Chapter 85: Miguel
"How’re your hands feeling?"
Ryan turned to Mia, staring directly at her wrapped hands. The girl clenched them delicately into fists before responding.
"It’s mostly fine, I think. The wounds turned out shallower than I thought they would. Strangely, I didn’t lose much blood either. I think it might have something to do with my traits."
Relief washed over his face at that. He nodded, adding,
"That’s good, don’t stress yourself too much. What about you, Brandon?"
The boy in question grunted, placing a hand over his shoulder where the thing had grazed him, then pulled his sleeve up to reveal a bandage wrapped around it.
"It’s just a nick, didn’t hit anything important. The only reason it hurts now is because someone wrapped it tightly."
He shot a glare at Mia, to which the girl snorted in response.
"Don’t be such a baby. The pain means it’s healing."
"That’s not how it works, Mia."
Chloe looked at the self-declared doctor exasperatedly.
Mia raised her hands in defeat, relenting at last.
"I know, I know. He’ll be fine. I made sure it wasn’t too tight. Can’t go restricting his blood flow now, can I? Brandon’s just a crybaby."
The boy just sighed, choosing not to pursue the matter any further. It would only be giving her more ammo.
Miles watched it all unfold from where he lay between them all, his mind largely decoupled from their bickering and focused on matters of more importance.
He pulled up his status screen, focusing mainly on the line at the bottom.
[Points: 105]
’105.’
His attention was focused almost entirely on the number at the bottom. That many points would be enough to do something at least.
’It has to be my EGO.’
Gaia said skills couldn’t surpass the level of a user’s EGO, largely for their own safety. Why? He had no clue. But it was likely for a very good reason; there was no point in tempting fate by trying.
The only other option was dumping those points in the pylon, but that was akin to just throwing them in an endless pit. Six thousand points was a very large goal, and given the fact they’d be leaving here soon, it was also a pointless endeavor.
He contemplated walking up to the pylon and performing the upgrade. Those thoughts only lasted for a moment, though, before he filed the task away for tomorrow.
His wounds still needed healing, so the task could wait. It definitely wasn’t because he didn’t feel like standing up at the moment; this was just a more efficient use of his time.
Ryan’s pondering voice brought him back to reality.
"I have a question. I mean, the pylon is meant to suppress all anomalies within its range, right? Then why wasn’t that ghoul dealt with the moment it stepped in?"
It was something he’d been wondering about as well. Though he had a few ideas, he had no solid logic behind them.
Luckily, Chloe answered.
"I’m not sure about this exactly, but it did say anomalies below a certain level are restricted."
"Are you saying that thing, that ghoul, was stronger than the principal? Because the principal was suppressed."
Brandon looked skeptical at her explanation. Rightfully so; although the bifurcated ghoul had been difficult, and it had taken nearly everything from them just to kill it, it was still killable.
They couldn’t even begin attacking the principal, and the entity could just kill anyone that broke its arbitrary rule.
Both clearly weren’t on the same level.
Chloe’s brows wrinkled in concentration before shaking her head.
"No, I don’t think it’s solely because of that. In those letters, Gaia said ghouls were all under a Kosmos rank anomaly, Niflheim. If they were considered part of that larger anomaly, it makes sense a level one pylon wouldn’t be able to suppress them."
’Right.’
It was exactly that conclusion he’d been slowly circling on, but he hadn’t had much time to think about it, due to, well... the fact that he was just waking up.
Ryan scratched his chin.
"That does make sense. Are you saying the drift worms come from this Niflheim too?"
"Probably. It’s a Soma-class anomaly too, and it mainly hides in snow drifts before latching on to passersby. So it’s definitely connected to the snow."
She paused, turning to Miles.
"I inspected it while you were out cold."
Miles could only nod from where he lay; he’d figured that out already.
"I’m not that forgetful."
She only shot him a deadpan look before Brandon asked,
"What does it mean? Soma, O-Oi-Oyokos..."
"It’s Oikos,"
Mia corrected him mid-sentence.
"Whatever it is."
Chloe took her eyes off Miles, carefully considering the question before replying. Her voice came deliberate and cautious, as though she wasn’t sure how best to present the thoughts in her head.
"It’s been a while since I last took Greek classes, so I’m a bit rusty. Soma, I know, means body or self. Oikos means home, but it can also mean buildings or compounds in certain situations. Polis mostly means a city, or back then, city-states, you know, because back then they lived in city-states."
Ryan nodded, urging her on.
"Oh, right, sorry. I trailed off a bit. Ethnos means a people, a group of people, or depending on how you see it, a nation. Kosmos is rather self-explanatory, I think. It means everything, the universe, though in a lot of cases it just meant the world."
By the time she was done, a logical order of escalation was already evident. From a body, to a building, to a city, then a nation, and finally the world. It was sobering, to put it lightly, in its implications.
Someone else was in shock for an entirely different reason, though. Mia tilted her head.
"You speak Greek? Are you from there?"
"Eh, not really. I just really wanted to be multilingual back then."
Chloe’s reply only piqued her interest further.
"How many languages do you speak?"
The girl bumped up her glasses, considering the question for a moment before replying. The pride in her voice was very poorly hidden.
"About twelve."
"Twelve!?"
Ryan butted his way into the conversation.
"That’s nothing for her. You’re looking at the best student in our class, possibly the whole school. She was definitely going to be valedictorian if things hadn’t... gone..."
He trailed off, noticing Chloe’s face only grow grimmer the more he talked. It only took him a moment to notice his mistake.
"Oh, I’m sorry, Chloe."
Mia rolled her eyes in her stead.
"Aren’t you just on a roll today."
Ryan’s expression grew helpless.
"I said I’m sorry."