Chapter 235: If It Hurts So Much, Why Didn’t You Say So Earlier?
Note: Character Illustration is in this Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iuyfwNVFHzIi9H4rWNT_lAm7jTSiah_M
Chapter 235: If It Hurts So Much, Why Didn’t You Say So Earlier?
On a bustling commercial street in Kazimierz, Steven walked side by side with Skadi. A short distance ahead of them, Specter drifted along like a curious child—eyes darting from one shop window to another, peering here, then there, mesmerized by everything she saw.
After a brief call with Gladiia, Steven was fairly confident she wasn’t in any immediate danger. Whatever she was up to, it wasn’t serious enough to raise alarms—at least for now. As for the whole “what does Specter like” question, well... that was just an excuse. A gentle little pretense to reach out.
But it wasn’t Steven whose mood had improved the most—it was Skadi, who’s clearly buoyed by the call. Hearing that Gladiia had returned to her senses again was cause for celebration in her book.
Especially since Steven had also promised to lend her the communication device later that evening so she could keep in touch. She had to resist the urge to give him a crushing hug right then and there.
And it was at that moment that Skadi finally began to understand.
Why Gladiia… and even Specter, despite everything, seemed to have this soft spot for the boy walking beside her.
There was just something about him. The kind of person whose presence alone made the world feel a little more secure. A little more peaceful.
“Is there anything else you want?” Steven asked, tilting his head toward her. “That gift I gave you was just something I picked out on my own. If there's something else you’d actually like, just say the word. It’s no big deal. Your Second Company Captain already said to put it all on her tab.”
He said it so casually, like it didn’t matter—but that made it all the more charming. Since Gladiia had insisted on covering the cost, he figured he might as well take her up on it. Let’s see how she plans to settle that debt in the end.
“Me?” Skadi shook her head gently. “That harp you gave me… it’s more than enough. I really do like it.”
Her voice was sincere, her expression calm and content. She’d never been someone with extravagant desires. As long as her comrades were close, that was enough.
And truthfully, the harp had struck the perfect chord in her heart.
“…Just be careful around the shark,” she added, her gaze drifting forward toward Specter, who was still darting around like a wide-eyed child. “She’s still… unstable.”
There was real concern in her eyes. If Specter were to snap here, now… even with both of them present, stopping her would be no small feat.
“I think… sometimes, keeping her locked up isn’t the best idea,” Steven said softly. “Letting her out to see the world, experience new things… maybe that’s exactly what she needs.”
He glanced at the girl ahead of them—wild, unpredictable, but undeniably alive.
It was hard to say what condition she was truly in. Her moods shifted like tides, her thoughts often too tangled to follow. But even so… a shark that had lived its whole life in the deep sea—surely, it would long for freedom.
“Fish will always dream of the ocean,” Steven murmured.
Right on cue, Specter twirled around and skipped back toward them, that same glint of mischief flickering in her eyes. “Birds always dream of the sky,” she said, echoing his sentiment with her own cryptic twist.
When she wasn’t… well, being herself, she could actually be kind of coherent. Even if her words still sounded like riddles, they were just understandable enough.
“See?” Steven chuckled and nudged Skadi. “She agrees with me.”
“Hmph. You’re the one letting her out to play, of course she agrees with you,” Skadi let out a soft sigh.
She wasn’t stupid—just a little slow when it came to reading between the lines. Of course she agreed with Steven’s idea of letting Specter out for a walk. Anyone with half a heart would. But what he wasn’t thinking about was this: if Specter snapped and went berserk, who was going to stop her?
Aside from Steven and herself, no one in this city could restrain Specter. They were in the middle of a crowded Kazimierz street. If anything happened, local law enforcement would come down on them like a hammer.
And when that happened—who would clean up the mess?
“It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine,” Steven replied with his usual easygoing tone. “Look at her—doesn’t she seem calm right now? Also… I didn’t expect her to be into sculpture of all things.”
He turned to glance at Specter, who was surprisingly well-behaved at the moment. In her quiet state, she looked like the perfect portrait of a refined, ethereal beauty.
Actually, that was true of most of the Abyssal Hunters. They were all undeniably gorgeous.
It was just… hard to reconcile that with the fact that this was the same person who, once she snapped, would fight tooth and nail like a demon, tearing through her enemies with feral precision.
