Self Control

Once Raze opened his eyes, he found himself back in a familiar, comforting black room. 

"So I'm back" Raze relaxed.

As soon as he allowed himself to relax, a striking headache assaulted him, causing him to grimace as he sat on the ground. 

Throughout the past few weeks, he has constantly been in a high state of alertness and perceptiveness to his surroundings. 

Causing his mind to overwork, the same was true for his body too. 

But now that the whole ordeal was over, his muscles and head hurt. 

He allowed himself to relax on the invisible floor. 

It was still hard to believe everything that had happened. 

"I really did all that" Raze exclaimed while looking at his arm, expecting it to be shaking. 

But strangely enough, it wasn't. 

He knew that the things he had done on the second floor were objectively bad. 

And he didn't feel good about committing all those atrocities. 

But he also didn't particularly feel bad about it. 

In fact, if he were to be given a second chance, he would repeat his actions, especially now that he had tried and confirmed their validity. 

Maybe it was the fact that he had done them against monsters and humans who had already died once. 

But at that point, he would just be making excuses. 

"This is a bit scary" he muttered.

It hadn't even been a whole month since he had gotten a taste of power or regained the ability to walk. 

But he was already starting to commit war crimes and throw his morals out the window. 

In the future, he might end up getting corrupted by power. 

Up until now, he had only heard stories about those who were corrupted by their own power. 

And truthfully, he always found these stories a bit silly; after all, it was their power they should be able to just control it.

However, by getting a taste of this feeling for himself, while not exactly sympathising, he could at least understand them a bit better. 

Of course, he had no intention of defending those scum, as getting corrupted was just a sign of a weak mentality. 

And he, for one, had no intention of getting corrupting himself. 

In the future, it would be up to him to keep his moral compass in check. 

After all, it would be hypocritical of him to criticise 'evil' people in death only to become one himself the moment he gets even a semblance of power. 

Of course, since the tower had a tendency to push people to the extreme, he didn't have the option to be a law-abiding, upstanding citizen of society like his dad wanted. 

So in the future, he would undoubtedly be forced to do some unethical things. 

And he had already decided that in a situation involving him or them, it would always be them. 

After all, he couldn't die. 

In the end, the only thing he could conclude was to try and not be some kind of supervillain and just try his best to do good while making sure it wouldn't end up sabotaging him or his goals. 

Thinking about it this way, the 'Neutral' alignment really suited someone like him. 

"Well, enough about that. All this talk about morality is hurting my head," Raze grimaced while grabbing his head. 

But since he was already on the topic of control,. 

It would only be right to address the elephant in the room.

"How the fuck did I do all that?" he asked himself. 

He was just an average, crippled teenager on Earth. 

And he hadn't even talked to anyone except for his sister for the past 4 years. 

Neither did he do any research on the matter. 

And yet he somehow managed to make all the residents of the second floor dance on the palms of his hands like puppets. 

They didn't even know what was happening until it was too late. 

The whole plan went perfectly, aside from the slight miscalculation on his part about the strength of the goblin chief. 

And his ability to massacre the whole human army on his own. 

He remembered the tower telling him that he was apparently an E-rank monster when he killed him. 

If he were the only E-rank monster on a floor filled with F-ranks,. 

That would explain why he had been in so much control and commanded such authority on the floor. 

"Phew, good thing I listened to my gut feeling and didn't fight it" hes sighed in relief.

If he really was stupid enough to try and fight it even after all the injuries it had accumulated, his death would have been guaranteed.

But still, despite the odds and dangerous situation, he managed to analyse and counter it thanks to his intellect. 

However, that still didn't answer one question. 

How had he done it? 

Whether it be abusing human emotions, manipulating people without them even realising it, or making monsters act a certain way. 

He didn't have trouble with either of them. 

While he didn't know about others, those weren't things an average teenager like himself should be able to do. 

And yet, it all came naturally to him. 

He had always known that he was a genius, thanks to his mother and father constantly praising his intelligence. 

But he always just thought that he was just a bit smarter than other kids his age. 

Of course, that never stopped him from basking in their praises at the time. 

However, looking at the way things were happening now, he might have been greatly underselling himself all these years. 

And maybe his parents knew more about him than even he himself knew. 

Well, there was no use thinking about it now that they were already long gone. 

The only thing he could do now was figure things out about both himself and the tower, one step at a time.

Of course, just like with the morality of his actions, he needed to control his tongue and the way he approached things. 

He couldn't just go around manipulating and playing with people's emotions if he ever wanted a chance to forge genuine bonds like he always dreamed of. 

"Enough about it, let's take a look at the notifications from the floor."

With that, he brought his little self-reflection to a temporary end as he excitedly read all the notifications from the last floor.