frown, and yet her hair didn't crackle. She sure was out of charge, and Dante wondered if it was safe to touch her now.
That might be the weakness of her Blessing, so he had to keep that in mind. Force her to use all of her charge and drain herself, and then attack.
"Remember how Alexander said I should go and check the northern walls? I'm going to see what he was talking about." As Dante looked at the wall, Rain smiled. "Yeah, he did say that." She looked at the wall with him, and after a few seconds, decided to accompany him.
Dante didn't like her tagging along with him, but had nothing to say. If she was monitoring him for Saint Maria, then she must be wanting to gather information about him, but if he just rejected her, he'd look even more suspicious and might result in Saint Maria sending more agents.
Dealing with her alone and just a few people tailing him was easy for now, and he would rather not be doing anything that would increase that number. He also didn't exclude the possibility that it was the government tailing him and not Saint Maria, which might be an even bigger headache with all of their surveillance cameras spread everywhere.
As the two approached the massive steel and concrete walls, the guards there stopped them. Not just anyone is allowed to climb the walls, as this was the city's last defense against the abominations. If Saint Maria's barrier falls, this wall is the only thing between the civilians and the horrid and nightmarish monsters outside. But that wasn't all.
Both Dante and Rain were members of the Blesseds' Academy, so the guards easily allowed them to climb the wall the moment they saw their Blessed IDs. The reason for that was simple: The city didn't have a prison. The walls are where all of the criminals are being kept, and their job there is to maintain it.
As Dante and Rain were guided up the stairs and into the battlements, they could see all of the prisoners running around carrying steel beams and bags of cement, tens of them hanging down by cables to do repairs on the walls. There were even ones oiling the artillery mounted on the wall.
Among them were the ones Alexander wanted Dante to see. The bandits that captured him, or at least the five of them that survived and were brought here. The archer woman, the kid that was filling water for the horses, the bastard that smashed his head with the club, the guy he choked, and lastly one of the guys that the merchants fought.
The moment they saw Dante, their faces paled, and their eyes widened in horror. It was like they saw a horrid abomination and not a human. The kid who was watering the horses even jumped back with tears flowing down his cheeks when he spotted Dante.
The bandit that the Merchants knocked out immediately lost consciousness when he saw Dante. And the bastard who cracked his skull growled. "You're not human, you're a monster, an abomination. I saw you die! They threw your cold corpse into the pile of bodies!"
The archer woman pulled him back with a terrified face. "Shut up! Keep your damned mouth closed!"
The man he choked was the only calm one, and he approached with a worried face. "You… were a student of the Blessed Academy?"
Dante stared at the man in silence for a second and then replied. "No, I just enrolled." Hearing that, the man paled. If they had just talked to Dante first before smashing his head, they might've been able to recruit him. "I see…"
The guard escorting Dante and Rain approached and spoke in an even voice. "Those bastards were a gang of thieves here in the city and already had blood on their hands. A few months ago, they ran out to the woods with a few horses, and we decided that it was too risky to chase them into the abomination-infested woods."
Rain threw a glance at them. "Thieves… they could've spent just a few years on the wall and got set free." She threw a glance at the escort. "And now?"
"Too many deaths on their hands, and none of them is a Blessed that we can use, so they're staying here for life." He sighed and threw a glance at Dante. "Let's go. Visitors aren't allowed at night."