The metallic echo of the voice—feminine? Robotic? An impossible blend of both?—faded into the silence of the chamber, a dense, heavy silence that seemed to absorb any other sound. "Dungeon Coins," "Demon King," "underground domain"... words that resonated in the emptiness of Sebastian's mind, signifiers without meaning, abstract concepts floating adrift, unanchored to reality, like dry leaves swept away by a freezing wind, invisible but relentless.
He lowered his gaze to the young woman he held in his arms. She was naked, her curvaceous body barely covered by the shirt Sebastian had given her. Despite her state of undress and vulnerability, she snuggled against Sebastian's chest, as if he were the only person she could trust. She was light, too light, as if her bones were made of glass, not calcium; as if, beneath her pale, translucent skin, there was nothing, only a cold, dark void. Her large green eyes, now open and fixed on the hologram, shone with a serene curiosity, a curiosity that didn't seem human, but rather that of a wild animal observing an incomprehensible phenomenon, or that of a small child fascinated by a new toy, without understanding its purpose or danger. Oblivious to the weight of the words, to the horror that gripped Sebastian's heart and made it difficult to breathe normally, she seemed more interested in the flashes of light and the changing symbols than in the meaning of what had just been revealed, imposed, in the chamber.
Demon King. The phrase returned to his mind, absurd, incongruous. He looked at the young woman. Her pale, dirty face, framed by strands of an impossible green—hair? Some kind of plant?—her broken horns, one of them reduced to a splintered stump, her dress of dry, withered, and brittle leaves... A Demon Queen? It was madness. A contradiction. An idea that defied all logic, all common sense.
But what if...?
A shiver, more intense than the unnatural cold of the dungeon, which seemed to emanate from the stone itself, ran down his spine, from the nape of his neck to the base of his vertebral column. What if it were true? What if this young woman, this seemingly defenseless girl, was really a creature of immense, unimaginable power? What if all this—the orb, the hologram, the voice, the dungeon itself—was real?
No, he told himself, trying to cling to the little sanity he had left, trying to reject the idea, the possibility, that was making its way into his mind like a poisonous vine. There has to be another explanation. There has to be... His training, his life as a herbalist, rebelled against the very idea of magic, of demons, of dungeons. Science, empirical knowledge, the observation of nature... that was what was real. That was what mattered. And yet...
And yet, he was there. In an underground chamber, with no memory of how he had arrived. With a strange and powerful young woman in his arms. In front of a magical orb and an inexplicable hologram.
His gaze, desperate, erratic, searching for answers where he knew he wouldn't find them, turned back to the orb. The crimson sphere, floating in the air at chest height, pulsed with a soft, hypnotic light, like a heart beating in the darkness. And, in front of the orb, the hologram was still there, suspended in the air, displaying its strange symbols, like an indecipherable hieroglyph that, he intuited, contained the key to everything, the answer to all his questions.
But he didn't approach it. He didn't dare.
The memory, the sensation, wasn't visual. It was visceral. A pressure in his chest. A buzzing in his ears. A dull ache in his head. The wave of energy. The invisible force he had felt moments before. That had thrown someone through the air... Who? The question floated in his mind, unanswered.
No. He couldn't touch that. Not yet. Not until he knew. Until he... remembered?
But how was he going to remember? His mind was a wall. A smooth, cold, impenetrable wall. A white desert where nothing grew, where there was nothing, only a terrifying emptiness.
The young woman moved a finger, bringing it closer to one of the symbols on the hologram, to the image of a grotesque monster, without actually touching it. An involuntary, unconscious gesture, as if an invisible force, different from that of the orb, guided her, as if her fingers moved on their own, following a pre-established pattern, a forgotten ritual.
And, with that movement, with that minimal gesture, the hologram changed.
The image of the four tabs—Monsters, Traps, Treasures, Shop—disappeared, vanishing like smoke in the air.
The young woman emitted a sound. A guttural, soft sound, almost a moan, a sound that was not human, but neither was it animal. A sound that seemed to come from the depths of the earth, from the bowels of the dungeon.
Sebastian looked at her. Her eyes, now, were fixed on the description of the orb. And, on her face, in her expression, Sebastian thought he saw something more than curiosity. He thought he saw... recognition? Longing? Desire?
"What... what is it?" Sebastian asked, in a low voice, to the young woman, knowing, deep down, that he wouldn't get a verbal answer. "What does all this mean?"
The young woman didn't answer. Not with words.
But she pointed to the orb. With a trembling, dirty finger, with a broken nail.
And then, she pointed to herself.
To her chest. To the place where her heart should be.
A simple, unequivocal gesture.
A gesture that, despite the amnesia, the confusion, the fear, Sebastian understood perfectly.
The orb.
The young woman.
Connected.
United.
Linked.
In some mysterious, inexplicable, supernatural, but real way. Undeniable.
And, at that moment, upon understanding that connection, upon accepting it as a truth, Sebastian felt something else.
Comprehension. He didn't care who the girl was, whether she was evil or benevolent. The only thing that mattered was that the girl was the only thing he had in this world... the only thing Sebastian knew, and he was determined to take care of her.