BXBX NOVEL Chapter 226: The greatest regret [1/2]
"Hmm. Okay, I will ask if I can get you your own GRI. The only problem is, how do I anticipate when you die?"
"..."
"What? What is that look for?"
"My lord, are you under the impression that reapers all die natural deaths as humans?"
I tried to remember the stories of the reapers I had met. I knew from the Sirens that Aki drank poison, but Jo and Jas were "assisted" in their suicides.
Such sophistry was just crazy. If you intend to murder someone, at least have the balls to call a spade a spade.
As for Bella, Liv, Robyn and Lilly, I had no idea. As for the 2nd Amendment, the only ones who told me how they died were Santiago, Mike and Warren. Come to think of it, if they had to have Reaper blood before they died, whose did they ingest?
"I'll take your silence as a yes. My Lord, 1st generation Reapers are a product of chance, like me, I need a fateful encounter to get my hands on Reaper blood. From the 2nd generation on, it is usually the blood of a friend or acquaintance," the gangster continued.
Right, that made sense. Since I didn't have any friends, I couldn't share my blood with humans even if I wanted to. But the Normies who had them would most likely do so.
"The original reaper becomes the "parent" of the 2nd generation reaper, who then becomes his "child". In our current situation, you are now my parent, and I have become your child. If you choose to declare our relationship to the Battlefront, you will be held responsible for everything I do in Hellsgate.
"Normally, being a parent and being a handler are not mutually exclusive. It is perfectly normal for the parent to also become the handler, but that is not always the case. There is also the Sponsor relationship, which does not involve protection, but mostly financial support."
Sponsors and handlers aside. It was kind of fucked up when you thought about it. Aside from getting a {Fate} and being able to make money. Being a Reaper could be considered a curse. Forcing people to become Reapers should be a crime or something.
'Of the 20,000 who joined my enlistment. I wonder how many people were there by choice.'
Ignoring my internal tangent, Vincent continued.
"For the 'child' reapers, there are those who wait for the seedlings to grow on their own. Most, however, choose to kill the human immediately. The only exceptions are descendants."
Hearing a term I had mixed feelings about, I focused on my gangster friend.
"Descendants are the only case where the reapers unanimously agree to wait until the human is at exactly 23 years old. Due to the immense amount of reaper blood from a Descendant, they are often almost 100% guaranteed to be stronger than an average reaper."
'Reaper babies get at least 23 years, huh? I should be glad that is the case.'
"Forcibly awakening a descendant before or after 23 years has significant differences, but what is certain is that descendants peak at 23 years of age. Anything else will result in significantly weaker Reapers."
"How did you come to this knowledge?" I asked curiously.
-verified
"My Lord, my grandfather told me how much research the Master did just to give birth to the young miss. The Master's first problem was to find a Reaper whose {Fate} would synergize well with his.
"So he researched the {Fates} that were most compatible with his own. According to his research, {Fates} had to be compatible before a female Reaper could even conceive.
"When the Master failed to find any that were compatible with him, or even remotely desirable, he decided to simply create them. To create the perfect bride with the {Fates} he desired, the Master abducted thousands of women and subjected them to torture or assault."
"..."
I was once again horrified by what hopeless bastards the Reapers were. But as much as I wanted to deny their way of thinking, I couldn't. I personally experienced how powerful synergistic {Fates} were.
{Carry} and {Withstand}, when ingested at the same time, turn even the weakest human into a powerhouse in certain situations. {Perceive}, {Code}, and {Eat} also made up most of my {Kismet} because they worked exceptionally well together.
If Specters who did not yet have kindred wished for a certain ability, no one could stop them.
Should they wish to fly, for example, it would be perfectly justifiable to kidnap a thousand people and throw them off a cliff.
Of course, you couldn't guarantee that all of them would create a {Fate} for flight. It was inevitable that at least one of them would. But my thoughts didn't stop there.
From what Vincent told me, even if all one thousand ascend to become Reapers. The Specter has the option of choosing only those he wishes to declare as his children.
'Wait! Wouldn't that mean that anyone not chosen would be rogues?
And the Reapers have only one solution for rogues.
'They are terminated with extreme prejudice.'
I clenched my jaw at the realization. While this was all wild speculation, Vincent's family background already showed that my delusions had some credibility.
Moreover, if the parent was unwilling to bear the cost and the life of the child reaper, they could simply choose to terminate it.
It wasn't as if the Reapers had a pro-life faction that would lobby for laws to prevent such a thing.
Logically, such practices were the quickest way to create stronger Reapers. {Fate} Breeding or forcibly creating bloodlines for their {Fates}. Every anime and manga that had powers passed through genetics had this recurring theme.
'It is getting harder and harder to see the Reapers as the good guys,' I lamented inwardly.
"I was told that after decades of failure in my father's generation, the master had finally created the perfect {Fate} he wanted for his kindred. It took a while for the mistress to get pregnant, but she eventually did. The next problem was how to make the child as strong as possible."