Chapter 22: Resolve of Regret and Different Experiments
Lumine went upstairs to Rahil and lied to her, telling her a long story about a hunting trip. He hid the truth of his meeting with Christie from her; from what he had heard, Christie had disappeared from her life for two years, and she knew nothing of her return. For this reason, he hid the fact of her return, as he did not want to stir her emotions while she was in this form—a form that prevented her from drawing close to her friend and speaking with her as before.
Despite his lying, despite him being the only speaker, and despite her being transformed into the shape of a dog, he enjoyed talking to her and cherished this moment in his heart.
Before her transformation, he had not spoken with her this much. He loved and appreciated her, for after all, she was his sister, but he had not spent much time talking to her since their father's sacrifice to the Red Moon.
But after her transformation, Lumine felt a void. There was no longer anyone waiting for him at home; there was no longer anyone concerned for his safety every night; there was no longer anyone urging him to study and move forward.
Lumine regretted it deeply when his sister transformed, for he had neglected the moments with her because of how she had changed from what she was before their father's sacrifice.
Both of them had suffered psychological trauma from their father's sacrifice in the ritual of drawing close to the Red Moon, and they had tried to live with it... Lumine began to spend a lot of time drinking and on hunting club trips, barely spending any time talking to his sister.
Meanwhile, Rahil locked herself in the cage of her father's expectations before his sacrifice... She abandoned her dream and the freedom she sought, and immersed herself in what she hated to fulfill her father's wish. Lumine understood her change, but he did not accept it, and slowly distanced himself from her until he barely spoke to her.
He hated himself every time he returned home and she was waiting for him, asking about his health, for she cared for him. Yet, since that incident, he had not asked her even once about her health until it was too late.
He hated himself every time he returned home and took a plate of dinner to eat in his room, for she was waiting for him at the dining table, longing for them to have dinner together... They had not had dinner together since that incident, but he would take his dinner and walk away from her without looking into her eyes.
He hated himself every time she asked him about his day and he ignored her question with a simple answer, without asking about her day. She had wanted someone to tell about her day and her worries, but he had never asked her about this... Thus, he did not know about the disappearance of her close friend, Christie, until it was too late.
Lumine hated himself... and his self-hatred increased every time he fell short of her expectations. She had wanted him to be her support, but he was widening the rift between them.
Lumine wanted her personality to return to what it was before the incident, but he had not tried to stand by her side.
But this time, he resolved his matter. He wanted her to return to her human form so he could stand by her and support her until his death...
Lumine had sat on the floor, letting her lie down in front of him while he stroked her soft fur and spoke to her about the trip, until he noticed she had fallen asleep.
He smiled, and his resolve to restore her grew stronger. With light steps, he left her room and went to his own.
Before entering his room, he turned his head to the wooden clock and found the time to be eight-thirty in the morning. He sighed and entered his room.
Lumine lay down on the wooden floor and placed his hand behind his neck as a pillow while he thought, 'I fainted when I saw Amelia. I suppose this is due to a conflict in my memories... but the strange thing is that I didn't transport to the Red Mist.'
'And now, for the second time, I fainted before the door and Deco found me... In both cases, I didn't sleep by my own will; rather, I fell unconscious, which means I can't transport unless I sleep by my own will...'
'This is bad. I was hoping it would activate in all circumstances similar to sleep. I was thinking of exploiting this ability for situations when I faint. I imagine myself exhausted in a fight to the point of fainting, transporting to the Red Mist, and trying to return quickly. Then my wounds would heal and I'd return active once more, unlike my opponent who would be tired...'
'And I could also use it for tricks... but unfortunately, I have two problems. The minor one: I must sleep in the Red Mist to return to my real body. And the major problem: I can't transport except by sleeping with my full will. In the middle of a fight, am I going to ask him to wait so I can sleep? How provoking of me.'
