Chapter 1292  First Challenge of Mundane

The next day, Arthur found his grandfather and Rain pa.s.sed out in the garden. Arthur noticed the liquor bottles around them and concluded that the two had overdrunk yesterday since Rain was supposed to leave later today. After placing Rain in his bed to sleep, he carried his grandfather back to his room as well.

"Hm, is that you, Seref?" asked his grandfather, half-asleep. Arthur didn"t know if it was a slip or if the old man really thought he was his father, but it hurt him just the same. He did not wish to be a.s.sociated with his father.

"No, I"m Arthur. Seref left long ago, old man," said Arthur as he tucked the giant into bed, making sure to cover him as well. The winds of January were harsh even on awakeners, and especially atop mountains. "You should go back to sleep."

"I"m sorry, Arthur," said Benjamin as he covered his eyes. "I haven"t told you the truth about Seref yet. I"m afraid that you will leave me for what I have done."

Arthur was silent, and before long, the man was fast asleep. As he had suspected, Benjamin was half-asleep and didn"t know what he was saying. However, the words stuck with Arthur as he didn"t feel like Benjamin was talking nonsense. It sounded like a confession of guilt. Could there be more to his father"s past life that Arthur did not know?

In the end, he decided to stop thinking about it. Arthur had a routine to enforce. Nyx was right. If he wanted to become stronger, he needed to learn how to be himself again. He needed to practice discipline through accepting the mundane life.

Seref could have been a saint in his past life, but it wouldn"t make the things he committed any less unforgivable. Arthur would never accept that man as his father again, and he was just the same as any other person to him. The difference is that Arthur would save strangers but leave Seref to die.

Arthur imagined that scenario playing out as he left the pavilion. Nyx was already cleaning the clan, and he did not attempt to hide. Arthur picked up a mop and began helping her clean. The two of them did not exchange any words, as that was far from necessary.

It might be the first time Arthur picked up a mop and cleaned a place ever since he awakened. Even after his awakening, whenever he needed cleaning, he would use his runes. They were faster and got the job done a lot better. However, he had to see what was different about this mundane routine.

Arthur cleaned with Nyx, and they were done with the clan a lot sooner than they antic.i.p.ated because there were two of them. Instead of going down the mountain, Arthur decided to pick up the training equipment in the field and return it to the rack. After he was done, he decided to descend the mountain, only to find Nyx in the river already.

The water was cold against his skin, almost freezing. Arthur had to endure as he sat still in the river, awaiting his food for the day. Although he no longer needed sustenance, he wanted to attempt mimicking Nyx to see if he learned something.

Nyx managed to catch her fish and began cooking a distance away. Arthur remained still against the current, which was neither strong nor sluggish. However, not a single fish approached him for an entire hour, making him restless. This, in turn, made even more fish avoid him.

One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Still nothing.

Arthur could not see the sky, but he knew that it had to be dark. Once the sun was down, the river became a lot colder, prompting Arthur to leave since he doubted he would have any success today. Then, he approached the forest where Nyx was cutting firewood.

"I didn"t manage to catch a fish," said Arthur as he stood behind the woman. "I don"t understand why."

"Because they can sense the wrath in you," said Nyx with a smile as she brought her axe down. "And the more you remain, the more your wrath wants to break free. Are you going to give up?"

Arthur was silent as he pondered her words and then turned around and returned to the river. He took off his clothes again and threw them inside his subs.p.a.ce. Then, he jumped into the water again to try his luck. Although Arthur tried to calm down, it seemed impossible.

The thoughts that he had tried to suppress all this time seemed to bounce out of their burial sites. It might be the stream or the lack of things to keep him occupied, but Arthur found himself thinking about things that he long forgot about. His memories seemed to be a movie that did not cease playing.

The Lime Agency fired him from his job, which prompted him to take a job as a porter. It almost killed him, and he ended up saving one of his current sub-guild masters, Yuran Evel, who was seeking the regeneration core for his mother. After that came the trial, and then the Apprentices Cup, and then Jerano College. Then came Alka and its horrors.

Arthur had never thought about how many things happened in the span of a few years. Alka might have been the cruelest to him. He lost his arm, friends, family, and dignity as soon as he got there. Ellen had drifted away in this time, which left him feeling like his struggles in Alka could have been avoided if he did not hesitate in fighting her.

Then came the meeting with Larza, who forced herself to have intercourse with Arthur in order to take away his life essence. She robbed him of something that Arthur did not understand until now but could have been the closest he had to safety. It fueled his desire to be strong again more than ever.

Diana was the beacon of hope in that darkness. Meeting her was not under the greatest of circ.u.mstances, but it became the best thing that ever happened to him. Then, losing her again made Arthur crumble even further, losing the last shred of his humanity and tearing the timeline apart.

After almost a year of returning, Arthur felt like he began to understand why he merged the timelines. It was not in defiance against the plans of his father and the guardians. Arthur wished to escape from that cruel place. He wanted things to stop moving, and to undo what happened to him.

It was a difficult pill to swallow, but Arthur never moved on from what happened. He did not talk to anyone about it, nor did he seek to process everything. His father betrayed him, and Arthur just accepted it and tried to move on. Diana died for him, and he destroyed the timeline and moved on. Sier betrayed him, but Arthur had to move on.

After his mother went into a coma because of his father, Arthur could not register what was happening to him anymore. It became a blurred dream of tragedies. Everything became just another item to add to the list of tragedies he suffered. And now, inside this stream of water, they came back to remind him of how much they hurt.

"Arthur."

A voice called for him from somewhere, jolting his consciousness awake. Arthur returned to his senses as he realized that even though he was still inside the stream, the water had moved away from him. The stream had split in half with him hovering inside a sphere of wrath.

"Are you alright?" asked Nyx from behind him, prompting Arthur to raise a hand to touch his forehead. The cracks of wrath on his skin were growing bigger, threatening to burst at the seams of his very existence.

"I am," he said, but Nyx did not seem convinced. Arthur left the stream and allowed the water to rejoin as he got dressed. "It seems I"m still unable to master the mundane life."

"Once your mind knows the routine, it begins to fight against you," said Nyx as she watched him throw his robes on. "It has nothing better to do than to dig out any past traumas and hardships. This is the first challenge of the mundane."

"And how do I defeat it?" asked Arthur as he pushed his hands through the sleeves.

"That"s the issue here, Arthur. You think of everything as a battle. Sometimes, you don"t need to defeat the world or let it defeat you. You can just accept it."

"I have done enough accepting," said Arthur while shaking his head. "I want to fight."

"But have you truly accepted anything?" asked Nyx. Arthur was silent, feeling like she was speaking ideals that did not apply in his case. He had moved on, whether he liked it or not. Arthur had to move on, not just for his sake, but for the world"s sake.

Nyx watched him leave, unable to answer him or choosing not to do something like that. Arthur climbed the mountain again, his mind a mess. However, he soon forgot about it when he returned to find Rain ready to leave on her quest.