Chapter 13: Why Did I Care That I Became Pitiful for a Moment?
Lumin left his sister Rahil's room and headed toward his own after making the choice presented to him by the Castle Man. He decided to go to his room, sleep, and return to the real world. He had failed to find the Castle Man and ask him about leaving, which pushed him to retreat rather than risk going out.
"Boom."
Before Lumin could reach the bed, the sound of an explosion rang out from outside. The window behind him shook violently, forcing him to move at full speed toward it to see what had happened outside.
From his elevated position, Lumin's eyes fell upon a creature of dark green color, its structure resembling that of a human... but he could not bring himself to call it human. Its body was twisted in a grotesque way. Its limbs were coiled over one another, and its arms were bent back onto themselves as though forced to twist. From where he stood, it was clear to Lumin that this thing was human... rather, it was clear to him that this monster's arm had twisted from the shoulder all the way to the fist, bent tightly more than five or six times, with its knuckles turned backward.
Lumin did not need long to recognize what the creature below was, and he felt terror and safety at the same time. He was horrified by the twisted monster outside, yet felt safe because he was here in his home... under the protection of his mentor, the Castle Man Richard.
"Fishwell?"
Lumin looked down at the twisted figure, and calm took hold of him. All he could think of were those monsters that had tried to attack them in the Red Mist. Back then, there had been an entire army of these creatures called Fishwell, but here, Lumin saw only one...
Lumin kept watching the twisted thing as questions poured into his mind.
Why was there a Fishwell here? How could it be here? Was it alone, or was there an army like it? What did the explosion have to do with it? Could the outside be full of creatures from the Red Mist? Was it possible that I did not move to another world at all, but instead to the Red Mist? But how could my home...?
"Shiiihahahaa!"
Lumin heard a sharp laugh from below, cutting off his thoughts. He recognized the voice immediately, and a faint smile appeared on his face before he went down, closed the window, and descended.
He went downstairs directly to the guest room. He noticed there was a pot in the kitchen. When he had searched the house earlier, the pot had not been on the fire, which made him think the Castle Man must have placed it there.
He entered the guest room, but it was empty... He did not find the Castle Man on the sofa like last time, so he returned immediately to the kitchen overlooking the living area and approached the pot placed over the fire.
He noticed that a card had been placed on the table beside the pot. The card showed the face of a clown with dark green hair. The man wore a dark formal outfit. Only his left eye was shown on his face; the card did not draw his other eye, nor even a nose or mouth. His face was painted white, and his right eye carried a sense of madness and dread that made Lumin believe he was a deranged clown.
The clown held a card covering half his face. When Lumin focused on the small card, he noticed that it showed the clown in complete detail, even containing another tiny card inside it, as though it were an endless loop.
In one corner of the small card was a symbol he had never seen before. He could not understand it, nor the meaning behind it.
At the bottom of the card was written a word in the Vodan language: "Joker."
Lumin did not understand what this word meant. He had never seen or heard it before today, but he could tell it probably referred to the deranged clown in the drawing. He reached this conclusion by comparing the card to the Castle Man's card.
Lumin wanted to turn the card over to see whether anything was written on the back. He flipped it and found nothing written there. Before he decided to try speaking to the Joker through the card, the same way he spoke to the Castle Man, he felt the card begin to tremble unnaturally.
Then, when he turned it, the upper part of the man emerged from the Joker card. He seized Lumin by the neck, and in one swift motion, stole his father's red scarf from around his neck and threw it to the ground.
The man threw Lumin's scarf into the fire beneath the boiling pot beside him and laughed hysterically in his sharp voice.
"Shiiihahahaa!"
Fear began seeping into Lumin's heart. He wanted to move and deal with the Joker, but he could not. He felt the air around him grow heavier, and sweat began to gather on his body. He tried to resist and force himself to his feet with all his determination, but he failed.
From his experience at the hunting club, Lumin knew that it was the Joker's aura that was preventing him from advancing. He had never felt an aura this heavy before, not even when he entered the Red Mist.
The Joker grabbed the pot with both hands and threw it at Lumin, who was struggling to stand.
Lumin screamed at the top of his lungs involuntarily, but after only a brief moment, he felt an intense chill from the water, even though the pot had been boiling.
Only a few seconds passed before the feeling of cold disappeared, and he began to feel his body changing.
