Chapter 46

A Complex World

Sylas sat with a vacant look in his eyes, a cold wind belting against his cheeks, frosting them. And yet, he didn’t even notice. He was lost in thought, tightly holding onto a piece of parchment in his hand. It was his attempt at summarizing every last bit of knowledge he had to try and make the sense out of everything. As it turned out, however, even with everything cleanly laid out in front of him, he couldn’t make sense out of anything, not really. In fact, he was even more confused in some departments.

Following his conversation with Derrek, he reset the timeline once more, immediately drifting toward trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The problem was, however, that he was missing most of the necessary pieces, and that some of those pieces were tied to figuring out who the figure that broke his mind was—something that he was distinctly unwilling to do.

Shaking his head, he sniffled for a moment before looking back down at the parchment. Though his handwriting was a mess, he was actually quite proud of what the parchment represented—months and months of his hard work on figuring out this world’s language. And, with many, many, many mistakes, he’d actually succeeded. He purposefully wrote it down in the ‘Enportioun’ as the locals called it rather than English, just to test himself.

It was quite a mess, but not necessarily due to the language, but more so his state of mind writing it. Every time he recalled a detail or a tidbit, he wrote it down. There were many, many things that nearly slipped his mind, reminding him of how quick brains were to forget things that aren't repeated to them on a daily. In fact, looking down the 'laundry list' of the things he knew or could claim with some base certainty, he absolutely felt he lacked quite a few more. It didn't help that the whole thing was entirely disorganized, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to it.

--children of the condemned? What’s it mean? ->a cult? Maybe a religion? (can revive dead???)

--Valen banished(Queen???—king? Big conspiracy?)

--ghouls invading, no investigation(suspicious); big valley, diary, meaning?? Ethernia’s rise = some Empire’s fall?

--Cyrs bribed by the ‘masked, dark figure’; figure == children of the condemned? Connection to the horrible & the shadow that killed Valen?? (wrong place at the wrong time??->castle secret?

--Ryne’s master knows(what??)—special cult?

--who is Dyn (ask juiced fuck); his powers == condemned powers?

-- Van’ashi????

--what’s anything got to do with fucking anything nothing makes sense!

--one big conspiracy or several smaller ones??

--who is second conspirator?(priority)

--woman who escaped=loose end?find her

Looking at the disorienting mess, Sylas sighed and grabbed a cup of wine, drinking a sip. Putting the parchment into his inner pocket, he, once again, fell into deep thought. It felt as though he was on the cusps of something, but didn’t know what or where to look to find those remaining pieces. Somehow, someway, he suspected that it all tied together—both those two shadows that broke his conception of what it meant to ‘fight’ in this world, as well as all other supernatural things surrounding him.

He needed more information, but he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to get much out of Derrek. Even if he could convince the man that he was a ‘Prophet’ through numerous loops, he wasn’t like Tebek or even Cyrs. He was… honorable. Though even thinking of the word made Sylas gag, it was the truth—to as much extent as possible in this world, anyway.

Besides him, there were no other avenues of information. He’d squeezed Valen dry, and the only thing he could learn from him was the actual, full story of how he came to be publicly known as ‘dead’. However, even if that did tie in with the rest, it was such a minor detail that Sylas didn’t attribute much faith to it.

Next to those two, there was Dyn and his coconspirator. However, he suspected that even if they wanted to say something, they would be unable to. Dyn didn’t seem like a man working for a cult, but someone driven by his own insanity. It’s likely that even if he was revived—something Sylas strongly suspected wasn’t actually the case as it was far more likely that he was simply mortally wounded and rescued from the brink of death—he was merely either an experiment or one of many tools.

And it wasn’t as though they could just leave the castle now—they had to barricade in for the winter and wait it out.

“The best course of action…” he mumbled aloud, tapping his finger against the table. “Quash the invasion, find the traitor, see how it goes with Derrek and Dyn, and… wait out the winter? That’s… haah,” Sylas sighed, realizing how little agency he actually had in that scenario.

Every bit of knowledge he’d obtain was entirely dependent on how willing Derrek and Dyn were to scream at each other, potentially revealing certain secrets in the process. Outside of that, he was like an observer, a sideliner in his own life.