'I must ask the Castle Man. He might be able to change the method of transport to a better way. I imagine myself transporting with just a thought—this way would solve both problems. But how do I ask him? I lost his card, and he hasn't visited me in the Red Mist since that day.'
'And unfortunately, I can't use the abilities of the Link Station; I still don't know how to link.'
Lumine took a small stick out of his pocket while remaining lying down with one hand as a pillow before continuing his thoughts, 'Except for the increase in my senses, there is nothing I can benefit from with the Link Station.'
Lumine raised his hand, holding the stick above his head, and stared at it, 'From what I remember, there are two abilities to the stick other than transformation: transportation and attraction. I haven't investigated the stick in the past days, but now I must exploit it in the best way.'
'I will experiment and verify the abilities of the stick until noon, and then I must cook for lunch and go with Deco to visit Fiona. After that, I will go to the church and ask them about their progress in the case of Rahil's disappearance so no one suspects my lie, and I will take my record and information from them...'
'And then I will return to Amelia's house. I will try to transport there with Rahil. This way, she will gain some freedom in the garden, which is better than locking her in the house, and I can ask Amelia about the Link Station.'
'And tomorrow at nine in the morning, I will go to the hunting club and take my money before meeting Jack to look into his demands... If I finish before three in the afternoon, I will go to meet Christie at the cafe. She told me previously that she goes there twice every day, at seven in the morning and at three in the afternoon. If I fail, I will go the following morning...'
Lumine sighed, placed the stick beside the door, and thought as he drew back, 'The Linker's stick has three practical and powerful abilities: transformation, transportation, and attraction.'
'Until now, I only know the ability of transformation. When there is physical contact between me and the stick, the stick can transform into whatever I think of, on the condition that it is something I owned previously... When I thought of the axe, it turned from a stick into the axe I took from Lumet, and when I thought of a table, it became the same as my previous table. But when the stick does not touch me physically, it only transforms if I focus my thoughts on the form I want, provided I owned it previously.'
Lumine looked at the stick under the door before raising his eyes to the doorknob and continued, 'Transform into a chair.'
Before his eyes, the stick changed into his previous chair, but it was tilted to block the doorknob above it, where the handle could not go down. 'In addition to this, the stick can transform in the position I think of. I don't know what size it cannot exceed, and I don't want to experiment with that here.'
Lumine walked to the furthest corner of the room before looking at the chair and thinking, 'I must try the ability of attraction. From the name, I assume the chair will be attracted to me, smashing whatever blocks its path between us. But how do I do it?.. Could it be that it comes about just like activating the transformation?'
Lumine stared at the chair for a while before thinking, 'Transform into a stick.'
Immediately, the chair that blocked the door transformed into a small stick on the floor, burnt on one of its sides.
Lumine extended his hand forward and thought, 'Come.'
Immediately, coinciding with his thought, the stick vanished from its place, and Lumine felt it in his hand, in the exact position he had imagined.
Lumine was happy with the success of his experiment from his very first thought, but he frowned seconds later when he realized something, 'This is more like direct teleportation... not attraction. I didn't see any trace proving it traveled the distance from its place to my hand, and even if it were so fast that I couldn't see it, there should be a trace of its speed through the air.'
Lumine grit his teeth and parted his lips before exhaling air from his chest while looking at the door.
He remained standing in the corner, thinking of a way to confirm one of them for minutes, until he came up with an idea.
He threw the stick down and stepped out of the room. He closed the door while thinking, 'Now there is an obstacle between us. If it reaches me by attraction, there must be a trace of it penetrating the door, but if I find no trace on the door, it means it teleports directly without crossing a distance.'
Lumine retreated two steps back and extended his hand forward before thinking, 'Come.'
Lumine felt the stick in his hand in the way he had thought of. He looked at the door and found the trace of the stick's penetration right in front of his hand.
Lumine sighed with joy when he found the trace, 'Ah, this is good. The stick is attracted to me; I can exploit it as an unpredictable weapon of chance.'
