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Volume 4

Chapter 13 Fragments

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The day felt longer than usual. Expanded three times, it even felt longer than the already long day.

Well, for the tired ones, that is.

It’s the afternoon the same day, four hours after his enemy-turned-hostage-turned-slave departed with her mission to collect information, Siva found himself in the process of counting the seconds.

He bought supplies and studied his equipment and now he was reading over and over, the descriptions of the items he couldn’t pull himself to present to Augustus earlier. One thing why, he couldn’t classify its rarity.

«Sword of Triune»

Type: Equipment

Rarity: Unknown

Weight Units: 35 we

Inventory Slots: 16 slots

Durability: 18/100%

Materials: Moonlight Dew, Water Stone, Fire Stone

Manufacturer: Unknown

Weapon Description:

The sword passed down from the family of warriors that came from an unknown distant land, the symbol of power and authority in an age long past, the sword the King of Tales had wielded through countless ages of battles that brought upon the foundation of a once great empire. Only a worthy warrior can wield it and unlock the true potential of its divine blade.

Grants:

Trispell (PASSIVE) [Locked]

---Frozen Stab (melee) [EXP: 1/1000]

---Frozen Path (AOE) [EXP: 1/2000]

---Frozen Tundra (AOE) [EXP: 1/3000]

Blazing Blessing (PASSIVE) [Locked] [EXP: 1/1000]

Kamaitachi (PASSIVE) [Locked] [EXP: 1/1000]

Inventory +5 slots

Endurance +10

«Dead Man’s Chest»

Type: Item

Rarity: Unknown

Weight Units: 45 we

Inventory Slots: 36 slots

Durability: 100/100%

Materials: Sigma Alloy, Grey Rock Core, Light Stone, Diurnal Hinge

Manufacturer: Unknown

Item Description:

A chest of unknown origins that even the previous owner had failed to understand its significance. What can only be said with it is that it came from an era as old as the civilization of the Muans itself.

Grants:

Unkown

«Skeleton Key»

Type: Accessory

Rarity: Unknown

Weight Units: 5 we

Inventory Slots: 9 slots

Durability: 50/100%

Materials: Sigma Alloy, Black Rock Core, Blue Stone, Diurnal Shaft, Manna Crystal, *Unknown

Manufacturer: Unknown

Item Description:

A key imbued with a curse magic that will tears off the arm of the person who inserts it on the wrong lock.

Grants:

Unkown

The last item worried him greatly. An item that eats an arm of the person who used it in the wrong lock. How should he know that it was the right lock if it doesn’t have any clues to where to look for it?

What more, he was also afraid of the effects that the Item Analyzer’s description had given.

Not of the part where he read it might bite his arm off but on the effects of the Key if used as it was.

A single line of solution dawned on him and Siva did not so even like the idea of it.

“Guess I have to go back to square one.”

Research, its pains and agonies.

Siva has a month, real world month, until he deliver the next secret. That’s three in-game months before he could meet Augustus again.

In fact, right now, he felt empty.

Blank. Nothing. No idea where to look for the next target of his desire. And yet, when he looks at the items in front of him, as he lay there in the balcony of his room waiting for the 4 O’Clock bell of the City’s Spire, he thought of events that had happened this day.

It was an eventful day.

Escaping the Anazon Forest, experiencing that level of danger with super rare monsters, seeing an Elemental Dragon, then meeting the guard captain again, and after that is the unprecedented acquisition of two slots on the deal with Augustus, and then there is that incident with Cassiopeia, and finally the things that he’s pondering on to right now.

On these three things, the «Skeleton Key» is what make him feel weirdly, alarmingly, concerned.

He can’t put on trials of that item unless he was sure of the lead he had in his logs. Although there is the feat on the game to re-grow lost limbs using magic for a price, the pain of it is still as real as hell.

—Mom, Dad, why did you make this game so real?

Siva was referring to the fact that he was feeling pain each and every time he was hurt. When he first fought Predators in the forest near Aarun and got knocked out off his feet, he cried to the pain and almost quit.

It was as real as hell, as painful and agonizing as any of the most painful sensation he had ever felt before.

He was a Tennis player and as well as a Basketball athlete, he had a fair share of muscle pain and cramps, even broken and dislocated bones, to a degree that can be compared to any professional players’ agony.

But the pain of being punched by a Predator your size, wounded by their claws with bleeding wounds that’s as wide open as a finger, adding the sensation of fear of a miserable monster food’s death, all the memories made Siva shiver and he hugged himself in reflex.

He don’t need to look around the room to know that he was alone.

The mere silence of the walls and the echoing drops of water in the faucet in the kitchen were amplifying the loneliness of his heart.

And yet, despite this suffocating sadness, he could feel a heat in his chest, as weird and as hot as blazing lava.

The subject of this flaming hatred, Jack, the one who almost killed him, sending those assassins after his neck and stealing his treasure using underhanded ways.

“I will never forgive you!”

He hissed and wails of people echoed from the city streets below. Sounds of jarring cars, cries of woe, and screams of terror, a lasting feeling of dread draped over this part of the city of Loire.