The truth was, however, that he didn’t have the means or the tools to obtain the agency in this world… not yet, anyway. His agency relied heavily on the Prince, but even Valen had his limitations—especially with the resources and the reach they had. Another means of increasing his agency was… Ryne. He’d quite often, now, seen the girl tinker with talismans and the touch of magic. Despite observing her, he was as clueless as the day they landed.

“… would she teach me?” he pondered. Seeing how Exorcists had to go absolutely mental lives to become who they were, Sylas suspected that the girl wouldn’t be all-that-willing to simply fess over all her knowledge to him. And, even if she was, what were the chances that Sylas could use any one bit of it? “Won’t hurt to ask. Worst case scenario, I can probably… shuffle her…” he sighed, smiling bitterly. He hardly felt good about manipulating a sixteen-year-old girl, but he had no choice at this point.

His swordsmanship had, once again, hit a plateau—rather, it wasn’t his swordsmanship as much as his body. He’d managed to strike three times in five seconds, with an average accuracy of 3/10 times in the same spot. Though he could further increase his accuracy, it was also dependent on his body.

“Shit, why couldn’t you make my cheat a bit cheatier?” he mused. “Just a teeny-tiny bit…”

Standing up, he decided to go visit Ryne and ask the girl—no time like the present, after all. She'd warmed up to him this loop as well, as he did every other; it, surprisingly, had almost nothing to do with Sylas, actually. Whether he actively went to visit her or not, she would find him and pester him, almost on a daily. It was clear that their trek into the forest and beyond was enough of an initializer for the girl to feel as though she can trust him almost absolutely.

Entering her workstation, he saw her sitting on her desk, bending forward. Her hair was a mess, strands strewed about like a swarm, quite reflective of the state of the room, really. She’d been at it for quite some time, it seemed. However, Sylas knew—she’d figure it out. She always did. In fact, it ought to happen in four days now.

“Hey,” he walked up to her and sat on the opposite end, jolting her out of her thoughts. She seemed to be on the verge of tears as she looked at him, her frustrations evident. “I brought you something to eat,” he smiled gently and handed her a local fruit/vegetable(it was indeterminable, Sylas swore) staple—a round, though flattened at poles, apple-like, yet very much white as snow... strawberry. Kind of.

“Haah,” Ryne sighed deeply and took it, quickly chewing through the whole thing as though she hadn’t eaten in days. “This is impossible! I… I can’t believe I promised the Prince I could do it! He… he’s going to hate me, isn’t he? Oh my God, what, what if he kicks me out?! No, no, no—”

“Oi, oi, calm down, calm down. What do you mean hate you? Do you really think so little of him?”

“… n-no.”

“No, exactly,” Sylas chuckled. “Have some faith in him, just as he had in you.”

“Y-you’re right. Prince Valen is a gentle, kind, beautiful soul,” Ryne spoke with a dreamy look in her eyes. “That’s why he’s a per—”

“A per…what?” Sylas teased while Ryne quickly hid her face in her chest, ignoring him. "Anyway, I have a proposal. I don't know if it will be helpful to you, though."

“What is it?” seeing that the topic was changed, Ryne immediately looked at him, though she still appeared red-cheeked.

“Maybe you could teach me some of these things,” Sylas said. “And maybe the new perspective might make it easier on you.”

“…”

“…” Not possible, huh?

“That… that is brilliant!!!” Say what now? “Oh my God, why didn’t I think of this before? Of course! You’re already a Paragon, just like me! Even… even if our paths are different, we have the same roots. You are just more spiritually inclined and lacking the formal education! Of course! This way, we’ll be able to work even quicker since I’ve no doubt you’ll pick up on everything!” Oi, oi, slow down! That’s too much faith in me!! The last time someone had that much faith in me was my ma’ when she told the neighbor I’d make it into the varsity team! Can you guess what fucking happened??! “Come, come here,” she hollered at him with a beaming smile. “Okay, we’ll start from the basics. And, as I’m teaching you, I’ll also reflect on my knowledge—this is brilliant! This will definitely get us to break through…”

“U-us…?”

“So, talismans are made up of lines and transits—lines can be flat, angled, curved, full, and partial, while transits can be twofold, threefold, and null. And…”