“Taking down one of the big races? This is a hard task! I can’t do it with such a cheap price of knowing interesting stories and one beast for my forces.”

“What do you want then?” he seemed to be prepared to pay whatever it takes to get my approval.

“I dunno… What can a bunch of old souls offer? I doubt you can do anything useful to me anyway.”

“Don’t underestimate us,” he slowly said, “indeed we are souls, but we can offer you something you lack.”

“I doubt it!”

“Intelligence perhaps?” he said, and for a second I didn’t get what he meant before it hit me.

“On what scale?” Having someone to tell me news of the universe seemed great and all, but I didn’t get it over my head.

The scale he would offer would make me decide. Limiting this to just the world I was in wouldn’t get me anything good. But if he could do it on a wider scale, then I might consider it.

“Well… How about the entire universe?” he asked, making me pause for a long moment.

“Are you sure you can do it?” I paused, “will you control one of my people to tell me the news? I don’t like it!”

“It won’t be practical either… Let me think… You have something that plays recorded orbs, right?”

“Well… You can say I do,” I didn’t know why but for a reason this dude here seemed to know everything about the old man’s memory beads that I had.

“Don’t bluff it, we already saw you playing one before,” he chuckled, “anyway we can record such orbs and send them over for you to check them later.”

“What if the info wasn’t that useful?”

“Believe me, we can reach every single corner of the universe. Of course our number isn’t that big, and we have other things to do as well, but at least we can fill in the gaps of the big picture that you lack.”

“I have lots of gaps actually,” I didn’t cover up my desire, “but I don’t want you to slack on this. Is there some sort of contract we can sign?”

“We are souls, there is nothing like contracts to bind us. We aren’t living to get under the brutal and tyrannical rule of the system.”

“Then… How can I be sure you will follow what you said earlier?” Without contracts, without any means to ensure their commitment towards doing this intelligence service, I wouldn’t agree.

“Why do you want a guarantee and you got the beast we desire you to protect?”

“One in each generation, and that big girl is giving birth to lots of kids every few years. So it’s not that hard to abandon me and seek others’ help in the future,” I knew they only got me for now.

But something told me they were testing this approach first through me. They would get lots of chances to repeat such a mean later on if it proved successful here.

“Smart human kid indeed,” all of sudden that calm smile over Lily’s face turned sly, “but we are souls, we don’t have anything to bind us with.”

“Then you just wasted my time for nothing,” I waved my glaive before adding, “I’ll go down now and get the head of that beast rolling on the floor of that ocean.”

“You…”

“You made such an interesting show, and gave me such an offer, but you aren’t willing to bind yourself to it. How come I’d agree then?”

“…”

I didn’t add anymore and he just stood there, controlling Lily’s body, and doing nothing but glare at me in such a fierce way.

He seemed to get me wrong. I read all about his little scheme since he started speaking about the old story of his race and that guardian beast.

It was interesting how they were this desperate and kind to save that beast. But this was their side of the story.

In my opinion, that beast is getting controlled by these old fogies. As they lost their authority over their race, they started to devise plans about getting that guardian beast out from that race.

They were Hectors? I bet they weren’t! I just saw him through the face and eyes of Lily.

The ancestors of any race shouldn’t ask for an outsider to enslave their people and kill their kings, destroy the long heritage of their race, one that started by their deeds as he claimed.

These souls were no better than the kings and rulers of the Hector race; both were greedy for power, willing to do anything to get it.

And that also made me worried about one thing.

If they weren’t the souls of the Hector’s ancestors, were something else, some sort of being that had connection with the guardian beast and could control it.

Wouldn’t they also control the offspring that would grow up to be a guardian later on?

Having such a fearsome being on the back of my kingdom was awesome and such, but I wouldn’t invite such cancer in my kingdom.

“You… Are really smarter than what we thought,” and as he said it, another doubt of mine proved itself here.

“You can read my mind, and you weren’t just watching me all this time. It just happened to get to Lily and from her you get to read my mind, right?”

“Why should we speak in such a way? We were just doing fine acting as friends,” he shook his head before suddenly raising one finger and pointed at Lily’s throat, “why not we do it this way, you touch my beast down there and I’ll kill your people one by one, in front of your eyes.”

“Oh, this is the true face of you then,” I suddenly laughed, “go, do it if you can,” I waved my glaive in the air, making full circles before pointing it in such fierce way towards the ocean, “your boy here will die, and you won’t have anything to do to stop me from killing it.”