Chapter 217 - False Belief

After hearing the four remaining humans accept the second choice, Argentum could not help let out a light chuckle before saying, "Truly a wise choice."

Whoosh!

Since the four remaining humans have agreed to offer him valuable items and their knowledge of skills, Argentum saw no need to be up in the trees anymore, moving down to a distance decently far away from them before going ahead and disabling his polymorph skill, reverting to his original form, which shocked the four remaining humans.

Finally seeing the one that killed their three brethren in front of them, all of them could not help but look at Argentum with gazes of intense fear and anxiety, with their legs feeling like they're going to give in. Fortunately, they did not let their legs give in as they remembered that they had accepted the second choice, allowing them to go free as long as they just gave him what needed. There was no need for them to sacrifice their allies anymore.

Looking at the gazes the four remaining humans gave him, Argentum let out a chuckle once more before taking in a deep breath. He then focused his sense of vision onto the four humans before asking them, "Let's start the trade, shall we?"

"First, let's start with valuable items," Argentum soon added, to which one of the humans mustered up their courage and asked in response, "By valuable items, you mean…?"

"The currency that you have on you right now," Argentum said in response to the human's question. He then continued, "Of course, the clothes and the equipment the four of you are wearing right now are also considered valuable items, but I don't have a need for them."

"But currency is different," Argentum added not long after. "Currency has a fixed value anywhere you go. And so, that's all I'll ask from you four. All of your currency…and a pouch to put it in."

Hearing Argentum's explanation, the four of them looked at each other with slightly confused expressions. The air that they felt from Argentum was vastly different from what they felt before. Although Argentum's words made a lot of sense since people had different classes and specialties, it did not have the murderous and sinister air Argentum's words had before. It was as if…the Argentum they were talking to right now was a different Wind Spirit altogether.

Even though the feeling they got from the current Argentum was different, all of them still knew how powerful the Wind Spirit in front of him was. And so, with the Wind Spirit's previous feats of killing in their mind, the four of them hastily rummaged through all of their pockets in their clothes for currency, eventually pooling a decent amount of currency. The four of them then conversed with one another as to who was going to give the Wind Spirit a pouch to hold the currency in, with one of them eventually giving his pouch to Argentum due to the reason that its design was quite exquisite when compared to the pouches of the others.

Receiving the pouch of money the four had pooled in with both hands, Argentum listened to the words of one of the humans as he said, "Great Wind Spirit, unfortunately, the amount of money on us at the moment only equates to around 7 gold coins. I hope the design of the pouch appeases you."

In response to the words of the human, Argentum went ahead and raised their pouch in the air, allowing him to get a better view of the design on the pouch. The pouch was made out of incredibly smooth black fabric while the string that bound the pouch complemented the fabric, being a dark gray color. On the fabric were engravings of animals and plants out of what seemed to be gold, giving the pouch an expensive feel.

Argentum closed his sense of vision for a bit as he pondered over something, hemming and hawing in the process. Hearing the Wind Spirit in front of them hem and haw, the four of them could not help but feel a bit of fear, wondering if what they offered wasn't enough. In their minds, they had a feeling that the Wind Spirit in front of them would kill them if what they gave was lacking.

Surprisingly, that did not happen at all as Argentum opened his sense of vision, focusing it on the four humans. He then went ahead and placed the pouch on the ground before saying, "Give me your secondary weapons. As humans with fighting classes, you'd definitely have back-up weapons, right?"

"Although the amount of currency you've given is somewhat lacking, by selling your secondary weapons, it would allow the amount of currency on me to be at a satisfactory level," Argentum soon added. He then continued, "Don't you think giving your secondary weapons is far than being killed?"

At this moment, Argentum radiated an aura of cheerfulness, to which the humans felt hidden killing intent from. Of course, Argentum was not radiating any hidden killing intent at all, he was purely radiating an aura of happiness. The humans only thought that he was radiating hidden killing intent after what he had done to their brethren.

As slightly loud sounds resounded throughout the forest under the pale moonlight, the four of them hastily rummaged through their bodies once more, grabbing their back-up weapons as said by Argentum. A few seconds later, four distinct clang sounds softly resounded as four items fell to the ground near the pouch given to Argentum, allowing Argentum to closely look at what was given to him.

