Sahro closed the door behind him and left his friend ruminating alone in his room. Glenn rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly, before sighing loudly.

"Fuck me...Three whole weeks..."

"Hey, at least we've got some news about Redan!" Nelg cheered, earning a sneer from the other voice living rent-free in Glenn's head.

"...Sahro was right, though. You need to get yourself back in an operational state, or you might die from starvation," Diamanes snorted as he reappeared in his host's left palm.

Glenn groaned, holding his head painfully.

"...That's way too many voices and opinions for one single mind, alright? Shit, we're lucky it was Sahro guarding me and not Milena, or my weird little secret might have been revealed to the whole world!"

"Would that be so bad? There are many cases of people affected by schizophrenia and living incredible lives!" Nelg contested, his voice ringing inside Glenn's head.

"Oh yeah, what a great idea. I mean, it's not like your reputation can be ruined any further, you've destroyed a whole village already..." Diamanes's laughter echoed mockingly inside the luxurious bedroom.

Glenn drew a deep breath before smacking both of his hands together.

"Alright, new rule guys: no discussion in my fucking mind. I can't even hear myself think right now, so if you want to discuss something, do it privately or something. Oh, and if you want to share that something with me, just speak to me one at a time. Got it?"

"Sure, sure..."

"Whatever, I'll probably forget that rule in a day or two anyway."

Glenn groaned as he rubbed his face.

"...This is already killing me..." He shook his head, before concentrating back on Nelg.

"So, tell me, how am I supposed to use you? I'd like to figure that out before I leave my cozy bedroom into the mess waiting for me."

Nelg chuckled and took a large inspiration.

"Sure! So, it's pretty simple, you just will for me to appear, and appear I shall! As I said previously, I feed on souls to grow stronger. Kill stuff and enjoy your sword becoming more powerful!" The sword explained excitedly, Glenn nodding slowly in understanding.

"About that, do I need to slay stuff by specifically using you, or anything will work?" He asked curiously.

"Well, you're me and I'm you, so it doesn't matter. As long as "Glenn" killed something, that something's soul will be gnawed on by "Glenn". And since I am "Glenn"..." Nelg trailed off, letting Glenn finish his sentence.

"You'll get your share as well. Okay, so that's essentially shared exp, but I don't get anything, right?" Glenn smacked his lips, Diamanes chuckling mockingly in the back as he followed the discussion.

"No, you do get more powerful, since I'm getting stronger. You have to understand I'm essentially a second Mana Heart." Nelg's tone grew grave as his host's eyes squinted.

"...Are you telling me if I make you into a Third Circle somehow, I'd be as powerful as two True Initiates?" He questioned with a bewildered look, his heart skipping a beat as he realized how far he could potentially go.

Diamanes snorted.

"You're already leagues above True Initiates. Strength isn't additive, it's multiplicative. You'd probably be as strong as a Fifth Circle, or maybe a lower Sixth Circle, even though I doubt you'd find something that would need that much power to be taken down..." Diamanes trailed off, before laughing bemusedly.

"Wait, no, I had almost forgotten you were a calamity magnet. Ain't no way you won't have to face something on Doyle's level again."

Glenn grunted and stood back up from his bed carefully, holding himself on the wall. His legs trembled, threatening to collapse at any moment. The young man scowled and looked through the room quickly, finding his dimensional pouch waiting on a nearby shelve. He dragged himself all the way there and quickly searched through the pouch for any sustenance. He grinned as he found what he needed, before thinking back to Nelg.

Glenn stuffed his mouth with dried jerky as held his other hand out, willing for his Soul Weapon to appear. A gleaming sword's handle phased into reality, the young man's hand wrapped tightly around it. The rest of the sword soon followed and the final shape of the weapon was revealed. It looked incredibly unique and mystical before the Synchronization, with its shape being particularly different from anything he had ever seen, but now, it looked...

Plain. A bastard sword, straight and with no indication of being anything special.

"...Huh. I'm a little...Disappointed," Glenn muttered as he looked down on the sword. There were no engravings, nothing, it was just a sword, slightly longer than a classical longsword to allow for more versatility.

"Where the hell is my space-looking sword?" He blurted out, waiting for Nelg to explain himself. The sword snorted in disbelief.

"I can't believe it. Look at this spoiled child, he has a weapon he can carry anywhere and which will grow alongside him, but he's unhappy because it doesn't look cool! Fuck you!" Nelg swore at his host, making Diamanes laugh. Glenn's eyes widened as he rubbed his chin, his eyes running along the blade's edge.

