Chapter 257: 257. Suspicions

The boundary between the city realm and the wilderness was like a gate to another world. Each time someone entered—awakened or not—they felt a faint sensation of change, similar to the feeling of finally returning home after a long day. Now that Dallion had passed the third gate, he could see the actual difference.

There was a giant bubble of control surrounding the city, forming a literal line in the sand. Beyond that line was the wilderness—the place where the city’s rules ended.

“You’ll get a headache if you look too hard,” Eury joked, then took a sip from her flask. “Want some?”

“Sure,” Dallion said, even if it was a lie.

The two of them had been in the wilderness for a while now, sitting on a large rock outside of the city silently. Once Eury finished drinking, she tossed him the flask. Dallion wiped it, then took a gulp. The water was bitter, almost tasting like alcohol. Considering the gorgon’s level of perception, the only explanation was that she liked that taste.

“I never fit in,” Eury said all of a sudden. “There are both too many rules and too few. So many people are obsessed with keeping secrets, and at the same time, they accept that every pebble is watching them. They come to you when you have skills, only to tell you not to use them.”

Dallion nodded. At times, he had gotten that impression as well.

“Sometimes they tell you what to do in the hopes that you will. In other times, they want to be obeyed to the letter, and at the same time feel insulted if you point that out. It’s just…” the gorgon’s snakes waved about.

This was the first time Dallion had heard her ranting. In a way, she reminded him of himself. He, too, had those problems. Just when he thought that he knew what was going on, something would happen, rendering him completely clueless again.

“Is it about the Overseer?” he asked, moving closer to her.

“Not the Overseer. Everything else.” Eury turned to face Dallion. “You, of all people, should know what I mean. In this world I can’t even look at people without turning them to stone.”

Dallion was about to say that he could empathize when the realization suddenly hit him. Thinking back, he tried to remember the exact words, wondering if he had misheard.

“That’s right,” Eury said. “I’m not from this world either.”

There was nothing left to say. Dallion knew that there were other awakened that had appeared in this world from Earth, but he had never considered that the same could be true for non-humans.

“Soul-lost?” he asked, just to confirm.

“I hate that word. Soul-lost, soul confused, everything to replace the truth—someone plucked out of their own world and brought here.”

“I never knew…”

“Don’t worry about it. I was the same at first until I met Jiroh.”

“Jiroh is one as well?”

“There aren’t many of us, that's why we look out for one another. There are a few more in Nerosal, but they prefer to keep to themselves. Some even left the city.”

What were the chances? One of the first people Dallion had met had turned out to come from another world. That would explain why Jiroh had been so intent on helping him, regardless of the mess he got himself into.

“Is Hannah one as well?”

“No.” The gorgon laughed. “The old witch is just annoying. She does have a soft spot for strays, though. Never could turn down someone in trouble. I don’t know how she does it, but somehow she always knows. I don’t ask either. As they say, everyone has a secret.”

Dallion kept staring forward, trying to gather his thoughts.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I couldn’t. Not before you passed the third gate. You haven’t noticed because it’s still all shiny for you, but in time you will.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look at me for a minute.”

A weird request, though Dallion didn’t mind. He had spent quite a long time looking at Euryale under various circumstances. He had always found her beautiful, beyond her appearance. Initially he had found her grey skin and braid-like snakes unusual, though had quickly gotten used to them to the point he considered them a normal day of everyday life in this world. Now, though, there was something different—a barely noticeable shimmering surrounded the gorgon, as if someone had laminated her.

Once he had spotted the effect, Dallion looked down at his hands. The shimmering was there. Slowly, he slid the fingers of one hand over the palm of his hand. His skin felt the same as it always had.

“Cutouts,” Euryale said. “That’s what we are. Things that were added here even if they weren’t supposed to.”

“Can anyone see us?” He turned his hands around.

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“Yes, and no. They don’t see us shimmer, but they instinctively feel that we’re different, although they don’t know why. In my case, it’s easier. People here aren’t used to gorgons. It was a nightmare back home… this world’s home. Perception being the gorgon’s great strength, they were onto me minutes after my awakening. One day I was there, trying to figure out what was going on, shifting through two sets of memories, and the next my parents gave me a travelling emblem and a sack of food and told me I had to leave… I was seven.”

Dallion swallowed. That was harsh. If the same had been done to him in Dherma, he wasn’t sure he would have survived.

“A gorgon guide took me to the nearest town. After that I was pretty much on my own.”

“Eury…” Dallion put his arm around her shoulder. “I…”

“Thanks. Sometimes even I need to vent. This whole thing with the Overseer reminded me of back then. That’s why I hate her so much. She throws people in the deep and never looks back. And then she behaves as if nothing had happened.” The gorgon slammed the rock she was sitting on with her fist. “I went back to see them a few years later. I had become an apprentice to the town’s only awakened blacksmith and had managed to earn a bit. I foolishly thought that my parents would be happy to see me. Instead, they greeted me like a stranger, politely registering that I had survived. No one even asked what I was doing. I’ve never gone to see them since.”

