Falling back, Nox recognized the familiar vista of his room. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes to the sudden brightness.
For a split second, a spectrum of differing golden lights seemed to flicker into existence. Still confused about what he may or may not have seen, Nox quickened his blinking and started rubbing his eyes.
A strangely intense heat was emitting from them.
As his confusion grew, Nox went to the bathroom and checked intensely for any abnormalities.
There in his reflection, his eyes were unchanged—black, with not the slightest color escaping their expanse.
A frown creased his brow. At a loss, Nox started rubbing his temples.
Am I imagining things?
Ever since his rude awakening, when his eyes had bled so profusely, Nox had been extra attentive about them, believing that his ability might have to do with sight. Sadly, he had yet to make substantial progress in this field.
Shaking his head dismissively, Nox went back toward his bed, as the experience from before had thoroughly exhausted him. One could not substitute sleep for letting the body rest while toying around in the soulsea, it seemed. Doing so is even counterintuitive from the looks of it.
The reserves of Notium that Nox had access to were thoroughly drained, leaving him feeling a bit weakened, as if he had overexerted a muscle, squeezing out everything it had to offer.
His body, mind, soul, and so on were mostly still human, and therefore ran on calories; it wasn't terribly dramatic, but if a part of him had already fully assimilated, he would be in a world of pain, feeling like a body on the verge of starving or deprived of air.
Thinking about it, Nox was a bit thankful not to be in the higher stages.
The higher the rank, the more powerful one became, but at the same time, new needs would arise.
In the Holder and Assimilator stage, there were no true drawbacks, ignoring the sword dangling above their heads, called the Call, that would someday claim their lives.
However, upon reaching the second stage, new cravings would arise. One would no longer have a fully human body and would therefore need a different kind of substance to sustain it.
These needs would not lessen with higher assention, but would only increase, as far as he was aware.
Nox was unsure about the higher ranks, but he was sure that the first five, which were still in the confines of mortality, all had such drawbacks.
Thinking about the stages, Nox asked himself in passing: How long would it take to fully assimilate the soul?
This was difficult to say, as he was working on estimates for the most part, but he would be more specific when he returned to the soulsea for his next session and gathered some conclusive data. For now, he believed he could at least halve the length of this process, if not more, judging from the records he read and others' experiences.
Lying on the bed, his arms stretched out on both sides, he took a quick look at his phone, wanting to know how long he had been in there.
As his eyes slowly wandered along the numbers, they widened bit by bit. Shock flooing over him.
"What? How many hours!?"
He sat up and stared fixedly at the time, repeatedly checking if everything was in order.
He had entered the soulsea around 8 in the morning, and now it was 1 in the morning! Of... the next day!
Had I truly spent 15 hours in there?
I-it felt like so much less.
How was this possible? Thinking back, he realized he lost track of time for a bit. Was his sense of time truly that horrendous? No—when connecting to the soulsea, his consciousness had been scattered. Maybe that explained the leap in time. Accepting this, with a few complex emotions swerving, Nox felt exhaustion tug at him, pulling him toward slumber.
All the analysis and excitement are taking their toll.
Musing for a few breaths of time: I was lucky that I didn't have classes for the next few days.
Sighing deeply, Nox threw himself back onto the bed, wanting nothing but sleep. He made a final mental note to be more cautious with such distortions of his sense of time as his eyes slowly closed.
***
"dinnnnnng"
"Bing bong! Bing bong."
"dinnnnnng"
A chorus of two distinctly differing sounds was ringing in his ears.
Sluggishly, he reached for the phone, which buzzed annoyingly.
"dinnn——"
Taping the phone repeatedly without opening his eyes, not intending to look towards it, the grasp of slumber still had a strong hold on him.
"Bing bong!"
"Hmmm?"
Noticing his attempts were failing, Nox slowly sat up, rubbed his eyes, and picked up the phone, planning to deactivate the alarm more deliberately.
Looking at it with difficulty, the light from the screen, hurting the sleep-drunken eyes of his. Repeatedly blinking in an attempt to adjust the eyes to the screen light.
"Bing bong! Bing bong!"
He rubbed his head as confusion and annoyance set in. The alarm was already off, so where was this sound coming from?
"Bing bong!"
The grogginess slowly disappeared as a flash of understanding ran through his eyes. Looking at the time, he confirmed his guess.
"Fuck!"
He had overslept!
Jumping out of the bed in a hurry, Nox made his way to the door, dressing himself on the way.
Opening it without thought, he was greeted with the sight of a very displeased Trisha standing right before the doorstep.
Having her arms crossed, tapping one repeatedly with a finger pointed toward his bare chest, she asked in a friendly yet somehow frightening tone, while evaluating him with her gaze.
