Ch.58Nest Building (6)

My emotions were complicated.

Was it because I had so much to think about, and had learned so many new things?

I sat dazed in the spot where Lorian had left, recalling the past.

The image that clearly came to mind was my home.

A semi-basement apartment, yet more livable than I’d expected. My sanctuary that I managed to endure thanks to the kind and good-natured landlord.

Even now, when I think of “home,” that dimly lit place comes to mind.

There, I lived with my sister.

I found myself thinking about my sister anew. What kind of person she was, and how she treated me.

To be honest, I couldn’t compare her to other family members since we had none, but I believe she was the best sister I could have asked for.

She wasn’t just a sister.

She was both my sister and, in a way, my mother. I’d never actually had a mother, but I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t piece together what one was like from my friends’ conversations.

“Morning! Time to get up and eat breakfast!”

My sister always woke up before me. Though she was busy with work and often came home late at night, she always cut into her own sleep to prepare breakfast for me.

Even to someone like me with mediocre cooking skills, her breakfast was impressive.

Not that it was fancy or extravagant.

But it was the best breakfast we could afford given our circumstances.

A perfectly fried egg, rice, soup made from leftover ramen broth.

Savory ham and kimchi shared by our landlord.

“Since I can’t really make you lunch or dinner, I at least want to feed you a good breakfast.”

My sister would say that with a bright face.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it, just wondering why she didn’t sleep more when she was so tired.

It wasn’t until after she disappeared that I realized how much effort it took.

Waking up half-asleep to prepare breakfast.

Using a knife while drowsy was clearly dangerous, but she always prepared that “basic breakfast” without fail.

Sometimes the soup or side dishes would change, but one thing remained constant—she prepared my breakfast every early morning.

Her own breakfast didn’t seem to matter much to her.

Perhaps that’s why, when my friends talked about their mothers, I could only think of my sister.

Caring, gentle, looking after me.

Making breakfast every day, working hard so I could live normally, never hesitating to provide emotional care.

It sometimes felt like she prioritized that over working and earning money.

Thinking about my sister now caused me pain.

Thanks to the knowledge I’d just gained. I sighed, leaning against the sphere that served as a teleportation device.

The looks my sister sometimes gave me.

Looks that I, inexperienced and immature, couldn’t possibly understand.

What I had thought, after turning 19, was something like maternal affection as she watched me eat heartily, was actually closer to desire.

Though she quickly suppressed it. My sister was gentle, caring, and mature.

Meaning she knew how to restrain her desire for her own brother.

But the fact that she had to suppress it proved that such desire actually existed.

That troubled me deeply.

Why did my sister feel that way toward me?

Come to think of it, my sister never seemed to date.

She must have met a decent guy or two at her part-time jobs, and I would have been willing to approve if she brought home someone she liked, assuming they were a good person.

But she didn’t seem to be dating anyone. It wasn’t because she was too busy saving money and taking care of me.

I even heard from her friends who occasionally visited and treated me like a living teddy bear that my sister had received several confessions but never accepted any.

At the time, I just thought she wasn’t interested in dating, or that she was too mature to be attracted to men of similar or lower mental age.

But what if that wasn’t it?

Could my sister possibly have—

“Fuck…”

I forcibly cut off that train of thought. A headache throbbed in my skull.

I already had enough to worry about and think through.

Deciding where to go in this vast new continent with adventures awaiting wasn’t even worth calling a concern.

“What should I do?”

Muttering to myself made my chest feel a little lighter.

Suffering alone really wasn’t my style.

I finally gave up on brooding. I couldn’t help what naturally came to mind, and I couldn’t avoid thinking about it when trying to fall asleep.

But at least I didn’t need to agonize over it right now.

I could just ask her directly, talk to her, hear her thoughts.

When I meet my sister, I’ll ask her. Proving I’m her brother would be the priority, of course.

But that wouldn’t solve everything.

In fact, it created a new problem. I thought of those blue-gray eyes that were always searching for me.

If what my sister felt for me was romantic love…

How would she feel about Isla, who had chosen me as her husband material?

And what about Lorian, who showed similar desire, or Melody, who subtly expressed her interest in me?

