“It wasn’t supposed to happen yesterday.” Modak rubbed the bridge of his nose, finally understanding everything. “When I met with Vanda earlier, she wasn’t able to tell me anything about who gave the fragment to her, but she did mention that he was very interested in the showcase that was supposed to happen today. Even said he might show up himself, to watch. What if Energizer was supposed to go berserk today, and not yesterday? In front of dozens of important people from big tech companies and news people ready to jump on any little incident.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a pretty big oversight?” Ryan frowned. “They must have known about the test runs yesterday, right?”

  “Sure, but they probably didn’t know you would be there.” Modak suggested, “And if the fragment that was already with you reacted to the one in Energizer, who’s to say it didn’t happen the other way around? You just being there could have made things speed up.”

  “Are you serious? So it was my fault … ?”

  “No, it’s not like that,” Runar immediately replied. “If anything, you being there was the best outcome. Nobody got seriously hurt, and we were able to deal with everything quietly.”

  “… So … So what now? What else are they gonna try?” Ryan asked, trying to calm himself down instead of getting angry right away. Getting angry didn’t help him. It never did. It was just so hard to stop it from happening sometimes, especially in situations like this. What was he supposed to do? Just act like everything was fine?

  But Runar just shrugged. “Honestly? No clue.”

  “S-Seriously? Aren’t you the head of the family? Just use the head’s … brain, or something, I don’t know, just fucking … come on!” Ryan’s frustration was obvious, and he really wasn’t able to hold it back.

  “Listen, we’re trying, okay? But first, we need to figure out where it is. That should help. The map is linked to the core’s location now. It’s not super accurate, but as long as we search the area in the circle, we should be able to use the Light of Guidance to find the exact spot,” Runar explained. “I’ll arrange what we need to, and then tomorrow we’re heading out to search for it.”

  “Tomorrow? Seriously? Let’s just go right now!” Ryan protested, staring at his uncle, unwilling to just leave Gaia’s last fragment with people that want to use her for such ridiculous things.

  “And do what? Just barge into whatever building they’re keeping it in? On our own? No, that’s ridiculous. We have people that can retrieve it after we find where it is, maybe without the Shadows even knowing. But I can’t just call on them in a couple of hours. Plus, we need to take care of your corruption first. I’m sorry, but that’s more important to me right now.”

  “But … we have the world’s most powerful mage, and I’m perfectly fine. The corruption thing can wait!”

  “We have what, now?” Alicia asked with a laugh. She was sitting in Runar’s chair at his desk. “I’m sorry, but … the guidance spell was one thing, but I’m not getting involved in this any further. The Magic Tower strives to stay completely neutral.”

  “What do you mean, neutral? You’re Runar’s teacher!” Ryan pointed out, and Alicia looked back at him, her smile slowly disappearing. Runar’s expression also turned a bit more complicated.

  Alicia crossed her legs, leaning back in the chair. “And I was also the teacher of the former leader of the White Shadow Society. Granted, I didn’t know his association to them at the time, but it really wouldn’t have changed anything. The Magic Tower doesn’t get involved in these things. We’re an institution of knowledge. Not politics.”

  “Preventing genocides isn’t politics! It’s common sense, what are you even—How could you be like this?”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s the oath that I, and all my predecessors, have upheld for a thousand years. It’s one thing to do a personal favor for a friend, and another to take sides in a war like this,” Alicia replied, though she clearly understood what Ryan was saying. “Listen, even if I wanted to, it’s not something I can do. There’s too much at stake here. Obviously we don’t want anything to happen to spirits either, and seeing innocent people get murdered day after day? I’m sorry, but that’s not … When I say ‘oath,’ I don’t mean it metaphorically, or the kind of promise that kids make when they say not to eat snacks before supper. I cannot help you. I’m sorry.”

  The elf slowly stood up, then passed by Runar. She gave him a short hug as the student spoke to his teacher. “Thanks for the help, anyway.”

