“You… cooked all of this…?” Randidly asked as he looked down at the three-meter long table in front of him. There basically wasn’t space on it that wasn’t filled with pleasantly steaming food.

Lyra shrugged, the sharp smile that she was wearing since the beginning of their meeting not having moved an inch as she brought him directly into the dining room. “Of course. For especially the early part of the System, I didn’t have much to do. When people didn’t want a Class, Village Spirits are pretty passive. There was some information I could obtain through the Nexus… but I couldn’t do that all the time. Everyone needs a hobby.”

Lyra pointed at the table. “So I practiced cooking, but I don’t have much focus. I just made whatever I felt like eating that night. So please, dig on in. And if you have an opinion, don’t try and spare my feelings; tell me what you really think.”

Randidly nodded and then surveyed the table. As per their agreement, he had come to her house for dinner after her loss to Hank Howard in the duos tournament. She had built a small cottage on the outskirts of Donnyton, so Randidly had used the Philosopher’s Key to return to his old stomping grounds for the meal. She had opened the door and welcomed him in with a smile. And the fact that she had made it from the arena in the Orchard to Donnyton and still had the time to prepare a meal meant that she had likely relied upon her Village Spirit abilities.

I suppose anything I could learn from her about the Nexus Ways I can learn from Octavius as well… Randidly chewed on his lip, then glanced around.

The house wasn’t sparsely decorated, but Randidly suspected that someone like Tatiana would find the building to be lacking personality. Everything here was clean and orderly, which was nice. But the details were almost too perfect. The furniture was at perfect right angles to each other. The table was perfectly in the center of the room. The abstract painting on the wall was monochrome and vague.

This placed seemed like an example home, not a building where someone lived.

“What, does the great Randidly Ghosthound suddenly have opinions about interior design?” Lyra asked as she noticed the direction of Randidly’s gaze. Then she put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m starving. If you won’t start, I will.”

His mouth twisting slightly, Randidly looked again down at the table in front of him. Immediately to his right was an appetizing looking plate of pork fried rice. Beyond that was some blueberry scones and clotted cream. To his left were grilled lamb kabobs with onions and peppers. Below that was a small plate filled with spicy kimchi. And these dishes only constituted about a third of the total food on the table.

Asparagus, mashed potatoes, shrimp scampi, lasagna, a plate filled with goat cheese, fried fish, a beef stew, macaroni and cheese, collard greens…

Eclectic doesn’t even begin to cover it. Randidly thought. He took the plate Lyra offered him and started with a kabob. Even if he was slightly bewildered at Lyra’s silence insistence that he eat after providing no justification for the sudden meal invitation, Randidly was willing to play along for now. He lifted the kabob to his lips and took a bite. It seemed like she had drizzled some light teriyaki sauce across the kabobs, but it was mostly the natural flavors of the meat and vegetables that he tasted. He chewed rather carefully, enjoying the texture.

After a kabob, Randidly tried a few scoops of fried rice. When he went back for a third type of dish, Lyra stopped him with a level look. Randidly lightly scratched his cheek, feeling even more confused than he had been before. “It’s… pretty good.”

“Right? But only pretty good.” Lyra nodded emphatically, apparently quite pleased with Randidly’s assessment. She moved with increased vigor and a cheery smile on her face with her own plate, heading directly for the macaroni and cheese. “So, tonight’s theme is going to be honestly. Perfect.”

“...I guess so.” Randidly watched her eat for several seconds. Then he started to feel slightly awkward. So he shifted and helped himself to some beef stew, fried fish, and mashed potatoes. At first, he tried small bites of each, so he could sample the flavors. Then he chaotically mixed them all together and began to shovel the food into his mouth. If nothing else, he wasn’t going to pass up this chance to fill himself up on food.

A night of honesty, huh. Randidly thought as he chewed. If I hadn’t answered that way, would it not be…?

But he had been completely honest about the dishes he had tried. The food was pretty good… but also it could be said that it was only pretty good. Compared to the hash that Randidly had for lunch, this food in front of him was nothing to speak of. He forgot the flavor as soon as he swallowed. There was no defect that his tongue could detect, but also…

When his plate was clear, Randidly set down his fork with a frown on his face. He finally realized what the taste must mean. “...you don’t have a Cooking Skill.”

“Correct,” Lyra answered around a mouthful of mac and cheese. Randidly pursed his lips and didn’t ask any more. He continued to consume the fine food until almost the entire table was left with empty plates that sat with just as stark emptiness as bare bones. Once he understood what he was tasting, more things began to make sense. The food seemed empty to him because he had been used to high-Level Cooking Skills adding something extra to the food.

