Waking Up in the Nest
"Thought I was dead, didn't you?"
"!$*^*^!"
"Mmm..."
The bustling noise around me drew my consciousness up from somewhere deep and dark. The first thing I registered was the sensation of a comfortable blanket draped over me. It didn't smell exactly fresh, but it was snug enough to stir up a pang of nostalgia for the past.
Wait? I'm not dead?
There was no doubt my life had been hanging by a thread. Yet when I pressed a hand to my abdomen, all I felt was smooth, sculpted six-pack—not a single trace of a wound anywhere. It was as if the whole gruesome nightmare had never happened.
There's no way it was a dream, though. So where am I?
Things had been pretty noisy around me for a while now. The problem was that the noise sounded awfully familiar.
I cracked my eyes open just a sliver and surveyed my surroundings.
"Gah...!"
A groan escaped me before I could stop it. And no wonder—I was lying smack in the middle of a chimera pack. The chimeras were huddled together in a relatively cramped space like a colony of penguins. Some lay utterly motionless, whether asleep or simply too still to tell, while others bustled about here and there on wounded bodies, busy as could be.
There are even pups.
I spotted a group of chimeras barely tall enough to reach my shin clustered together in a corner. Some kind of communal rearing, apparently. Judging by the circumstances, this place seemed to be the chimeras' habitat. The only problem was that I happened to be lying at the very center of it.
If they wanted me dead, they'd have killed me already. The fact that they even laid out a blanket means I managed to communicate with the Original Chimera somehow.
Arwen must have handled things well. With a quiet sigh of relief, I let the tension drain from my body—and the brutal brawl with the Goblin Chief rose naturally to mind. I remembered with vivid clarity the blade of aura I'd forged at the very end.
A blade of aura... should I call it an Aura Blade? To think I created something like that. It's strangely moving.
Practicality aside, wasn't an Aura Blade every man's romantic dream in its own right? And given the staggering density of that aura compressed into a blade's edge, its destructive power was bound to be absolutely lethal too.
But could I recreate it?
The memory was so hazy that I couldn't quite recall how I'd managed to form the Aura Blade in the first place. Time for some field testing.
Where's my sword... ah, here it is. Arwen must have set it down for me.
When I squirmed and shifted, my hand found the sword lying just a little beyond arm's reach. The silver blade had been severed in two, leaving it a sorry sight, but the edge itself was still keen. If repaired, it would be perfectly serviceable.
Let me retrace the sensation from that moment.
I relaxed my body completely and carefully fed aura into the blade. What I envisioned was an edge that could cut through anything. The aura began to move, tracing an intricate pattern that formed as naturally as breathing.
Fwoom—!
Yikes!
I hastily canceled the Aura Blade as it surged upward out of nowhere. It vanished with only a faint glow, leaving nothing behind. I couldn't help but be startled at how easily the blade of aura had materialized—far more readily than I'd expected.
I succeeded on the first try? Did it get engraved into me or something?
I'd braced myself for at least a few rounds of trial and error. I'd actually done it, and now I was the one sitting there dumbfounded.
This might agitate the chimeras, so I'd better stop practicing for now. At this level, it'll be fine in a real fight.
Clack...
I set the hilt down as quietly as I could and closed my eyes again. There were no external injuries, but my body apparently hadn't finished recovering, because the blood vessels the aura had traveled through throbbed dully.
Ugh... I should just rest quietly. If I move around for no reason, the wounds might get aggravated.
When I pulled the blanket up over my head, the dim light leaking through was blocked out by the thick fabric. Comfort, for the first time in ages. It was nothing like the scratchy torment that scrap of thin cloth had been providing all this time.
"!$@$!"
After dozing like that for a while, the surroundings grew noisy again—but this bustle came from a decidedly different direction than before. When I eased the blanket down, I saw the crowd of chimeras parting on their own to clear a path. The one emerging along that path was, of course, Arwen.
Our eyes met.
"You're awake!"
Confirming that I'd come to, Arwen trotted over on light feet and filled me in on everything that had happened.
...
"You healed me with psychic power? You fully attained a Soul and awakened your psychic abilities??"
"Yes."
It was Arwen who had saved me after a gaping hole had been punched through my abdomen. That warmth I'd felt at the very end had apparently been her psychic energy. She said she'd awakened spontaneously the moment she saw me dying.
Good grief... what is this, some novel's protagonist moment?
Absurd, honestly.
"Kek. I guess you liked me a lot, huh? Was watching me die that terrifying?"
Come to think of it, the scream Arwen had let out when the Goblin Chief skewered my gut was quite the masterpiece. I could hear it crystal clear even from a distance. Lying flat on my back, I poked fun at her.
"Ugh... it wasn't like that."
"Then what was it?"
"..."
Arwen ducked her head low. Her face couldn't exactly flush, but she was unmistakably embarrassed. Opportunities to tease Arwen—usually as cold as a city girl—didn't come around often.
Come to think of it, this body is pretty handsome, isn't it?
My height was still lacking, but my facial structure was that of a textbook heartthrob. Getting a little giddy every time I caught my reflection was my tiny little secret. It wouldn't be strange at all for Arwen to fall for me.
"The truth is..."
After a long silence, Arwen finally spoke up. She wore the expression of someone wondering whether she should even say it.
What is it? Why the dramatic pause?
"The truth is?"
"It's true that I moved with everything I had to save you, Ha Jun. The emotional turmoil was immense as well. That was probably what filled in the missing portion of my soul. However..."
"However?"
"However... that emotion felt, apparently, like maternal love. It seems Nova's soul must have mixed in somehow. I'm sorry."
