Chapter 118 - Aftermath

A dizzying sense of vertigo claimed him as the darkness receded, and the glass continued to shatter around him.

The emporium's walls and interior came into his view, and his pupils quickly adjusted to the new light. The crackling of glass continued around him for a while longer as his body became whole with each crack, as if emerging out of that realm in steps.

"Huh…? Vern…? Kid?" Came a voice from his right.

Vern wiped away the water in his eyes before turning towards Cedric with what should pass as a smile, "Thanks for your help in there, old man."

If he could call him kid, doing the same back to him should be fine, right?

Cedric stood there in his long, narrow hat, the nib of his pen resting on his book. His expression was frozen, and his forehead creased as he ignored Vern's words and asked, "Is it…over?"

Vern glanced down at his hands, cradling the only tangible proof of that child's existence—or was it his mother's? Lifting a pendant that dangled a small mirror on its end, he offered a more genuine of a smile, "It's over."

"WAHHHHHHH!"

"He's done it! By the Eternal Keeper, he's truly done it!"

Vern flinched as a tidal wave of clamor surged from behind, and when he turned, a sea of faces peered at him through the shattered remains of the emporium's glass walls. He didn't remember shattering them of his own will, but who knew what happened in reality while he was fighting in there?

The crowd erupted into an ecstatic frenzy, their cheers and shouts of gratitude merging into a harmonious cacophony that filled the air. "Savior! Savior!" they cried, their voices laced with reverence. Faces, young and old, beamed with a mixture of awe and relief as if witnessing the dawn after a prolonged night of darkness.

As he absorbed the joy and relief radiating from the crowd, the despondency that he was unable to shake away toned down a tad. His mind, strung tight with tension, found a moment's peace though a wave of weakness threatened to overtake him.

The feeling of emptiness coursed through his body, but the attention of so many people seemed to keep him aloft. He'd acted strong for so long, it would be such a waste to let it go now.

Thump, Cedric patted his back and sighed, shaking his head, "When the emporium went quiet, I really thought you were gone, kid. For good." Turning his gaze to the book, he added, "Even the numbers converged to infinity."

Vern didn't respond and just shook his head.

"Hahh. Young 'ins these days. You know it's gonna be a hell to write a report for this, right?"

Vern shook his head, "I'm a little too young to know anything about reports, sorry."

"OUR SAVIORS! The chosen ones! We're indebted to ye, lordships."

That's when Cedric realized they were also cheering for him, and his face turned pale. He stumbled and inched behind bit by bit, seeming terrified. This reminded Vern of the situation, and his face heated up, too. What was going on?

Could he also back away like Cedric? Would that be a bad idea? The largest crowd he'd ever handled was at conferences, and even there, people indirectly cheered for his master, not for him. After all, most of the credit of an apprentice's invention went to the master. Yet, all of them were addressing him right now.

"Thank you, milords! Thank you!"

Umm…should I respond? After a bout of hesitation and indecision, he sighed. I should handle them like any other crowd.

Resting one hand on his chest, he pulled the tail of his coat high with the other and bent his rear leg before executing a gentleman's bow, "It was my honor to serve you good people. May lady keep you all from harm's way."

"Oh my god!! He's a believer, too!"

"Lady bless us! May the keeper bless us!"

The crowd cheered another time, and Vern barely held his facial muscles from twitching. Cedric used Vern as a shield and hid behind him due to the lack of other furniture in close vicinity.

But that's when he felt another sensation in his Thought Space, and it seemed this final act on his part had concluded the changes it was undergoing. The feeling of alignment within himself was so soothing.

As he was lost trying to understand the change, someone in the crowd shouted, "Shut up, everyone! Don't you see Milord is hurt!? You and you—go get some tincture and bandage. You go bring back Simi from the bridge."

"Stop wasting time! GO!"

The shouts quickly turned into gasps as the crowd dissolved, and many ran back to their houses.

Cedric then whispered, "How bad are these injuries?"

