BEEP BEEP BEEP!
"Huh…?" That incessant beeping was a sound he heard hundreds of times in the past. At least before he was spirited away to a new world. Instinctively he reached his right arm out in an attempt to slam down on the device making that noise.
CRASH!
With a loud crash and bang, the alarm clock that had disturbed his rest was slain in one fell swoop, falling to the ground and subsequently shattering into bits of plastic and electronics. "Fuhhh~" The boy released a content sigh before turning to his side.
He ignored the rustling of paper each of his movements made, pulling the blanket over his head while groaning at the loud creaking that had resounded outside his room.
BANG BANG BANG!
'She's here…' He mumbled inside his mind.
WHOOSH!
The bedroom door slammed open as a gust of wind rushed into the room, before Ivan could respond a familiar figure had appeared at his bedside. She held two pans in her hands and held them over the bed, glaring at him as if to threaten him with a bad time.
"Wake up, Ivan! You'll be late for school! Don't make me clang these things together…" To sike him out she moved her hands together slowly. Her eyebrows narrowed with each passing second dangerously.
"A-Ah, alright mom… I'll get up so please don't!" Seeing as how feigning wasn't going to work Ivan quickly got up to plead with the devil herself. He stuffed his arms between the two pans right before they collided and successfully muffled the damage.
"Phew~" He let out a sigh of relief and threw the blanket that clung to his body onto the face of his attacker. Ivan grabbed the clothes he had readied the night before on the rolling chair in front of his pc.
Dashing out and slamming the door behind him to buy time whilst simultaneously changing on the way down the staircase.
He deftly fixed his tie and brushed the wrinkles out of his blazer before taking a seat in the dining room. He took a spoonful of the pancakes laid before him while snickering at the sound of banging footsteps.
"IVANNNN!" Ivan turned to look at the figure that burst into the dining room fuming. She wore a green apron over her yellow t-shirt and light blue denim jeans, her long brown hair was done into a ponytail that stopped right above her butt.
Her blue eyes gleamed with a violent light as she shuffled toward him with her pale-colored arms.
"I-It's great that you could make it for breakfast, mother… Hehehe…" Ivan responded with a dry laugh, pretending as if everything that led up to this moment simply didn't happen. His mother in turn walked up to him and relentlessly pinched both of his cheeks, pulling them in different directions not caring that his mouth was still full of pancake bits and syrup.
"Mm pleas-guh… nom, nom! Keh! Milk please–!" Ivan yelled out loud before downing the pitcher of milk that was handed his way.
"Hahhh~" The day had only begun and Ivan felt as though he sighed more times now than in the past few months.
"Ehehe~ Sorry bout' that~!" His mother only cutely stuck her tongue out before giving a half-hearted apology. To that Ivan's response was to stare back at her with lifeless eyes, after a few moments though he decided to go ahead and join her in her laughter.
RING RING RING!
"Hm?" Ivan looked around the dining room before remembering that he had a watch on his wrist, he silenced its alarm before turning back to his mother. "Sorry, mom! I gotta head to class now!"
He got up in a hurry before slinging the bag over his shoulder, that's when his mother who had been standing the whole time took a seat and rested her chin on the hands supported by her elbows. She grinned mischievously before calling out to him.
"Ah– About that… Ehehe, it's Sunday today~!" She emphasized each word, her grin growing wider as the slice of toast Ivan was holding in his mouth fell to the ground.
Even when he thought he had won he still lost.
"Y-You mean you knew I'd break my alarm clock so I wouldn't be able to see the date…?"
"Hmm, it's more accurate to say I placed it on the edge of the desk knowing you'd knock it down in an attempt to turn it off. Though I gotta say I'm quite surprised it shattered, worst case scenario I thought the batteries would fall out and roll under the bed!"
She raised both her arms as a sign of defeat under his intense glare, only continuing her laughter when Ivan formed a wan smile on his face. He sighed once more before dropping his bag to the ground and returning to his former seat across from her.
"Hey, mom… how's it been?" Ivan spoke after a few seconds of silence, taking a sip from the piping hot coffee she had left out for him.
"Hm? What an odd question, hahaha! But if you're so curious then who am I to not indulge ya'? So y'know how your father's birthday is comin' upright? What says me and you throw a HUGE party with some of his co-workers and friends~? I'm sure he'll enjoy it if we can get his favorite bar to cater for us!"
Ivan's mother snickered before revealing her plan with a hand cupped around her mouth as if afraid anyone other than Ivan would hear her plan. Though that worry was unnecessary as Ivan's father had already left to work that morning.
" My father huh…" Ivan responded with a dry voice as he muttered aloud pensively, his expression complex before bending his head over to take a sip from his mug.
"Mou~ Don't be like that, Ivan! I know it's a shame your father ain't around too often but he does what he can for the house! I mean if it weren't for him I'd probably be working some dingy 9-5 job just so we could get by. Though it's thanks to your father that he won't even let me help him out… hahhh— how stubborn!"
She finally had the opportunity to release a sigh herself before she in turn also took a sip of the mug she prepared for herself.
