Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

63. A Candle and its Flame

Horror.

The Hungry had devoured everything in Divas Pass. Calfasio was surrounded by weeping Adventurers who could no longer handle the grief of their losses. Their families. Their loved ones. Themselves who were stuck in this predicament.

They were all kept hidden within a room upstairs where the sleeping… Demi-human? Demon? Even now Calfasio didn’t know what to call the pale-haired woman.

He looked around and saw the frightened faces of the slaves, and the cat-eared girl who had only just awakened. The shock in her eyes reminded him of Ignis when she realized that she had entered yet another nightmare.

He remembered this inn fondly. Ignis cherished the food here. The sweets from distant lands, the warm milk she would always ask for.

He lamented that he was weak. Weak that he had to travel away in search for his daughter’s happiness than being able to grasp it with his own two hands. He felt like a candle without a flame as he dearly clutched onto his pendant, heartbroken as he prayed to every deity, every God, and every belief there was in Elysia for her safety.

The sounds of bloodshed; the clambering of blades; and the words that Hellen and the others tried to speak to him fell onto deaf ears. Strength was all what one needed to survive. With strength, perhaps even his wife wouldn’t have died when she gave birth to his dear Ignis.

Ignis was everything he had.

I wish I didn’t leave you. If only I had strength. Ignis… Ignis please be alright.

Snap.

The sound of a strange, mechanical sound caught his attention immediately. A highly reflective paper fell into his lap and when he looked up, he saw the one-eyed spider again.

Did you come here to make me feel better? These are supposed photos of my Ignis…?

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

The spider instantly appeared in front of him now, hidden underneath a small pile of cloth. It moved towards the entrance of the room and left another photo there, right before leaving yet another by the staircase leading to the ground floor where the others fought.

Follow…? Are you telling me to follow you?

Calfasio stood up. All attempts to call him to sit down could only faintly be heard.

“Where are you going? Calfasio? Hello!?” Hellen exclaimed.

“Mister?” Alice whispered.

“Hey! You can’t fight right!? Get the hell back in here! It’s dangerous out there! You saw what happened to a bunch of us earlier… agh. CALFASIO!” The cat-eared woman shouted and was about to chase him down herself until Via intervened.

“Please, leave him be. He just wants to be alone. I know what he’s going through. Believe me. We all have different ways of grieving.” She assured the others.

And though her voice sounded sincere and truthful, he could not help but to feel as if she was following an order. It was unnatural to him, and he believed that Via was trying to encourage him to follow the spider.

The warmth of these pictures grew stronger as he followed them downstairs. He was almost invisible to the others as he slumped his way towards one of the back rooms, finding a window that he could just barely squeeze through. He knew how dangerous it was to leave, but he wanted to see Ignis no matter what.

There was hope in his heart that this spider had found her. That it was leading it straight to her. He toppled and fell over rocks and debris, cutting himself thoroughly on this arduous trip as he watched Furio’s flame lay waste to the Meatballs and Noodles.

Fire magic. How lucky for you to be so strong. With that kind of power, we wouldn’t have had to live in this place. I was always afraid someone would do something horrible to you Ignis. While I was gone… why did I leave again?

Snap.

Snap.

Snap.

That’s right… for your happiness. I wanted you to be the flame to my unlit candle. That’s what you are to me, my dearest Ignis. Ever since we lost her.

“Daddy is coming home… I promise… I’ll be home this time.” Just navigating through the urban ruins exhausted him.

His stamina was laughable. His strength just as pitiful. And his back was hardly reliable for anyone save for his own flesh and blood.

It pained him.

The spider guided him past the dangerous creatures, scouting ahead first then dropping its trail of blank photographs for him to follow. It was a light in his dark world. What a strange creature. Offering a hand to someone like him.

He understood how the healers must have felt when a spider of all things extended their kindness to them. How people as weak as them were offered a place. But there was no place in this world for the weak; for an unlit candle like himself. At least the healers had some use.

His lament steadily became his wrath as he cursed the world for being the way it was. The history of the first advent which laid waste to Atlas, and the events that transpired in Paradise which saw the damnation of Grandis as a whole. And then the persecutions his people conducted which caused innocent people like himself to harbor their sins; punished for things they never did.

He recalled the tale of the Punishing Bird. The one that went around punishing those who committed sins knowing they were wrong. It was a twisted Corrupted because ignorance became one’s greatest ally. How could one be wrong if they didn’t know it was wrong?

Calfasio despised Grandis from the bottom of his heart.

He wished it could all just burn.

Snap.

Snap.

The ground shook as he carefully passed through the fleshy ruins. His wet footsteps only instilled fear in his heart that Ignis had become one of these affronts to everything he knew and loved. He struggled to maintain his pace, panting, and heaving again the world shook once more.

Two of the spires had just fallen. Frost was incredible. She was a being that far surpassed his imagination. Aside from her being somewhat boyish in the way she sat and spoke; it was probably normal for someone of that caliber anyway.

If only he was like that. Maybe Ignis as well.

Snap.

After some time, the spider left one last picture behind. It had miraculously led him back to the entrance of his own home. A couple more spires fell this time, making it difficult to clasp onto the door handle which was still closed shut. In fact, there was not a hint of the fleshy Hungry anywhere to be seen.

Hope returned to him all at once as he pulled out a key and unlocked the door. It creaked open as the light from behind him painted the insides a slight orange hue. Everything was amess.

That’s to be expected after those spires fell.

“Ignis… I’m home! Hello? Darling? Sweetheart? You won’t believe the things that happened!” He was excited.

A smile finally formed on his washed-up face as he scoured the house in search for her.

