Chapter 1123 (1/2)
As the ground vibrated and buzzed around them, the combination of Randidly, Lady Iellaya, and Abiodun quickly ended the Nether offensive. Yet by the end of it, Randidly was grimacing.
Even if Randidly was glad to be back in his body with all of his faculties, the separated and now reunited perceptions made the whole experience of the reunion rather uncomfortable. Mostly, the fragments of consciousness that were previously just images now were chafing under the constant physical sensation of exhaustion that came along with a physical body.
Although the images experienced a rough go of it on the frontlines, they had shed the rather troublesomeness of a physical body and had been too preoccupied with the other problems to notice. But now all those tiny experiences and sensations that were a constant companion to a physical body came right back and weighed down on Randidly.
Which was to say nothing of the extremely significant mental exhaustion. Making it back here had not been a simple or easy process.
Just as Randidly was getting so frazzled that he barred his teeth toward the sky, Vualla swayed next to him. Turning quickly, Randidly was there just in time to catch Vualla’s shoulders as she collapsed sideways.
The first thing that Randidly noticed was how light she was; it barely took any effort on his part to support her slowly to a laying position.
They were still standing on the broken wreckage of the land directly in front of the headquarters while Lady Iellaya mopped up the remnants of the Nether army. Several collapsed tents and overturned supply wagons were scattered around them. Nearby, Abiodun stood by the warped remnants of the emergency battlements and barked out orders to the soldiers that were still doing well enough to follow them. Under his direction, they began to search the battlefield for the wounded.
They saved the Aether soldiers… and took great relish in killing the Nether Beasts.
Seeing that there was no threat to them in the immediate vicinity, Randidly allowed his attention to focus directly on Vualla. But he did trust that his Grim Intuition would warn him if the situation changed.
Vualla’s eyelids fluttered and Randidly couldn’t help but notice that even her eyelashes were that vivid shade of azure. Almost unconsciously, his hands tightened on her shoulders as he allowed her to lean all the way back against the ground. There she remained for several seconds, clearly struggling to get her bearings.
After taking several rapid breaths, some of the fogginess from Vualla’s gaze lifted and she was able to focus on Randidly. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, and Randidly wasn’t sure if she was smiling or about to cry.
“Sorry,” She whispered. Her hand reached up and curled around Randidly’s forearm. Or maybe she tried to reach his face and her hand ran out of steam and collapsed, limp, against the highest limb she could reach. “My Fate was damaged against the Nether Gatekeeper. So I might be a bit… it will take a while for me.”
Then she smiled, but it was forced and awkward, an obvious invitation for Randidly to join in Vualla’s self-mockery. “Fighting a Nether Gatekeeper… It was too much, even for me. And I… It was bad. So… so dark. I could feel the way death… while I was fighting it, before you came, I could feel-”
Vualla bit her lip. Despite Randidly’s resolution to carefully control his emotional response toward Vualla, he felt his gaze softening. Even though the separate consciousnesses of the images that had been forcibly pulled apart were only starting to be blended back together, it was hard to fight against the genuine purity of the emotion Grim Chimera felt for Vualla.
To the Grim Chimera, Vualla was singular.
And it was precisely against that premise that Randidly felt so helpless. Because it was simply not the case that no one like Vualla had ever existed. Yet to say that to the Grim Chimera...
But now’s not the time to have that internal fight. Pressing his eyes together, Randidly allowed some of his throbbing headache to pass. Then he dropped his hand from her shoulder to her palm. It was still sticky with dried blood as he squeezed it. “Rest. It looks like everything is solved here.”
“Randidly, I have to-” Vualla struggled to sit up to bring her face toward his, but she truly seemed feeble at the moment. Her shoulders flexed, but her neck seemed as limb as spaghetti. Randidly wasn’t sure about the details but based on what he knew about Fates, the fact that it reduced Vualla to this was worth noting. “I need… I swore that if I saw you again, I would tell you… I’m so glad I met you. Truly. You… you’re beautiful. You changed my life.”
“...ah…?” Blinking, Randidly considered Vualla for several seconds. But it seemed that phrase had released the tension from Vualla’s body and she slumped back onto the ground. Her eyes fluttered and her mouth opened, but then she was asleep.
You’re beautiful. The Grim Chimera that swirled around Randidly’s chest was buzzing like an entire powerplant’s worth of electricity had been run through his body. There was happiness, confusion, glee, suspicion, and mostly a dangerous anger, directed at Randidly for continuing to keep his realization about Vualla from the Grim Chimera.