"Isn't there a way to make the sword look like before again? Maybe if I ask Rusty or the Smith to get rid of the ego..." Glenn pondered aloud as he tested the blade's toughness.

"I...I wouldn't recommend that. That's a piece of your soul, after all, there would be some...unforeseen consequences to my destruction," Nelg gulped heavily.

Glenn moistened his lips, before putting the sword on the shelf and getting away from it.

"Well, it's not like I can't fight without a weapon, after all, I'm mainly a mage...I also have the Carbon Blade if I need to fight in melee, so I guess I can live without you..."

The sword vibrated and fell from the shelf, planting itself in the ground.

"Hey! No! Stop, come back! I don't want to spend my first days in the world in this room, as luxurious as it is!" Nelg protested desperately, Glenn freezing in his steps and turning back toward the sword.

"So, what are you not telling me, then? I know myself, don't try to play some kind of trick," Glenn crossed his arms, waiting patiently.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Nelg sighed and disappeared, before phasing back into existence right inside the young man's right hand.

"...Just run your Mana through me, and you'll see."

Glenn held the sword hesitantly, before gasping when he remembered he had a training room. He filled his mouth with a few more strips of dry meat as he dragged himself through his suite, reaching the training room. He closed the door behind him and held the bastard sword in front of him, commanding his Mana to rush inside the weapon. He felt his Mana Heart synchronize with the one present in the weapon, amplifying the power significantly.

Nelg's gleamed with a mystical blue light as the basic shape of the bastard sword morphed into exactly what he wanted, a unique, almost alien shape. A knuckle guard grew out of the basic cross guard, curving over the length of the hilt with flawless steel. The sword's blade curved slightly as the metal's color changed, becoming darker, almost black, in contrast to the pristine grey steel of the knuckle guard. The sword was a little more than a meter long and fitted perfectly in his hand.

Glenn grinned as he sliced through the air, finding the same feeling he had back when he had first held the sword, before the Synchronization.

"That's what I'm talking about—" The young man stopped talking when he saw a sharp blue line appear where he had sliced, moving silently toward one of the nearby dummies. The blue line made contact with the dummy, carving a rift through the tough steel with a loud creaking noise. Glenn's eyes widened at the consequences of just a simple slice as he felt his Mana getting drained away. The damaged dummy suddenly flew toward him, as if pulled by something.

"—The fuck?!?" Glenn blurted out, startled, as he instinctively used both of his hands to hack at the incoming dummy. His sword cut it in two, the two heavy steel parts falling on either side of his body. The young man gasped as he felt the drain on his Mana amplifying with each passing second. He hurriedly cut off the Mana supply, leaving the bastard sword to revert to its original form.

"Shit, what was that?" He questioned as he planted his sword in one of the dummy's halves, piercing through it as if it were butter. The dummies were made specifically to endure attacks and serve as targets, but his sword had cut through it so easily that he had a hard time believing it wasn't faulty.

"Cut and Pull, the only ability you can use through me, for the moment. I believe it's a result of your use of Gravity Manipulation and the material making me, but I'm not too sure," Nelg replied matter-of-factly, unimpressed.

Glenn chuckled in disbelief as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"So that's something innate to you, then? Shit, it consumes so much Mana though!"

The image of his armored self shrugging appeared in Glenn's mind. The latter didn't waste a second shaking his head to get rid of the disturbing appearance.

"Well, that's your fault...well, I think it is, anyway. That's probably due to the nature of the Magellanic Clouds, your magic consumes much more Mana than spells of other attributes, after all. How could I know?" Nelg sighed. Glenn nodded slowly, before willing for the sword to disappear back into his soul. The bastard's sword disappeared from existence, returning from whence it came.

"That's enough testing for now. Alright, there's another matter I need to deal with that I just remembered, and after that, I'll join Sahro." Glenn rubbed his temples and walked over to his bed, where he sat down. He looked down at his purple left arm, the entity that inhabited it remaining silent and obedient, respecting his host's desire not to have his mind too cluttered.

"Diamanes, if I'm not wrong, you mentioned something about Reginald having some kind of weird power, isn't that right?" He questioned, remembering the feeling of dread he had experienced back when he asked the Cleaner about Redan's past.

The entity whistled with admiration, before smacking its lips.

"Wow, I thought you would never ask!"

"In my defense, there's a ton of shit going on in my life currently, alright?"

"Sure, sure. So, that power Reginald is using, and the one powering the hot attendants back in the main hall, they all originate from one specific power source," Diamanes began carefully with a serious tone.

"...Which is?" Glenn's brows rose in curiosity.

