Nikolai smiled wickedly.
"I like the way it sounds, Silence. But why? You don't speak?" He scoffed.
"Can't show my face or my voice, right?"
Nikolai's eyes went wide.
"You REALLY didn't speak? You're crazier than I thought, Kurt!" Then he laughed wholeheartedly. "But I'm glad you could save the man, even though he was a trash bag. A life is a life, right?"
Kurt nodded while Nikolai took some paper towels and handed to him, so he could clean his nose and mouth, red with blood.
"Also, Nikolai..." Kurt looked at him seriously, as he was turning to leave Kurt's room. "I need to ask you something."
Nikolai stood silent, looking at Kurt.
"I saw some boxes in the basement, filled with what I thought were pots of flowers, herbs and other things like that. What are you going to do with them?"
"Oh, that? They were already here when I arrived, so I was thinking of selling them to a gardener or something." Kurt started laughing at the idea. "Why are you laughing?"
"Nothing. It's just that selling poison to a gardener wouldn't be so good." He coughed while laughing.
"Poison?" Nikolai looked at Kurt with wide eyes. "How do you know that?"
"It's one of the skills I acquired because of this system." Kurt paused when the thought struck him. "Which reminds me of something, but mind if we talk about it while going to the basement?"
Nikolai nodded and led the way as they talked.
"So, something strange occurred during the fight with Leblanc, and it reminded me of when Quintus almost killed me."
And as they went down the stairs, Kurt told Nikolai about everything that happened when he fought Quintus and was left for dead inside a barrel in the bottom of the docks.
"So you 'did' awaken, then? But I thought this system of yours was some kind of a friendly thing or whatever. Why would it bug on you like that? And two times, like one wasn't enough."
"I don't know, and I probably lost my only chance of understanding it."
His tone became darker as Nikolai looked at him, a question mark beaming in his brow.
"Evellyn, the girl who will become this person in the future, the Red Oracle. She's a member of the Shadow Guild, and I killed their leader, so yeah..."
"You really believe that?" Nikolai's tone was strangely doubtful when he asked, and Kurt noticed it.
"Nikolai... When you were alive in the previous version of my life, we hung out for years, like, we spent the rest of our childhood 'and' ten years after that, we were still around each other. If there's one thing I learned about you, is that no matter in which version of my life I am, you're always the best when it comes to gut feeling. So... Do you really not believe that she sees me as a villain even now?"
"Kurt, Kurt, Kurt... My little brother of the same age, if what you told me about her is certain, then she 'is' an oracle, right? So she can see past, present 'and' future. And if she can see all this things, who can guarantee that she didn't see you and your situation when she told you about this... Crystal thingy?"
Kurt thought about it, but became silent until they reached the basement.
Kurt showed Nikolai the boxes, but when Kurt himself looked at them again, the system window that showed their names and utilities was full of glitches.
"What the fuck?"
"What?" Nikolai frowned at Kurt.
"Nothing, just the system window. It's glitched. Probably still bugged from before. Anyway, I remember some of the contents of the boxes are deadly plants, so I was thinking-"
"You don't even have to ask!" Nikolai gave a big smile. "They're yours, after all, you're helping me establish my business without getting into more trouble than the necessary, and you're also helping people by hunting those monitoring division suki down. What else can I say?"
Kurt smiled and let out a big sigh.
"I was thinking of moving down here, too. In order to turn this place into a laboratory."
"I'll ask my men to reorganize all this stuff and move your things down here, then. Now, how about some Italian?"
"Sounds wonderful." Kurt nodded. 'How can Nikolai be so young and still have all this hunger for the luxuries in life?'
He laughed inwardly, following Nikolai outside.
***
After dinner, Kurt went to his room and laid his head in the pillow, mulling over everything that happened during the day.
And when he least noticed, he fell asleep.
***
When Kurt opened his eyes, there was a black sky over his head with no stars, and below, a red liquid vastness surrounded him.
"Where am I?"
Kurt felt a slight sense of familiarity, but strangely, the feeling also carried an urgent sense of danger.
He tried moving forward, but the more he walked, the more the red liquid would rise above him, so he tried walking backwards, with the same result.
It seemed as though no matter what he did, the red substance would irrevocably swallow him whole, so he breathed in deeply, and waited for that to happen.
When it did, it was dark under the liquid, but Kurt didn't feel like he was under water. The sensation was more oppressive, more overwhelming.
His heart beat faster, but he chose to overcome the fear for that unknown situation.
'It's just a dream...'
He looked around, trying to see something and noticed a faint, black glow towards what seemed to be the bottom of that strange sea, so he swam harder and harder, in order to reach that black light.
Only that when he paid closer attention, it seemed like he wasn't the only one moving there.
The black light was moving towards him too.
And before he could try to move away from whatever that was, he saw his surroundings getting darker, followed by an impressive and overwhelming force grabbing him.
Kurt couldn't breathe and couldn't speak, so he could only wait for whatever that thing was, to reveal its form.
But it didn't.
It only squeezed Kurt tighter and tighter, until he couldn't not scream, filling his insides with that strange, red liquid.
"YOU... CANNOT... OVERPOWER... THE...-"