He’d almost forgotten all about them due to the adrenaline. Almost. His shoulder was soaked with blood, and his arm still leaked a profuse amount of blood. However, this reminder seemed to flare back all his pains.

Ughhh.

"It's…manageable." But then he finally remembered to ask, "Hey, Cedric, is there something wrong with using my Visions on myself?"

He didn't have the representation to do so right now, but he should soon have enough to patch up the wounds, at least. However, he didn't know if it would be any better than normal medicine.

"Hmm, it's…complicated and differs on a case-by-case basis. However, a general rule is to only use Visions that temporarily affect your body. Permanent ones can alter it in unintended ways."

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Darn! His visions leaned more towards creating permanent changes in objects. Fuck! I knew I shouldn't have used it too much.

After giving a nod that acknowledged the crowd one final time, he limped over to a stool by the counter, put pressure on his arm, and asked, "What about healing Visions then? How do they work?"

Cedric pulled out a handkerchief and very carefully pushed on his shoulder—adjusting its position based on Vern's reaction. Once settled, he answered, "Hmm, do you know about the famed Asea's tears?"

Well, he more than just knew about it. He'd fought more than a couple of addicts who overdosed on it. So he nodded.

"Right. That's an example of why one shouldn't ingest materials that permanently alter their body. They're a product of some high-shade Vision that reconstructs the body based on the whims of the Observer that materialized those tears."

"This is why most healing methods we've approved at Vigil temporarily alter your body's healing capabilities, not heal it directly. So it's the body that's doing the mending itself, not the Vision."

Ughh, he grunted. That made a lot of sense. A sinking feeling emerged within him as he recalled all the times he'd 'stabilized' himself. Did I mess up big time, then?

Gritting his teeth, he pulled up the right leg of his pants and pointed at the injury, "I used my Vision to patch up this wound. Do you think I’ve permanently messed it up?"

Vigil already knew about his skills to a large extent, and Cedric had seen all of it today. There was no point in hiding his skills for the sake of it. What if things got worse because he didn't seek help and wasted more time.

Cedric looked at his shin intently. Jagged teeth marks were clear to see, the skin around them a little purple. The old scholar rubbed his thumb at the sensitive skin, and Vern winced. The pain in the flesh underneath wasn't stabilized at all.

After a while, he answered, "It seems you've only patched up the skin. The flesh underneath is still torn and not forcefully healed. It should be fine if you're just suturing your skin with it. Especially if you aren't creating anything new and bringing together existing tissues."

Vern sighed in relief. His paranoia hadn't really been unfounded then. He'd been holding back because of similar suspicions, and it seemed he was right to do so.

It seemed he hadn’t gone too far, and should be fine as long as he didn't 'create' the flesh or skin. That was to say, as long as he closely stuck to using the fundamentals of structure and not creation, it should be okay.

It would limit him to only fixing minor wounds, but it was such an important tactic in the heat of the battle that he couldn't not use it.

Vern then asked, "Are we good to go back? I'd like to get it looked at by a professional at the Vigil." He remembered Captain Shinsei had mentioned an infirmary.

However, Cedric's face suddenly turned apprehensive. "Oh no. We still have to cleanse all the civilians of any remnant pollution."

"Couldn't you have done it a minute ago?"

"M…me?" he pointed at himself, but before Vern could nod, he continued, "No. No. that’s not how it works. The protocol is to cleanse them individually. It has something to do with amulet's effectiveness on mostly objective people."

"Soo…we have to stay here for a while?"

Cedric nodded amidst heavy breaths, "I-I will have to. You should…you should go. You need rest. You've already done too much in my place today. I-I can't put this on you."

Vern struggled to keep himself from laughing. Social anxiety was one thing, but this was entirely something else. It looked like the man was getting ready to sacrifice himself for the cause or something.

After a while, Vern sighed, "I will be okay. I just need some time to regenerate my representation. Just handle them until then, okay?"

Cedric shook his head, "No. This is wrong. I will not listen to you another time. I can do this—"

"Milord," came the voice of the man from the first house, "Please let us help with your wounds. Simi right here used to be a nurse, and Hanni once fought in the war. He knows all about wounds."