He could not understand what was happening to his body in those rapid seconds. He felt something new, as if he were in a completely different body. At the same time, he felt a powerful headache and a high heat rising from his chest.
The headache lasted for several minutes before disappearing completely. When he opened his eyes, he could see much better. He could even see the faint dust on the wooden floor, and he could see the threads in his clothes with complete clarity.
His vision was not the only thing that changed. All of his senses had improved beyond his expectations. He could hear sounds he could not hear outside, the slow footsteps of a four-legged creature, and even a faint alarm from outside.
Lumin noticed that the Joker's aura had disappeared from around him, and that the air had become much lighter than it had been moments before. He steadied himself and rose to his feet.
As he stood up, he could smell many scents: the smell of fire from outside, the smell of the pot that had been poured on him, the smell of blood near the door, and the smell of meat and vegetables from the kitchen shelves.
Lumin sighed, then burst into laughter until he nearly choked on it. The Joker had frightened him perfectly, and he had looked pitiful doing it, but he knew that because of this he had become a Pathwalker. He laughed at himself, and at the feeling that satisfied him.
Why did I care that I became pitiful for a moment?
Lumin approached the table again, but this time he walked calmly. He wanted to ask the Joker whether the outside was safe to leave, and he wanted to know why the Castle Man's card had vanished from his inner pocket.
When he reached the table, he did not find the Joker card there. Instead, he found a sentence written in a dark crimson color. He could distinguish the smell of blood coming from the words, different from the blood smell near the door:
"Congratulations! You are now a Linker. You may go out whenever you wish."
Lumin stared at the words with a calm face, wondering whether the Joker could read minds.
He ignored the words and looked toward the fire, glancing at his father's red scarf. Only a few burnt remnants remained of it. Lumin felt a little sad, because his father had gifted him the scarf before sacrificing his life.
He did not take his eyes off the scarf and watched it burn as he thought:
My five senses have become stronger... I think this is because of the Linker ability. If the Castle Man can bind himself to a card, why are my senses binding to me? If the Linker Path specializes in connecting things together, then that would be a logical explanation...
He let out a soft sigh and continued thinking as he watched the scarf turn to ash and scatter away. Thanks to his enhanced vision, he could see the ash clearly, as though it were right before his eyes.
The Joker helped me become a Linker... but he did not say any of the things the Castle Man had recorded. I thought I had to repeat the words myself and perform the ritual, but that was not necessary...
He stepped away from the table and headed toward the door to leave. He bent down and touched the congealed blood on the floor with his index finger. He no longer felt afraid of getting close, especially after what the Joker had written for him. But his strong sense of smell did not give him the option of ignoring the odor, so he silently wiped the floor until the bloodstains disappeared.
After some time had passed and he finished wiping the floor, he left the house. He did not find the body of the person who had previously been knocking at the door, which stirred several questions in his mind.
When he looked around, he did not find the street he knew, nor the houses he was familiar with, nor the forest he knew. That made him think:
I have moved to another world... I am not dreaming.
He looked around until his eyes settled on a carriage parked in front of the ruined building opposite his house. It was a white carriage with black stripes. Unlike the carriages in the village of Flancia, this one was very low to the ground and had many windows in an unusual way.
Lumin approached the white carriage carefully, never lowering his focus despite the increase in his sensory powers. He moved slowly while inspecting every part of the carriage: the red glass at the back, the black wheels, and the white handles.
When he reached the carriage, he looked through the window at the inside. He found two empty seats with a small gray table between them, and in the back there was a single black sofa like the seats.
In front of the small table, he saw many shapes and symbols he did not understand. In front of the left seat was a black wheel, similar to the steering wheels used on ships in the way it was made, though different in design.
He grabbed the front door handle and tried to open it, but it remained locked. He tried another way, then a third, then a fourth... all of them were useless.
He sighed lightly before deciding to go around the carriage. He approached the red glass at the rear of the carriage and touched it while looking inside. He found another light source inside, one used for illumination. He had bought a similar kind a while ago and connected it to gas pipes so it could ignite.
He stared at the lamp for a while, thinking, before continuing around the carriage.
Do they have gas pipes in their carriages? I should try installing pipes in the count's carriages and test the idea in the real world.
He was shocked to find a white license plate attached to the back of the carriage, with numbers and letters written on it in the Vodan language, beneath them symbols he did not understand.
"ع م ك 8881"
"A M K 8884"