SSS-Rank Engineer: Only I Can Create Legendary Weapons

The house was annoyingly quiet when Percy entered. All the candles were still lit just as they left them. He could see the dishes in the sink from the door. He exhaled a satisfied breath at the warmth of the house.

Once he was three steps in the door slammed shut. Anyone else would jump out of their shoes and try to jump out a window. But he wouldn't do that… yet.

He walked through the comfortable wooden home, ignoring how loud the creaking boards were now.

"Hellooo! I'm sorry for shooting you in the face. Can we have a civil discussion about this?"

He saw something shuffling on the dining table, wood scraping against wood as they moved. When he walked over there he found pieces of wood with letters drawn on them.

"You're gonna spell out your words huh? Very smart of you, mister spirit. I admire your—"

The letters continued moving, cutting off his praise session. He really needed the spirit to let its guard down or just be a little less aggressive.

So he watched the letters patiently. Out the corners of his eyes, he made sure to watch every shadow though, and he prepared his spirit energy to cast a spell.

The letters finally came to a halt and Percy read them out slowly, growing more tense with each word.

"What are you? You are not a natural person…" Percy read aloud. "I dunno about that, I feel very natural. Do you mean have I used anything to enhance myself?"

The letters shuffled themselves once again, and they revealed a new sentence.

"You are not of this world. Your very existence upsets the balance. Are you an enemy of mother Gaia?"

Percy thought for a moment. He was a bit fuzzy on how the myths go, but he was pretty sure Nyx wasn't an enemy of Gaia, and he was sure that Tartarus had children with her.

"I am not an enemy of mother Gaia. I love the earth, I recycle and everything."

He let the words shuffle over the table again. The sound of wood scraping so sharply was unnerving.

"I will not let you live. You are a threat to the balance, just like those terrible creatures that once lived here."

"The Basker family?"

The entire house began rattling at the mention of their name. The lights flicked on and off and all around him, he could see pale people appear and disappear, standing all around him, eyes emptily focused on him.

"I'm very sorry, didn't mean to piss you—all of you?—off. I'm trying to undo the damage they did."

Once more the letters shuffled, each time the candles flickered Percy could see pale hands appear, moving each piece to the right place.

"Do you have any last words?"

Last words? These ghosts are so extreme, death will really make you so uptight and annoying about everything.

"I want to ask what happened to mother Gaia, if such a question doesn't displease you. So that I can pray to her one last time."

The room grew silent for a moment, all the lights went out. Percy could feel his throat tightening with fear. But there wasn't a single trace of it on his face. The scarier shit got, the more he smiled.

When the lights reappeared, a new sentence was spelled out on the table.

"Mother Gaia was forced into a long slumber by her traitorous children. Their war upended heaven and created an imbalance that is still felt in the world today. Is that enough for you?"

He nodded calmly, mind connecting pieces of his knowledge to try and interpret what this meant. He shelved that for later and said.

"Okay, all I want now is for you to release the child."

"No, he will die here. He will nourish us and keep us here longer. We await their return, the return of those blasphemers."

He didn't need to say it out loud to know. This spirit was waiting for the Basker family to return so it could kill them all.

"That's terrible. But can you take me to him? I want to comfort him in our last moments. It's a terrible thing for a child to pass, isn't it?"

Nothing moved for far too long, like the air was holding its breath. Then the letters shuffled themselves once again.

"We will allow it. Walk upstairs and don't touch your spirit energy, or we will snap your neck."

The journey up the stairs and into the attic was quiet and lonely. Even though he knew he was surrounded by spirits.

It was hard to keep his desire to act under control, right now he needed to stick to the plan, and save Joey.

Interestingly enough, the spirit hadn't asked him to tell Thalos or George to stop trying to dig up Philip's body. It was more focused on him and the imbalance it sensed.

This imbalance was of course the fact that he was a reincarnator. Something that shouldn't technically exist in this world.

Once they were in the attic the door shut with a snap. Percy turned to find a bleeding Joey in the corner. The boy's eyes brightened up and he raced into Percy's arms.

He held the boy tightly to his chest, feeling like the sun just ignited inside him. It was happiness, he was glad that Joey was safe. More so than he thought he even cared.

"Where's my dad?" Joey whispered, looking up at him.

"He couldn't enter without pissing off our spirit friend. But hey you got me at least."

Joey looked a bit skeptical about Percy's ability to save them, but he remembered the noble boy coming down from the attic with painful red marks on his neck, and just acting like it was nothing. This guy was also tough as nails, stronger than he looked.

Joey nodded and Percy raised the boy into his arms, walking backward until he was at the wall.

He looked over the trashed attic. There was nothing here for him to see. He closed his eyes and used his spirit sense to survey the room.

An expansive darkness surrounded him and the sounds of the world faded. Spirits of different colors came to life in the darkness, responding before he even called.

And in between those colorful lights were pale corpses, standing all around him. Their intent to kill overwhelmed him for a moment, making him stagger, but then he smiled.

"It's time to end this I guess."

"Yes," a chorus of raspy voices hissed in return. "You will stay here with us, and take revenge on those vile people."

That sounded nice and all, but no thank you. He instantly reached into his storage space and summoned a circle of salt around him.

The spirits hissed like a boiling sea of rage. They all surged forward, flying at him with milky eyes and open mouths. They all bounced off the invisible shield, skin sizzling as it burned into them.

"You aren't an evil spirit," Percy said calmly, "But infused salt wards off magical interference, you can't cross this line."

The spirit roared and forced their hands against the shimmering patch of air, fingers burning as they forced their way into the shield slowly.

Percy sighed dejectedly, that wasn't really surprising.

"I meant you can't cross this line for a couple seconds."