In the end, I just sat there as if I’d never gotten up, and after much contemplation, fell asleep leaning against the sphere.

*

When I awoke quite some time later, my consciousness had awakened before my body.

Should I call this a lucid dream? They say you can freely control your dreams in that state, but that didn’t apply to me.

Or perhaps this was something slightly different.

I was sharing the vision of someone else’s body, not my own.

I could see a temple. A place I instinctively knew was the Pantheon.

It was somewhat dignified like the one I had seen earlier, but something was different.

It had more things, was more complete, you could say. It was already complete before, but it seemed some things had changed over time.

The most noticeable difference was the absence of cracks between the roof sections. From there, whoever was sharing their vision with me stepped onto a platform behind a stone monument.

Then something moved. It slowly moved from within the body whose vision I was sharing.

The sensation was like something massive moving through internal organs.

Yet it wasn’t unpleasant as my description might suggest—rather, it was a strangely unique sensation.

As that sensation flowed down to the feet and into the platform, the platform glowed blue.

And then…

With a whooshing sound, I suddenly found myself in the room with the sphere where I had briefly fallen asleep.

But in someone else’s body, not my own. Naturally, there was no sleeping me to be found.

The room with the sphere was also very different. There were many more platforms, and the sphere was densely dotted with countless blue marks.

That’s when I realized something. Those blue dots represented places one could teleport to.

Anyone with the same information as me could easily figure this out.

It wasn’t just marking the current location. The man who owned this dream stared at another platform and then took something out from his chest.

It was similar in color to what I had seen just before the teleportation occurred. He fiddled with the object before putting it back in his chest.

I soon learned what it was. Suddenly, enormous letters appeared in my vision:

[You have discovered the Pantheon’s teleportation system!]

In my dazed gaze, the text changed in the frozen world.

[You can craft teleportation beacons using processed blue minerals found in the New Continent, and teleport to the Nest through dedicated platforms within the beacon’s radius!]

And it changed again.

[From the Nest, you can view all beacons and choose a location to teleport to!]

It felt familiar.

Like a tutorial you’d see in games. Text that appears in the corner of the screen to explain new features, sometimes accompanied by a short video showing how to use them.

As I froze momentarily seeing this, the dream gradually lifted.

And the first thing I saw upon opening my eyes was Isla’s face right in front of mine.

“…What are you doing?”

“Do it again.”

“Do what…?”

“Talk.”

Why was she suddenly acting like this? Although my consciousness had awakened first and I wasn’t sleepy, my throat and body were still stiff.

Not understanding, I stretched, and the poncho that Isla had apparently covered me with slid off.

That snow leopard-patterned poncho smelled nice. Isla’s scent, you could say.

A pleasant, refreshing smell.

“Here, take it.”

“Thanks.”

“Hm? For what?”

Isla didn’t answer. What a strange girl. As I thought this and got up, Isla took my hand to help me stand.

Oddly, it reminded me of my sister, and thinking of her made me melancholic. Did my sister really have romantic feelings for me?

Even though I’d decided not to worry about it until I could meet her, I couldn’t help these thoughts from surfacing.

Despite Isla being a completely different type from my sister. Perhaps it was because I was aware that Isla had feelings for me.

I barely held back a sigh and let out a long yawn instead. Isla was sticking close beside me, which was uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a bad feeling to receive someone’s goodwill.

Rather, it felt quite nice. Especially from a pretty girl like Isla.

But then a thought suddenly occurred to me.

Lorian had told me.

Due to my father’s influence, the three clans—shapeshifters, vampires, and necromancers—were likely to be favorable toward me.

I suddenly felt it wouldn’t be cowardly to tell her about this.

“Hey.”

“I’m listening.”

“Lorian told me something. That because of the influence of someone called my ‘father’… I’m good at seducing shapeshifters, vampires, and necromancers.”

Isla closed her mouth and stared at me. That characteristic expressionless face that made her emotions hard to read.

Only her tail conveyed her feelings. It swished, expressing doubt. I glanced at her tail and continued.

“I think I might have seduced you because of that influence. What do you think?”