"...Well, that's a bit of a shock."
I couldn't bring myself to ask what exactly she was apologizing for. An awkward silence hung between us for a moment.
"Oh! Did you perhaps mean 'like' in a romantic sense? I'm afraid my aesthetic standards differ considerably from those of humans. Still, if it's an order, I can accommodate you. All I'd need is the organic components..."
"Enough! I can't even crack a joke around you without it getting scary, honestly."
I grumbled as I cut off Arwen, whose remarks were cruising straight into hazardous territory. Teasing her had been a mistake. I hadn't even broken even.
"So, how does it feel to have a soul? Anything different?"
"Ah, completely different. It's as though my very existence has changed. It's a sensation I've never felt since the day I was born. How should I put it—it's like stepping out of a black-and-white world into one of full color."
"I can't say I really get it, but sounds nice."
"It is. And now the institute's restrictions have all been lifted too. I could die with no regrets."
Arwen clapped her hands together with a thoroughly delighted expression.
Hold on, wait. Now that I think about it, doesn't Arwen no longer have any reason to take my orders?
Even as I basked in the joy of crossing one enormous mountain, my thoughts wandered off somewhere else. With every restriction stripped away, the whole concept of a command authority would naturally have evaporated too. Strictly speaking, Arwen had no obligation to trail after me anymore.
What am I supposed to do...?
"I know exactly what you're thinking."
"..."
The moment I started rolling my eyes around, Arwen—quick as ever—caught on to exactly what I was imagining. She tidied my disheveled hair as if it were nothing and spoke.
"Looking at the big picture, this is all a consequence of me following you around, so... I should repay the debt, shouldn't I? I'll serve at your side until the day you die, Ha Jun."
"...And when exactly do I die?"
"Shouldn't that be about a hundred years from now? I can easily live a few hundred years if I manage myself properly, so a span like that is no problem at all. Ah—of course, that's assuming the power source issue gets resolved."
"What the... don't go writing checks with no money in the bank."
I scratched my head, overcome by an inexplicable awkwardness. Either way, it seemed Arwen intended to keep following me. One weight off my mind.
"Then all that's left is the power source problem. Let's get back to the surface ASAP. Did you get the director's card?"
Arwen, freed from the institute's restrictions with her newfound soul. The only obstacle left standing in her way was her power source. With her operating time running short, a swift search was obviously essential.
"Of course. I retrieved the director's card while you were sleeping. But before that... ah, here they come now."
"What is?"
Tap-tap.
Before Arwen's cryptic remark had even finished, several chimeras approached us. My guard went up instinctively—but only for a heartbeat, since there wasn't a shred of hostility in their eyes.
What are they carrying?
The chimeras were holding several sacks, each bulging with something lumpy.
Thud!
When the chimeras drew near and dropped the huge sacks on the ground, they gave off a satisfyingly heavy sound, just as laden as they'd looked.
"What's this?"
"Something we knew you'd like, Ha Jun. The stones the goblins dropped."
"!"
I scrambled upright and tore open a sack.
"Whoa..."
The enormous sack was stuffed full of black stones. And there were more than ten of those sacks. It seemed they'd collected every single stone the goblins had dropped. All told, there looked to be several thousand.
How many points is all this?
"I asked them to gather these separately. And also..."
Arwen pulled a stone from her pocket. Unlike the others, this one glistened purple.
"Don't tell me—that's the one the Chief dropped?"
"Yes. I brought it myself, just in case."
I took the Chief's stone and absorbed it on the spot. That alone raised my points by ten. An enormous amount.
Might as well absorb all the rest too.
I plunged my hand into the sack and got down to the serious business of absorption.
...
"Finished? It's a fascinating sight every time. A human absorbing stones—I could almost want to dissect you."
"That's a creepy thing to say... ugh..."
I started to chide Arwen, then clapped a hand over my mouth instead. Having always absorbed stones in small, careful doses, I'd never realized this before: absorbing a huge volume all at once was a genuinely difficult affair. Setting aside how long it took, my stomach felt bloated and heavy. It was a queasy discomfort, as if the slightest movement would send me retching.
But the reward was sweet indeed.
Now this is what I'm talking about!
Absorbing every last stone put enough points in my hands at once to unlock a talent with plenty left over. It felt like all the hardship I'd endured up to now had finally been repaid.
Hmm... though honestly, the efficiency isn't that great, is it? I exterminated thousands of the things just to scrape together enough points for a single talent...
This time had simply been lucky. Hunting the normal way could have taken years to yield the same result. But flip it around, and you could argue it wasn't an outrageous price for acquiring a talent that money couldn't buy. Who knows—maybe days like this would come around again.
Still, I really nearly died back there... I should unlock at least one more talent before escaping the institute. I'll just power up across the board, whatever comes up.
Since I had no idea what conditions were like outside the institute, thorough preparation was the way to go. Of course, like the Inner Heart, there was no telling what kind of pain a talent might come bundled with, so I'd have to pick carefully—somewhere safe, ideally.
"I think I can move now."
After resting a while, the bloated queasiness in my stomach had finally settled.
"Hm... nausea symptoms proportional to absorption volume... a fascinating side effect."
"Quit analyzing me."
Chatting idly, we packed up our belongings. There wasn't much to pack, honestly—but I was determined to bring the blanket along.
"Uh... by the way, how are we getting back to the surface? Should we take the elevator shaft?"
"No. I found a good spot. There's a route that goes straight up to the surface in one go."
"Well, that's convenient."
Looked like I could finally escape this godforsaken underground at last.