Approaching danger

Throughout thousands of years, I had been used as a symbol of destruction. Feared by all as I harboured the power I possessed as a sword and distributed it to people whom I found worthy.

Battle after battle, my wielders enjoyed victory and I had formed great bonds with them, only to watch them die later on.

I never rusted, never broke, never stopped remembering the sights of my wielders' death. Slowly walking towards the one memory that scarred my soul.

Soon, the lust for wars died. I was left in the ground by the last wielder to serve as a memorial to the people of my developing village, reminding them of the great rulers they praised as heroes.

Thousands of years just kept passing by and I was soon forgotten. All that was left for me to do was watch as the world around me changed drastically. My village became known as one of the greatest city of technology; Cell.

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The sun shone brightly, illuminating the pure blue skies as a group of five people appeared all of a sudden. They claimed to be workers from an Estate agency who had come to clear the area for their 'work'.

I couldn't do a single thing since it was daytime, so I decided to watch them instead.

It took them mere minutes to clear the sacred rocks and overgrown bushes. Normally, doing that should've taken them hours!

But, they seemed to have easily done it with the strange machines they had in their possession.

One of them would simply lift the little rocks scattered around the area with this lifting metal... thing and then throw them into somekind of floating cube while the others carried heavy materials with a strange metallic being.

Everything had been cleared and I was the only thing left in the middle of the once messy area.

One worker glanced at me with a look of interest, "The people around here say that this sword's legendary."

"You asked old people, right?", his colleague dusted his hands and asked.

... There was no response from his partner, obviously exposing his answer.

"Wow! it must be true then", the worker sarcastically smiled. "Don't be an idiot! Let's finish our work fast! I'm hella hungry."

The other men stared at him, feeling reluctant to walk forward.

"Tch, we're in a completely advanced era you idiots. Since when did you fear these old junk!?", he snapped but there was still no response. "Fine, I'll do it myself."

'He won't back away huh?', I thought to myself, strengthing my hold in the dusty ground.

Last night's moon phase was a waning gibbous and luckily, it was going to be enough to allow me to use my 'Discover' skill. I had few skills which I could activate without help from a wielder and Discover was one of them.

The skill allowed me to delve into the deepest parts of one's memories. Of course, there was a limit as to how far I could go and most of the images and voices were clouded.

...

The worker got close and proceeded to grab my hilt.

An ocean of memories began to flood into me as my skill activated.

Dirty

His life was a complete mess, wasting it on trivial desires. Moving any further would've definitely been risky since absorbing too much negativity could corrupt my form.

'You aren't suited to wield the legendary blade', my voice echoed in his head.

*Zzt!*

Just then, a powerful energy shock sent his arm flying off my hilt and pushing him onto the ground with a dull thud.

"Damn it!!", beads of sweat ran down his face as he grabbed his arm in pain.

"Are you okay?! What happened?!", his comrades rushed towards him.

"Call the boss!!"

"O-Okay!", one of the men rushed back into their advanced vehicle and began to dial a code into somekind of strange communicator device. I heard from afar as he discussed with an unknown person.

"Boss, there's an artefact here we can't get rid of."

"What do you mean by that?"

"One of our comrades was instantly pushed away after touching it"

"...", there was a brief silence, "Which area are you clearing?"

"Well, right now we are at the South-west outskirts of Cell city."

"Describe the artefact"

The man turned back and took a closer look at my form. After analyzing for a while, he returned to his call.

"It seems to be a sword, but it's sheathed in a scabbard. Its colour is quite similar to that of the glowing night and there are ancient runes on it. It's really... enchanting."

After he said that, the unknown person asked him to get closer and whispered something to him. There was a confused and concerned look on his face as he ended the call and returned to the holy grounds.

A look of curiousoty appeared on their faces. Well, all of them except the arrogant man who still squealed in pain.

"What did he say?"

"The boss has ordered us to leave."

"What!?", they were a bit troubled.

"What about our pay!?"

"Will we be paid!? We haven't cleared the area entirely!"

Complaints began to arise from the crowd as frustration slowly built up.

"W-Well", the man calmed them down. "He says we should return to the company building and receive our pay."

The expressions on each of the men's faces brightened as they sighed a heavy sigh of relief, but their happiness was shattered right after the man said, "After collecting our pay, we are to leave and never return."

There was silence as they all stared at him confused. They didn't know what to say. The man whose right arm I paralyzed walked up to him in a rage.

"What are you saying!?"

"He's-", the man hesitated for a while before mustering the courage to speak," He's going to hire someone from DeV co. to do the job."

A look of concern was painted on the faces of the others, bringing a cold silence.

"But, why DeV co? What's so special about this sword?", the youngest man in the group muttered.

"I don't know but that definitely isn't your normal day-to-day artefact", another person answered. "Ha, to think we'd lose our jobs this way."

"I don't get it", the young man scratched his head. "Why take our jobs away from us? How does DeV co relate to our lives?"

The man sighed, "Kid, you do know how immense that organization's influence is. They provide the quality mech bots and weapons for the government but, they're thought to have many dark sides. Only a few people know this."

"I still don't understand why we have to lose our jobs"

"The boss has experience when dealing with DeV co. If this blade is that important, they might force every bit of info from us and if they aren't satisfied-"

"They'll just extend it to our families", the arrogant man interrupted. "So we're losing our jobs so they don't get access to our personal info from the company database."

The air tensed up with each passing second as an odd silence followed.

"This is the fifth job I'm losing", the young man stared at the ground.

"Don't worry kid, there are lots of jobs out there", the other men tried to reassure him.

"Now let's leave before that DeV co official gets here", the arrogant man walked towards the vehicle and was followed by the rest of the team.

The young man paused and stared at me from the van with a sad expression on his face as they left the area.

"Who are these 'DeV co' personnel?", I said to myself, staring at their vehicle that headed into the horizon.

Rain clouds began to gather and the people who still lived in poverty, mostly the aged had packed their farm produce and were headed for home.

"People?", I asked, quite confused.

I never remembered anyone living around these areas. It was abandoned years ago.

But, I still felt a sudden surge of concern as they paid respects to me.

"Could it be that those people may bring harm to the villagers?"

...

Villagers?

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(Dark void)

[Full world synchronisation: 87%]

[Test subject is yet to merge with the selected world]

[...]

[Continue sequence?]

"Heh", a sinister figure smirked.