Chapter 120: Theorizing
After we were all done with our Level-ups, we decided to just camp out for the night.
It was getting to be pretty dark by now, and even if we ignored our general exhaustion, moving through a place as dangerous as Kingdom’s Edge while you could barely see was sure to end poorly. I’d almost forgotten, since the Demons were my main worry for so long, but this place was renowned for its dangerous monsters.
Sure, we could survive a Drake fight, but if several Drakes showed up at once? We could only beat those things because we outnumbered them. Besides, even though we could take down the lower-Leveled ones, I still wasn’t sure I liked our chances against one of the older, high-Leveled Drakes.
Also, Astintash wasn’t the only Dragon around. If we saw another one, we wouldn’t have the bargaining chip of the Demons to convince it not to kill us the moment it saw us. I still remembered our first encounter with that massive monster. It’d seen us climbing up its mountain and promptly landed on us, killing everyone pretty much instantly. Yeah, they weren’t exactly famous for welcoming newcomers into their territories.
It wasn’t fully nighttime though, and despite my general feeling of exhaustion, I felt like my nerves were still too shot to actually sleep. Erani and Ainash seemed to be in the same mental situation as me, so we just sat and talked while Erani and I absent-mindedly practiced our Spells.
I went ahead and Ranked Sanguine Bond to the Soft Cap while we spoke. The Cap had gotten high enough that it wasn’t really possible to Rank it to the top in just a minute or two anymore—at 2 Mana per 1 Spell XP, it’d end up taking close to my full complement of Mana to Rank a Spell to 9, when taking my Light Plate into account.
But the Mana wasn’t the specific reason it took so long. Since Sanguine Bond was a Spell that required a target, it meant I needed to have something to hit in order to practice. Luckily, with Index’s help, I found some Lava Slugs to use the Spell on. It was a bit freaky getting so close to those tiny animals that could cause so much pain, but I eventually got over it once I realized I could safely tap their backs to activate Sanguine Bond without risk. Each one died pretty much instantly, but there were enough hiding around for me to have enough to fully Rank the Spell up.
At 0, the Spell had drained 4 Health, 5 Stamina, and 6 Mana per second, and regenerated 1, 2, and 3 of each, as well. This was its first Rank-up notification:
Threshold reached. Sanguine Bond XP has reached 10.
Sanguine Bond Rank has increased to 1.
Due to Sanguine Bond Rank reaching 1, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 190 to 195
Health Drain: From 4 to 4.2
Stamina Drain: From 5 to 5.25
Mana Drain: From 6 to 6.3
Health Regeneration: From 1 to 1.05
Stamina Regeneration: From 2 to 2.1
Mana Regeneration: From 3 to 3.15
Definitely a longer Status screen, with seven separate aspects of the Spell being modified. It was pretty exciting to see so many numbers increase with just a single Rank. But it got even better. Once I was done combing the area for Lava Slugs, this was what it ended up as, eight Ranks later:
Threshold reached. Sanguine Bond XP has reached 130.
Sanguine Bond Rank has increased to 9.
Due to Sanguine Bond Rank reaching 9, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 232 to 238
Health Drain: From 5.91 to 6.21
Stamina Drain: From 7.39 to 7.76
Mana Drain: From 8.87 to 9.31
Health Regeneration: From 1.48 to 1.55
Stamina Regeneration: From 2.96 to 3.11
Mana Regeneration: From 4.43 to 4.65
Unfortunately, since the Slugs barely had any Health to begin with, the Siphon didn’t last long enough for me to see any real healing from the Spell, but it was fully Ranked now, which was what mattered. After killing them all, we just sat and talked for a couple hours, taking solace in the peace and quiet to regenerate our Stamina and Health, and to recover mentally.
And while we spoke, I decided to take that moment to try and experiment with Ainash’s Bond. I’d tell her about how we suspected it worked soon—she probably had suspicions of her own—but if what Erani and I had discussed before was true, then Ainash not being aware of my intentions would make the experiments more successful in yielding good data. I’d try to get it to trigger a Bond strengthening one more time to prove what we thought.
“Hey,” I said to Ainash during a lull in conversation, “I just wanted to say I’m really thankful for you helping out back there. I really appreciate you.”
She looked over at me with a frown. “You just saying that because you feel like you have to.”
“W-what? No, I’m not just saying it for that reason.”
“I feel it.”
“Well, you can also feel that I genuinely think it’s true, right?” I sent to her. And I did genuinely feel what I said I felt. I was appreciative of her, and had hoped that just voicing what I truly thought wouldn’t come off as feeling “fake” to her. Apparently not.