But it’s not that simple. There are so many problems to solve… let’s worry about this one later. Randidly could only sigh and massage his temples. But damn, it was good to have real, human-shaped hands against. Even if one of them was metal.
So Randidly was just sitting blankly over Vualla when Lady Iellaya and Abiodun returned from their work.
Lady Iellaya cracked her neck with a huge smile on her face. “Heh, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to let loose like that. You being able to sweep aside all the small fries… Truly, I’ve underestimated you, Mr. Ghosthound.”
Perhaps because he had been forced to completely deplete his Mana pool, which was extremely impressive considering the small Mana expenditure of the Skill, Randidly smiled thinly but said nothing to Lady Iellaya’s comment. Truthfully, his harassment had relied on momentum and image by the end of it. Plus, his joints ached. Having a body was decidedly troublesome.
Even if it only took a scant few points of Mana to launch a deadly attack with a thorny root, when there were ten thousand Nether Beasts to deal with Randidly quickly ran out of gas to slaughter open a path to the Nether Gatekeepers. And that didn’t even take into account the mental strain that Randidly incurred while trying to manipulation the innumerable roots.
But if nothing else, this experience of existing as several images in addition to my body has prepared me adequately to deal with all manner of mental strain, Randidly thought with a sigh. But even so, the Nether cores in his chest spun. Aether radiated outward, slowly restoring life to his body that had been so long suppressed.
Abiodun bowed deeply while Randidly was catching his breath. “Thank you for assistance… both with this victory, and with the issue of the Class. We will not forget these favors.”
“...It’s no problem, but I feel like we haven’t even bought ourselves very much time,” Randidly said lightly while looking up at the swirling mass of darkness above. Nether Beasts had briefly ceased their assault with the deal of three Nether Gatekeepers, but that was likely akin to bandaging a man who had been run through. As long as the stomach wound remained, that man would slowly die no matter how many bandages he possessed.
Then he turned and looked up at the headquarters, where Lord Miln and that fuck Cail Tweocs waited. Enemies on all sides...
“Which is why we should use immediately,” Lady Iellaya said with a smirk. Nodding toward Vualla, she continued by saying. “After you drop her off somewhere, come to my Command Tent. I’m willing to begin the ritual immediately. The sooner I have the strength worry of my status, the better.”
Scratching his ears, Randidly ran through Yggdrasil’s memories to try and get a grip on what had been promised. The more time passed, the more the images began to integrate back into him. As he familiarized himself with Lady Iellaya’s situation, he chewed his lip. From what he could remember, the prospect was daunting, to say the least. And Yggdrasil hadn’t been able to get much prep work done.
For his part, Randidly’s consciousness had largely been consumed with an elaborate, and losing, game of chess with the suppression array inscribed on the pod inside of which he had been trapped. Although early on he was relatively free to act, it slowly created complicated Aether constructions to bind him.
When Randidly had broken those, it would create more sophisticated ones that would eliminate the weakness he had exploited. Certainly, it had pushed Randidly’s Aether Manipulation Skills to the limit and earned him the Runic Rarity Skill Aether Surgeon, but it had also left him increasingly unable to follow what was happening with his images. So most of the details that he was now learning from Yggdrasil came as a surprise.
It wasn’t just that she was stealing Aether from her subordinates. Rather, she was stitching all these individual’s Aether directly into the substance of ‘her’. Dangerous… but I suppose I somehow managed something similar with the Alpha Cosmos. To make a Class large enough to encompass all of that isn’t impossible, but without time to experiment…
...or more importantly, rest...
Outloud, Randidly said. “...I think it’s best that I take a little more time with my physical body to acclimate myself before we can commence with your new Class’ creation. Especially due to the matter of adjusting your Fate. I’m… admittedly unfamiliar with the inner workings of Fates, but I have a few ways to address that-”
Before Randidly could continue, Abiodun stepped forward with glowing eyes and heaving shoulders. His rocky fists were still splattered with the dark matter of the Nether Beasts.“After everything that we have done for you…! If you think the return of your body means-”
“Abiodun, peace.” Lady Iellaya laid a hand on his arm and considered Randidly. “I don’t believe our friend wants to back out of his promise… he simply wants a chance to rest. Truly, having the images separated from the body is not an easy thing. To have them return is a boon… but there are costs with that too, I’m sure.”