The kitchen was empty. The living room cleared. The bathroom seeing no signs of life or use for a while. The basement was still full of dry goods, left exactly as he remembered. His room saw nothing at all, except that his blanket was missing.

All that was left was his daughter’s room.

“Ignis. I’m coming in. Don’t mind me.” He said, knocking twice before twisting its frozen, metal handle.

Light shone into the room for what seemed like the first time in months. Red particles floated like dust in the air. The room was completely ruined, the bed ripped apart and the curtains stained with blood.

“I… Ignis…?” His heart then sunk as he looked down towards the base of the window, where the fleshy walls had crept into.

And there, he saw something he wished he hadn’t.

“Ignis…” His voice broke.

Beneath the window still was a head-sized blob.

A blob with cat-like ears and a small tail.

Snap.

Snap.

Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

* * *

“CALFASIO!” Frost called out for the man as she followed the barrage of [Remembers], knowing well that he was the only one that Our Happiest Moments took photos of.

She followed a trail of bloodied footsteps past perilous passaged through the rubble before eventually reaching a house that was somehow barely even touched by the Yearning Flesh. Not even the Abominations passed by here.

But this mystery hardly mattered to her.

“CALFASIO!?” She called again, smashing straight through the wooden door with her shoulder.

She swiftly followed the sound of endless snapshots into a small room. Red mist was everywhere. Blood instantly filled her nostrils as she saw Calfasio standing by the only window in the room with his back turned to her.

“Hey… Hey! Are you ok!? You should be here! Look, I can help you get back! Calfasio… listen. Listen to me! I understand your daughter is not here anymore! Everyone’s hurting right now! But it’ll hurt even more if they lose a friend like you!” She empathized with him, moving to pick up the photographs as she waited for Calfasio to respond.

As she sifted through the photos, she noticed something strange. Half were of Ignis, and the others were of Calfasio. Some even had them both in the same picture.

Why would his own photo be his own happiest moment?

She had to wonder until the man finally turned around, revealing ‘Ignis’ cradled in his arms. The status aside, it was the cat-like ears and the tail that allowed her to identify exactly who it was.

“… fuck… No… I’m so sorry…” Frost instinctively apologized. The shock nearly neutralized her heightened emotions.

Terror. Horror. Sadness. Lament. These emotions swashed in her chest as the light behind her shone over the poor reddish slime in his arms. It quivered in his embrace, as if wishing to cry. But it had no way of doing so.

Calfasio understood this, for this was his daughter. He hugged her tight and hobbled forward into the light.

“Why… does this have to happen to us? What did we do wrong? Was it my fault for leaving her behind?”

“Calfasio…” Frost could not find any words of comfort for him. She could not imagine the sorrow that tore at his heart. “… Bring her with you. I'm sorry for your loss... Let's go. I'll protect you.”

“Why do we need to be protected all the time? If we were just… stronger… then maybe none of this would have had to happen to us. To all of us.” His voice grew deeper, ever filled with lament yet woven between each word was a rage so thick that it suffocated her.

She needed to leave. To bring them back quickly. She could not afford to keep wasting time. However, as she reached out to grab Calfasio by the shoulder –

She pulled her hand away, seeing that her hand was somehow burnt with her foresight.

“What the hell was that!?” She exclaimed. “You – you had fire magic this whole time!?”

This baffled her beyond words. Our Happiest Moments suddenly landed by her shoulder, taking one final photo. It was yet another photograph of the two. But this polaroid was hot.

It seared her fingertips as she wondered what on Earth was going on.

“CALFASIO! Listen – we really should get moving right now –!”

< “Goodbyes left unsaid. Despite our promises I failed us.” >

< “Hey, why did you leave? Why did you leave?” >

Frost heard two distinct voices. One belonging to Calfasio, and the other to his daughter Ignis. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. She instinctively retreated as the room steadily grew warmer and warmer.

< “You showed me I was still full of love despite the flame I lacked.” >

< “Without you I could never be.” >

The bloodied curtains suddenly caught alight as she felt her blood begin to boil.

Nav… what’s going on? What’s happening to them!?

“Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Unknown. Could I be malfunctioning? Frost, I do not understand this.”

< In this unfair world that damned us. In this unfair world that demands flames from the flameless.” >

< “What is my name? Papa! Papa! My name!” >

Frost’s instincts fired on all cylinders now as she exited the house entirely, watching everything around them catch alight. The Ignis in his hands turned a bright red before flames suddenly ignited from her slime-like being. A wing then suddenly grew from Calfasio’s right shoulder as his body seemingly cracked.

A red, superheated flow of liquid flames course through him like blood.

“NAV! People cannot be Corrupted, right!? That’s not possible, right!?”

“It is impossible! People cannot be Corrupted themselves! If it was so simple, then we’d see countless people become Corrupted themselves! This – this is entirely unheard of! Frost… The Archivist mentions of a novella being written as we speak.

This is their story!”

 

< “If it is flames they demand from us – then the world is better off being burnt. Our name…. we are fire.” >

< “I’m following in your footsteps! I want to be like you!” >

 

//////// < WARNING > ////////

 

CALFASIO’S AND IGNIS’ CORRUPTION EVENT HAS BEGUN

 

< ETERNAL NIGHT >

< THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET RESONATES >

 

< Frost… I beg of you, do not die! They’re two separate Corrupted, but they’re working together! >

Frost lamented that these two had become Corrupted. Even Our Happiest Moments made a strangely saddened snap when it realized that these two had lost all hope. And as if to spite the efforts of Our Happiest Moments –

The Corrupted Calfasio used a skill that went against everything the polaroid’s flavor text begged them not to do.

< [Fuel are Memories] >

The polaroid clutched in Frost’s fingers fizzled into ashes.