Chapter 11: "Abyss"
Alicia wiped her tears with the back of her hand and sniffled.
Slipping out of Elara's arms, she turned her gaze back to the floor, to that small dark shape on the carpet.
Her anger had flared up and extinguished like a straw fire. What remained now was regret, weighing heavy like a cold stone sitting in her stomach.
She had shouted at him so much, cursed his existence, even told him to his face, "I wish you had never existed."
Despite this, the boy hadn't moved. He hadn't fled, hadn't objected, hadn't responded with anger.
He just stood there like a statue with his legs tucked underneath him, waiting for the judgment Alicia would pass on him.
This absolute obedience fueled the remorse within Alicia.
"I..." whispered Alicia, her voice trembling. "I don't know what to do with him, Professor."
She averted her eyes from the boy and looked at Elara. Her desperation was reflected in her voice.
"If he were a wolf, a hawk, or a scaled monster... I would know how to cage, feed, or train them. It's all written in the books. But this..." She pointed at the boy. "This is almost an ordinary human child. I don't know how to take care of him..."
Elara squeezed Alicia's shoulder with a slight smile on her face.
"You don't need to overcomplicate things for now, honey. As you can see..." Elara narrowed her eyes and scanned the boy. "He is quite a well-behaved boy."
However, Elara's sentence hung in the air when it caught on the boy's pitch-black eyes and dead-white skin with visible veins. This image resembled a silent ghost risen from its grave rather than the definition of a "well-behaved boy."
Elara cleared her throat, unable to hide the hesitation in her voice. "I mean... I think he is harmless, at least for now. Probably."
The Professor's sudden loss of seriousness and her indecisive state while trying to salvage the situation caused an involuntary giggle to spill from Alicia's lips. This was the first genuine sound following the tension that had lasted for hours.
Elara smiled, joining her. For the next few hours, the atmosphere in the room softened. They took some ready-made food from the magical cabinet and ate, and time passed.
Elara stayed there until she was sure Alicia had calmed down. They made small talk, drank tea. And the boy watched them throughout this whole time without shifting his spot on the carpet even an inch.
When the sun began to set and the room was painted in crimson, Elara stood up to leave.
"See you tomorrow morning, Alicia. Get some rest. And..." She cast one last glance at the boy before walking out the door. "Give him a chance. Maybe he will surprise you."
The door closed.
And the room returned to that heavy, intense silence.
Now there were only the two of them. The exhausted red-haired girl sitting on the edge of her bed, and that pale boy sitting cross-legged on the carpet, whose presence and absence were indistinguishable.
Even though Alicia tried to avert her gaze, she could feel the boy's eyes constantly on her.
Those stares... Were disturbing. This wasn't a harassing look; it was more like the lens of a camera trying to make sense of the world.
It harbored no emotion. It was just watching.
Alicia looked at the window, examined the ceiling, played with her fingernails. But that weight never lifted.
Finally, unable to endure the goosebumps on the back of her neck any longer, Alicia sighed deeply. She broke the silence as if breaking glass.
"Will you stop looking at me like that?"
The boy didn't react. His gaze was still fixed, still locked on the ocean-blue eyes.
Alicia slumped her shoulders in defeat. Sliding to the edge of the bed, she got a little closer to the boy.
As the distance between them decreased, she could see that strange, timeless expression on the boy's face more clearly.
"You don't have a name, do you?" asked Alicia, her voice softer this time.
The boy paused for a moment. He weighed the words in his mind. Name... That label that defines an entity. There was no need for this in the darkness.
"No," he said. His voice was emotionless and inscrutable as always.
Alicia nodded. "I guessed so."
She fell into thought. She couldn't leave him nameless. Calling him "Hey, you" or "Boy" would make this entity, who would already be humiliated for being F Rank, even more pathetic.
He needed an identity. A seal proving he existed in this world.
Alicia began to wander through the folds of her mind.
Dragonslayer? No, too ambitious. He couldn't carry this name with that frail body; everyone would laugh. Shadow? Too cliché. Arthur? William? Too ordinary. The entity before her, although resembling a human, was not human. She couldn't address him as if addressing an ordinary person.
Alicia bit her lip. It had to be something noble enough not to be a subject of mockery, yet simple enough not to seem exaggerated.
But most importantly... It had to be beautiful. Alicia wanted his name to be beautiful, at least.
Nothing came to her mind.
She sighed again in frustration and fixed her eyes on the boy's face.
And at that moment, she met those eyes again.
That blackness she feared before, that made her stomach turn... Now, in the dimness of the evening sun, it looked different.
There were no irises in those eyes, yes. No whites. There was only pure, uninterrupted blackness. But this wasn't a dirty coal black.
This was the peace of a starless night. That silent point of the ocean's deepest depths where even light could not reach. Not a well, but that infinite void where one who falls disappears, yet which is also the beginning of everything.
Alicia noticed a strange attraction, a hypnotizing beauty within that darkness.
It was eerie, but at the same time mesmerizing.
She was gazing into a pit, and the pit was gazing back at her.
A word appeared in Alicia's mind. The single word that best described those eyes, that defined that infinite nothingness.
"Abyss," murmured Alicia.
When the word fell from her lips, it left a pleasant timbre in the room.
When the boy heard this new sound, he tilted his head slightly to the side like a bird. He didn't know its meaning, but he liked it because it came from his owner's voice.
Alicia smiled slightly, confident in the name she found. There was both a danger and a depth in this name. It was just right for this boy.
She straightened her shoulders, adding a proud tone to her voice, and looked into the boy's eyes.
"Your name is 'Abyss' from now on."
The boy, that is Abyss, repeated this word in his mind. He was no longer just a piece of nothingness. He was Abyss.
"Abyss..." repeated the boy, as if tasting the word.
Alicia's smile widened. "Yes. Abyss. Do you like it?"
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