“Yes. You truly feel it. But you saying it for some other reason.”
I sighed. This damned Bond. Just by me knowing that it existed, it somehow poisoned all interactions I had with Ainash. Any time I spoke to her, I involuntarily thought about the Bond—how could I not? It was hanging over my head every interaction, like it was saying “you better not mess things up,” over and over in my ear. How could I act normally with that happening?
“Are you worrying?” Ainash said, apparently sensing my frustration. “Do not be sad. Did not mean to hurt your feelings. Appreciate your kind words, even if you are weird.”
I laughed, but it was a sad laugh. This poor thing. She deserved so much better. A better life, better experiences. Every time she talked about her life goal of killing all the “bad guys,” I felt my chest tighten just a bit more. Stuff like that…It wasn’t what a kid should’ve been worrying about. And now she was worrying about me, too? I was the one that was supposed to be comforting her.
She scooted forward, glowing eyes illuminating her face in the dark. She seemed determined, like she’d just decided she was going to do something. “Um…I sorry for saying mean things to you.”
I blinked. “No, it’s fine. You just apologized, anyway.”
“No. Sorry for long time ago. Saying you are mean or you are bad Human. You are not bad. I sorry.”
Oh, that was what she was apologizing for? When she’d first gotten the ability to talk to us? “Why are you apologizing for all that now? You haven’t said anything like it in a while.”
“But you are sad now. Are you sad from me?”
I could help but laugh again, shaking my head and placing it in my hands. “No, no. You didn’t make me sad. Thank you for thinking to apologize, though, you’re totally forgiven. I’m sorry too.”
She tilted her head curiously. “For what?”
I looked downward. What could I say? For dragging you into a life of suffering? For being the reason your actual mother died? For, after all that, not even being able to take up the mantle of parent, for not being able to really take responsibility, for not being able to be an actual emotional rock for you to rely on? For forcing you to grow up way too much, way too fast?
I knew what it was like to lose parents early in life. The way it forced me to become an adult in a single instant. The years it stole from me. And for Ainash, that’d happened directly in front of her—at least I wasn’t there when my parents lost their lives.
And despite seeing it happen, she didn’t even know what she’d really lost. What was stolen from her. She probably wouldn’t realize for a long time. That she was meant to have a normal childhood.
So how could I articulate that—all of that—into a proper apology to her? How could I say “you will never be the same, and it’s my fault” to a kid?
It was like all of that hit me—like I really, truly understood it—all in the same moment.
Threshold reached.
Your Bond with Level 30 Draconiad has deepened.
Due to your Bond being deepened, it has undergone the following changes:
Stat Increase: From 4 to 6
XP Gain: From 2% to 3%
Heat Resistance: From 11.6% to 16.9%
I looked up, surprised at the sudden notification. Ainash was still looking at me in the same way—had she really felt all of those thoughts and feelings through her empathy? No way it was that advanced for her to really get what I was feeling—for her to feel them specifically and accurately enough to actually deepen the Bond.
So then, why had the Bond Ranked up? If her attitude about me didn’t change, then what did?
…Wait.
I’d been thinking about this Bond thing all wrong. Our theory was that it measured the literal relationship between me and Ainash, right? Sure, that would take into account the way she felt about me—that was absolutely a part of it. But a relationship between two people wasn’t just about the way one of them felt about the other—it went both ways.
Wouldn’t the way I thought about her be just as important? If it measured the relationship between us, it’d make sense if that was true.
In a way, that soothed my worries quite a bit. If I thought about things in terms of just talking to her for the sake of increasing the Bond Rank, then obviously it’d harm the way I thought of her, and the Bond wouldn’t deepen—no matter whether or not she believed me. But if I just treated her normally, the Bond would deepen naturally. When I thought about it, there was effectively no way to force it, because the moment I started trying to, I’d also be harming our relationship.
So I just had to ignore it, then? No experiments, no intentionally saying things to get her to like me, just do what I’d already been doing? Suddenly, it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
“Index,” I muttered to myself, “when I was trying to pick a Spell, you said that, when I guessed what one of the Spell Upgrades would be, it allowed you to tell me whether I was correct, right?”
“Yeah. Though it’s not like you can just go through, saying everything you can think of to see if it’s correct. You have to genuinely arrive at a conclusion naturally for me to be able to confirm it.”
“Well, am I right?”
“About the Bond stuff? Yeah, totally.”
