I was so stupid, really.
"Boss?"
" Asa, I have treated you well, how could you betray me? Don't you really remember everything that happened in the past?"
"Well..."
"And you, Brutus?"
"Huh? Isn't my name Jacob?"
Carlo closed his eyes, filled with regret that no one had caught up with his joke.
Then he opened his eyes again, got up from the ground, and said, "I say, Asa, while a stress reaction is understandable, you really didn't hold back with that kick."
Isaac was a little embarrassed. "Sorry, it was just a reflex..."
"If it were an ordinary person, that kick aimed at my head, even with 11 units of force, would have broken their neck." Carlo stretched his shoulders.
Li Jiehao looked around and asked, "So boss, why are you lying on the ground? I thought you'd been assassinated!"
"I tried this ring on." Carlo gestured with his chin toward the ring in Isaac's hand.
Li Jiehao asked, puzzled, "Do you need to lie on the ground and pretend to be dead to try on a ring?"
"He wasn't faking death; he was genuinely dead for a while," Carlo said. "Let Asa explain the specifics of his deductions."
Isaac placed the ring on the table and briefly reiterated his previous reasoning, from the initial speculation about the ring's function, to the symbolic meaning of the patterns, to the seams on the inner band, and finally, the new speculation that arose.
Li Jiehao was stunned. "... So this thing is a trap, and whoever wears it is doomed?"
"That's one way to put it. To verify this hypothesis, I tried it myself."
"Then why are you still wearing it? What if it really drains your system completely?" Li Jiehao exclaimed in alarm.
"It's okay, I have an invincibility cheat."
"Huh? There's such a thing?"
"Invincibility cheat?"
"Hmm, you could interpret that as me not dying that easily."
Li Jiehao muttered, "An invincibility cheat... Do you think I might have one too? Like some kind of perk for transmigrators?"
"You can try dying once, and let Asa use his 11 points of strength to hit your head too."
No, no, no!
Carlo dusted off his clothes. "But after trying it myself, I confirmed some things, and my guess was mostly correct."
"The ring does indeed function as predicted. After wearing it, an almost imperceptible force seeps in from the ring, giving a stimulating sensation that makes one's mind clear and body feel light, as if one has just had a good night's sleep."
Those unaware of the situation won't realize that the enhancement is from the ring, and will find it difficult to detect anything unusual. They'll only feel that their mental state has improved and they're less tired after wearing it. Those in the know will consciously try to perceive it and then discover that it is indeed the ring that provides the enhancement.
"Then they started draining life force."
"Yes, but in a state of rejuvenation, it's hard to notice that your life force is being drained. You still feel energetic, and you're being drained without even realizing it. Moreover, the cause of death will be very natural, such as cardiac arrest or organ failure. On the surface, it will look like a normal death, and no one would suspect that it was a ring that caused it." Carlo took the ring.
Isaac noticed something. "Boss, how come you collapsed so quickly? There should be a process from when you put it on to when you're completely drained."
"Because I actively channeled my life force into the pathway established by that ring."
"Isn't that courting death?" Li Jiehao's eyes widened.
"I need to confirm where that life force ultimately flows to. Passively waiting is too slow and it's difficult to pinpoint the location, so I simply reversed it and sent a large wave of life force along that suction force to make the path more obvious, so that I can track down the destination."
"The price is that I'll die for a short while. But once I take off the ring, the continuous loss of life will stop, and I'll be able to recover and revive."
"You can even play like that? This is cheating...!"
Isaac was more concerned with another question, "What were the gains after actively instilling this idea in people from the past?"
"There were gains, of course. This ring connects to something in the Wilderness; the life force it draws is transferred there. I've pinpointed its location in the Wilderness." Carlo sat down in his chair. "Your next question is, what is the Wilderness?"
"What is the Wilderness...?" Li Jiehao was stunned. "Huh? You mean JoJo the Second? Was this part of your calculations?!"
"You can think of it as another world related to the present, a space filled with all sorts of chaotic things. The origins of many extraordinary phenomena lie there, including some so-called deities—specifically, it's not convenient to say more," Carlo explained briefly. "In short, now we have a lead we can trace."
"So what do we do next?" Isaac asked.
"What can we do? Drag them out of the Wilderness and beat them up?" Carlo shrugged. "Even if we can successfully drag them out, if it really is Morzul, it's hard to say whether three people and a dog can even win. We'll probably have to shake Vilka."
"Who is Vilka?" Li Jiehao was confused again.
"A very important person."
"Eh..."
Isaac processed the information he had just received. "This ring connects to something in the Wilderness. The person who pawned the ring must have known its true purpose and deliberately put it on the market so that unsuspecting people would wear it and supply nourishment to that being in the Wilderness."
"And they even chose Vista as the location for their operation; they're really going all out," Carlo said. "But there's one thing we can't explain right now: is Morzul the mastermind behind it all?"
"If the circulation of this ring is Morzul's own will, to draw nourishment for His resurrection, then why did the Foul Spirit summoned by Jacob, conveying Morzul's message that the ring was 'lost' and that he needed to retrieve it?"
Li Jiehao realized, "Right, if this ring was deliberately released by Morzul's men, then why would I go and retrieve it? That's like contradicting myself!"
Isaac speculated, "According to what the boss said before, there aren't many followers of Morzul left within the Ghoul Cult. So, assuming the Ghoul Cult is the mastermind, could their actions... not be aimed at resurrecting Morzul, but rather at using Morzul for something else?"
In other words, the party that conveyed the order to "recycle the ring" to Li Jiehao and the party that released the ring into the market do not seem to be the same group of people. Moreover, the former's power seems much weaker, otherwise they wouldn't have entrusted someone like Li Jiehao, who has little strength, with such an important task as recycling the Holy Relic.
Furthermore, the original owner of Li Jiehao's body, Jacob Hamil, seemed to have obtained the tome from a member of the Ghoul Cult, yet the tome's contents contained rituals pointing to Morzul, who should no longer be able to respond to prayers...
"There's a lot to sort out... Anyway..." Carlo put the ring back in his pocket. "Now that things have come to this, let's eat first."