When Randidly returned to his island, the first thing that he did was take some time to breathe. It had definitely felt good to completely let loose and fight without relying on his mind at all. He became a body incarnate, striking and moving as his instinct dictated. Which turned out to be an extremely frustrating way of fighting, after he had grown used to relying on his powerful ranged Skills and images, but that difficulty was part of the point.

Still, that exertion had largely spent the emotion that had been steadily bubbling up in his chest for the last twenty-four hours. Finally, he had regained a bit of clarity.

Of course, that wasn’t the only benefit; there is definitely something about not using an image that triggered Illym in the Ignition Essence again… Randidly narrowed his eyes, then hurriedly shook his head. That was an interesting development and one he hadn’t expected, but it wasn’t the most pressing issue right now.

No, what Randidly had to figure out now was what to do about… how weirdly sad he was. Neveah was right, he was grieving the Creature as though he was sure that she had actually died and as though they really were more than enemies.

And even if part of him insisted that the Creature was likely unharmed and just fooling him, somehow he felt-

Pressing his eyes shut, Randidly ended that train of thought immediately. Instead, he focused his attention inward and shifted to his Alpha Cosmos. Since replacing the overlay System in his Alpha Cosmos, Randidly had largely been distracted by other issues, but he had still checked in occasionally to make sure everything was going okay.

Once the overseers agreed to some rules of what Paths and Classes they could give out, it seemed like things stabilized immensely. Or at least, returned to a situation that was similarly stable to the bubbling cauldron of tensions that had been present in the Alpha Cosmos previously. A status quo that involved two empires that were only a miscommunication or two away from a costly and horrifying war.

Luckily there are now a whole slew of very mortal gods wandering around granting powers, Randidly thought sardonically as he held his Philosopher’s Key and felt in the surrounding air for karma. After a few minutes, he located the signature he wanted and opened a wide passageway to visit Lucretia.

If she was surprised when Randidly appeared on the hillside next to her, Lucretia didn’t show it. She kept her eyes lowered and continued the steady process of drawing her fingers across the iron stele in front of her. The two were alone on the top of the hill with a cherry tree and the metal protrusion, the only non-plant entities around for what seemed like miles. The wind rustled through the forest below the hill, giving the strange impression of the world beneath them was breathing.

Although Randidly wanted to address the issue as quickly as possible, it wasn’t something that he would interrupt Lucretia for. Instead, he was content to sit down and study the patterns that Lucretia drew upon the stele. He wasn’t as talented as Neveah was, but their connection did give Randidly something of a natural advantage when it came to Engraving. Especially because of his exposure to Nether Rituals recently.

But as Randidly watched Lucretia drawing curving patterns across the stele, Randidly was… left confused. So he leaned closer and studied the shapes more intently. And of course, when he finally realized what she was doing, he felt almost stupid for not realizing it immediately. She’s trying… to mimick the effects of karma with Aether and Mana? To connect-

Crack!

The stele shattered into pieces as though it had been some sort of jigsaw puzzle rather than a solid piece of metal as Randidly had clearly sensed earlier. Lucretia waved her hand and produce a barrier of Mana in front of herself, but Randidly was quite a bit faster. Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil sent a hundred roots surging out of the ground to snag each jagged piece out of the air and lay it delicately on the ground. The peace of the hill had been cut by the abrupt noise, but Randidly didn’t really want the tree to be scarred by it too.

Congratulations! Your Skill Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil (T) has grown to Level 286!

“Thank you, Randidly,” Lucretia said as she finally looked over toward him. Then she sighed and waved her hand at the pieces. “Don’t worry about keeping them gathered together- so far as I can tell, the sundering that accompanies my failures makes the pieces somehow… inoculated against further Engraving. In terms of their usefulness… those scraps are worse than garbage.”

Shrugging, Randidly gathered up all the metal pieces and produced tongues of Ignition Essence underneath them. While they melted, he glanced at Lucretia. “You are trying to make an Engraving with karma? Why?”

Lucretia threw her lavender hair over her shoulder. It caught the wind and fluttered across her face as the trees below rustled. “Well… because I’ve been trying to deepen my understanding of Karma. And at every turn, I’ve come up against the same question: what exactly is karma? I can describe how it functions, but when it comes to what it is… well, if I can create something to mimic its effects, then I hope to be that much closer to answering the question.”

While Lucretia had been speaking, the metal he was manipulating had melted. Then Randidly rapidly cooled it with a chilling image from Grim Chimera, creating an ugly looking sphere of metal. Then he pressed his fingers against the surface and injected Mana into the material; immediately, Randidly grimaced.

His Engraving warped as soon as it was made, the Mana going haywire and dissipating before he could even complete a single line. Interesting...

“As I said, trash,” Lucretia said lightly. Then she gave Randidly a long look. “But anyway, I doubt you are here to discuss the finer points of karma; even at your most understanding, you view it with suspicion. So what are you here to discuss? Is it… due to the death of Yystrix? I’ve spoken to Neveah about it when she visited. Quite unexpected.”

