We continue our small talk and awkward flirting until Lucia finally wakes up.
She no longer flickers in and out of existence or releases a static-like screeching, her state is finally becoming stable, "Where... am I?"
"At home, in bed. You slept several hours after..."
She looks confused at me, "After you gave me the Hybrid class, the cure for my condition?"
That's... a unique way to phrase it, "Yeah. How do you feel now?"
She jumps up and inspects herself for any changes, "I feel... normal again, I think. Just got a weird craving to make more friends...? Well, apart from that, nothing seems to be wrong anymore, huh? My vision is clear again, I can hear you, you can hear me, and the world is no longer a lucid haze. Did I miss anything, Eclaire, or am I now completely back to normal?"
Her too-identical twin takes a look, "Let's see..."
They ignore me during their inspection and I enjoy the spontaneous fan service. Thanks, girls.
At first glance from here, Lucia seems to be unchanged, or rather back to her usual vampiric self, but one thing is visibly off. Pretty hard to overlook even...
Finally, Eclaire concludes, "Yeah, you're completely cured. No weird transformation either."
Did you completely miss the part where she no longer has a shadow, Eclaire? Our bedroom is illuminated enough to see that, and even I noticed that despite the gorgeous distraction.
Lucia smiles, "Great! Well then, Jared, you're next."
"I already looked, and I noticed that you're missing a goddamn shadow!"
Eclaire double-checks, "Wait, is she? Uh, no it is still there - uh, just going in the wrong direction? It is kinda creepy..."
She points towards a spot on the ground, then moves her arm as if she were an old lady afraid of a free-running mouse. I follow where she points but still don't see Lucy's shadow there. In my view, it is just gone.
Lucia disagrees, "No, he's right, it is gone. But why?"
I'm relieved, for a moment, I thought I was going insane.
"Probably for the same reason half the people outside are now cosplaying as half-monsters. The whole Hybrid business is just weird."
Eclaire is distraught, "But... why can I still see it? And did it just flip me off!? How rude! Lucia, train your shadow better!!"
Suddenly, Lucia rushes at me and takes me into a hug, "Doesn't matter. For long. Now, Jared, it is your turn."
"Uh, with what?"
She replies, "With getting a Hybrid class, of course."
Am I missing something? Why should I need that? The coughing has already long since passed and I've already had enough bad experiences with... glitch-based events or skills. Yeah, I'll pass.
But before I can decline her request, Eclaire facepalms, "You've... not really looked at yourself, have you?"
"I did when Karen asked me to, there were no new abnormalities. You were there, remember? I mean, even the coughing is already gone, I don't see what should be wrong."
She shakes her head, "And that is exactly the problem. Listen, Jared. As far as we know, this plague has three phases. Well, we don't really want to find out if there's a fourth one, do we? So the first known phase of the infection was what you personally experienced, just a bit of coughing, headache or other general symptoms that you could confuse it with a common cold or something else seemingly harmless. Phase two is where it starts to get tricky because you suddenly have no more signs of any illness. Nothing, a patient in phase two appears perfectly healthy, maybe even too healthy. But in reality, the glitches are thoroughly infesting the body, hiding in skills, things like that. And phase three.... well, you have seen how it affected Lucia."
"So you want to tell me, I'm already in phase two?"
Lucia corrects me, "Phase three. Just look at your hands."
My hands? What should there-
Shit.
Just for a moment, my hands looked like the fading signal Lucia seemed to be made out of back then.
So I'm already that far gone? But why so suddenly? I was just fine when I woke up and allegedly for the three weeks I was comatose. By my understanding, the worst of it should've happened in that time when all the Hybrids were created and everyone else unknowingly dumped their toxic waste into my body. And to my knowledge, they have no methods to treat such an infection or keep it at bay, so why does it only appear now!? And so rapidly at that...
Before I can get lost further in thoughts, Lucy tightens her grab on me, "Don't fight it, Jared. I know how it feels like and I don't want you to go through that as well. So, please, just do it."
This is not a situation you should put a recovering glitch-addict into - or no one, really.
Before I can protest, Eclaire also throws herself at me, or rather us, "Don't forget we're in this together. We've - somehow - made it through my death by vampirization and Lucy's glitch curse. So don't worry, you'll get through this as well."
"What, and we're ignoring the possibility that we've already created a third Lucia and would now also create a clone of me? The world wouldn't survive that chaos!"
They both start laughing, "As if that'd happen again."
"I'm still afraid that I'd lose a part of myself when I do this."
Lucia scolds me, "And you ignored that risk when you gave me that cure? How could you!"
Eclaire teases her, "Ah, forget my evil twin, we don't need her. I'm more than enough for you, darling."
Lucy falls for the bait, "Hey, I was here first, you rip-off! He's mine!"
So much for the alleged plan of co-existence between us three spouses...
"Girls, you're both pretty, and there's enough of me for you two, so please stop fighting over me."