Unsurprisingly, Argentum was given four daggers of the same quality and size. He then looked at the four and felt that it was normal for them to be carrying daggers as secondary weapons. Daggers were quite a handy tool for humans wherever they went, may it be for killing or other miscellaneous tasks.

Just as the four thought that the daggers they gave him were not enough, Argentum let out a sigh of satisfaction before saying, "Although these daggers are on the slightly inferior side of quality, they're more than enough to supplement the amount of currency you four have given me. That shall be all for valuable items."

Hearing that the Wind Spirit was satisfied with what they've given him, the four of them could not help but let out sighs of relief as they looked at each other. Surprisingly, even though it seemed that the daggers they threw at Argentum were all they had, in actuality, they hid more back-up weapons that were of higher quality and price on other parts of their bodies. They just gave him the daggers that were on the side of their waists, thinking that Argentum would not be able to find out that they had other back-up weapons on them.

Ignoring what was going on in their minds, Argentum went ahead and grabbed the pouch and daggers with his hands made out of green energy, silently muttering what seemed to be gibberish to the four.

Whoosh!

As the four looked at what Argentum was doing, their eyes soon widened to a great degree after seeing that the items that they gave Argentum had disappeared into thin air in an instant. Seeing this, their fear of Argentum had subconsciously increased since it seemed that Argentum had more power than meets the eye.

Of course, the gibberish that Argentum was muttering was commands to the system, as well as questions regarding whether the system could keep these items inside some sort of inventory. Surprisingly, it was then that Argentum found out that the system actually had a small inventory inside it, allowing him to store the loot he had been given without a problem. With the items now out of the way, he then focused his sense of vision back to the four, making them feel a bit tense.

Nonchalant to what they were feeling, Argentum went ahead and said, "With the valuable items now done, there is only one more thing left you four have to give me."

"Your skills," Argentum soon continued before letting out a light chuckle. "So…who's gonna go first and share their skills with me?"

The four of them looked at each other in response to his question before all of them took deep breaths at the same time. Eventually, one of the four humans stepped forward and shared all of the skills that he knew with Argentum, increasing the number of skills Argentum had after talking about it with the human back and forth for a few times to solidify it. Not only that, but the human also went ahead and showed the skills in front of Argentum, allowing him to get a better idea of the skills that he had received.

With the first one now being done sharing his skills, he could not help but let out a sigh of relief as he radiated an aura of happiness. In his mind, he knew that he was finally going to be free from what seemed to be torture. Seeing the effect sharing skills had on their ally, the remaining three hastily moved towards Argentum and started explaining their skills and their uses. Of course, since the three were blabbering at the same time, to Argentum, it felt like he was listening to a cacophony of sounds instead of explanations.

With that in mind, he prompted the remaining three to go one by one, to which the three unhesitatingly followed, with each one of them explaining their skills in-depth while allowing Argentum to get a feel of the skills that he had learned as well.

And so, about a couple of hours had passed, with the moon now nearing the peak of the sky as stars twinkled beside it. At this moment, the four remaining humans all had relaxed smiles on their faces, knowing that they had done all of the things Argentum told them to do. They were incredibly certain that Argentum was going to hold up his end of the deal, which he was.

Now finished with processing and organizing all of the skills he had received from the four humans, Argentum radiated elation and happiness as he told them, "Since you four held your part of the deal, the four of you are now free to go. Stay safe, okay?"

Hearing that they were now allowed to go, the four of them jumped up and down in joy as they unhesitatingly went ahead and turned around to head towards the nearest civilization in their minds as fast as possible.

As Argentum looked at the fleeting silhouettes of the four, he could not help but let out a light snigger as he muttered to himself, "Who knew extorting humans was actually fun. Anyways, time to finish the plan I had in mind."

Whoosh!

Not long after finishing what he had to say, Argentum soon activated his polymorph skill once more, transforming into a speck of black sand yet again. He then went ahead and moved towards the direction as to where the four humans were heading as fast as possible while chuckling in his mind.

