Chapter 1035 (1/2)
Tatiana blinked at Randidly’s rather disheveled appearance as he stumbled into her office. After setting down the fork with a perfectly portioned bite that featured selections of her medium-rare steak, onions, and baked potato, Tatiana pushed her chair back and stood. She walked hesitantly over toward him.
At her behest, Randidly had worn something close to a suit to go train the Order Ducis recruits. Tatiana had given a persuasive speech to him about the power of the image, and how people would more readily believe he could accomplish the impossible if he looked put together. So, rather bemusedly, Randidly had worn an expensive set of leather armor Tatiana had recommended over his personal equipment.
Now that armor looked like a pinata in the wake of a six-year-old lumberjack’s birthday party.
While seeing Randidly so covered in mud and gore was rather off-putting, that wasn’t the reason why Tatiana felt the sudden need to set her dinner aside. No, what immediately grabbed her attention was a strange heaviness that came into the room when Randidly had arrived. Something was… off. “Ah… is something wrong?”
“Turns out Neveah is a sore loser,” Randidly chuckled and the heaviness immediately lessened. Drips of blood fell from a long gash across his shoulder and landed on Tatiana’s carpet. He raised his right hand awkwardly toward his right shoulder while emerald fire began to dance across his fingers. His own flesh mirrored Randidly’s mouth in hissing as he pressed his flaming hand to the wound, but when he pulled his hand away, the gash was gone.
With a great sigh, Randidly collapsed onto Tatiana’s impossibly expensive werewolf leather couch. Some of that strange moodiness returned. This time, Tatiana was sure it wasn’t her imagination; she could actually see the lights in the room dim as Randidly’s mood turned sour.
“I see,” Tatiana resigned herself to having the couch professionally cleaned later. More important issues to focus on right now. “So, are you alright? It looks like someone dropped a mountain on you.”
“Like I said, sore loser.” After a brief smirk, Randidly’s expression transformed to become extremely serious. “How was the reaction to the moss spirits.”
Moss spirits, that’s what they were, Tatiana reminded herself. She cleared her throat. “Well, quite positive considering the… rather sudden arrival of them. Per your instructions, the workers for the government’s lodgings were escorted away from the affected areas. The guards we used to keep tabs on them were rotated so they were each touched by the… moss spirits. Plus, when people realized that the spirits healed wounds, they took to gathering as many as possible. It became something of a game.”
“Heh, that will have interesting effects.” Suddenly Randidly’s good cheer was back. He straightened, leaving dried blood and dirt smeared on the couch. After a long stretch, he asked Tatiana another question that gave her pause.
“By the way… what do people think of me?”
Due to the strange tremor in Randidly’s tone, Tatiana considered her response carefully. She looked at his shoulders as he faced the wall, ostensibly to examine the impressionist painting of a horse on the salt flats Tatiana had recently added to her office. “What do you mean?”
“The people. The workers. I’ve pushed them and pushed them, and I’ve done things for them that might be impossible. I’ve been trying to impress them on purpose to keep them motivated… but I can’t help but wonder what that makes these people think. Especially with my images… Yggdrasil and the Grim Chimera… those are things of fantasy. I can easily imagine that people would begin to doubt if I’m even human.”
For several seconds, Tatiana stared at Randidly’s back. Strips of leather armor and flesh had been flayed away and hung limply from his back. For several seconds, she couldn’t find an answer. The heavy air pressed against her chest, keeping even her from sucking in a breath to speak. Gritting her teeth, Tatiana forced the words out. “Fame’s a weird thing, isn’t it? Sometimes, it can feel like your life isn’t really your own.”
“Yea, I suppose that’s right,” Randidly replied lightly. And to Tatiana’s relief, some of the pressure around her dissipated.
She took several breaths, struggling to remain as quiet as possible so he didn’t notice. “Even if you stay the same… people start to treat you differently. Because you are a famous actor, a rock star, a CEO… and now a monster slayer. That’s just the sort of culture we live in. People love to put someone up on a pedestal. And toward you… they think you are a hero. To many you are. They found homes and lives working for you, so...”
“Honestly, its not the fact that people have begun treating me different that bothers me,” Randidly replied quietly while still facing the painting. “I’m just starting to wonder… at how much I’ve really changed over the past five years.”
Five years? Is that how much time… has passed for him since the System arrived? Tatiana wondered. With Dungeons, it is a little hard to keep track, but the fact that the time he spent is close to double the actual time… it’s no wonder he’s so far ahead of us. How does he avoid Aether Sickness?
“Randidly, if you ever need to talk, I’m perfectly willing to listen-” Tatiana began, but Randidly waved his hand and turned around. Abruptly, all the pressure in the room was gone.
“No, it’s nothing like that. In fact, I’m actually in a good mood. Sparring against Neveah… really cleared my mind. I was just… curious I guess.” Randidly said with a beaming grin. His emerald eyes were as luminous and clear as a moss-lined pond in a rainforest. “But, I’m going to head to the engine room. Have everyone prepare for some light growing pains as we get everything started.”
“Of course,” Tatiana replied dutifully. Then she bit her lip. She wanted to press again about that strange weight that had hung around Randidly, but some part of her hesitated. But as Randidly’s friend and subordinate, she needed to do this. So she opened her mouth.
And the words that came out completely missed the issue altogether. “...so what are we going to call it? This… new facility you’ve been building.”
“Ah, about that… I’m glad you asked. It’s not just the facility, we will be an entire city now.” Randidly scratched his cheek. “It’s a little on the nose… but we will be Kharon.”
Tatiana narrowed her eyes. “Kharon? That sounds familiar.”
Randidly walked toward the door and waved his hand. “Kharon, who grants passage across the River Styx in Greek mythology. The ferrier between worlds. The bridge to impossibility. Be prepared, Tatiana, because that’s what we need to be.”
And then he was gone. Leaving Tatiana with her regrets and her cooling dinner.
Sighing, Tatiana walked over to the wall and pulled down the impressionist painting. After a guilty glance around, she cracked the frame and shredded the painting within.
Seeing Randidly spend so long looking at it, she had abruptly become aware of how tacky it was. But it did bring her quite a bit of pleasure to destroy something on which she had spent quite a bit of money.
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