And there goes the Happily Married title again making decisions for me - or is it? It might just be my imagination, but Eclaire is acting quite lovey-dovey with us despite not suffering from titles because she is a spirit. I want to delete the title and find out the truth. But the 2% DEX bonus...
ARGH! Make it finally stop messing with my head!!!
Make!
It!
Stop!
I free myself from the bickering duo.
I didn't want to do this again, I didn't want to cave before the temptation of glitch-granted powers again but what choice do I have this time? If I'm already in this state...
"Jokes aside, I have concerns about this. Like", I sigh, "Look, I didn't want to tell anyone about this, not yet. I've still not come to terms with it myself but a lot of weird things have happened."
Lucia impatiently waits for me to continue and pats my head, "We're listening, Jared. So what is the issue? Don't worry, we'll always be with you."
"Yeah, so during my coma I found out that the devas did something to me before my reincarnation. They - It seems like they hid something like a small Glitch Zone in my soul. Look, I'm not entirely sure what that means either but-"
Eclaire looks at me in disbelief, "They did what? Uh, who are you even talking about?"
"Devas, the guys handling all the afterlife-related business, reincarnation and stuff. So while I was out cold, I was somehow able to explore old memories. In one of them, one of their doctors jammed a syringe with a clearly glitch-derived substance into me. After that, I was somehow able to do some literal soul-searching and confirm that something not entirely unlike the Glitch Zone resides within me, and it is not happy. I know all of this is hard to believe, none of this makes sense to me either."
Especially once you realize that your so-called god of refinement is one of those detestable devas.
Lucia replies, "No, I do believe you. I see no reason why you would lie about this."
Eclaire has a different opinion, "You are right, this is hard to believe but it would explain some... oddities about you. Especially everything related to Lydia. But seriously, I can't even fathom why they would do something like this, didn't they send you here to help us? Shouldn't they be on our side? What could possibly be the purpose of such a despicable act?"
"They told me that I would be the last one to be sent here no matter the outcome. All things considered, I guess they expected my failure, and they planted this glitch thing to make sure that this planet doesn't fall to their enemies. I assume that if I die, it would get released and make this entire world uninhabitable. At least, that would be a generous explanation, there are less pleasant ones. Like this whole thing just being a set up to remove this world no matter what, because there's something here that inconveniences them."
Take the death world called a Glitch Zone that is sealed behind a barrier we have in our cellar - now imagine it without any restrictions. I've witnessed firsthand how fast those can grow; given how long we wandered aimlessly through that dungeon, I have to assume it possibly covered several hundred miles per second. This world wouldn't last ten minutes against an unrestrained Glitch Zone. No world would.
The only hope for life in the universe would be if it can't spread through the vacuum of space. The air certainly isn't spared as the black dots all around us constantly remind me.
Makes me wonder how anyone managed to seal those things in the first place; you'd have to know exactly when and where they appear to do so.
Speaking of the black dots, where have they gone to? They were here until just recently. Maybe they are on lunch break? Weird.
Lucia is disgusted, "But why? What, what have we done to deserve this treatment?"
"No, clue. I'm not even sure it has anything to do with you. To them, your world is just a statistic. Just one of billions."
Eclaire scratches her head in confusion, "Okay, but what does that change about you getting a Hybrid class? You don't really have much time left, I assume."
"Maybe not but... I feel like I'd unnecessarily feed the glitch within my soul that way. Make a bad situation even worse."
She shakes her head, "No, think about it. If you think your demise could unleash this abomination upon this world shouldn't it be more in your and our interest to prevent that?"
Lucia tries to reassure me, "Honestly, I don't understand how this would be different from me or any of our familiars. Karen explained how a lot of our skills are already infected with glitches. You have a miniature glitch zone in your soul, so what? If she's right, so do we. Look, the Hybrid class helped, it prevented the worst at least. Do you... do you really want to leave me alone? Don't you love me enough to stay with me?"
If they put it this way... yeah, it is hypocritical of me. I've given her a Hybrid class knowing about potential risks because I didn't want to lose her, so how could I deny her the same consolation of us remaining together?
If I'm honest, I've already had two deals with what could be considered "devils", the devas and the lich. Both gave me some power but from what I know, neither seems to have benign intentions. So really, what is a third deal with a dubious source of power?
...at least this time I have no one to blame but myself for the outcome. Literally. You can't negotiate with glitches. They are not sentient, they just do whatever. No rhyme, no reason, just chaos. And I'm accepting their influence once again because I see no other option.
My desire to no longer be weak doesn't help me reject this temptation either. If I had to be honest, I have to admit that I would've given in sooner or later anyway. Lucia and Iris got some very sweet skills out of it, and given that we'll have to deal with the likes of Dan and especially Basluth, passing on an opportunity to get similar benefits would be foolish.
Yeah, let's do that.
"Low blow, Lucy. But alright, you win."