  Ryan’s eyes were closed. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to count backward from ten to calm himself down. Though he hadn’t done this in years, it used to work pretty well, so he figured he might as well give it another shot instead of letting out a massive shout here.

  “Oh, and …” Alicia’s crystal clear voice cut through Ryan’s counting, but before he could open his eyes to see what she wanted, he felt her finger tap his chest. It was nothing but a light touch, that much was clear not just from the outside, but to Ryan as well. But it was right in the middle of the part of Ryan’s chest where the corruption had taken hold. All the air immediately escaped Ryan’s lungs as his body tensed up. His legs went weak as he dropped to his knees, trying to clutch his chest but holding back in case touching it would make this even worse.

  As Ryan felt Modak and Silvia come to his side, and Maximus stepped in front of him with both of his active skills turned on without hesitation, ready to defend him, Alicia continued to speak, “… You’re absolutely not fine. Go get yourself fixed up before you think about helping others. Like this, you’re just going to make things worse for everyone involved.”

  The elf stepped up to the door, ready to leave. She fully expected to just be able to go without another word from anyone, but Ryan had something else in mind. His foot slammed on the ground as he forced himself to get back up. “And … and how would you know?” he asked, grinding his teeth as he stared at the back of the woman in front of him. “You’re too much of a coward to get involved in the first place.”

  Alicia turned back around, locking eyes with Ryan. She couldn’t help herself but smile, slowly turning to Runar. “And you’re sure you two are related?”

  “… I doubt it myself sometimes,” Runar laughed lightly, in disbelief over the sheer fervor that his nephew was showing. “But … it’s probably better if you go. I don’t think I need to show you out, do I?”

  “I wasn’t shown in, so, yeah, I think I can find my way out on my own.” Alicia stepped out the door, and the moment it shut behind her, Ryan dropped back down onto one knee.

  “Fuck … Godsdammit … why … why the fuck does it hurt so much?!” Ryan forced his eyes shut while struggling to keep himself calm.

  “Is he okay? Is the corruption spreading … ?” Modak asked anxiously, trying to help keep Ryan upright, but Runar just shook his head in response while approaching his nephew, the pen in his hand.

  “It’s nothing like that. The corruption is basically … an open wound? It attached itself to Ryan’s flesh, and just the slightest impact can feel like absolute hell. I said it before, but it’s basically alive, and trying everything it can to stop it from being forcefully pulled out. And the best way to do that is to make it hurt like hell to even touch it.” Runar pulled up Ryan’s shirt, exposing his back. Though he had already shown it to Modak and Silvia, being exposed like this all of a sudden would still usually feel horrible to him, but Ryan really wasn’t in the state of mind to think about that. The pain was keeping him paralyzed against his will. He could barely even feel the nib of Runar’s pen touch his skin. And then, he couldn’t feel anything at all, as the pain faded almost instantly.

  “That … huh?” Ryan let out, “What’s going on?”

  “I numbed your sense of pain. I’d usually prefer not to do that, ’cause not having a sense of pain at all is dangerous in itself, but it’s better than what’s happening right now,” Runar pointed out. “Though to be honest, I’m pretty sure anyone else would have passed out by now. Get up.”

  Still unsteady on his legs, Ryan stood up with Modak and Silvia’s help. Runar motioned for Ryan to pull up his shirt, and he awkwardly did as told.

  “What the—” In disbelief over what he was seeing, Runar stared at Ryan’s chest. “How are you even standing right now?”

  “It’s not that bad … is it?” Ryan asked, slowly looking down at his chest. But what he saw definitely wasn’t what his chest looked like earlier. The black tendrils of the corruption had spread all over his chest, and the skin around each part of that horrible darkness was deep purple and blue.

  “This … that’s definitely not from Alicia tapping you just now. We really need to get that shit out of you quickly.” Runar started nervously tapping his foot on the ground as he pulled out his phone. As the dial tone sounded out through the speaker, Runar quickly stepped in front of the door. “Anders? Yeah, come here immediately, we need to …”

  The door closed, and Runar’s voice faded away as Ryan, Silvia, Modak, and Maximus were briefly left alone. Neither the elf nor the orc knew what to say. Even the Knight spirit was even more speechless than usual.