The 30 floor Hotel he was staying at towered over the western district of the city, two blocks away from Dante and his bar, Angel Café.

And as soon as he realized what he had done, Siva stood and went to the bathroom, removing everything he had on his skin and took a bath to cool down.

“That was dangerous. I shouldn’t let my emotions take control of me every time.”

He recalled, if there are advantages on Unique Skills, then there are also disadvantages as large as the skill in the arsenal itself.

On his case, with a Unique Skill affecting an AOE, the disadvantages is also as big as its AOE.

But now that he thinks about it, the advantage of the Killing Zone is it reduces its target’s defenses by 70%, despite that target’s efforts to increase it.

Another advantage is that for an advanced player like him, it’s a lot easier to make money because of the number of mobs he can defeat with it. But that depends on the rank of the monster he was against with.

The disadvantage of his Unique Skill is that it’s an ability unlike no other, relying on emotions to set off and not by command, making it unpredictable, and it has a nasty habit of inviting unwanted party crashers as strong as Dragon —especially Dragons.

Sigh…

His skin was as dark indeed.

Black smoke, like an evaporating water’s surface, he could feel the shower touching his skin but he could see it flowing off his body down the drain.

Nothing changed on his senses, except that his skin had become black and there was this emblem of the curse on his chest, right above where his heart is.

If there was one thing, then he looks like a devil.

White eyes, black hair, black skin, white teeth, and red tongue. Naked as he is, if he had a trident on his hand, he would have actually been a demon. He smiled at the playful thought and licked his lips up, grinning later.

“Oh, a devil indeed. Hahaha…”

Haha…

Ha…

Sigh…….. Sadness is still an enemy. He can’t shake the fact that he was still a long way to go.

“Baron…” As he whispered, looking at his dark smoke skin face, he dragged his eyes to the drawing on chest.

A large circle with two different sized ones inside, intertwining at each other. The smaller circle at the top left and the bigger one at the bottom right. In the sphere where they meet was a symbol of a crescent moon.

There was a smaller crescent moon inside the first in a counter arc and a teardrop at the bottom and a diagonal line that connects the two moons.

He traced the emblem’s lines and felt a hot kind of sensation, like it was burning his skin, hotter and hotter it was beginning to feel painful. And then it did. At the first flinching sensation, he smack his back to the wall of the bathroom.

“Aaaaargh!”

But the pain only got worse. It shouldn’t even be this way since it’s just a fame, but it did.

He could feel the lines etching its way to his skin, carved by an invisible hand one inch at a time. And the lines shined gold, then blue, and the pain faded, he got up and turned the shower to cold, and the pain came back again.

This time, it was more painful. Like being pressed by a molten iron from a furnace, he tried to scratch away the pain from his chest, digging his skin with his fingers.

His nails stabbed his skin, he could almost tear himself apart by how deep it went and yet there was no change and he rolled on the floor like a wet goat.

Twitching, he screamed in the pain, he let the darkness in and soon, he faded away.

Siva’s eyes opened and he saw a scene he didn’t remember having. He was looking at the sky, the blue sky he always see when he’s flying with the flight gear he got from his time in the Miranda.

The wind was hitting his back, the clouds fleeting away from him. He was falling. He felt buoyant, so light, so free that he wanted to close his eyes.

But then he saw something burning on the right side that he awkwardly, weakly, turned to face there.

He saw a burning city, then the land that expanded ever so wide was also burning, the flames and embers left no place to hide.

Then there was screaming and the blue sky turned grey.

He might have entered a smoke cloud. He leaned his head on the left. There, he saw, a white ship, burning, on its way to the ground where a war was being held.

“What?!”

He couldn’t move. He felt weak. Siva tried to swim away but his fall and his momentum was unstoppable.

“No… No… NOOOOO!!”

—Aaaaaaaarghh….

Rex jolted upright in bed, gasping, greedily taking in air and filling his lungs, hand traveling on his body, checking for broken bones and wounds, heck, even for the black smoke skin and its cursed mark.

When he found himself normal, he stood up, removing the NL-Device, and sitting at the side of the bed.

He carried the head gear on his lap, looking at its plain chrome design. He could still feel his body trembling, the lingering sensation as he crashed is still there.

“What is that… dream?”

As he looked around the dull looking room, the chilly air made him shiver and he went towards the window and rolled the curtain to look outside.

It was still night. The time on the wall is 8pm. He’s been online for three and a half hours.

Suddenly, he noticed that there was a pain on his left leg and he grimaced as he realized that he forgot to get the maintenance gear of the mechanical leg off.

He leaped his way back to the bed and removed the locks of the mechanical leg, feeling the touch of skin, the strength of the bones, the ability to walk without the aid of the metallic leg.

“What…?!”

As shocked as he was, he could bend the leg with little pain on the muscles. What kind of miracle is this?!

Unable to believe his eyes, he tried to turn off the leg’s AI system. With a swipe on the inner side, the led light that indicated its power died off and he tried again.

“Holy crap!”

He was bending his leg, though there was still little pain. But he was bending it! The useless leg thought to have been useless forever, was alive, and he was using it without worry!

