Experience, Lessons, Time Bomb

Experience. Lessons. Ticking Time Bomb.

Stay away from the darkness.

I must. Stay away from the darkness.

But why? The darkness protected me.

It hurts.

Am I bleeding?

Complex and chaotic thoughts streaked through his mind. Wraith did not know if he was still alive; he only felt pain, and another emotion he was not quite willing to admit.

He wanted to return to the darkness, to the depths of that mine. It was damp and warm there, with rats for food and mud to shelter in.

He did not want to endure this torture; he should not have been treated that way.

However, a voice whispered to him, urging him to abandon such thoughts.

Stay away from the darkness, Wraith; that is not the fate you deserve, it said.

Fate?

This unfamiliar word intruded upon his already chaotic thoughts, making them even more frantic.

Countless visions rushed at him in the next second, baring their fangs and claws, seizing him with sharp talons to clarify the truths they believed in.

"You have no choice, child, you have no choice!"

They roared, their voices like great bells and midnight thunder.

"A fool's daydream! Established facts cannot be changed; you must obey! You are destined to be filled with blood and infamous; only then can you become—"

Become what?

Wraith stared blankly at the distorted scene, and then, a light struck.

"Awake?"

Wraith sat up abruptly, gasping for air. Without thinking, he scrambled up from the ground and, relying on his sense of smell, crawled back to the corner he knew best.

After trembling for a dozen seconds, he realized who the greeter was.

And where he was.

Karyl sat in the darkness, looking at him expressionlessly: "Are you leaning against the wall, Wraith?"

".What?"

"I said, are you leaning against the wall?"

"Yes," Wraith replied, trembling. "I am leaning against the wall."

His shoulders were shaking uncontrollably; the fear brought on by the hallucinations had not yet faded. He did not understand what those things were, nor did he want to. He just wanted to forget them.

"Come here," Karyl said. "Stop leaning against that wall; that posture is bad for your wounds."

"No, I don't want to—"

Wraith instinctively wanted to refuse; he did not want to leave this corner. To him, it was as comfortable as the bottom of the mine.

But all his instincts vanished the moment he saw Karyl's eyes.

The neon light filtering through the tattered gate was shredded by the holes in the wooden door into many irregular, broken spots of light. They hit half of Karyl's face, making his pale features look like a bizarre painting.

His eyes were glowing.

Wraith's trembling stopped.

"Come here, Wraith," Karyl repeated softly. "Don't lean against the wall."

This time, Wraith obeyed.

He hunched over and carefully moved away from the corner. The pain in his back made it difficult to walk, and a sticky sensation slid down his spine.

Blood, my blood, Wraith thought.

He pursed his lips, in extreme pain.

"Your wounds are severe," Karyl tilted his head, appearing slightly indifferent. "They hit you with a Grappling Hook Gun. That thing is used for hunting; you're quite lucky."

"Hunting?"

"Yes, there are many people outside the city who couldn't pay and were driven out. They struggled to survive out there, at the cost of becoming no different from beasts."

"So the nobles invented a new form of entertainment, and the gangs like to participate too, though not with the nobles. They call this process 'following the trend.' Interesting, isn't it?"

He laughed, but there was no mirth in his eyes.

"That's not interesting," Wraith said in a low voice. "What is a Grappling Hook Gun?"

"That thing is terrifying, Wraith," Karyl shook his head with a smile.

"It explodes the moment it hits. The arrowhead shatters into a dozen pieces, each with cruel barbs. It gets stuck in the prey's flesh and bone and extends as far inward as possible. So, your back is a horrific sight right now."

Will I die? Wraith asked silently. He did not speak, but his expression was enough to convey his question to Karyl.

"No, you won't," Karyl said. "In fact, in a few hours at most, your bleeding wounds will have already begun to scab over, Wraith."

"."

Wraith did not answer him, simply sitting on the ground in silence. He seemed somewhat dejected, and Karyl did not miss this emotion.

He was rarely wrong; in fact, he was almost never wrong.

"Are you feeling dejected?" Karyl asked.

Wraith looked up, glanced at him, and then buried his head back down: ".Am I not going to get an answer to that question?"

"Yes."

".I forgot to close the window," Wraith said with annoyance. "They. reacted so quickly."

"Are you trying to find an excuse to defend yourself, Wraith?"

"."

Karyl couldn't help but laugh, laughing at Wraith's reaction, but there wasn't much genuine happiness in this smile.

This laughter was more like a mockery of himself.

You were hit by something capable of tearing an adult apart, he thought, fell from a roof over ten meters high, and were dragged.

Dragged by the combined power of three motorcycles—and then, you lost about a bucket of blood while being washed by acid rain.

Yet you aren't dead, and you could even be called healthy.

Your wounds will be healed in just a few hours.

You really are a terrifying monster, Wraith, yet you happen to have a heart that only a human would possess.

