Ever since the start of the arguments, Athelei's currently girly eyes were shining with a massive amount of interest he could not control. He was subtly breaking character, but he cared nothing for it.
'An evolved Undead Remnant... is it?' Athelei was somewhat enlightened. A scientist's interest grew inside him, 'How is it related to my physical body's transformation? The way it kills, decomposes, and absorbs looks like a more gradual version of my abilities... What does this entail? What can I learn from this?'
Athelei's manner of questioning was changing slightly to encompass this unique kind of interest. He wanted to test hypotheses more than simply find out, as such he began wording things differently in his mind,
'If my transformation ability is similar to an Undead Remnant's devouring ability, then that means I can do the same...'
As that was going on in the young human's brain, all the nobles were now participating in the discussion. Different voices spoke out depending on the topic, making suggestions, rebuttals, proposals, and whatever else went with the governance of a city.
Athelei had already zoned out, and the nobles' discussion had been placed into the background of his mind. Their arguments and debates were now simply being moved towards Appraisal's [Passive Effect] for data storage without him properly registering what they were talking about.
A flurry of thoughts stormed inside his mind for the rest of the night. He wondered, pondered, and regarded a variety of things. As for what those things are, I would have to spend scrolls upon scrolls worth of parchment just to extensively document.
When Athelei saw Sir Xiu come to pick him up, the man clearly looked rather tired. It was a special kind of tired. A lot of the nobles depicted a similar fatigue, although to varying degrees. Their hair, if they had any, was slightly astray, their eyes somewhat bloodshot, and the moisture of sweat and oil caused a greasy shine on their face.
"Haaaah," Sir Xiu let out a long sigh when it was just him and Athelei. Their carriage had already departed from the central castle.
Athelei had to review his stored memories to see what had happened towards the end of the discussions. He glanced over most of it to craft a question,
"Will it be enough to fight the beast tide?"
Sir Xiu sighed again when he heard that. Athelei's question was his worries turned into words.
Avina's manpower was split between the beasts and the undead, with the latter taking more precedence given the seemingly fearful long-term issues. The nobles were rather confident of their combative abilities in their home grounds given that their Artists have had years to fortify different places with a variety of different enchantments. They felt that that was enough to fight a stronger beast tide as they were already well-versed in dealing with the yearly tides.
To them, a beast tide was simply a large population of beasts approaching the area, making sailing dangerous for the time being. The tides would rise, allowing some aggressive fish to jump onto the harbours and that was it.
But Sir Xiu knew that this time it was different. Thus, his aforementioned worries.
"I would like it if it would be, but the threat of those Undead Remnants truly is terrifying. If it grows too much and we have no way to fight it, it could be the end of an entire country, perhaps even the world."
Athelei smiled when he heard Sir Xiu's words and a bit of mystery laced his tone, "Nothing ends just like that, Sir Xiu..."
"There are always twists and turns we can never expect. Who knows, maybe a twist will help us?" He said with a pair of glistening eyes.
"By that logic, the twists can also hasten our downfall, yes?" Sir Xiu wryly laughed and massaged his temples, "I guess I'm being too pessimistic... It's quite late, now that I think about it. You can sleep, Orien. You did well today."
An embarrassed chuckle left Athelei lips when he heard Sir Xiu pour cold water onto his attempts at cheering the man up. He kept the words, [As long as it is an End, it should be fine, no?] chained down inside him. Humans were not fond of such a mindset, as many valued their lives.
There were even those who sought immortality, and Athelei could only sigh when he saw them wishing for such sky-scraping heights.
'An infinite lifespan is... tragic, in so many ways.'
Accepting the embrace of death was akin to absolute nothingness to mortals, and such a state gives meaning to their lives. If they never died... or never had an end, then their existence would be incomplete.
Only Denizens of Infinity, whose entire existences were paradoxical in nature could withstand such a state.
"Thank you, Sir Xiu." In the end, that was what Athelei let out of his lips, "I am pleased to know that I did not disappoint."
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It was near midnight when Athelei made it back to his bedroom. He collapsed onto his bed as his exhausted infant-like body reached its limits. Sleep consumed him almost instantly. If not for his Rank 1 Tangible Will, he would not have been able to drag his feet back to his room.
The servants would have had to carry him back, which was the fate of many other young noble children who were forced into attendance.
Several minutes after Athelei fell asleep, Nikiri Mist appeared in the room he rented in a middle-class neighbourhood.
When he shifted through the wooden walls, however, he noticed the poor state of his room.
'Forceful intrusion... Possibly hostile, lacking in information about their target which should be me... Also very hurried for some reason...' Athelei used Inspect to hint him towards likely assumptions and paint an image.
Among Nikiri Mist's belongings, only his damaged clothes had been left behind. All of his scavenged items had disappeared, and that meant nearly all of his belongings. A lot of his stuff had been taken from the remains of those who had perished during the chaotic battle at the God's Altar.
'Luckily...' Athelei drifted into the ceiling of his room and walked among the pillars that supported the building's entire weight. He found a hollow in the stone and wood.
Loosely fit into that hollow was an antique-looking handbook with chafed leather covers and yellowed pages.
'...I hid the more important item in a safe place.' Athelei dryly laughed, 'I wonder who confiscated all my stuff? And for what reason?'
Athelei then took what remained of his gear, wrapped himself in a cheap blood-stained cloak, and snuck out of the building he had rented a room in. He made sure to cover as much of himself as he could as he thought,
'Did someone tail me from the docks? Were they suspicious of me? Was it a citizen of Avina? An Adventurer? An Exiled in hiding? Can I use this opportunity to level up Sneaky perhaps? After all, I need people somewhat hostile to me if I want to test out that idea...'
Athelei knew how sketchy he looked, especially with the Nightwalkers showing up so often as well as how the Undead Remnants were very similar to him. As such, he had expected something of the sort to occur. He was just surprised to see it now and not earlier or later.
'First thing's first, I need another Nebula Gem.' Athelei crafted a rickety plan to find out the answers to his questions.
No one liked orange Users snooping around, after all. He needed a little trinket to prove his non-ostracized identity.
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.
Athelei was standing in a dark space in-between buildings. He shed his blood-stained cloak and shifted through the walls of the building to his left. In a moment, he found himself in an empty jewellery shop, with different products on display.
Without thinking, Athelei dispersed himself into a thin grey fog and roamed the store. He was looking for the accessories with functionality—which were necklaces or bracelets with a Nebula Gem.
It did not take him long to find what he needed, and Athelei discovered a ring protected underneath a locked glass cage.
'Hmmm,' Athelei hummed before infiltrating the locks with his fog-body and then pushing its different pins. He avoided using Tangible Will or any Mystic Patterns to avoid the security measures put in place. Only physical influences would allow him to secretly take what he needed.
Click!
After picking the lock, Athelei took on a more solid humanoid form and easily lifted the ring out of its prison. He then made his way to one of the shop's windows, opened it ever so slightly, and threw the ring out.
A few moments later, a figure wearing a blood-stained cloak walked by that same window and picked something off of the ground. The figure did it seamlessly, without any of the passersby being too suspicious of what they were doing.
Its footsteps then moved towards the dirtier portions of Avina, and a soft tune sounded out from its lonely visage.
'I wonder how hostile they are? Do they simply want to ask questions? Unlikely. Kill on sight? Perhaps, but not quite... Imprison and interrogate? A good chance...' Athelei asked himself, wondering what kind of information he could glean from the underground.