Her head tilted. Isla blinked her blue-gray eyes quizzically.

“I mean, it might not be your own will.”

Her eyes rolled. She seemed to contemplate something for a moment before saying:

“I like you now.”

She seemed to be implying “so what does it matter?” Sure enough, she tilted her head to the other side.

“Or do you dislike that I like you?”

Did she not even feel fear? It didn’t seem so.

Her tail was stiff. Seeing that tail, I answered honestly.

“That’s not it. It feels good to have a beauty like you like me.”

“Then should I continue liking you?”

Something about this question-and-answer exchange felt odd. I smiled slightly, and Isla faintly smiled back.

“That would be nice.”

“Okay. I’ll keep liking you.”

Isla really was a strange woman. Not in a bad way, though.

I felt fortunate to have been found by her.

After fully stretching my stiff body, I asked:

“So what are you doing here?”

“Watching your sleeping face.”

“Besides that?”

“We thought of something and came to get you.”

Something they thought of. I wondered if it was something trivial, but it wasn’t.

Isla went up the stairs and brought back Lorian.

When Lorian reached me, she momentarily gave Isla a strange look before saying:

“I’ll be direct. You, Luwellin, need to build a faction.”

You?

I hesitated at the word she didn’t usually use. But only briefly, as I questioned what followed.

“A faction?”

“Of course, the priority is learning to use the teleportation device. Mastering that comes first, but what’s important is the faction.”

Then she approached me and placed her hand on my chest.

“Directly opposing the clans would be impossible. Even with your excellent potential. So at the very least, you need a faction that would make them hesitate to touch you…”

“Wait, hold on.”

Lorian paused. Her hand left my chest as if burned. There was a strange feeling, but I continued my question.

“Why do I need a faction?”

Relief flashed across Lorian’s face.

“Ah, that was your question. Good.”

“What do you mean, ‘good’…?”

“You may not realize your importance, but you, Luwellin, might be the answer the clans have been seeking for a long time. If they discover this fact, they’ll try all sorts of things.”

I was speechless, and Lorian looked up at me with her red eyes.

“If you align yourself with a major faction, they’ll sow discord and destroy it. If you travel alone, they’ll hunt you. There are three ways to counter this.”

She held up three fingers. The ring finger was the first to fold.

“One, become a being with no utility and no value.”

“How is that a way to counter them?”

“It’s not exactly countering, I suppose. But it’s certainly effective. The clans won’t pay attention to you.”

That made sense. But according to her, it wasn’t a viable option.

As expected, she folded her middle finger next.

“Two, become a being so powerful that they wouldn’t dare touch you directly. Like Guardian Knight Lucilla or the Blazing Duke.”

The strongest beings across the entire series. There were probably a few others who could be counted among them.

Like the Sword Saint of the Northern Alliance’s Sword Saint Council, or the Dragon King, also of the Northern Alliance.

Everyone except those extremely few absolute powerhouses was a potential target.

Even Melody, who was also level 20, became their assassination target due to her weakness—she became easy to deal with when her agility was sealed.

So without any hesitation, Lorian held her index finger right in front of my eyes.

“Finally, three, a group that leaves no room for infiltration.”

“The Black Knights.”

“Correct. The Anti-Magic School’s Black Knights have been one of the few groups that oppose the three clans since ancient times.”

Moving only with burning hatred for magic, they are beings that even the most fanatical inquisitors would be wary of.

They are naturally hostile to vampires who wield terrible magic, shapeshifters whose very existence is magical, and necromancers who wickedly manipulate death.

So infiltrating their ranks is impossible. To begin with, there are no means to infiltrate.

That’s what Lorian was asking of me.

“This Pantheon, as you called it. There were no animals on the way here. Even though they could enter.”

Isla said. Then Lorian continued:

“Even in the blood clan’s records, it says only a select few and their guests can enter and leave, so this place can be a perfect sanctuary and fortress.”

She folded her extended index finger, then lightly tapped my chest with her fist, making a hollow sound.

“You, as the lord of the Nest, must rebuild this Pantheon and become its master.”

Somehow, I had become a lord.