"And that's how you become Awakened"
Luster finished his talk to veteran soldiers. Sunny sitting near on his Shadow Chair just making sure Luster didn't misspoke. He didn't like to take the effort to talk to many people so he made someone else do that for him. It seemed to work fine.
*laugh*
But the veterans had a different opinion. One with a more unmoved expression asked in a dark tone."Are you serious?""Yes, what's the problem?"
Luster asked innocently. What followed was a wave of complaints.
"We killed hundreds... thousands of these bastards! If you're right we could have awakened long ago! God dammit!""What a bullshit! This... excuse me."
"Sir, with all respect for your rank, and experience, but this is the stupidest thing I ever heard, seriously! How comes?"Luster was confused so Sunny decided to take it from here. He sat up from his chair silencing the audience, and pursued the matter.
"Care to elaborate the question?"
"I mean... look at you! You went through the Nightmares many times, and you probably know many Awakened who did that as well. You probably also went across tens of Awakened during those trials, didn't you?"
"Yes, we did."
The soldier didn't sound happy.
"I didn't mean that as a question... nevermind. I have just one thing to tell you."
And then he raised the voice in dissatisfaction."HOW THE HELL NO ONE HAD ENOUGH BRAINS TO FIND OUT HOW NATURAL AWAKENING OCCURS?"The words hit everyone, and Sunny the most, because it raised in him a serious sense of guilt. How comes? It's a serious question. The soldier talking reduced his volume."And what do you think it is? Our lives are some kind of joke?"
The weight was put on his heart. Behind the mystery of natural awakening there was a truth, a very harrowing truth. One that he surely ignored till it was no other way than to admit it is. However before he had time to really come to terms with the implications of the answer the flaw hurt him so he had to answer. He gestured to Luster to not overreact.If he was a Legacy things would take problematic turns. He would have to at least threaten the soldier a bit. But he isn't from legacies, and doesn't have ambitions to save his honor. Also he's actually at fault here."I don't know! I only learned that recently. I don't consider it a joke.""What does 'I don't know' mean to you?""I don't know why this could escape the attention of the entire community of Awakened. I'm sorry. Really. There were many occasions when we could get the answers. Many of us could. I could. What we did instead is we ignored that possibility. We're inexcusable. We failed you. I did."
The soldier brightened a bit, and calmed down. The rest got a bit more trustful."I'll take that apology, Sunless. Do you still want to Awaken my comrades? Even though how mean I am to you?"
"...yes.""Okay. Let's forget about that. How does 'plunder their soul essence' work? Let's say I'll kill a Dormant Beast with a long range missile. That's actually a very probable scenario. Otherwise all our weapons would be useless. Not to mention that we often use body parts of some Dormant Beast to amplify the effect. Dormant Beast gets obliterated. There's no soul shards left behind. Do I..."Sunny again felt a headache. Usually he doesn't have to answer many questions, especially from random people, who should buy almost any propaganda that institutions would sell to them. This was unusual.
"I don't know. Rather not.""Master Sunless, do you know what the Government did when Europe was overtaken by the abominations?"
"I heard they used some special bombs..."
"Dirty bombs, sir. Really dirty. They give away dangerous radiation. And it affects us even now. As for Europe... we can't even get too close. Because we would get sick, and that's a sickness that even now is very hard to cure... That's not the point. Back then the authorities thought that it might at least stop the spread of the disease.""How would it stop people from being infected by the Spell?""It wouldn't, sir, but they didn't know yet it's the Spell. They thought it's some kind of a supernatural disease that turns people into abominations. And by throwing the bomb at Europe they hoped to stop it from spreading.""But they were wrong. What an irony."
"That's how it goes when you think you know a thing, and you don't. Something unforeseen is bound to happen."
For a moment Sunny could believe it's about a moral. There was just one problem with that. He led the guy to tell it that way."Is there another point?"
"Oh, yes, sorry for telling the stories. Imagine that an official can decide to use a system to launch the bomb. Now that's the past, and it rather wouldn't happen, but back then it was different. Everything is prepared for him so in the end he has only to press the button. The bomb lands, explodes, and even if it can't kill everything, it still evaporates many thousands of these bastards leaving nothing of them behind. Here's the question: Why wouldn't the one pressing that button awaken?"Sunny stared perplexed by the thing it all went for."I don't know. Perhaps he was too far or it's about the characteristics of the weapon used. I don't know. You're really asking questions... But I can't offer many answers. Probably I was lucky just to learn the way.""*sigh* That's enough for me. How many of them can awaken?""I don't know yet. It depends on how much soul shards it takes, but I didn't have anyone to test this. You can test that for me. I also want to see how many Awakened we can make with five thousand shards. Just for the start."