  However, the silence was soon broken by Ryan. At least that shock of pain after Alicia left let him calm down pretty quickly.

  “Uh … yeah, so that’s … not good.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Ruby Symbiote

  Ryan stepped into the car, with Modak and Silvia following behind pretty quickly. Yamada, Runar’s demon assistant, was the one driving, while Runar himself was sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Eh … is it fine to just leave Liam here?” Ryan asked, unsure if that was a good idea. It was Liam’s first day here, so leaving him alone felt sort of bad.

  Runar quickly replied, “Yeah, Anders is staying with him. He’s pretty good with kids. I mean, he’s got a couple on his own, so he better be.”

  “Huh, well, I guess it’s fine, then?”

  Curiously, Silvia leaned forward. “He’s got kids? How old are they?”

  “Uh … good question, I keep forgetting,” Runar said, looking over at Yamada. He leaned forward and signed to her so she could read his hands without having to look away from the road. She held up her left hand and quickly replied, signing the numbers in sequence.

  “Ahh, right, right. They’re twenty-seven, twenty-four, and twenty,” Runar translated, and Ryan slightly narrowed his eyes.

  “… Anders looked like thirty, what the hell?”

  “Well, dwarves look thirty from when they’re twelve, and stay like that until they’re eighty, so. Yeah,” Runar joked. “But yeah, he’s … fifty-seven? Yeah, fifty-seven.”

  Ryan raised his brow. Something about that felt weird, but he also really didn’t care too much. He barely exchanged two sentences with Anders, so it didn’t really matter. That being the case, he was also a lot more focused on trying not to let the seat belt press onto his chest. Even if he couldn’t feel it right now—since Runar completely blocked his ability to feel any sort of pain, or even the slightest touch—if the corruption tried to fight back and continued injuring Ryan’s body, that wasn’t going to turn out all too well for him.

  “So, where are we going right now? You said something about a ‘symbiote nest’?” Ryan asked, and Runar quickly explained.

  “Yes, so, it’s exactly that. It’s the place where we keep symbiotes. They’re a species that require a ‘bond,’ because they can’t really survive on their own for too long. Once they’re bonded to someone else, they practically fuse into their body. They improve one’s general health, their immune system, their ability to heal wounds, and all sorts of good stuff. In some cases, they even extend their bond’s lifespan a good bit.”

  “Oh, that … what the hell?” Ryan asked, unsure why he keeps getting surprised. “And let me guess, you’re protecting them because rich assholes will try to exploit them?”

  “Yup, basically. But the thing is that symbiotes are living, thinking individuals. They’re hard to classify exactly, but if we had to, we would put them more into the category of ‘people’ rather than ‘animals,’ but they’re probably a bit too unique to be put into categories like that. Anyway, they choose their bond. If they don’t like someone, they will refuse to bond with them. If someone then tries to force that to happen, shit goes really wrong, and both parties sides usually die or get crippled permanently.”

  “So …” Modak started, trying to collect his thoughts about this a bit, “… you’re hoping that one of these symbiotes will like Ryan enough to want to form a bond with him?”

  “Mhm, exactly.” Runar turned around, smiling at the orc. “The issue is that there really aren’t many symbiotes, and they would rather die than form a bond with someone they dislike. So … only about a tenth of all symbiotes form a bond before passing. And there’s only about a dozen under our protection.”

  Silvia nervously looked over at Ryan. “So, there’s only a 10 percent chance that Ryan can bond with a symbiote and get rid of the corruption?”

  Runar scoffed, unable to hold back a laugh. “No, not even close. It’s a 10 percent chance that an individual symbiote will like any of the candidates we present to them over their lifetime. And we present many to them, trust me. The chance of a symbiote finding any individual adequate enough to bond with them is probably less likely than awakening.”