Smiles of delight came onto him, he tried to remove the robotic leg support’s metal shoe and tried again.

“Ouch!”

The prickling pain stopped him mid way. Without the proper tools and experts around him, he was risking his leg to get more seriously destroyed.

He could bend the leg, yes, but he still couldn’t guide it unlike the other one. Without the guide of the shaft to the leg, the broken leg is still as bad as it was before.

But this is progress, he thought happily.

It’s not broken and it’s on its way to recovery!

Rex had totally forgotten about the dream he just had and his whole attention is on this marvelous news. He summoned the Video-Link and dialed a number, seeing Faust’s face after a few rings.

[Rex! Thank goodness!]

“Uncle.”

[How are you? You look… happy.]

“My leg’s healed! I can move it!”

[You can move it?! How? I mean, really?]

“Why so surprised?”

[Well, for one, I was the one who fixed your leg so I know that it was impossible. Are you joking?]

“No I’m not!” Rex zoomed out the Video-Link and he showed Faust the turned off power of the robotic leg support as he bent his leg back and forth.

Although there was a prickling pain, increasing in its intensity with every trust, he was overjoyed of the news that he ignored it.

[That’s… really impossible! Did your doctors there had an operation with you?]

“No, they didn’t. why?”

[I swear as a doctor, Rex, the tendons on your leg have been severely damaged and the nerve connections were all dead. I actually did five operations on that leg of yours with the first one being the one where I removed a metal bar that shattered your bones. Do you still want me to go on with the other four?]

“N-No, that’s enough.”

[As I was saying, that’s one miraculous recovery. I am utterly shocked right now. Wait, or is your leg been completely replaced?]

“Uncle Faust, I’ll know it if they did as I am exercising everyday. Perhaps it’s because of my meditation?”

[Meditation?]

“Yeah. The twins taught me this mediation, haven’t I already explained this to you?”

[You did. But I doubt it has something to do with your leg’s recovery. I’ve done my own research with their so called ‘Art’ and I found out that it was purely just an internal energy regulation technique. In other words, it’s an energy management program in a computer.]

“It can be put that way?”

[For easy understanding. Anyways, I wanted to tell you something important Rex but I heard that you were going here tomorrow. We can wait until then.]

“Ah, Augustus told you huh. Yeah. But I’m concerned with this news of yours, does that had something to do with Baron?”

[Every detail of it.]

Rex paused and he inhaled. As his hands moved to put back what he removed from the robotic leg support, he stared blankly at the edge of the holographic panel to where Faust’s face was.

He was in deep thought so Faust left the moments for him. And when he recovered, he looked up to him and spoke up for with brief hesitation.

“Uncle, is Baron… still not reacting to the treatments?”

[I’m afraid so. Yes.]

Again, Rex took a few moments to ponder blankly.

“Uncle, I remember mom and dad talked about DNI Therapy before but I don’t remember any human trials that was conducted. If my memory serves me right, it was a therapy made specifically for coma patients. I had thought about this for some time but do you think if we use it to Baron, it might work?”

Though Rex doesn’t want to go to this direction, as he was already preparing himself for the worst, he needed to try and know the pros and cons of the path he will be taking, for the sake of efficiency and assurance.

Opinion gathering and inquiry is one task he had to do no matter what in order to make up his mind.

Faust’s reaction was surprise. He showed a worried expression when he recovered that made Rex feel as if he said something worth worrying about.

[Why do you ask?] To this question, Rex’s reaction went from ‘thinking’ to ‘studying’ Faust’s expression.

Of all the things he was very good at, reading people’s thoughts through their mannerisms and expressions is what he’s confident of.

What he read from Faust was that he was wondering and at the same time worrying about something that he remembered from his query.

And so smoothen the road for Faust, he explained his reasons for asking.

“Well, though there were the results of public articles, an official thesis paper for the therapy is yet to be released. I remembered it around four maybe five years ago, but that’s all as I was busy with school back then.”

Faust looked taken aback. Rxe was convinced that he did say something that surprising that made Faust’s face turn to a sour, boggled reaction.

And yet when he heard the words he said, [Four years ago, Rex you… don’t remember?] he couldn’t believe the reply he received.

“Remember what, exactly?”

Like a TV drama or a scene in a novel and manga, his mind thought and processed, prepared for a shocking revelation that may actually change his life.

And as it did shocked him greatly…

[You were hospitalized for hitting your head. You were in a deep sleep for a month. During that time, you were the first successful patient of the DNI Therapy.]

…Rex found himself thinking but didn’t realize that he was murmuring to himself.

“Wh-why can’t I remember such important event?”

[Rex, are you really serious about not knowing it?]

“Yes! I really can’t remember!”

[My God, this is really getting serious.] On the panel, Faust’s face was down on his desk, as his hands stroked his hair harshly as if it was itching. [Shit, this is really not good.]

“Why?” Now, Rex’s heart was beating fast. This topic may actually have a connection to Baron. “Uncle! Tell me why, please!”

[Rex…] Faust’s expression became soft, pain written all over his face. [Baron’s condition is dropping. DNI Therapy is the last option I think we had left.]