Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

a strange man, Shaun,” Ogun said, looking at me oddly. “I remember when you were first brought to me. My patient criteria was for desperate addicts who wouldn’t be missed. Dr. Sans told me that you fit the bill. I was really surprised when I met you because you came across as funny and endearing. You were sad, very sad, but not a social reject as so many of our others were. You really did give me hope of a successful soldier for my little war. And here you are now. I’m very proud.

“Now rest. We will have a further discussion when you’re up and about. I will inform the others of your claim to the axe and no decision will be taken until you are fit and able.”

“No way, Ogun. I need to see Ember. And I need to go get my axe.”

Again, he gave me a strange look. “Very well. Come on.”

He offered me an arm. I took the help, feeling like a deflated balloon. He walked me into the next room to where Ember was sleeping. She was well out of it. I kissed her on the forehead and noticed just how emaciated she'd become. I felt a tear trickle down my cheek at the sight of her like this. There was nothing I could do here, and she was in the best of hands.

With a deep breath and a quick wipe at my face I turned to Ogun and muttered, “Right Ogun! Let’s go and see about my axe.” I didn’t understand where this obsession came from, but as shitty as I felt, this needed to be done.

Ogun led me to the training room. The four would-be competitors, three big men and one very big woman, were doing an assault course.

“Hey, guys!” I shouted. “I hear you're competing for my axe!”

They stopped and dropped from their various apparatus.

“Not your axe, noob. Now, fuck off back to bed in your nightie,” the biggest of the men said. He had a short, barely groomed beard and a very aggressive demeanor.

“You tell him, Thor,” said another of the male competitors.

The axe stood in the corner of the gym against the wall and I began to walk over to it. The four of them raced over, blocking my path to defend it. I looked over to Ogun. He shrugged with a small smile on his face. It didn’t look like I was going to get any help from him. The others noticed, too. I was still happy that he came, but felt it was odd he didn’t back up my claim, meritocracy be damned.

I turned back to the meatheads arrayed in front of me. “You heard I killed the owner of the weapon, right?” I stated.

“You didn’t claim it. You’ve lost any right,” the woman who must have been over six-feet, snarled in an Eastern European accent that I couldn’t place. She was possibly more intimidating than Thor. With a short, back and sides haircut and a deep, old scar running from the side of her mouth across her cheek. I wasn’t impressed with this whole debacle. Nor the aggression that was on display.

“I couldn’t claim it. Do you have any idea what we went through?”

“We came and saved your asses. Did you forget about that?” Thor said.

I thought, fuck this! and reached out in my mind to the axe. My intention was just to move it over to me with telekinesis. I knew these guys probably had much better skills in telekinesis, but once I had it, I knew no one would be taking it off me. But I must have made a mistake as I entered its Mindscape. Essentially, a corridor with one room. The door was open, and the axe was leaning against a wall. Now, this surprised me. I didn’t know that weapons had Mindscapes? But apparently this one did.

Then it only bloody spoke to me, “Hello Slayer. Have you finally come to claim me?”

“What the fuck! Dude, how are you talking?”

“Oh, it’s quite simple. I am sentient.”

“Yeah, but how are you sentient? I’ve never heard of such a thing, though I’m majorly ignorant on pretty much everything going on at the minute.”

"That is understandable. Please allow me to explain. Whenever a weapon spills blood and takes a life, the soul of the slain leaves a fragment of itself on the weapon, though very small. Little more than an imprint really. But it remains there forever.

“For myself, I was made over four thousand years ago and I have taken over two million lives. How I know the exact number is a mystery to me. It seems to be ingrained knowledge that I gained after taking approximately one-and-a-half million lives. I don't think it is common knowledge that this happens.”

“Has Ogun communicated with you yet?”

“No. He doesn’t know anything of my sentience. None of these idiots do. I choose to whom I talk. You will be my wielder.”

“Why choose me?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“You killed my previous owner. He was a total dick by the way. We had worked together from the day I was created, but he refused to talk to me or acknowledge me in any way. I’ve been sentient for around a thousand years, and it’s been lonely.”

I was a bit wrong footed by the total dick statement, but ignored it for now. “That does sound kinda shit.”

“Oh, it really was. When we left the ship and felt how you were looking at me I thought, I bet that guy would talk to me.”

“You felt me looking at you?”

“Sure did. Although, I don’t know how. You gave me a little salute before you started fighting Jotun. Right then, I knew you’d make a much better owner. So, I made a couple of slight adjustments, so I didn’t kill you.”

“Really? That was you?”

“Well you sure as shit didn’t dodge. Jotun has been fighting at peak ability with me for, well, since he’d me made.”

“You’ve been together so long, and you let me dodge?” I said, but