KamiKowa: That Time I Got Transmigrated With A Broken Goddess-Chapter 210: [] Mandatory Trip Down Memory Lane

Nolan paused near a glowing crystal formation, its translucent surface pulsing with an eerie blue light. He kept a careful distance, motioning for the others to do the same.

"The crystals are how the Archivist feeds," he explained, adjusting his glasses. "Each one stores memories—fragments of knowledge harvested from anyone who touches them."

Xavier studied the crystals without approaching. "So these are dangerous."

"Not in the way you’re thinking." Nolan shook his head. "The Archivist isn’t malicious. It just... gathers. Like a collector adding specimens to a vast museum."

"What happens when someone touches a crystal?" Margaret asked, keeping her voice low.

Nolan’s expression darkened. "They contribute to the collection. The crystal extracts memories—usually starting with the most emotionally significant ones." His hand hovered near a smaller crystal. "Those who resist often lose more than those who offer willingly."

Naomi snorted. "That’s a fancy way of saying ’don’t touch the glowing rocks.’"

"Exactly." Nolan nodded, apparently missing her sarcasm. "Though I’ve developed a limited immunity through repeated, controlled exposure. Small sacrifices of unimportant memories."

Ashley remained silent, the golden fractures beneath her skin casting strange shadows across her face. She stood apart from the group, her posture rigid as she scanned the darkness beyond their immediate surroundings.

"We need to find Calypso," Xavier said. "How much farther—"

A rumbling sound interrupted him, the floor beneath their feet trembling. Books tumbled from nearby shelves as the walls of the chamber began to shift.

"That’s not supposed to happen," Nolan whispered, eyes widening behind his glasses.

The bookcase maze rearranged itself, shelves sliding across stone floors with a grinding noise. In the center of the chamber, a massive crystal formation erupted from the ground, larger than any they had seen before. It towered above them, pulsing with intense light that cast long, dancing shadows.

"What did you do?" Naomi hissed at Nolan.

"Nothing! I’ve been careful not to—" Nolan stopped mid-sentence, staring at the crystal. "The Archivist is awake."

Tendrils of luminescent mist snaked out from the central crystal, moving with purpose toward each of them. Xavier drew his daggers, but the mist ignored his weapons, weaving between them.

"Don’t fight it," Nolan cautioned. "Fighting makes it worse."

"What’s happening?" Margaret’s voice trembled as a tendril approached her.

"The Archivist wants to... catalog us." Nolan’s voice grew distant as the mist surrounded him.

The tendrils touched each of them simultaneously. Xavier felt a strange coldness sweep through his body as the mist made contact with his skin, followed by a nauseating sensation of falling.

Then darkness.

===

Nolan opened his eyes to find himself standing in an endless corridor lined with bookshelves. But instead of books, the shelves held glowing crystal containers, each one pulsing with a different rhythm. Inside each container swirled what looked like luminous smoke—memories, he realized.

This was the Archivist’s collection.

"Hello?" he called out, his voice echoing. "Xavier? Naomi? Anyone?"

No response came. He was alone.

Nolan had experienced this before—during his first month in the ruins—but never with such clarity. The Archivist had separated them, pulling each into a different section of its vast memory library.

He began walking, hoping to find the others. As he moved deeper into the collection, the crystal containers began to change. They grew familiar. Too familiar.

The memories inside belonged to him.

Nolan paused before one container, seeing the swirling image of himself at fourteen, being beaten by older boys from his school. Another showed his father’s disappointment when Nolan failed to meet his academic expectations. A third displayed the moment he realized his Essentia ability was triggered by others’ dismissal of him.

His failures, his pain, his moments of greatest weakness—all preserved perfectly.

"Why these?" he whispered.

A voice answered from everywhere and nowhere, ancient and dispassionate.

"I begin at the origin. All complete data sets must have a beginning."

Nolan spun around, searching for the source. "Archivist?"

"I am curious about you, little calculator. Your predictions interest me."

"Where are my friends?"

"Walking their own paths. Their stories, like yours, are... incomplete."

The corridor ahead of Nolan shifted, forming a new path lined with empty crystal containers.

"Show me how your story ends."

===

Xavier found himself standing in a familiar hallway—peeling paint on concrete walls, the smell of bleach and misery, fluorescent lights flickering overhead. The orphanage.

Children scurried past him, their faces blurred as if viewed through frosted glass. None acknowledged his presence. At the end of the hall stood a door he remembered too well—the punishment room.

"Not real," he muttered, clenching his fists. "This isn’t real."

"But it was." The voice seemed to come from the walls themselves. "This shaped you."

A small boy ran past Xavier, no more than five years old, with familiar dark hair. Xavier recognized himself—skinny and terrified, yet already learning to hide the fear behind defiance.

The child-Xavier was being pursued by a large man—one of the handlers whose name he’d never learned. The man caught the boy by his collar, lifting him off the ground.

"Think you’re clever, don’t you?" the handler snarled. "Stealing food for the others. Playing hero."

Adult Xavier felt a phantom pain spreading across his back, memories flooding through him of what came next. He stepped forward on instinct, his hands reaching for daggers that weren’t there, fingers grasping at empty air.

"Leave him alone," he growled, though he knew this was just a memory, an echo of a past that still haunted him in the darkest corners of his mind.

To his surprise, the handler paused, turning his head as if he’d heard something. But the man’s eyes drifted through Xavier, unfocused and empty, seeing nothing.

"He cannot see you," the voice explained, echoing through the hallway. "This moment has passed. But it remains unresolved."

"What do you want from me?" Xavier demanded, his voice bouncing off the concrete walls.

"Understanding. Completion. Your story is fragmented."

The hallway stretched before him, twisting and extending into darkness. Doors materialized along its length, each one different—some splintered and worn, others heavy with metal locks. Each door, Xavier somehow knew, led to another defining moment of pain or survival, another piece of the broken puzzle that had created him.

"Show me how your story ends."