Cedric stumbled back, his face only growing paler as the crowd reconvened with odd trinkets in their hands.

Vern smiled wryly and thanked the man who'd helped him since the start. However, he had more for him to do, "Can you help me with something else as well?"

He'd have to facilitate the individual cleansing of all the residents.

Vern bit the cherry cake that one of the residents had gifted him as the carriage towed them across one bridge after another. He eyed the bag full of these little trinkets they'd given him with a smile.

It felt…good.

Cedric was also curiously eyeing the pocket watch that someone had gifted him. And even that only happened because Vern was there to accept it on his behalf. The man was ready to escape the moment someone tried to talk to him.

Anyways…

His body still hurt all over, but he finally couldn't hold back anymore. With some food in his body, he relaxed and peered inside his spherical thought space.

All it took was a single glance for him to realize that many new Insights had populated his otherwise sparse octant of structure and a few more in upper-south-eastern—the one usually related to force. Yet, that wasn't the extent of the changes. All the insights seemed…more aligned.

He didn't need to hunt far to understand what these new insights could do. He just focused on the new islands of lights, and his perception unveiled itself.

He almost jerked back when the gradients he was so used to were taken over by something else. Many lines appeared in his surroundings, ranging in colors between black and white.

For a while now, he'd directly been using the balance between 'Stability' and 'Instability' to assign the grays to the objects around him. However, its biggest advantage was acting as a second vision rather than giving him some actionable information.

Other than that, he'd been able to see a vague harmony or disharmony in the objects as well as Fulcrums—both of which were far more useful than a plain balance of stability and instability. But this…

Vern brought his palm up to his eyes out of habit, even though he was perceiving them through his perception, not the eyes. Inside the hazy transparent outline of his hands ran lines that seemed to represent nerves—but were markedly different.

When he clenched and unclenched his fist, the shades of the lines at joints brightened. Vern knitted his eyebrows as he tried to figure out what this could mean.

He brought up his other palm and compared both of them side to side—one clenched and the other unclenched. He swapped between these states for a while.

This actually reminded him of something, I think I saw these lines back when I first shaded my perception in the land of the dark sun. Back then, they'd appeared for a while, before fizzling away.

He shifted his focus to the carriage around him. It was also a transparent husk with varying colors adorning its surface. Lines ran along its edges, most of which didn't change their shades by much.

However, he noticed something interesting when he extended his perception to the wheels. Whenever the carriage ran over some ditch or uneven terrain, the curved lines representing the coiled spring of suspension turned brighter.

He looked at it for another minute and…Ohhh! A spark of realization jolted through his mind, and he understood what was going on. These are the stress lines of the structure!

That had to be it. A simpler way to put it would be tension in the structure, but stress lines were a more comprehensive look at this ability.

Feeling a little adventurous, he focused on both the suspensions of the carriage, closed the bag of trinkets, held onto the handle overhead, and…

Stability Inducement.

The coiled spring's lines turned dark as it released all the tension and became rigid.

Thud

"Ahh, what the hell!" yelped Cedric as he was jerked back onto the seat, crumpling his hat. He looked on in puzzlement and then shoved his head outside the window to see what caused the carriage to lurch so hard.

"What in the name of nine gods was that?" He asked, turning towards Vern.

"Yeah, it was weird," replied Vern with an innocent look.

Cedric side-eyed him for a while, but Vern acted nonchalantly, looking outside the carriage. Suddenly, his eyes saw something peculiar—a set of purple spherical lamps. He pointed at the building before asking, "Hey Cedric, do you know this palace?"

The man grumbled under his breath for a bit before following Vern’s finger. Narrowing his eyes, he answered, "That's one of the manors where no one survived the Duskfall—an anomaly. Last I heard, Prince Akira had petitioned to cleanse it. It seems they have yet to get the permission to do so."

The moment the words hit Vern's ears, they triggered a cascade of thoughts, each more alarming than the last. Wait, no. That can't be!