…

With the four of them now free from what seemed to be a nightmare, the four of them let out boisterous laughter simultaneously, all of them slightly in disbelief that they were able to escape from an incredibly powerful Pseudo-Animate, who they thought was only a weak Pseudo-Animate. Although they were in disbelief, elation and happiness were the strongest emotions they felt, with a mix of slight melancholy and sadness after remembering the untimely deaths of their three brethren.

"Who knew they'd go out like that," one of the humans said to the others. "To be honest, I wasn't expecting the last one to lose his mind and complain against that Wind Spirit."

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting it as well," another human replied to the first human's words before looking at the ground while walking. Not long after, this human let out a long sigh before saying, "You know what? We should go ahead and stop living our current lives of banditry. We should go and get stable yet righteous jobs."

"Mercenary groups?" the first human could not help but say in response to the other human's words, to which the other human nodded before saying, "Yeah. We could become a mercenary group specialized in killing monsters. We would be able to live stable and rich lives while paying off the massive debt we have."

"I'm all in for that but…" Just as the first human was about to accept the other human's proposal, one of the other humans could not help but interrupt, saying, "Don't you two have any intentions of avenging the deaths of the three brethren we lost? Although that Wind Spirit seems to be incredibly strong, as long as we have enough reinforcements, we could kill it, you know? Perhaps, we could even catch it."

"Sure, we could go ahead and kill that Wind Spirit, but don't you know how expensive it is to hire people with higher ranks?" the second human could not help but reply to the third human's words, feeling that it was a waste of time and money to avenge people that were already dead. "A Rank 1 class holder already costs 400 gold coins to hire, with a Rank 2 class holder costing 5 times more than that. Haven't you ever thought that they could die from the Wind Spirit's attacks as well? If they die, we'd have to pay 10 times their original cost!"

"But brother…!" the third human shouted in response to the second human's words, only for his words to be stuck in his throat, feeling that his throat was quite airy. Wondering what it was, he then looked down, his eyes widening as he found out that a gaping hole had been formed on his throat, prompting him to hastily clutch his throat with his hands.

Noticing that one of their brethren was struggling all of a sudden, the remaining three could not help but look at what was happening to their struggling brethren, their pupils shrinking as they noticed the gaping hole on their brethren's throat. In an instant, the remaining three were reminded of the viciousness of the Pseudo-Animate that attacked them a while ago as their struggling brethren fell to the ground with a thud, dying with an expression filled with regret and sadness.

"Great Wind Spirit!" the first human shouted as the three unhesitatingly ran far away from the corpse of their formerly struggling brethren. "I thought you promised to let us go!"

"But I did." Not long after, Argentum's voice could be heard resounding throughout the surroundings as he let out a malicious chuckle. "I did let you four go. But that doesn't mean I won't kill you four, right?"

Hearing Argentum's response to the first human's words, the remaining three humans' pupils shrunk even further as they pushed their bodies to the limit. It was then that they realized that the Pseudo-Animate they were up against did not have any intention of letting them go in the first place. He was planning to kill all of them in order for his presence to not be known by other humans.

"Even if you run away from me, that won't stop you from dying!" Argentum shouted as he cackled, sending two bolts of wind simultaneously towards two humans, these bolts of wind hitting two humans directly in the head. In an instant, the heads of the two humans burst like watermelons, with tons of blood splattering not long after.

Thud.

Seeing how easy it was for the Wind Spirit they were up against to kill his brethren once more, the remaining living human felt his legs buckle as he fell to the ground with a thud. He hastily tried to stand up after that, only for him to stop as he felt a malicious presence behind him, making him turn around, only to see Argentum in his original form.

"Why…are you doing this?" the human asked Argentum with great fear. In response to this question, Argentum let out a chuckle before saying, "Because I can."

"[Lesser Wind Magic: Wind Bolt]!"

Whoosh!

Without hesitation, Argentum soon threw a bolt of wind on the forehead of the remaining human, creating a clean hole through it as the human soon fell to the ground with a thud, his expression still that of great fear.

After seeing the last remaining human die from his attacks, Argentum could not help but let out a sigh of relief before saying, "Two birds with one stone? Three birds with one stone?"

"Ah well. It doesn't matter. All I care about is becoming a Super Animate anyway."