D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

1026 Chapter 1026 Getting to know Lian a bit

Sue sighed and asked, “So, now that we’ve got all that out of our systems… why don’t you tell us about yourself Lian? Your match will be soon after all… and… wait why are you here? You’re up next right?”

“Because I’m probably just going to forfeit?” said Lian slightly confused.

“I mean… don’t you need to be in the waiting are for your match? You as well Bing?” asked Sue.

Bing shrugged, “Eh… I probably should be heading off soon? Maybe? Nobody has come to get me so I’m going to assume there was some holdup with the previous match or something so I’m not worrying about it, and Lian, you’re not forfeiting,”

“Why not?” grumbled Lian as she made her way to a spare chair and flopped down, “I’ve done well enough and I’m exhausted. I have no chance at defeating Bodeir considering he spent most of his match making fucking tea. He’ll be more than ready to take me on and I doubt I can really do anything to stop him,”

“What about playing for the team? Weakening him so that he’s more likely to lose in the future?” asked Bing.

Lian shrugged, “Well he’s not fighting against you or your brother until the finals if you guys even make it that far… and if I went hard on him, his next match might be a stomp, and then you’d be annoyed that someone was easily able to reach the finals. Plus, you don’t suddenly think you can beat your brother, right?” Bing nodded, “See, in that case what’s the problem? You don’t care if Feng has a harder time of it,”

Bing nodded again and said, “You know what? You’re right! Fuck Feng. He can deal with his shit by himself. So… forfeiting? I’d never push you into it… but it’s your idea… so…?”

Lian shrugged, “I don’t have the qi to do anything fancy and I never prepared any specific defences against someone so skilled at manipulating earth qi. I set up my barriers? He just brakes the ground underneath me. My ‘can’t move’ defences might stay up if someone else moves me, they might not… but if he just dumps me on my face and places rocks over me, the announcer would probably call the match, bastard that he is,”

.....

“Yeah… I’m going to do terrible things to that man later…” grumbled Bing menacingly. “Definitely forfeiting though?”

Lian nodded, “Yeah… I could maybe last a minute? No longer then that and then I’d be really out of qi. I’ve put in a good enough showing, and while there might be some honour in fighting Bodeir for a bit just to prove I’d lose even if I tried… but I just can’t muster up the energy to care about that sort of honour at the moment. Plus, I’m a Curse cultivator, people already think I have no honour, so who really cares?”

“Ah, that’s more in-line with what I’d expected from you,” said Sue. “That sort of attitude tends to come with your style. I was wondering why you weren’t a bit more doom and gloom about things, or at least more apathetic,”

“It is pretty common… but it takes a surprising amount of effort to act like that,” said Lian.

*Why is ‘goth’ a valid style AND mood? I can at least understand the style, tastes are very subjective, and it’s no surprise that goth in some form survives across worldlines… but why did the attitude follow!*

Lily shrugged at the question while Sue continued the conversation, “Oh? I wouldn’t have thought it’d take much effort at all?”

“Eh…” Lian shrugged, “It’s easy to not care about quite a few things… but at the end of the day? It just isn’t me. The pioneers of Curse cultivation might seem strangely apathetic about things until they rage or go crazy in a massively noticeable way… but I personally suspect that they either use curses to supress their emotions… or accidentally trade away certain feelings in exchange for more power at one point or another.

“I mean… it might seem easy ‘just don’t care’ or ‘pretend to be a pessimist all the time’ but the second option is rather hard with Bing as my best friend…”

“Sister” insisted Bing

“…right sister, whatever,” Lian continued with a slight grin on her exhausted features, “and… not caring about things is kind of hard. Hearing a bunch of nasty shit about you since you’re a child? That stuff hurts, and Bing had to teach me to find joy in things that aren’t people. I don’t think I could handle all the negative attention without some joy in my life… and I don’t think I could be apathetic enough to brush aside the negative attention. So I can’t just ‘not care’ about things. So… I’m left with liking the look, but not the attitude,”