Lumine imagined himself fallen on the ground with a man in front of him trying to kill him. The man raises his sword, attempting to finish Lumine off, but before his blow reaches Lumine, an axe penetrates his leg and cuts it off...
Lumine opened the door, entered the room, and threw the stick to the corner while he closed the door, stood beside it, and thought with a smile, 'Damn, how will I explain the cause of the hole to them?..'
'..It will come to me in the position I imagine, but what if I throw it while it is a stick and think of attracting it as an axe?'
Lumine relaxed his hand and thought, 'Come.'
Lumine felt his hand clenching onto a vertical object. He raised his hand and saw an axe in his grasp. He smiled and nodded his head in joy; this had been a habit of his since childhood, and his father had told him one day that it was a habit passed down to him from his mother...
Lumine felt some fatigue, but he ignored it, and with a clear smile, he imagined himself throwing it at someone. The person evades the axe and slowly approaches Lumine. Lumine smiles at him before a table strikes him from behind, smashing him to the ground...
'Stick,' Lumine thought of the stick before throwing it again to the ground.
'I can attract the stick in the position I imagine and in the shape I imagine, and the matter is not limited to the hand. When I thought of the axe, I thought of it being in my grasp, but in truth, I had relaxed my hand to see what would happen, yet when the axe came, my grip was just as I imagined... But what if I thought of attracting the stick to my foot instead of my hand? What if I thought of attracting it to my side?...'
Lumine conducted both experiments; the first succeeded and the second failed... In the first, the stick moved under his foot vertically as he thought. His foot was pressing on the stick, but it did not break, which assured Lumine that his body takes the position he imagines during attraction.
In the second, he threw the stick to the corner of the room again and imagined it transforming into an axe and being attracted to the side of his foot, but his experiment failed and the stick did not transport to him or transform. While he was sighing in frustration, he felt a severe pain in the back of his head.
Lumine knelt on his knee and held the back of his head. With his fingers, he tried to massage the back of his head with his two fingers to ease the pain, and it eased somewhat.
Lumine took one of his suits and placed it on the floor while thinking, 'Is there a limit to attraction? Heh, hehe, of course there would be, otherwise the ability would be ridiculously strong.'
Lumine lay on the floor, enduring the pain while massaging the back of his neck. With his other hand, he folded the suit and propped it against the wall of the room before resting the back of his neck on it as a pillow.
Lumine's pain decreased visibly after he took the suit as a pillow to place under his neck, and he thought, 'I must sleep.' For he wanted to sleep to transport to the Red Mist and treat the pain.
Time passed and Lumine could barely sleep. But when he woke up in the Red Mist, the pain did not disappear as he had wanted; rather, it had become visibly stronger, and he felt a weakness in his presence.
Time passed, and at every moment he felt the pain decreasing and his presence becoming stronger, as if he were healing. After three hours, he returned to his normal state and the pain disappeared.
After his recovery, Lumine entered his sister's room and searched for pages of the diaries, but once again, he did not find any page of her diaries.
Doubt began to creep inside him. Many days had passed since his last meeting with the Castle Man, and in this manner, he might lose his chance to ask for his help in finding clues about Hatheven.
Lumine grit his teeth and exhaled air in regret. He searched quickly through the house for any trace of the Castle Man, but found nothing.
He returned to his bed to sleep. Before his transportation to the Red Mist, the stick was thrown in the corner of the room, so it had not transported with him, and now he had to return to the real world to take the stick and try transportation.
While he was lying on his bed, he thought, 'The Castle Man said previously that the Link Station increases my spiritual perception. Does using the stick's abilities depend on my spiritual strength? That might be true. After using attraction several times, I barely had any spirituality left, and that's why I felt the pain...'
'From what it seems to me, transporting between the Red Mist and the real world heals physically, but it does not regenerate my spirituality... I must try transportation quickly. I will bring out the meat for Rahil, and then I will go out to the forest to try transportation before I go with Deco to visit Fiona.'