Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)-Chapter 1125. An Eye to See

“Did you end up outrunning the sun this time!?” A tiny Res beamed.

The young girl was always surrounded by the gossip of their village. The walls were paper-thin, and she was rarely allowed to leave her room. As a result, she only knew about the world through words of mouth.

Her skin was flawless, and her hands had never seen a day of work. The child was always adorned with beautiful petals and sapphire trinkets. Raoul considered it too little for the direct descendant of the Blue Dahlia. But the little girl was far more intrigued by the treasures that laid beyond her home.

“Not this time. A lone wolf can’t travel through to the east without stopping. The trains don’t go that far.”

“Why not?”

“It’s dangerous.”

“What makes it dangerous?”

“The same reason you shouldn’t look out past the horizon.”

“But why!? Star this, and this! I wanna know!” Res giggled. “Raoul, can you bring me there one day? I wanna see it. All of it. Brandar sounds nice! Do Demi-Humans really get to be Adventurers?”

“They can own shops and land.”

“No way! But I thought Demi-Humans couldn’t own land!”

“Only in Grandis.”

“Is Grandis really that bad?”

“Hah. Would you look at the time. You should get some sleep.”

“Awww. You keep changing the subject whenever I ask you something negative! Why!?”

Why indeed? It was my way of preserving Res. Like mother, like son. I wanted to shield her eyes from the horrors of this world. But no one can stay innocent forever. Res saw the world through others. She was never able to leave her home.

The scenery changed. Flames engulfed the world within the pool as it turned red. The village was burning. Charred corpses hung from windows. Others were strewn or impaled onto burning stakes. Puritas’ Orders cleansed the village of its inhabitants, leaving nothing but misery in their wake.

Res sat at the shorelines clasping her eyes. Blood poured from her hands as she nursed her wound.

“Raoul. Mama… I saw… I saw fire. I saw it…”

“Res?”

“Raoul…! I… I don’t wanna see anymore. I scratched and scratched, and then my eyes started to water. Then, this red thing came out, and I couldn’t see anymore!”

Fire, blood, and the Stars she saw that day were the first shades of red she had seen since birth. She was so sheltered that she didn’t recognize she was bleeding. The burns she sustained across her body were impossible, given that she, of all people, would have been spared.

“I tried to reach into the red swirls, but they hurt! Raoul… My body stings. I put water on it but it still stings. What’s going to happen to me? Please Raoul… I want to know.”

“It’s… It’s going to be okay…”

She knew it was a lie.

But she held onto it.

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Raoul had no excuses to make. He had nothing to explain. It was as Res said. He could only admit his wrongs and face them head on.

“I’m–”

“Keep your excuses. I can’t exactly blame you too hard either. I wouldn’t be able to describe what a Star is or isn’t either… I would have done the same. Nowadays, I wouldn’t let it slide. Believe me, you’d be dead if you tried to give me false hope. But I understand the merit of it. What else is there to say in that situation?”

Her leniency surprised Raoul. She was normally much hasher on him. But she saw his tears and realized that Raoul had already been beaten down hard enough, to where even Frost could not punish him further.

Res sighed and stuck out a hand.

“Take it or leave it. Next time, drop the deception. See and talk about the world as you see it. You gotta also drop your prejudices. You think you’re the only one who despises Elysia? Neither you, me, mom, or Frost has to tell us that this world is fucked up. We know it because we live in it. Raoul. It can’t be an excuse. Horrible things will happen. It has already happened to us. It used to be that no one ever batted an eye. It’s not like that anymore.”

The little girl who didn’t know the difference between dusk and dawn became the person who was responsible for protecting the weak. Her aversion became a strength, and it granted her a unique perspective on life.

But arriving at that truth was a road that passed through hell and back. The end wasn’t any better. However, it was what allowed Res to appreciate the world for what it was, as well as gain the courage to protect it.

“Misery was always me. Death followed me because I allowed it to. Frost… she said misery is a part of life. There is no person who won’t suffer. I don’t want to accept that truth but, then I’d go back to what I was.”

Misery was an integral part of life. How much one suffered depended on countless factors, some of which seemed to be universal in Elysia. Still, another tear fell down Raoul’s cheek. The liquid turned into an even brighter shade of gold, and it began to glow as Res uttered:

“<[Wolf Without Light, Lacking Heed]>. Without light, you’re damned to see nothing but the shadows around you. Take a look, Raoul. Look at what this place has been hiding from you.”

The light banished the clouds, revealing crystalline pillars. They were painted in the color of sunrise. Inscribed into the pillars were the inscriptions used by the Golden Dawn, the very same that he had read in the cave where he met Deiman, Autumn and Mae.

But Raoul also remembered this place as one of the last few placed his mother visited before she lost her memories. Etched within the inscriptions were the names of him, and the original names of his sisters.

He also recalled Deiman. Their first meaningful interaction had Raoul threaten to kill him. He didn’t recall why he ended up sparing Deiman. If the end goal was to capture Ara, then her opinion would not have mattered whether he killed Deiman or not.

I made the choice to spare him. Why did I do that? Deiman… He was an experiment. A beaten dog with Mana Channels inserted between the muscle and the fat. I let a Shell live. Did I see the twins in him? They’re both Shells. Or… Did I see myself in those dead eyes?

Raoul didn’t know himself because he never cared to think too deeply about it. His instincts were second to none, and he was far from uneducated. In fact, amongst everyone within the room, he held a greater wealth of knowledge.

Hence, his namesake, the Wise Black Wolf.

But what good did wisdom do when he willingly sealed off his eyes?

He remembered his teacher. A faceless man appeared in the reflection of the pool. Their collar covered their face, and their hood shielded their eyes. Two points of light glowered between the gap of the mask and the hood, slightly below where a person’s eyes would be.

“Master Pluto used to tell me that people were allergic to the truth not out of malice, but fear. No one wants to leave the cave. No one wants to change what they believe in. There is comfort in watching shadows dance on the wall. Misery inevitably becomes a comfort.”

Raoul’s grip loosened around his greatblade. It crashed by his foot. His stance waned, as if he was on the cusp of being crushed by the weight of his regrets. But Ber’s hand, which was overlapped with his, and Res’ presence anchored him in place.

Ironically, it was their presence that kept him standing.

It ate at him. Only now did he realize the value of his own presence. Slowly, the words he had long kept to himself began to leave his lips. In the meantime, the Corrupted Raoul steadily impaled itself on the nail, as if yearning to remove itself from the presence of his sisters.

He felt compelled to do the same. It was undoubtedly a Corrupted Skill. However, Ber’s hands kept him from mimicking its actions.

“I left that cave a long time ago. At some point, I lost confidence in trying to tell the truths I knew, because it changed nothing. No matter what I saw, I heard or said changed anything. So, I closed my eyes, sealed my mouth, and placed both my hands on my ears, and did nothing.”

Raoul’s head lowered, and for the first time in his life, he leaned onto someone else that wasn’t his own mother.

“I didn’t want you, Res or Cer to become a Moon, or like me, because…”

Raoul sensed a new presence arrived. The pool became radiant. Golden particles lifted from its surface, and they drifted towards a figure standing behind him. He closed his eyes, allowed the last flicker of his pride to die out, and uttered in a whimper:

“I didn’t want anyone else to endure what I had to.”