That explained why Eury didn’t want to talk about her past: one belonged to another world and the other wasn’t something she liked to be reminded about. Back on Earth, a psychiatrist would have made a dissertation on the topic. Here, the only choice Eury had was to push on. It didn’t help that gorgon society was a lot different from a human one.

Interesting what Jiroh had gone through. If she had come from another world, her experiences should have been different as well. From what Dallion had learned from Hannah, the fury had gone to Nerosal on her own accord, even if the reason wasn’t perfectly clear… or so the innkeeper claimed. As far as he was aware, Jiroh wasn't an outcast, and she had sometimes shared that she had a lot of fond memories of her tribe and family. Still, there was no guarantee she was talking about her family in this world.

“What are you thinking about?” Eury asked.

“Just trying to wrap my head around it all. I didn’t know I was so unique a moment ago.”

“You’re unique, alright.” The gorgon ruffled Dallion’s hair. “You don’t have a predetermined limit.”

“Is this another complex fate thing I don’t know about?”

“Sort of. It means that your potential is unlimited. Everyone is born with limits on skills and attributes. Some can only reach level fifteen on body, while others can push it up to a hundred. Those rules don’t apply to us. With enough persistence, you reach any level you want.”

Unlimited potential… June had said something similar during Dallion’s house cleaning job. Now he understood what that really meant. He also felt somewhat sad about the people of this world. There was no telling how many people had reached their limit, realizing they couldn’t go further than this. Dallion had been an awakened for less than half a year and had already reached the top four percent.

“So, what happens now?” he asked.

“Aside from being able to discuss things that no one can understand? Nothing much.” The gorgon shrugged. “When I’m done being pissed at the Overseer, I’ll get back to doing her bidding… as usual.” Eury sighed. There was quite a lot of resentment coming from her. “And try to keep you alive, which you’re making extremely difficult.”

“Yeah…” The moment of revelation over, the normal everyday problems came crashing back in. In Dallion’s case, “normal” problems included the unusual interest the Star had towards him. “Eury, there’s something I need to tell you.” Dallion removed his hand from her shoulder.

Dallion’s tone of voice alone was enough to make the gorgon’s expression become deadly serious.

“The Star appeared in front of me. It was just for a few moments,” Dallion preemptively added. “You were gone to get a box, and he just appeared in your workshop out of nowhere.” Now, once Dallion knew more about attributes, he could assume the Star had moved at a far greater speed that he could follow with the perception he had at the time. “He asked me to kill the copyette.”

“You’re sure?”

“He gave me some slime bolts and told me to use them.”

“Slime bolts…” the gorgon repeated. “That’s the third time he’s helped you out. Quite the coincidence. Is there anything else you haven’t told me about?”

“Just one more thing… he’s from my world.”

“Shit!” The gorgon stood up briskly. “That means he can pretty much see you anywhere. You’re not in trouble with the Moons, right?”

“No,” Dallion lied. As much as he wanted to share everything with Eury, there were some things he couldn’t. The mark on his chest was a reminder of that. “What does this have to do with the copyette?”

“I’m not sure. But nearly all the people the Star has shown interest in have ended up like the creature you saw an hour ago. Most of them die before they get to do anything, but every now and again…” The gorgon didn’t finish the phrase. “That’s why I think the Overseer’s wrong. Artefacts alone can’t cause this. It’s not smugglers or the pool, or any of the dozens of fake reasons she comes up with. A Star cult has formed in the city and everyone is pretending everything is business as usual.”

“Won’t the Order get involved?”

“Despite what they’d like to think, the Order isn’t everywhere. Things fall through the cracks, especially with the pissing match between the nobles and clerics. If it wasn’t for the Overseer, I’d tell you to keep a low profile until after the festival. As things stand, don’t go hunting alone. This will seriously mess up my schedule, but let me know when you set out. I’ll be there.”

Dallion was just about to say that there would be no arguments there, when Eury planted a deep kiss on his lips. Given the time they’d spent together, Dallion was supposed to get used to this by now, but even so, the gorgon always managed to catch him off guard. It had become her thing—a subtle way to check his perception and reactions.

“I’m really lucky,” Dallion said once the kiss was over. “If I hadn’t chosen Hannah’s inn, I’d never have met you or Jiroh.”

“You still would have. That’s the thing about soul-lost. When we’re in the same domain, we always are drawn to one another. Doesn’t matter what level you are or what your perception is, we would have still bumped into each other. Why do you think so many are drawn to the capital?”

This was the point at which Dallion had prepared a wisecrack as a remark. However, something else crossed his mind. If people from other worlds had limitless potential, that might explain why the copyette guarded by Vermilion had managed to escape. Time was not a factor here, and neither was race. One of the greatest generals the copyettes had seen could well be a shopkeeper transported to this world ages ago. The lack of limit would have ensured he rose to the top, as well as acquired the skills to escape any realm prison. Even more alarming, the copyette’s presence would act as a magnet for any other soul-lost that emerged.

Euryale had said that a lot of them had been drawn to the Imperial capital. However, there was one other place Dallion knew of that had drawn a fair number in Nerosal itself—the inn that had offered work and shelter to Jiroh, Euryale, and Dallion.

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