"Letting a lady wait is quite an offense, you know, Noxy!?
And presenting yourself ungroomed and half naked before her, the first time you meet in private, is even more so!!"
Embarrassed and struggling to find an excuse, Nox looked down and found his appearance not as bad as she had made it out to be. True, he looked a bit disheveled, since he had just jumped out of bed, but by his standards, it was more than enough—especially now that his body was improving with the nutritious food he could afford. Well, he wasn't quite muscular, but at least he wasn't malnourished, a bit on the leaner side maybe, having a bit below average looks.
"Ha HA"
He laughed twice, trying to buy time to explain himself, but Trisha interjected.
"Well, talk on the way, hurry up. But seriously, how many men say that wommen take too long when preparing, while you guys simply oversleep thoughtlessly."
Blinking in confusion, still a bit dazed, Nox hurried back, splashing some water on his face to wash away the last remnants of sleep, and hurriedly put on a jacket.
Trisha, meanwhile, was standing outside, checking out the room, with little interest spurring her on.
"This is quite barren, I have to say. You don't seem like a person to put much emphasis on luxuries, but this is simply underwhelming."
Walking towards her, now with a thick winter jacket on top, Nox replied unhurriedly.
"I haven't really had time to settle in, and more importantly, most of my stuff, let's say... It is no longer functional."
A flash of interest revealed itself on her face, before it was quickly extinguished after a second of thought.
Now standing outside, ready to go, Nox continued.
"And to begin with, I was a bit minimalistic."
As they started walking towards the administration office to get permission to go outside, Trisha commented teasingly.
"Are you using the word minimalistic, not wanting to say that you were poor?"
Wincing in response, he played off, "Do you have to state it so bluntly?"
***
Having traversed the snowy Metal maze of the surface. Conversing throughout their journey, mostly on superficial topics at the forefront, Trisha's active barrage of teasing seemed to have no end.
The conversation died down as they started walking down a long flight of stairs.
The clank of their feet on the metal steps echoes throughout the space. Trying to avoid an uncomfortable silence, Nox asked.
"How come you enjoy teasing so much, bringing chaos to such an orderly world?"
Watching him for a few breaths of time, thinking about her answer a bit too deeply, compared to her usual behavior.
"Why do we do anything? Isnt it simply to get some excitement into our boring lives?
I'm not strong, nor smart, nor significant enough to change anything in this giant, orderly world of ours, but does that really matter?
No, in the end, life has no inherent meaning, so I simply follow whatever desire I have at the moment, wanting to see what comes of it."
Raising an eyebrow, Nox asked in an exaggerated voice, her words echoing in his mind.
"So, your desire is to torture me at the moment?"
Letting out a few laughs, she replied with a mischievous smile.
"Maybe"
Not knowing how to continue the topic, he changed it with a relaxed tone, having grown accustomed to her presence.
"So what were you planning to get?"
She looked at him with questions in her eyes. A light of realization dawned, and she responded with a jab, as she usually did, her more somber tone from earlier nowhere to be seen.
"Where are your manners? Asking a noble lady such questions is quite improper! "
"Referring to oneself as 'Noble' and 'Lady' all the time is just as improper, especially when you're barely older than me. So what is it?"
Dropping the act, she answered simply.
"Hmm, nothing much. One simply should know what happens in the market—and I'm visiting a friend, plus I simply like the atmosphere down there."
Friend? She has a friend. How? He decided not to push further since she didn't seem eager to explain. Nox, by nature, wasn't very nosy; he was just quite curious when discovering new things, and relationships between people weren't new to him.
Does her friend work in the market or live nearby?
Arriving at a door, Nox held his ID against a scanner, which opened the door automatically; Trisha repeated the process, following behind him.
Walking through, they found themselves at a higher elevation. A ginormous city, illuminated by thousands of lights, stretched below—built here unexpectedly and starkly contrasting with the buildings on the surface now in view. Built unevenly, having a chaotic air to it, with crowds of people wandering its streets.
The market was quite crowded, as it was the largest in the Abyss city and was mostly meant for the lower classes.
Anything could be obtained here, provided you had the money, which Nox now had.
A smile creased his lips. He thought of the things he needed and could obtain here.
Looking at him from the side, Trisha asked, her smile probing, her interest roused.
"I told you my purpose of coming here, so it seems only fair that you tell me yours."
Laughing in response, Nox answered.
"Two purposes, really, with my most urgent being to follow my desire and get out of the scruf with Reinhard."
Puzzledly, looking at him, she asked.
"And how are you gonna do that?"
With a barely contained laugh, he answered, "I'm going to have him regret ever having challenged me."