What am I supposed to do with you?

The smile gradually faded. Karyl did not continue speaking; he stared at Wraith, his expression slowly becoming calm.

After a while, he spoke again.

"For a novice, you did well. You bypassed the guards and the sentries on the roof, you opened the window, and you didn't make a sound."

"It took you less than a minute to kill those three leaders. All of that was good."

"But don't look at me like that, Wraith," Karyl said calmly. "I'm not praising you. You are no longer a novice."

Wraith nodded dejectedly, agreeing with Karyl's assessment. He did not refute it, because he knew Karyl was right.

Karyl was always right.

He lowered his head again.

"Six months ago, you already joined this line of work. You are not a novice, Wraith. You have already killed many people who deserved it, but you still haven't learned the most important point of this job."

"You must be cautious at all times, Wraith. Remember my words: stay cautious at all times."

"If killing the person in front of you will expose you, don't strike. If the enemy's whereabouts are unknown, wait until they appear before you start acting. If you don't know what is in the darkness, don't go in."

"But—"

"There are no 'buts', Wraith," Karyl said softly. "Listen, if you don't understand, write it down. You will understand sooner or later, and you must understand. I don't have much time left; you must learn all of this."

Wraith's eyes widened; this was the first time he had appeared so caught off guard.

"What does that mean?" he asked, his speech rapid. "Why don't you have time? Are you leaving?"

"No, I am not leaving. I don't have time because I am dying," Karyl answered calmly.

"But you are clearly healthy!"

Wraith said urgently. "I can tell, I know many things, Karyl—you won't die, I know this, just as I know how long I have lived! Do you know how long you have lived?"

Karyl did not answer this.

Wraith's incoherence made him laugh again, a pale smile. Afterward, he shifted the topic to something else.

"Do you know what a time bomb is, Wraith?"

"It's an interesting little gadget. An ordinary bomb explodes within seconds of being triggered. A time bomb is different."

"It is set by someone to a specific time, a ticking countdown. The moment that countdown hits zero, it explodes."

Wraith looked at him with extreme unease, waiting for the next sentence.

"And I—I have a countdown," Karyl said. "There are two problems here. First, I don't know when this countdown will end. I can't see the specific numbers, only a vague sensation."

"Second, I am much more dangerous than a time bomb. I can sense it—and so can you, Wraith, remember? You said the power I use is dangerous. Yes, it is indeed dangerous."

Wraith bared his teeth in anger at his words. His teeth were neat and white, and his face was stained by acid rain and dirtied by his own blood. But Karyl could see the truth.

Beneath this filth, Wraith was perfect.

Without a doubt, he was not human.

But he was angry at this moment.

"You said a time bomb is set by someone!" Wraith roared. "A countdown? Who set this countdown for you? I will find them, and I will kill them!"

The anger washed over him. Karyl narrowed his eyes; he felt a palpable, terrifying threat.

Wraith held no hostility toward him; in fact, the anger Wraith felt at this moment was for the sake of protecting him. Yet, the mere aftershocks of that fury were already making Karyl struggle to resist the urge to draw his blade.

Perfect, perfect, Wraith. You are surely the one who can change this world.

"Relax, Wraith," Karyl said with a smile. "No one set a countdown for me. In fact, if you insist on me finding someone to hold responsible, that person can only be myself."

"What?"

Faced with his question, Karyl offered no explanation—or rather, he chose to explain in a different way.

"In this world, everything has its price, Wraith. Some are obvious, while others are hidden away."

"Take the power I use, for example. It is convenient, responsive, and powerful enough to defy the logic of reality; it can even summon a wandering soul from across the cosmos."

"And the price is often tied to these very things."

"It is changing me, Wraith," Karyl said softly, his tone bordering on a trance.

"I can perceive this subtle, creeping change. And based on my experience, the price I must pay for such immense power will surely be staggering."

Wraith looked at him in confusion, completely unable to grasp what he was talking about. That was fine, though. Karyl did not want to spill the entire truth within a mere half-hour.

Some things must be understood through action; Wraith was already wary of this world, but for a world like Nostramo, his wariness was not enough.

He was still too naive.

He should hold a stance of absolute cruelty toward his enemies and treat them as the most terrifying monsters in the world before he even decides to strike.

A person's attitude toward the world should depend on how the world treats them. If the world kisses you with pain, you need not repay it with a song.

But you also need not burn the world to ash.

"Continue resting, Wraith."

Karyl stood up. "Your first solo hunt wasn't a total failure, but you didn't succeed either. As for the answer to that question, I will consider it at my discretion later."

"Where are you going?" Wraith asked.

Karyl looked back with an ambiguous smile. "Where do you think I'm going? To return the car? The night of Nostramo never ends, Wraith, and your disastrous hunt clearly still needs a conclusion."

Wraith watched him leave in silence, and for the first time, the dark corner no longer felt quite so comfortable.