  “Then what if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then we’ll have to try something else,” Runar replied, turning to the elf. “But honestly, there’s one weirdo amongst the symbiotes that I think will like Ryan quite a bit. And come on, do you know how lucky Ryan’s been since he awakened? Even when he’s unlucky, like with the mana poisoning, it all works out because the dungeon mana let him avoid being infected by the corruption.”

  “What, do you think that’s another ‘fate’ thing?” Ryan asked. He still didn’t like the idea of things being controlled by some external force he couldn’t even understand, but if it helped him, then he couldn’t really complain all too much. Runar seemed to think about it for a moment, but in the end just shrugged.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, you’re fucking lucky as hell. And I’m confident in betting on that,” Runar grinned, turning back around to look away from the back seats.

  “So … do I have to do this symbiote thing? It sounds kind of weird,” Ryan pointed out. “I mean, it’s one thing to take care of, like, spirits and keep them basically in my body, and it’s a whole other thing to let something called ‘symbiote’ directly fuse with my body.”

  Runar immediately turned back around, rapidly shaking his head. “Oh, no, no, you don’t have to, definitely not. I wanted to explain it a bit more before we head out, but the corruption is a bit worse than I expected, so we have to hurry and figure out a solution. I’ll explain it all a bit more now, but seriously, you don’t have to if you’re not totally comfortable with it. I mean, you can’t really undo it, so you do need to be sure.”

  “… Okay, that doesn’t really make me feel much better, to be honest. So it’s either permanently accepting something into my body, or getting a large chunk of my chest cut out?”

  “Yes? Technically?” Unable to deny that, the Rune Mage looked back at him. “But the thing is, symbiotes are a … two-way road. That’s kind of their whole thing. It’s not really a ‘choice’ thing. It’s like a wavelength. Like when you meet someone and immediately get along. A sort of … connection at first sight. Unless that happens, the bond will not freely form. Even if the symbiote takes a liking to you, if you somehow don’t feel truly comfortable accepting them, the bond will not form. It’s as simple as that.”

  “That one does make me feel better, I guess.” Sighing a breath of relief, Ryan leaned into the seat, still holding the seat belt away from his chest. “So, what’s the one you mentioned like? The one you’re thinking of.”

  Runar smirked, “Well, to be blunt … you kind of share a hobby.”

  They floated through the water, their bodies melding into the cool liquid around it. There were pretty lights blinking all around that were quite nice to look at, but otherwise, this place was pretty boring. Compared to this, even that dirty lake they grew up in was better.

  The insects, the fish, the … everything. It was beautiful, much better than here. Sure, it had been dangerous, and they got injured and sick a lot, so they had little reason to really complain. But still, something was missing from here. Something that they couldn’t quite put their finger on.

  Hm? What was a finger? It was that thing that those people outside the water had at the ends of those dangly limbs. The people had mentioned that word a few times, and that phrase in particular sounded pretty funny, so it quickly became one of their favorites.

  That was the part of their day that they enjoyed the most. Some people or animals would come, and they, as well as their siblings, were brought out for a quick introduction. Once or twice before, one of their siblings chose to form a “bond,” but that barely ever happened. They never really liked any of the people, and the animals were too stupid to seem interesting at all. But there was one thing that they started to like! Using the pebbles and plants at the bottom of the tank, they started to try and make more of those people. Those were the most interesting, so they figured if they could be reproduced, they could have fun all the time!

  But the ones that they made never really looked right, and their siblings would always come and break them. Their siblings were all bigger, and just because they were the only one that stuck out in the water, they were always being picked on. They really didn’t like that at all. They really wanted to go back to the lake.

  Oh, the people were opening that small door at the bottom of the tank. That meant they were supposed to come out to meet someone new. It was kind of annoying. They weren’t going to like that person anyway.

  “Whoa, look at that one!” Silvia gleefully exclaimed, pointing at one of the fish swimming through the reinforced glass tube above the group. It was a species of fish that none of the three had ever seen before, similar to how there were tons of animals and people that they hadn’t seen before in the hideout under the café.