Awakening of the Weakest Slayer-Chapter 118: Loneliness

Sezel grunted and drove the blunt edge of his poor, abused sword once again into the stubborn purple crystal growing out of the ground.

The alley was silent except for the scraping, his curses, and the occasional complaint from his lower back.

After a few more swings, his sword finally knocked loose a glimmering chunk. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, squinting at the reward.

"Man, this is hard," he muttered—not for the first time and definitely not for the last.

Still, he didn't stop. Bent on getting the Spirit Essence crystal out before his motivation evaporated, Sezel kept hacking and prying until with a final pop, the chunk tumbled free from the root.

A terribly satisfied grin cracked across his face. "Come to daddy."

He scooped it up and then—just like everything else in this cursed world—it disappeared.

Uh... not exactly disappeared but sent away in his inventory.

Or rather, safely stored in the only secure locker he owned. Not that Sezel ever felt secure, nobody and nothing was safe here.

No time for victories, though; habit had him snap open his card and bring up the status window. A few mental clicks and flicks, and the familiar inventory interface blinked to life before his eyes.

[Spirit Essence Crystal – 57]

He stared. Blinked again. Sighed.

"Only 57… that's—well, that's basically nothing." The number might as well have spat in his face.

Max once told him that, back in the "real world," Spirit Essence crystals fetched ten million for a hundred. TEN million. For a kid who'd grown up thinking water was a luxury, that number practically made him drool.

Well he knew harvesting Spirit Realm was the real get-rich-quick scheme. He was told so during the classes. But it wasn't so effective after all.

Of course, because of the the monster attacks, permanent trauma, and high risk of accidentally becoming fodder for something that doesn't even know how to savor his food.

"Four months in this hell and not even a hundred crystals," Sezel grouched, trying not to sound as defeated as he felt. "I'm fucking stupid."

He flopped down on a half-collapsed chunk of concrete, stretching out his legs like a prince in his private, non existent palace.

Honestly, it's true.

Most days, he felt like Spirit Realm's official jester.

His mind drifted to old memories.

The underground sanctuary. He'd worked like a dog there. His blood, sweat (and potentially other bodily fluids on particularly bad days)

In that pit… there were hundreds of Spirit Essence crystals before they left, and yeah they are buried under rubble now.

If only he'd known he could've shoved them into his inventory like some over-caffeinated gremlin!

But, of course, Spirit Essence had never been his main objective; mostly, he'd just wanted to not die and look for answers. Which, these days, was passing for ambition.

Some things gnawed at him now, though.

Shiki and Vesta— they were normal slayers, obviously they weren't here because some unknown ghost that lived inside their soul told them that they would find answers here, in this hell.

"One of the two main reason why Slayers come to Spirit Realm is for the crystals." He muttered.

Yet they hadn't cared. Did they want to look heroic—or were they, maybe, just were stupid like him?

He grimaced, pushing a bit of dirt with his toe. "Not that I can find out now, anyway."

A hollow ache twisted in his stomach.

Yeah, he had no clue where they were. How they were. The world had turned sideways that day and left him behind with only his own dumb commentary, two dozen grudges with his saviors, and 57 shiny rocks.

His mind... alone and longing, showing him some actual memories he had made here, that time in the mall when he actually laughed with Mari. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"It feels like just yesterday," Sezel muttered, caught off guard by nostalgia.

Then Vesta's face. Her eyes, that ridiculous shade of ruby, more sharp than soft. The way she stared at him sometimes like she was dissecting something that didn't make sense.

"Uh… why am I thinking of her?"

He ran a hand through his filthy white hair, groaning. "Not a good avenue, brain. Keep it out of the gutter."

With a heavy sigh. He pushed himself upright, re-summoning his sword and rolling his shoulders.

Bad memories. Or good ones? Did it matter? Some days, nostalgia felt just like another kind of wound.

'Maybe someday I'll be able to tell the difference between missing someone and regretting survival.'

He scrolled through his inventory just to change the subject, noting with perverse pride his collection of useless odds and ends:

[Cloak of Shadows, now his unofficial lover (it worked harder than anyone alive, that was for sure)]

[57 Spirit Essence Crystals]

And some other worldly stuff... that can't be used, and more than that they can't be sold.

He couldn't sell loneliness, or stupidity. But hell, if he could box them up, maybe that'd finally tip him over the 100- Spirit Essence mark.

Lazily, he moved his shoulders around... there was just one of the crystals remaining in this alley.

Zest returned at the thought of all the rich, real-world suckers who'd pay fortunes for all those crystals.

When—if—he got back, he'd have the last laugh, but even returning from here was not confirmed... well according to what he had learned living here from the last 2 months.

One last look through the crumbling alleyway, Sezel straightened and jabbed his sword into the Spirit Essence.

If nothing else, he had to keep moving. This wasn't home. This was… purgatory with terrible lighting.

'Screw all this. Let's go see if I can trip over a goldmine or a portal out. uh... wait i don't want gold mine, i want a Spirit essence mine.'

He let a crooked smile curve his lips, the kind that almost looked hopeful until you saw the dark around the edges and the hollow crimson eyes.

Just four months and he was already past sane... maybe somewhat insane.