Though it wasn't his father's lack of attentiveness that was bothering Ivan, it was for another reason that he had a complex expression whenever his father was mentioned. Hate welled up in him as he saw how fondly his mother spoke of him.
'And… a desire for revenge…?' Ivan muttered inwardly, looking at a hanging photo on the wall of four people.
"Oh yeah, where's sis? I noticed that you didn't prepare any breakfast for her." He raised an eyebrow to his mom as she sighed before rubbing her forehead with her palm.
"Hahhh— That sister of yours… let me tell ya', you weren't nearly as hard to take care of when you were her age!' She slammed her mug onto the table before standing up with her hands on her hips.
"I mean who the hell decides to go to the mall this early on a Sunday? On a SUNDAY! Her friends too, how can their parents be alright with it… even when I spoke to them they didn't seem to care… I mean, the girls are in middle school… Who knows what could happen to them, even thinking about it scares me…"
Ivan allowed his mother to go on and on about how girls these days lacked morals and whatnot as he took brief sips of his coffee. As annoying as his mother's tangents could be he didn't particularly hate this side of her.
'But my sister huh…' Once again Ivan couldn't help but feel that the situation was wrong.
"Oh Ivan, how's your research been going lately? You seem happy so there must've been some great news! I was going to ask you last night but you went straight to bed."
Ivan's mother returned to her seat and propped her head up with her elbows whilst swinging her legs like a child, acting as if the earlier outburst never happened.
"Fufufu~ It's going swell! Oh yeah, on that subject matter I was wondering if I could head on over to Dr. Collin's house to go over a few theories with him. He even said if they sound good he'd be willing to introduce me to a few of his scientist friends!"
"Go right ahead! I'm sure he'll have no problem lending an ear to hear what you have to say. In fact, I'd bet he'd be just as happy to see you again!" Ivan's mother cupped her right cheek with her right hand, her ponytail swaying as she looked at her son with an expression of exasperation.
"Ah, so that's it…" Suddenly Ivan's vigor turned into disappointment. He slumped back in his chair whilst ignoring the curiosity of his mother.
"I have 128 thought processes, mother. And right when I remembered that I realized it— Ivan Korei has no father, Ivan Korei has no sister, he only has a single mother who worked hard just to raise her only son. And that mother, you, did not take so kindly to his fascinations as you are now."
Ivan stood from his chair, circling the table to stand face to face with his 'mother'.
"It's been nagging me really, I couldn't help but feel like I was forgetting something important. Truly a devious trap set up by the dungeon, I guess reading our memories wasn't just to create clones of our close ones, but to also create a world that matched our ideals.":
He lifted the hand of his 'mother' who since grew cold eyes, entangling it with his own as he looked back at her earnestly.
"Here your mother doesn't have to suffer, here she accepts your goals. Here she wasn't abandoned by her lover, she wasn't rejected of her wish to have another child. And the same goes for you, the family you were deprived of exists solely here."
The 'mother' had dropped the veil of care it had worn before, directly putting what Ivan had already summarized.
"While that's most certainly true I could think of more tragic things than my desire for my mother's approval, such as the loneliness she must've felt after finding out her son had disappeared."
He dropped the hand that had been intensely clenching his own, musing slightly as he admired the depths this illusion ran. As for warmth, smell, and atmosphere, all of it was just as he remembered.
"Rather than appreciating the fake in front of me as a son it's my duty to refer to the real deal, she's still waiting for me after all…"
The space trembled as Ivan felt his control over his boundary slightly return, he forced it to push through with more and more mana, imbuing it with space and gravity magic in an attempt to shatter the dream he was stuck in.
"Hmph, not to mention my loveable assistants and companions who I promised to bring back to the real world. Sorry for not even attempting to see this world you made of me, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if any of the others managed to break out first!"
The illusion finally smiled, not the smile he recognized from his mother but one that seemed to stem from the creator.
"You pass. There's no value in a world that's always as you want it. And there's no meaning in happiness you didn't earn. Even if it's painful, even if you feel like you can't bear it at times, it's only through overcoming harsh realities one after another that you will achieve true happiness. Never forget that."
It spoke to him with a voice that most certainly wasn't his mother's. But even with these words Ivan couldn't help but feel they were a bit off.
"Huh? Who said anything about unearned happiness?! I was just saying there's still shit I need to take care of!" Ivan's protests went unheard as the illusion copy of his mother just smiled warmly as he was engulfed by a bright light.
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Illusions are pretty cool, though I'm not sure how it works in the case of Arifureta. I'm down to wave it off as 'magic' but maybe it's actually somehow connected to spirit magic. Then again there's a lot of unexplained things in the series, at least in the base series, I'm not familiar with Zero. Like this memory reading magic that's used for every dungeon, sound very powerful to me and yet it only seems to exist as a plot device for the labyrinths.
But that's enough complaining from me for now, sorry if you had to read through it. My motivation lately has waned greatly to what it was in the beginning. I'll be going through it on my final chapter. But until then thanks again for reading, you better have a good ass eveningand I'll see you all real soon~!
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