151 A Race Against Time (1/2)

Reed kept his chin up and maintained the stately image that was required of him in the presence of the public at large. He knew that the moment he stepped out of the isolation chamber he would have to don the mask of the prince once more.

The world at large knew not of Reed. They only knew about Stainless Prince of the East and Lord Evergreen of the North. To the world, the man known as Reed was inconsequential — a tragic shadow of a terrible past who had become the risen, shining star he was now.

This was the truth. If the Stainless Prince was the Sun, then Reed was but a shadow and nothing more. It bothered him how his public image was perceived, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not anymore. His own status had outgrown him, to the point that had become impossible to rectify now.

In the eyes of the whole world, Reed was someone else entirely. Not himself, but an arisen phoenix who represented the enduring struggle of the weak. He was a Light of Hope for the small and voiceless in the face of uncertainty, fear, and oppression.

It would be a huge understatement to say that Reed ”disliked” the public's perception of him. He thoroughly loathed it. Those expectant, gleaming gazes that were full of innocent adoration, joy, and worship.

They were all strangers to Reed, but they did not have the expressions of strangers. Where these people would have seen a stranger in someone else, they saw a much more in him.

Frankly speaking, it was extremely off-putting for Reed. For him, who had been born into nothing and had trusted nothing, the idea of having other people look and think of him as some kind of hero was truly suffocating.

In many ways, it was akin to giving a humble field mouse an acting role that should have belonged to a prideful and majestic lion. The role of a leading actor did not suit him in the slightest, in Reed's opinion...

”Have you finished your preparations, my boy? Shall we commence as planned?” said Velvund.

”Yes. Let's start as soon as the conditions are the best for our entry. After that, it'll be up to you to hold the fort while we're gone,” said Reed.

”Don't wait for us if you see the anomaly grow stronger than you can handle. Pull back if it becomes too much for the stabilizers to handle. It is preferable that all of you survive than to have you all foolishly make an ill-advised rescue attempt,” said Lu'um.

Velvund stroked his chin and said, ”...If that eases the burden on both of you, then so be it then. Don't bite more than you can chew, though. If you see that it's too much, escape as fast as possible.”

He grabbed Reed and Lu'um and brought them close, as if to offer them some form of comfort, but he knew that they were likely not even remotely concerned with what laid in front of them.

Velvund couldn't even detect the slightest bit of fear or hesitation in Reed's soul. It was like a pure sheet of white, without even the smallest amount of pigment on it. There was no fear, hatred, anxiety, joy, jealousy, worry...

There was nothing there. The color of his soul was white or rather, it was transparent.

That was a worrying thing for Velvund. It was indicative that he had undergone some form of emotional conditioning, given the obvious absence of emotion. Reed was far too balanced, more than what was considered necessary.

To him, it was evident that he had scrubbed his emotions clean -- which was not a bad thing -- but Reed had clearly overdone it. That was a major red flag in Velvund's book.

The girl was no better, for she was like a maelstrom of color, much like the anomaly in front of them. One moment the hue of her soul was as peaceful and tame as could be before it turned into a raging swirl of dark, almost pitch-black darkness.

To Velvund, it was like staring into a literal kaleidoscope of finely managed chaos that bordered instability. She was juggling a thousand emotions in a burning house, all the while trying to convince herself that everything was perfectly fine.

What in the Goddess's name happened to them? They had been just fine not even half a day ago... and now they're both like THIS? Oh, the pains of youth... Hopefully, they get past whatever they're dealing with...

As two halves of the same coin, when one of them was spiritually afflicted so, too, was the other. Such was the nature of the soulbond between both of them.

A stone falling into one face of the pond meant that a ripple would naturally form on the other face as well. Flowers of Fear had been growing on both sides for the longest in secret.

Neither side had dared to pluck them out by the roots for fear of what kind of damage would ensure, so they ignored them for the longest. Hence, they would continue to grow and propagate without end like a virus until...

Neither of them wanted to think about it. Instead, they would continue to keep that ticking time bomb buried for as long as they could. It was an unspoken agreement between the two.