CHAPTER 220: CHAPTER 220: GOLDEN [3]

Damn...

I shuddered.

My memories from yesterday...

’I can’t remember...’

My mind was vague, my thoughts were hazy like a fog had been blown up against a glass window surface — mysterious and incorrigible.

’This damned System...’

I gritted my teeth. My expression twisted, my finger’s arched — the tips threatening to bite into the table surface.

It wasn’t even trying anymore.

It was almost like Meta, or the System, was no longer even bothered if i caught on to whatever it was doing to me. It wasn’t even trying anymore to hide or disguise the level of influence it truly had over me.

It was oppressive. Suffocating....

... terrifying.

For the next couple of seconds, i seethed.

’Well at least now I’m a hundred and ten percent certain that the answers...or something i might be looking for...are in the system.’

And more importantly.

Now, i had an actual means to uncover them.

But.

That’s under the condition that i was ready to lose my eyes — or worse.

Eyes of Discerning... However, it wasn’t as absolute as it seemed.

My lips parted. I sighed, low and dreary.

Maybe not yet at least.

Somehow, the System is able to deflect the Skill and cause it to glitch out like it was recently. Whatever it was made of, the damned thing is persistent to even block such a mysterious skill.

Meta wasn’t bluffing. That really was a warning. I’ll have ti thread more carefully.

Although now it seems like every of the direction i decide to take feels uncertain and foggy — what if it was all according to the measures of the System or the one behind it— one thing that remained certain even now is that, i had to get stronger.

I had bo choice than that, if it desired to break the System and away from it’s threads.

The irony...a small pathetic laugh, a hollow one, resounded from my lips.

My only visible option of breaking frew from the System was fulfilling exactly one if it’s primary purpose of getting more powerful.

But then again...i guess life is full of all such ironies.

Calming my thoughts with a dry sigh, i slowly rose to my feet.

For now I should just do what i came here to do and figure out more about Stigmatas and Patrons or, whatever the System called it. Although, i got the feeling I’d ve lucky if i succeeded in discovering something massive.

The name and concept of Stigmatas in this world, i knew. I’d at the very least come across the term a few times since my Awakening and enrollment into Aegis.

It’s a small percentage of the already remote Awakened community possessing abilities and powers even more unique than the nature of Skills and Attributes.

Actually, in some sense, Stigmatas or Stigma were kind of similar to Attributes, but rarer and more complex, from the little I knew.

I never really thought about it much after vaguely finding out about how the upper ten or fifteen percent of the Awakened community actually tend to have Stigmas.

It seemed like a pretty rare thing.

So where did i go off to get one like the one down my back?!

"While at it, i should try to make some findings and do some research about the name ’Moria’ or that eerie symbol from before." I muttered as i pulled out a couple of books that caught my eyes from the shelves while cringing at my own thoughts.

The word ’research’ gave me a headache.

And staring at the endless rows of tall, and packed, bookshelves surrounding me like fortresses of accursed knowledge, i sighed deeply.

I had a feeling I’d be here for a while.

***

A couple of hours passed over eventually. Although not as fast as I’d preferred.

Each moment in time i spent buried under thick textbooks at the Library felt like torturous eternity. At the end of it, i had my fill for the meantime.

"It’s regrettable, but even after all this time i couldn’t find much."

I mean, what was i expecting on my first visit to the library.

My thoughts trailed on the little I’d discovered as I strolled out the stocky library, full of tall shelves and the smell of ink and books hanging in the air.

I knew i was still due for another visit to the damned accursed place of knowledge. I missed the parts when i could usually just ask Meta all the complicated stuff.

But now it went without saying that i couldn’t any longer. Not as carelessly as I’ve been at least.

Aside from during the time of the appearance of the Stigmata this morning, Meta still hadn’t said a world to me and, neither have i.

As much as i tried to hide it, i was deeply in thought about what happened.

Enough so i didn’t immediately realise it was just barely noon, the yellow bright sun hanging over the slides and casting long shadows.

As i walked down the cobblestone covered path outside, my left arm swayed limply next to me as i stopped to regard it silently.

"Oh yeah... I’m Eta Rank now, huh."

With everything that had happened since i came too, it was hard to forget.

But i really was Eta Rank.

And after all this while too...

I guess...in all of everything, that was one good thing. I eas stuck at the Meta Rank for a year, but now that I’m finally here...i wasn’t really sure how to feel.

’I thought I’d be more excited.’

It seems most of my emotions have veen exhausted by this point.

"Haaa..." I sighed deeply. When suddenly, i heard a crisp voice from behind.

"You good?"

The voice seemingly came out of nowhere suddenly and i froze before turning around. All of a sudden, there was the presence of someone standing just behind my back that i hadn’t noticed before.

"U-uh?" The moment i turned around to react and try to say something, i found the words clogged down my throat and my eyes seemed to dazed.

The sight i met had me stuttering stupidly and my jaw slacked.

Immediately, i couldn’t help but picture the Sun that was up above in the sky.

It was...

"...Huh?"

Golden.

’Stunning.’

***

Stunning.

That was the only thought i could manage.

There was an otherworldly beauty standing right before me as i turned, het presence as light and soft as the rays of sunlight, with two pools of liquid golden yellows eyes that reflected the depths of mine in hers.

"Uh?"

For a moment, i thought i felt my brain short circuit. I couldn’t even properly form coherent thoughts or make sense of anything.

"Pfftt," the golden blonde beauty laughed, voice like fresh morning due — snapping me slightly out of my reverie. "You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Vic."

’Vic...?’

"I’m sorry...?" I barely managed, confused.

"Hm? What’s that?" The girl tilted her head, and the sunlight seemed to suffuse and bend around her golden yellow long hair. The radiance around her seemed otherworldly, but i barely managed to recover myself and stood fast.

"...Do i know you?" At my question, the girl seemed blank on her expression. I wasn’t sure how to properly describe it.

Internally, i wanted to face palm, however. That was a dumb question on my part. Although i did get the feeling she seemed vaguely familiar, there was no way i would forget someone that seemed to garner the world’s favour under the sun as if it were her spotlight.

She had long, lustrous golden hair — as if weaved from the pure rays of sunlight — reaching down to her lower back like a silky cascade, twin pools of golden yellow eyes that seemed to burn hot like molten gold, and ivory skin unblemished by scars or tans that seemed out of place from her sun, radiant like nature.

She was tall — slightly taller than me actually, i admit — and emitted an aura of seamless graceless. She looked older — dressed in the colours of the Final year’s uniforms even — yet the thin pull at her lips and flicker in her eyes as she tilted her head at me betrayed a childlike wonder and boisterous innocence.

Yeah...no. I would definitely remember someone like....this.

But she called me Vic.

i blinked my eyes, as if to get the sun out.

"Have we met before?" I said again, feeling the afternoon breeze brush past my face and through her silky gold strands that seemed to bend the sunlight.

Her bakr swayed softly behind her like an echoe of something illusionary and unreal — a reality that felt untainted and warm. And then something i never thought i would never be able to properly describe happened right before me.

Her lips pressed, pursing tightly as her cheeks filled up like a chipmunk’s, and her shoulders rose as she crossed her arms almost offensively. Her yellow eyes rippled with something akin to harmless scorn — if you could even call it that...

"Hmph!"

She was pouting.