Chapter 1390 (1/2)

For the first time in her rather short life, Neveah was torn between two choices.

Not that she hadn’t faced difficult decisions in the past. Her bond with Randidly had dragged Neveah through dozens of scenarios that had opened her eyes to the complexity of the world. This current conundrum was just another facet of the wide and wonderful world that Neveah had found when Randidly pulled her gently out of the darkness.

Yet somehow, something was different this time. That usual incisively detached logic that had prodded her in the past was absent. She felt… unmoored in a way that she couldn’t capture.

Perhaps to her detriment, Neveah didn’t often self-reflect. So instead of pulling back and examining the source of the feeling of bewilderment that plagued her, Neveah just continued to frown and consider the problem.

There were times when Neveah wondered why she was there, or what she really was, but this was not one of those times. Although Neveah technically had some free reign with her decisions, she wouldn’t waste it considering unrealistic options. She wouldn’t lose track of time and eventually discover, to her horror, that her buffer period had expired.

She wasn’t human, after all.

Yet now Neveah had to struggle with two equally attractive options and a suddenly absent inner compass: should she push herself through more problems regarding living Engraving for the forging of Randidly’s arm OR should she study the mysterious methods used in the Bizarre Stake?

Randidly was currently within his Alpha Cosmos, to speak with Wendy. From what Neveah could tell, he was there for his arm, and also to get some feedback from a talented engineer about the feasibility of some of his plans for Kharon Academy.

With this extra time, Neveah considered her options from the comfort of Roy’s kitchen table. It was because both were so attractive that she ended up here. Her entire mind was focused on the preparations to fight Kaan Swacc.

Neveah glanced over at Roy. For the past several days, he had become surprisingly accepting of their arrangement. Which made things more convenient, but Neveah somehow found herself missing his small rebellions. No longer would he spit out a ridiculous phrase in response to a normal action from her. He was positively mundane.

Honestly, considering the problem of Roy was something of a nice break from the struggle of the two extremely inviting options in front of her. Neveah leaned back in her chair and released her breath that contained all the stress of the choice. “Huuuuuuuu…..”

Roy was at the stove, methodically cutting vegetables. Neveah’s noise didn’t even earn her a look from him, so she continued to study his back. He didn’t even add a little extra violence to the motion, as though he was slaughtering the vegetables. It was a perfectly economical movement. He was a robot, designed for these tasks.

Suddenly, she had a strange thought as she looked at his back. Recently he had been acting as though Neveah wasn’t even present in his house.

Neveah’s face twitched. Soon. Soon I’ll be done with this diversion and back to work. “Hmph. Well Roy, where’s my afternoon tea?”

Without comment, Roy filled a kettle with water and brought it outside the house and to the fire pit. Although she couldn’t see, Neveah could hear him snap his fingers and reignite the blaze. Soon he walked back into his small cottage and set out an assortment of loose leaf tea that he possessed in front of Neveah so she could make her selection.

Feeling strangely hesitant, Neveah looked down at the neatly labeled paper bags in the larger wooden box. All of Roy’s teas were present. Even the special kind that he kept from a specialty shop Roy raided very early in the System’s arrival. It was a tea that for the foreseeable future, couldn’t be replaced. No one was growing tea right now.

To Roy, tea had always been a special thing. Now it seemed like dried leaves in crinkled paper bags.

For some reason, that made Neveah very, very annoyed. She knew it wasn’t a logical reaction, but this new version of Roy… he vexed her. Was it possible that he was doing it on purpose?

“What the fuck is up with you lately?” Neveah demanded. And this worm of a man had the gall to look up from the cutting board and smile sadly at her.

“I’m resolved for what’s to come.” Roy replied simply. Then he looked back down, picked up the knife, and continued cutting the vegetables.

Neveah knew that her feelings toward Roy were weird. They didn’t quite make sense. But in a way that even Randidly couldn’t understand, Neveah was truly a monster at her core. It was another’s face that she wore in her daily life. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t even humanoid, like Helen or some of the individuals that were birthed by the Alpha Cosmos.

Although Roy started as a human, something he had seen changed him. There were a few times that Neveah had needled him to try and get him to reveal what he had seen while dead, but he had refused to speak about it at all. But even if she didn’t know the details, the changes wrought on him were unavoidable. He had been irreparably marked by the other side.

So to see him like this…! Neveah ground her teeth.

“I guess I’d better be going,” Neveah said loudly as she looked at Roy’s back. “Don’t worry about dinner. In fact, you might as well just throw those vegetables away. You’ve cut far too many for just yourself.”

Without even saying anything, Roy swept the carefully cut vegetables into the trash bin. Feeling furious, Neveah walked out of the cabin and went back to Yystrix’s tomb. If nothing else, she was determined to push forward and figure out a few more tricks for Randidly’s living Engraving.