The guy fell to the ground.
"What's wrong with that guy? Is he sick or something?"
Someone has taken care of the fainted soldier. He pointed at another soldier, and summoned one of his lesser chests, this one filled with soul shards."Is it safe? I mean absorbing soul essence."
"Rather yes, if you're not old. After complete awakening things might get trickier though. Don't worry too much about this. I'm working on solutions. Even if you absorb enough essence it will take weeks before you complete your soul core."The veteran started crushing dormant shards using his knife, one after another. Sunny was counting them silently.
"1, 2, 3... 24... 56..."
There was a worm of doubt drilling inside Sunny. Not literal one. If something like this was able to eat him from the inside that would be a serious problem. Looking how his fortune was crushed like was also kind of painful. Each one had to be dug out of a walking horror, and was disgusting. But there weren't many uses for them. Many pieces of spell tech required soul shards to function. Sunny wasn't very interested in spell tech. It has too many limitations, and conditions to work properly.
"It's a bit tiring, Sunless. How much should I crush?""If you crush 500 soul shards, and you still haven't awakened your essence, I consider it a failure."
It's beyond unreasonable that someone could kill 400 Nightmare Creatures, crush their soul shards, and still achieve nothing in terms of awakening so he thought it would be very reasonable to assume that wasting 500 soul shards was a sign of doing something wrong. At least clear enough. This way he wouldn't think he overlooked something."But your shards...""It hurts me more than you so don't complain. Just crush more shards, and count them. We need some estimation."
The rest grew impatient, and soon he could hear them chatting. Sunny was doing the same. He could share some of his incredible adventures from the Antarctica Center, and much more. Some, not only Kim, and Luster, were there with him during the defense of Falcon Scott. Those people went directly to NQSC. But many came from different battlefields. All had personal stories of their own.
Sunny had a problem with sharing his stories though. The world forbade them from remembering him, a war hero. Nonetheless while they couldn't remember him he could easily show them he was there, an opportunity he would gladly take.
Fate was strong, slippy, and very flexible, much more than shadows, but also it wasn't unbreakable. Nothing is. If it could resist one blow, then hit it with two. If hundred is not enough, then hit it with hundred and one. In Sunny's case it means making it impossible to not realize he is. He is, and he cannot be looked down on.
After an hour, and half the veteran who was left to crush soul shards delivered some good news."I feel something.""How much did you crush?"
"154""Rest a bit, and then keep going. We're going to awaken your essence today."Sunny procured some machines meant to brew tea, also pretty fine tea leaves from. He imported them from Bastion using Aiko's connections. Some bought snacks to brighten the mood, and he could keep them around. While goods from there were still expensive, because of relatively low costs of transportation he could use less money.
"Luster, call for Kim. I want her to see this."
...
"Here's a weakness. You should have interlace it with connecting threads there, and there."
"That's good. I don't see any glaring problem."
"How do you want to..."
Kimmy was switching between apprentices, and highlighting their mistakes. She was borrowing their vision for a short time, then pointing out their mistakes.They had to come up with the reason why things were wrong. She could mostly only share her revelation, but she could appear like she's a bit more knowledgeable than she is.
However somewhere along the way she indeed gained some understanding why the weakness of the so-called 'Diamond Weave' is a weakness. Especially when the boss let her use his own insights to see normally invisible enchantments they had to imitate.
There was something off about his vision. It was seeing much more than a human should perceive, and by perceiving she really meant perception. Even Saints don't have to face so many sensual assaults. They were coming from everywhere. Numerous shadows 'wanted' to catch his attention. It was also a perception of someone who learned to ignore such assaults, and sometimes even lock his own senses.
Her aspect wasn't based on senses alone. Her thing was... perception, probably visual one, but still perception. Perception is something that appears in the consciousness after processing sensations into something manageable for the mind.
For some reason her boss has less weakness than anyone she knows, less than a Master should have, but one weakness is really glaring, eyes. Normally that wouldn't be strange. Eyes are usually soft, and vulnerable to harm, but in this particular case her vision showed something different. Eyes weren't vulnerable physically.'He's definitely not just a Master.'"Kim, boss calls you!"