More than that, the hash he had for lunch had a nascent, quiet image as part of its appeal. It was a warmth and hominess that lingered on the tongue and passively alleviated small amounts of stress in the diner. Honestly, Randidly had returned to Helio’s shop less for the food itself and more for that valuable image. Aside from Yggdrasil, Randidly hadn’t encountered any other images that addressed the accumulating mental damage that inevitably resulted from fighting with images.

But this food was perfectly ordinary. It was fine fare that would have been possible for a woman with quite a bit of spare time before the System.

After doing a swarm of locusts proud, Randidly set his plate down on the table. He put both his hands on its wooden edge and leaned forward as he studied Lyra. “So, I assume you wanted to teach me something with the food?”

“You know me too well,” Lyra’s smile was slightly bitter, as though she had bit into a cherry and discovered that it was a crabapple. Yet instead of answering at first, she reached up and toyed with the shoulder strap of her spiraling, navy blue dress. The skin of her arms looked almost unhealthily pale as she fidgeted.

Randidly’s confusion continued to grow. Then Lyra sighed and shook her head. “Maybe it’s fair to say I thought I could teach you something with this… but I invited you here for two things. One is a reminder and the other just a disclosure. A reminder, I’ll say, that is just as much for me as it is for you.

“I’ve just… always been fascinated by what humans can accomplish without the System. Even before the System arrived, I thought about it a lot. Now, fighting against Hank… and cooking… It has helped me feel the broad capability of humans. Images… you might think of it as the natural evolution of our power underneath the System… but I think that’s not the case.” Lyra wrapped her arms around her shoulders. The fabric of her dress flared just a little as it came up around her shoulders and she tugged at it. “That’s just a clever sleight of hand from the Nexus. Are they really the source of images? Images like Hank’s… it is positively sublime. A Skill might mimic the effect, but think about energy efficiency.”

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Something that disguised itself as excitement but might be closer to mania came over Lyra’s features. The corner of her eyes crinkled and she licked her lips. As she talked, the pace of her words quickened. “The System provides inefficient mechanisms in the form of Skills that can transform energy into effect. Then they provide a low level flow of energy and teach the kidnapped worlds how to use that energy. Or rather demand that we learn. But images… perhaps the System provides the shape that we mimic to grow, but aren’t images all our own?”

Randidly gave Lyra a long look. His emerald eyes slowly dimmed as he considered her words.

Lyra continued to speak. “Then the System provides trials. Trials that are increasingly difficult to pass, to the point that its shoddily made mechanisms no longer cut it. You are required to contribute high-efficiency images that take emotion and energy to manifest in order to produce greater and greater effects. And the moment you cease being able to surpass yourself, the flow of energy is cut off. A world’s only option then is to send its people to be the grunts of the Nexus in order to cast an even wider net in the next Cohort. That is the System.”

Lyra’s violet eyes met Randidly’s emerald ones. She bit her lip. Randidly blinked very deliberately. He didn’t disagree with what Lyra was saying, although he hadn’t considered it. But to Randidly, it was a largely semantic decision whether images were the natural evolution of Skills or not. “So, your point?”

“I’m trying to remind you why I disagree with your method.” Lyra hands tightened on her opposite shoulders as she held herself. “Because of the forces arrayed against you; the System was designed for people like you. No matter what new image you manage to develop, the Nexus will just throw another test at you. There is only one way to accomplish your goal: to become more powerful than the maker of the Nexus.”

Looking at Lyra, Randidly couldn’t help but recall that immense mountain range of crystalized Aether that he had briefly sensed as Elhume had moved. Even now, some part of his spirit stilled before the echo of that immense display of power. Even considering his the Aether that was gradually condensing as part of his physical body, Randidly doubted he could generate eight or nine drops of liquid Aether.

How many drops would it take to make a crystalized mountain range?

“...You aren’t wrong to say that that the task is almost impossible.” Randidly admitted. But as he spoke, he could hear the rustling of leaves, the scream of an all-devouring void, and the cracking of a monstrosity’s spine adapting. All three of his images stirred with unwillingness. But you also… give up too easily.

But ultimately, Randidly didn’t verbalize that thought. Instead, he stood in front of the table of empty dishes and considered Lyra. Inwardly, he was becoming even more confused; did she truly want to use the same arguments against him now…? “Is this what you brought me here to say?”

“No. I just...well, let me ask you something. I need a reminder. Are you going to to do it, Randidly Ghosthound? Become even more powerful than the maker of the Nexus?” Lyra asked, still embracing herself. In her red-violet eyes, Randidly could see the answer that she begged him to give her.