I sighed. Thank the gods. The thought of effectively being forced into manipulating some kid into liking me just so I could become stronger made my stomach churn, and now I had confirmation that I wouldn’t be asked to do it.
“Erani,” I said, “And Ainash, too. I’ve figured out the exact way the Bond works.”
“Huh,” Erani said once I was finished explaining. “Yeah, that makes sense. If it measures relationship, a one-sided relationship would definitely be viewed as pretty weak. Still, kind of strange to imagine the System rooting around in my mind, reading my thoughts.”
“I’ve had Index with me for a while now,” I shrugged. “You get used to it.”
“Yes,” Ainash said, presumably transmitting her thoughts to both me and Erani, “I thought worked like that. I think mother is less weird, so she is stronger Bond. Father is more weird, though. Still not too weird, so medium Bond.”
“Uh, sure,” I said. I wasn’t sure if “weirdness” was the most correct way to think of it, but it was close enough.
“Let’s see… so if we…” I heard Erani muttering next to me, staring off into space.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“Well, if the Bond measures the ways we feel about Ainash the same way it measures the ways she thinks about us, I thought I’d try to alter the way I think about her.”
“I’m not sure it works that way,” I said. “If you’re doing it on purpose, you won’t genuinely believe what you come up with. It has to happen naturally.”
“Right, and I’m just going to force it to happen naturally.”
“What do you mean?” I laughed.
“Like…” she pursed her lips, pausing to think. “It’s like meditation. When you meditate, you’re supposed to clear your mind, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But if you’re thinking about how you need to clear your mind, you won’t actually clear your mind. You’ll still be thinking, it’ll just be about how you want to have a clear mind. Or if you’re trying to go to sleep, and you can’t. If you think about how much you want to go to sleep, and how tired you are, and how you’re going to need to wake up early, so you really need to fall asleep right now, you’ll never actually fall asleep, because you’ll be so preoccupied with thinking about falling asleep.”
“...Uh-huh…”
“So what’s the answer? How do you fall asleep, or enter a real meditative state?”
“Well, the way I do it is I just stop thinking about it. I just let my mind wander normally.” I wasn’t sure where she was going. Didn’t this prove my point?
“Mm, no, not really. If you let your mind wander while trying to meditate, you’d never end up meditating, right?”
I frowned. “I guess it’s more like I let my mind wander with the intention of having it clear out on its own, or something? It’s hard to explain.”
“I think you explained it perfectly. You don’t force it, exactly, but you probably have it somewhere in the back of your mind that the goal is to end up clearing your mind, or falling asleep, or whatever. You maybe catch yourself when your mind starts going down some wild tangent that’s sure to keep you occupied for hours, or you try to control your breathing while you think, or whatever. Everyone has their own methods. Eventually, it’ll empty out, because you have that vague, subconscious intention.”
“So what, you’re doing the same thing, but with trying to think better about Ainash?”
“Basically. It’s like, if I just try to keep the topic of my thoughts generally focused around her, and curb any tangents that go off course, it’ll probably help me sort out my thoughts about her, right? If I just consider my future with her in my care, or remember things she’s done, or whatever. It probably has a limited amount of usefulness—you can’t just think about someone a bunch and then suddenly be super close to them, you have to actually spend some time with them, too—but I thought I could maybe take some time to consider the exact ways I think about her, especially since I’ve been a bit too busy to think about smaller stuff like that, lately.”
“Do not know what you two are talking about,” Ainash said, “but will try to not call you mean names anymore.”
“Yeah, kiddo, that’ll probably work just fine,” I laughed. Then I turned back to Erani. “I guess your method makes sense. I might do that too, while I’m on watch or something.”
Erani nodded, then glanced around. “Speaking of watch, it’s getting pretty late. Thought we should probably be heading to sleep soon. You want me to take first watch?”
“Nah, I got it,” I said. “I’m not too tired yet, anyway.”
“Alright, wake me up in a few hours.” Erani lay down, resting her head on her arms.
“Yeah, will do,” I said.
Ainash lay down and closed her eyes soon after, leaving me alone in the dark, the only light my white, inexplicably-shining armor, and the smoke that seeped out of its cracks whenever I cast Noxious Grasp. The Spell was only about 100 XP away from another Rank, which was a surprisingly attainable amount, now that I had Exponential Reclamation.
So I just sat my head back and rested. Bond Ranks, Spell XP…I eagerly anticipated getting plenty of those over the night—plus a good bit of well-needed rest.
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