“You’ve spoken-” Randidly blinked. “You’ve spoken to Neveah? Recently?”

“Of course. While you might be content to let the Alpha Cosmos develop rather freely, Neveah visits quite often to keep tabs on the various factions. Plus, she and I have some of the best discussions about Engravings… it’s one of the few things that bring me joy, these days. That and my students.” Lucretia folded her hands behind her back and walked to the edge of the hill, looking down at the trees below.

Randidly moved to stand next to Lucretia while he put his thoughts in order. So Neveah comes over to the Alpha Cosmos pretty often? I suppose that makes sense… she can probably use our connection to come here directly… plus I bet she was a little bored with her time alone on Earth recently…

Ultimately, Randidly set that aside for the moment. “...in a way, yes, the reason I am here is due to the death of Yystrix. Her… the karma between us is behaving strangely. I was hoping you could take a look at it and help me understand what the cause is.”

Lucretia gave Randidly an amused look. “I mean, that much is pretty simple, especially because the karma between you two is so potent. But… are you sure you want to hear the answer? I have a feeling that you already know what it is that I’ll tell you.”

Although he had expended quite a lot of his rampaging emotions in the battle earlier, it was like everything suddenly came swirling back as he looked into Lucretia’s eyes at that moment. The violence was in his veins again, struggling to find an outlet. His heart was pounding. Randidly gritted his teeth and nodded. “I just want to know if she’s really dead.”

“Ha! Unfortunately, even I can’t tell something like that,” Lucretia shook her head. But then she turned to face Randidly and reached up to touch his shoulder. She drew her finger lightly inward, across his collarbone until she reached the other shoulder. “...but what you are sensing is a definite sign, Randidly. I do not know what happened to Yystrix… but the karma between you two has been sewn and reaped. There is no lingering attachment remaining.”

“What…?” Randidly asked in bewilderment.

Lucretia’s hand fell to her side. “There are a lot of… suboptimal definitions of karma out there. But for this situation, perhaps it will be helpful to think of karma as an indicator of more to come between two people. As a sign that the story of you two isn’t yet finished. Now that yours is fading… I would say pretty clearly that there is nothing more between you. If she yet lives… It is possible for you to seek each other out and start the cycle of karma once more… but if it were at all likely, karma would have remained. And your karma with each other is vanishing very quickly.”

Randidly didn’t know what he had expected. A confirmation of some sort. Finally, a clue whether the pain in his chest was real or he had been tricked again. And in a way, this was a sort of answer. Just not one that provided any closure.

“Then why do I...damnit!” Randidly flexed his hands and spun away from Lucretia. Even as the trees continued to rustle with the breath of the land below, Randidly began to pace back and forth on top of the hill. “Then why can’t I get over this? Why am I so angry and sad? I shouldn’t feel bad that she died, the things that she wanted to do to Earth-”

“Ah, I see the problem.” Lucretia sighed. “Randidly, let me say this; when has what you should feel ever stopped a living being from feeling? You are human. And your heart, in particular, is much more kind than you give it credit for. Do you think my relationship with Autarch was harmonious? No, I was a tool created for a purpose and he used me unscrupulously. Yet when he died… I mourned. Not because his influence on my life was positive, but because his influence was irreplaceable. I suspect that your relationship with Yystrix is similar.”

Very conscious of the movement of his shoulders and his chest, Randidly released a long breath. The tension drained from him. “So I mourn, then. And eventually… I just get over it.”

Lucretia laughed softly. “This will be hard for you, I’m sure. Because you have lived so long struggling to survive. But your emotions are not something that you struggle against… they are something that you experience. I expect that most of the reasons for the… violence of your current emotions is because you have sought a quick solution to something that is really a problem that will span a lifetime.

“Pain passes because you sit in it and accept that you are hurting. You cannot ‘beat’ it. It is an agony that you cannot hurry your way through. You can only be torn and watch your heart bleed down your torso and onto the floor every day until the wounds start to knit together on their own. There is no bandage for the soul.”

“I don’t want to mourn her,” Randidly said softly.

This time, Lucretia’s laugh was loud and harsh. “If that were true, Randidly Ghosthound, then you wouldn’t be mourning her. And perhaps the ‘why’ you are mourning her is the question you need to answer.”

“I…” Randidly opened his mouth, but as soon as he began to think about that, he knew the answer.

Because in a way, Yystrix had been right in her letter: she and Randidly had wanted the same thing. An escape from the System. And despite their differences, despite Yystrix’s attempts to endanger the Earth… she had failed in their shared quest. Whether Yystrix now hid herself away or had truly died, Randidly trusted Lucretia’s diagnosis; they would likely never meet again.

And before she had gone, she had written every ounce of her knowledge onto a grand Engraving in her tomb so he and Neveah could finish what she started. It was a heavy burden.

It felt like a gift he didn’t deserve. An early present for a birthday that was already more than complicated enough as it was.