It was not the answer he had expected her to want.

First, Randidly blinked. Then he laughed aloud. Even more than the weight he obtained from watching the tournament, his Nether Nebula rapidly grew in density as he felt his lips and tongue shaping his next words. Truly, a reminder. “Yea. I am going to become that powerful. I’ll keep climbing until I stand atop the Nexus. I’m going to reach the Pinnacle. And then I’ll burn everything to the ground.”

Lyra smiled. Her face was so objectively lovely as she looked at him that the same physiological weakness in his heart constricted. In the face of that expression, Randidly had a single gut response: that she adored him. She had cursed him out, attacked him, and sold out the Earth, but she also adored him in a way that he couldn’t quite understand.

Divining her motivations from her expression reminded Randidly of the sea. He could see how the tides would rise and fall, but there was some part of his brain that just wasn’t capable of understanding how and why water needed to flow to make that happen. Her fluttering eyelashes were the crash of waves against the shore, filling the air with the scent of salt.

And Randidly found it immensely difficult to look at the vulnerability and gentleness in her features. The lines around her nose and mouth were soft and expressive as she considered him. All of her snark and emotional defense mechanisms had been stripped away. It was an expression that Randidly could never remember seeing on Lyra’s face in the past. “I believe you, Randidly. So… good luck.”

Then Lyra spun around and continued talking while facing the wall. “My mind still cannot fathom how you will manage it… but you’ve gotten this far, haven’t you? So I guess what I’m saying is that my heart is convinced. Thanks for the reminder. Tonight… yea, tonight is about honesty. Oh, Randidly, did I ever tell you about that first night that I saw you fighting?”

Randidly’s gaze was on Lyra’s bare shoulders. Her fingers were still tight on the navy blue fabric of the shoulder straps. Without speaking, he shook his head.

Whether she sensed the motion or just didn’t care, Lyra continued to speak. “It was back when the monster hordes came for Donnyton. But… ha. Can you believe that was considered a horde? There probably weren’t even a hundred those first few nights. But you… it was night on the field of grass around the wooden palisade we built. There was a half-full moon. And you shot out Mana Bolts and Arcane Orbs like your Mana Pool was endless. The lighting of the Skills meant that half of your face was constantly in shadow as you fought. It was… magical.”

“Lyra…” Randidly began, but she interrupted him.

“I cannot be like you. I cannot even be like Hank Howard.” Lyra said, still talking to the wall. She lowered her arms from her grip of her own torso and clasped them behind her back. Her knuckles were white. Her nails were unpainted “But… I also don’t believe that my Path is wrong. This isn’t something that- that I can accomplish alone. Allies and connections are how I grow. So I’m going to go look for help.

“That’s where the disclosure comes in. Donnyton has been a source of many high-quality images for the Nexus. It isn’t just this tournament that they dominate. As the Village Spirit of this lucrative Village… I’ve earned some privileges. I’ll also soon be heading into the Nexus. Rather than simply becoming the most powerful person in the Nexus, with information and allies… I will be able to accomplish the same thing as you. I’ll save the Earth” Then Lyra hesitated briefly.” And I just… didn’t want us to run into each other there and you to think…”

Think that you had sold Earth out again? Randidly thought, but he quickly erased the thought before it could show on his face. He continued to look at Lyra back. Without even relying on Grim Intuition or Revelation energy, he could feel the immense loneliness that surrounded Lyra. For a weird second, Randidly would have believed that the sword and sheath connection that had originally been between them had reemerged.

But then Randidly realized the source of the sensation was something else entirely. Randidly could feel how isolated Lyra was due to his increased sensitivity toward Nether. The Nether around her radiated her immense sadness and lack of connection.

Randidly licked his lips. And I”m supposed to do… what? Comfort you?

No, that’s not right. All I’m supposed to do… is what I want to do. So…

He released a breath and smiled at Lyra’s back. “Then good luck, Lyra.”

Allies and connections are how you grow, huh…?

Lyra swayed but otherwise didn’t respond. Silence hung between them like Christmas lights left along the eaves as January stoically transitioned into February. Lyra looked at the wall, Randidly looked at her pale shoulders.

It wasn’t that there was more to say, but that the saying wasn’t everything that was at play here. Knowing about the two fundamental energies meant that interactions were even more complicated than they were in the past. So while Randidly could have stopped it, he ultimately allowed some of the ambient Nether to catch an invisible current and spiral out toward Lyra.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 302!

Then grow, Lyra. This time, I won’t be able to watch you. But if you manage to succeed and save the Earth without sacrificing our freedom… well, that certainly would make me happy.