"How many times have I told you not to shout?""Tens already, honey. But this is important. He's about to do this!"
"Do what?"
"This...""This thing he promised?"
"Yes, this."
"Okay, I have to see this!""I'll return soon. Continue weaving. I have to check on something. You can't follow me. In case I won't come back, do as usual."
When they began this embroidery club there were some problems she had to solve in advance. It was up to her to find a way to establish functioning plumbing. Due to lack of access to clean water the hygiene of those people left objections while the nature of this spatial storage made it barely possible to apply normal plumbing. It turned out that she, and Luster had to order sanitary containers. It was that or having them leave every time they felt 'the call of nature'.
It required some correction to prevent them from following their old hygienic habits, which made her angry sometimes. Nonetheless she understood it can't be too easy. At least they all shared some will to change. Also the fact that very often they had to perform 'butchery' on disgusting abominations added to desire to get rid of the stench.She was skeptical about how it's going to turn out. Once a man falls into a cycle of poverty... he also gets problematic tendencies. It's even worse when people have to depend on government provisions. But they also have no one to turn to. There's no resources. Even if there were, they would be claimed by the government or transferred to some company in the form of a concession. Even these hives they live in are not theirs as properties, and they can be kicked out if authorities deem it convenient.
'I can feel pity, but that's what shaped these people. I don't know what he's counting for by taking them. It doesn't seem effective.'
She thought while walking with Luster towards the room with the soldiers.When she appeared she saw something strange. The soldiers were there just as she left, but there was one soldier sitting in a lotus position."He circulates essence, but he's not Awakened. He doesn't resemble a Sleeper either."
"We don't know yet the consequences of awakening naturally so I guess it's okay. By the way, you let someone in."
"Huh?"
Kim turned around, and saw someone who shouldn't be here. A figure very vulnerable, but less than any master. It was an icy beauty wearing clothes made of black leather."I guess you'll have a lot to explain."
"Master Jet!"
She exclaimed."Saint Jet now. I heard something about making Awakened. I had to check on it."She didn't dare to say much. She saw Jet quite a lot during the evacuation of the Falcon Scott, but didn't talk much. It's not much of a secret that Jet is a bloodthirsty murderer. Many wouldn't like to talk with her. Her boss seemed to be less wary of her."Saint Jet, you're welcome, despite how you appear to be. Sneaky as if wanted to take me by surprise."
Yet he was saying it very softly. Kim, and Luster could believe it's rather a way o teasing her, not lecturing."And I failed. According to the law all carriers of the Nightmare Spell are required to surrender. If you don't I may suspect you of making a crime here. How does it sound?""Sounds bad, Saint Jet. You may be a Saint, but some decorum should still apply. Did you knock on the doors?"
"..."
"You didn't, and I don't recall inviting you."She turned around, and made two gentle, yet firm, and loud knocks. Somehow it added another vulnerability to the doors. Then Jet shrugged. Kim widened at what happened.'I'll be damned. Boss is going to be mad at me.'
Jet wasn't even a bit troubled by the remark, but still tried to at least appear apologizing."Well, I'm sorry to disturb you with my manners. However I believe we have something important to discuss."
"It happens that I wanted to contact you on this matter anyway so we're more than fine."
Those words broke the usual relaxed behavior of Jet. This time she somehow sounded rather surprised, and curious."You wanted to contact me... Aren't you one of those who say they want to follow the law only in the vicinity of authorities?"Sunless smiled friendly, charmingly even, because it depended on his handsomeness."Not in this case. No one here is going to become a Sleeper, or Awakened for at least a few weeks, unless we take them to the Dream Realm. That's enough time to contact you through the seer, and register them as Awakened.""You know?"
"Your friends? Yes. I'll explain as much as I can another time. This situation is not good for telling such things. For now I would like to make a proposal."
Jet smiled dangerously, and gave him a thorough look, inspecting him from top hat, and a bow tie up to his shoes."What kind of a proposal? I don't have many proposals from flower boys. Nonetheless I'm flattered, and not interested."Sunless' face reddened. He gulped, and quickly recovered."Not that kind of proposal, of course. That would be quite unromantic. I want you to let me anchor in one of your citadels. Not me necessarily, but that would be easier. I think rather about them."