"Such a filthy thing could only come from one thing, and that's another Fallen One. Damn, this disgusts me!" Diamanes spat to the side, earning a puzzled gaze from his host.

"Another Fallen One? Why is it that we meet so many of them these days, between Doyle Malory and whatever Reginald is?"

Diamanes passed his tongue over his pristinely white teeth before sighing.

"That's not what Reginald is that is the problem. That guy is human for sure, no doubt on that one. I'd say he somehow managed to get a small bit of power from a Fallen One, using it for himself. The Main Hall's attendants had that same feeling, only they had much more of the filthy power than Reginald."

Glenn rubbed his chin pensively while biting down on his lip.

"...Hmm, so he's not a Fallen One, but he stole one's power for himself. Or perhaps it was something that was given to him? It doesn't matter, in the end, it just means the Cleaner Workshop has many more secrets I shall not dig through since I like living..."

The young man remained silent for a few seconds, his eyes lost in the distance when the corner of his lips curved upward slightly.

"...I mean, nothing would stop me from just coming back later to investigate with a few more Circles..."

Glenn laughed at himself, before slapping both of his cheeks and heading for the door. The stumbling was getting better with each passing minute he spent awake, but it would not be truly solved until he fed himself properly. So, naturally, his next course of action was to head to the Dining Hall to join Sahro for a debriefing. The young man stepped out of his Dark-Gold suite and shut the door behind him, frowning when the door refused to close.

He tried to pull it a little harder, forcing it, but it didn't work.

"...Is it stuck?" He muttered questioningly as he opened the door back up to check the door frame and the hinges. He doubted it would be faulty since it was a Dark-Gold rank room after all, but maybe some obstructions were blocking the way. He crouched down, his brows creased in confusion when he found a perfectly round pebble lying in the frame.

"A rock. Sure." Glenn shrugged and picked it up, throwing it up and down while closing the door. He threw the rock away in a nearby bin and walked off, lost in his thoughts.

'I wonder what are the results of Reginald's investigations. If it's another noble behind the whole kidnapping thing, I swear I'll find a way to destroy the upper Circles of King's Rise. This shit is starting to tire me out...' Glenn glanced down amidst his thoughts, freezing in shock. Resting right in front of his foot was a perfectly round pebble, the same he had just thrown away. That scene jolted something inside Glenn's memories and he hurriedly looked through his pockets, unable to find the "potentially" sentient pebble he had "potentially" created using the Holy Blessing in front of the Twilight Gate on a rock.

The young man threw a horrified look at the pebble, before carefully picking it up and inspecting it closely. It was so round it looked almost like a pearl, only it was made of stone. A common gray stone, nothing special.

Aside from the fact it might be alive, of course. Glenn stared at the stone, a few long seconds passing without anything happening.

He suddenly shook his head and stuffed the pebble back into his pockets, refusing to think about it once again.

"This is a matter for later, once things have calmed down..."

Glenn patted his pocket mindlessly, a shiver running down his back.

"...Ain't no way I gave sentience to a stone, right?"

"...I wouldn't even be surprised"

"Imagine having a pet rock? That would be pretty cool actually."

The young man sighed tiredly and walked to the Dining Hall, weakly pushing the door open. The scent of freshly cooked food was brought to his nose, making him salivate hungrily. He gave a glance at the Dining Hall, finding Sahro, Javier, and Milena sitting at the same table while discussing something, food lying in front of them.

Glenn hurriedly picked whatever was available, ignoring the weird gazes of the other Fixers in the room, before rushing to sit down with the others.

"Hello, hello, yes I'm alive, yes I want to know about the stuff with Redan, just give me a second to eat." He cut off anyone who tried speaking before filling his mouth with food, grunting happily as the warm flavor of unidentified meat descended into his gullet. He immersed himself entirely in his food, wolfing down the plate in a few minutes, before patting his belly with satisfaction. He grabbed a jug of water with greasy hands and drank it whole. Finally, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve while leaning back in his seat comfortably.

"Hahhhh...that feels great. Damn..." He looked back at the other three confusedly. Milena was staring with her mouth wide-opened, her eyes similarly stretched out from the shock, while Sahro was frowning with a squint. Javier was...as always, just staring silently and emotionlessly, but anything else would have been weird.

The only disturbing thing was a man with blond hair and round glasses hugging a clipboard against his chest standing uncomfortably next to Glenn's table. The young man licked his lips and drew a deep breath, before sighing loudly.

"Mundare," He quickly cleaned himself, before turning toward the uninvited guest, who flinched fearfully as he hid his mouse eyes behind his clipboard, his thick unibrow creased deeply.

"So, who the hell are you?"