Arknightcraft Modpack

Steven ignored Talulah’s complaints—he genuinely intended to handle things this way.

For others, tracking down that Collapsal might be difficult. But for him? Come on, he was a Minecrafter.

With just his minimap alone, locating the target was already trivial. Not to mention, he had plenty of mods that could pinpoint specific objects. If he wanted to find that Collapsal, it was purely a matter of whether he felt like doing it or not.

As for how to kill it? That was even simpler. Steven didn’t want to sound too arrogant, but he had at least dozens of ways to take it down.

Forget a Collapsal—even those damage-adaptive parasites wouldn’t stand a chance against him if they pissed him off. And right now, this thing has clearly crossed the line.

Since it had threatened the safety of someone he cared about, Steven wasn’t about to give it another chance to lurk in the shadows. Rather than waiting for it to strike again and regretting it later, he much preferred to go on the offensive.

If an enemy deserved a little chaos, he was all for it. If it needed dust kicked in its eyes, he’d gladly do that too.

But before all that, there was one small issue to address.

“You two, come here for a sec.”

Steven dug around in his pocket for a while before finally pulling something out. Waving his free hand, he motioned for Alina and Talulah to come closer.

“What is it?”

With puzzled expressions, the two girls obediently stepped forward. Steven wasn’t the type to call them over for no reason—if he did, it must be something important.

“Talulah, if you care so much about Alina, why haven’t you taught her how to use Originium Arts? Look at her—she can’t even fight off a chicken! If she ever runs into danger, you really expect me to always be there in time to save her?”

As usual, Steven took the chance to roast Talulah first before revealing two strange golden totems from his pocket.

“You think I don’t want to?! She has no talent for it! Forget Originium Arts—even basic physical training is a struggle for her. Other than having great eyesight, she’s pretty much doomed to be a background character for life.”

Talulah shot back immediately, clearly irritated. If Steven had thought of this, of course, she had too! But there was no way around it—this world’s people had massive differences in talent.

If you didn’t have the gift, you simply didn’t have it. Trying to make up for it through sheer effort was practically impossible.

Beside her, Alina weakly nodded in agreement, looking even more embarrassed.

She knew how physically weak she was. It wasn’t Talulah’s fault.

“That’s actually a thing? Well, then that’s your fault for not sticking with her more.”

Steven was silent for a moment. He had to admit, Talulah had a point, and he couldn’t really argue against it.

Mostly because he hadn’t expected Alina to be this useless—she wasn’t fit to be a mage, nor did she have what it took to be a warrior.

But after a moment’s thought, he realized something: if her eyesight was decent, then he actually had something that might be perfect for her.

“You’re just being unreasonable now.”

“Learned it from you.”

“Whatever, just take this and keep it with you. If things get bad, grip it with one hand—it should at least buy you some time.”

Deciding not to argue further, Steven handed them each a golden totem that resembled a cross, but with a large-nosed human face carved into it. He gestured for them to keep it safe.

“Why are you giving us gifts now? And seriously, your taste is awful. This thing is ugly.”

Talulah took one and examined it closely. After failing to detect any Originium energy from it, she gave Steven a doubtful look.

Aside from being hideous, it didn’t seem to have any special properties. Giving something like this to a girl? Well… it was very on-brand for Steven’s weird personality.

But considering what he said—implying it could save them in a critical moment—it was hard not to be curious.

If it were from someone else, she would have assumed they were trying to scam her.

But this was Steven.

And his pockets were full of bizarre, overpowered things.

“If you don’t want it, give it back. I never said it was a free gift.”

Steven rolled his eyes and made a move to snatch the Totem of Undying back.

“No way. Once you give something to a girl, you can’t just take it back. No matter how ugly it is, it’s mine now.”

Talulah quickly stashed it in her clothing, looking surprisingly smug about it.

Alina, watching from the side, couldn’t help but giggle at her reaction.

But she took her own totem very seriously.

Since Steven said it was useful, she had zero reason to doubt him. He had never lied about these things before.

“I’m being serious here. That thing is way more valuable than the healing potion I gave you earlier. If I sold you, you probably wouldn’t even be able to pay back what that totem is worth. If I didn’t actually consider you two friends, I wouldn’t be handing these over.”

Steven looked at Talulah dead in the eyes to emphasize his point.

Because honestly? The totem’s ability was insanely powerful.

It wasn’t something that could be compared to a simple healing potion.

If it weren’t for the fact that he truly saw them as friends, he wouldn’t be sharing these.

Even if someone offered to buy one, he still wouldn’t sell it.

“Is it really that powerful?”

“Let me put it this way—it lets you cheat death once.”

Steven looked at Talulah, who clearly wasn’t going to let this go until she got a proper answer. Eventually, he just gave in and told her what the totem actually did.

And the moment she understood, the way she looked at him completely changed.

That was the look someone gave when they saw an absolute moneybags walking down the street.

She knew Steven wasn’t the type to exaggerate about things like this, but something that could literally let someone escape death once? The value of that was insane.

This wasn’t some game—getting an extra life meant actually having another chance to live.

And he just handed two of them out? Casually?

Talulah couldn’t tell if Steven was some divine tycoon in disguise or just an absolute sucker when it came to handing out gifts.

“Got it now? If you understand, then you should repay me properly. Come on, give this lord a shoulder rub—I’ve been running around all day, I’m exhausted.”

Steven had already guessed what she was thinking from the way she looked at him. Leaning back into his chair like a noble master, he waved at her lazily as if he were ordering around a servant.

“That’s not how this works! You gave me something before negotiating a price—did I even agree to this deal?”

“Then give it back.”

“Come on now, I was just kidding, my lord.”

Grinning shamelessly, Talulah instantly switched gears. Gone was her usual stubborn pride—she beamed as she moved behind him and dug into his shoulders with a force that could only be described as attempted murder.

Honestly, she should just squeeze the life out of this guy and see how many more golden treasures would pop out.

Just how many ridiculous items was he hoarding? Why was he always so damn secretive about it?

As she kneaded his shoulders with a sinister amount of pressure, a strange smile formed on her face—one that was hard to read.

But this was just how they were as friends.

Steven cared about her in his own way, and there was no way she didn’t notice.

The problem was, just like her, he was terrible at expressing it properly.

Meanwhile, Steven sat there enjoying the iron-grip shoulder massage, his face betraying nothing but pure satisfaction.

Clearly, he was very pleased with the pressure.

Off to the side, Alina simply smiled as she watched the two bicker like this.

A warm feeling of happiness swelled in her chest.

‘I wish… things could always stay like this.’

She thought to herself, lost in the moment—until Steven suddenly turned his grinning gaze toward her.

“What are you staring at? You’ve got a debt to pay too. Get over here and massage my legs. Let me properly enjoy being waited on.”

“On it~”