And yet, this seemingly bloodthirsty warrior had a niche, delicate little hobby like sculpting?
Steven really hadn’t seen that coming.
Then again, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to the art himself.
He hadn’t had any formal teachers. No one had guided his hand. But in this particular field, he could still confidently call himself a veteran.
And it wasn’t because of any fancy implanted knowledge or downloaded modules either.
No—he had truly learned it the old-fashioned way.
After all, when you’re stuck in a world of cubes for over a decade, with nothing around but stone and wood… sooner or later, your hands get itchy. You start carving.
What began with reshaping blocks into spheres slowly evolved into lifelike wooden statues of villagers, tools, and monsters. Steven had spent years—millenniums—on this. He didn’t have talent. What he had was patience, and persistence.
And as a result, he’d honed an instinctive understanding of objects. Of form.
These days, give him any weapon, and he could master its use in no time at all. That wasn't just because of combat experience, but the intimate familiarity with shapes and weight and material that his years of carving had granted him.
He’d made it work with nothing but a diamond sword and a grindstone, slowly carving out everything by hand.
So, if Specter really liked sculpture, he could probably carve something for her himself.
The only problem was… this “hobby” was something from before she lost her memories. There was no guarantee she still liked it now.
So for now, the plan was simple: take her shopping. Let her look around. If she found something she genuinely liked, great. If not—then he’d step in.
“Sculpture?” Specter echoed, pausing for a moment as though struck by the word.
And then, to Steven’s surprise, she thought about it. She actually stood there in serious contemplation—like a philosopher on a mountaintop.
Yes, an unstable lunatic was now deep in thought.
It was absurd.
And yet… it happened.
“If the piece in question is worthy of being called art,” she said after a long silence, “then yes, I suppose it could be said that I like it.”
Steven blinked.
That... was a real answer.
And a weirdly coherent one at that.
“Hah. In that case,” he muttered, glancing down the street lined with souvenir stalls and cheap trinkets, “we’re screwed.”
He shook his head with a wry smile.
“All the stuff on this street? Sure, you can call it merchandise. But art?”
He gave a low chuckle.
“Not even close.”
That was exactly why Steven had been so excited earlier—why he’d practically rushed into that knight gear specialty store like a kid in a candy shop—only to leave moments later, completely empty-handed.
All those products? Just commercial goods, nothing more. Tools designed not for use, but for tricking the wandering crowds into parting with their wallets. Art? Purpose? Meaning? That was a stretch.
As for “art”… well, Steven used to joke that art is an explosion.
Didn’t mean he was going around throwing TNT every day, right?
“So,” Specter said, her tone disturbingly casual, “I don’t like any of it. If you really want to know what I want—then I want to tear this whole street down. Reduce the city to ash and fire. I want to vent my pain through destruction, and drag everyone down into that suffering with me.”
The words were dangerous—undeniably so. But what truly unsettled Steven was the look in her eyes. Those crimson irises shimmered with an intense, almost reverent desire.
A desire to watch the world bleed.
Yeah… definitely a poor little shark who’d been tortured into madness.
“You’re not going to do something about your violent little friend here?” Steven said, shooting a look at Skadi. “Her brain’s full of homicidal poetry. That’s not healthy.”
He sounded just like a teacher calling a parent into the office.
"Your daughter wrote an essay on burning down the school. Thoughts?"
Skadi gave a helpless shrug. “Do I look like someone who can control her? Besides, I think her hatred for land-dwellers… probably has something to do with what she went through in the past.”
Her voice was calm, but her hand was clenched tight.
She’d known for a long time that Specter held a deep, twisted hostility toward those who lived on the land.
Combine that with the scar along her back… it wasn’t hard to imagine the kind of trauma she’d endured.
That was why Skadi never tried to talk her out of her hatred.
She simply did her best to keep Specter from unleashing it on the innocent.
But if she ever found out who was responsible for what happened…
Then the revenge she'd seek would be far more brutal than any destruction Specter could dream up.
“That might be true,” Steven said, scratching his head, “but living in constant pain like that… it’s not sustainable, you know? You should try thinking about better things now and then. There’s more to the world than just suffering.”
He wasn’t trying to convince her to abandon revenge. That wasn’t the point.
He just didn’t believe it had to be either revenge or happiness.
Why not both?
“Because… it hurts.”
Her voice was quiet. But clear.
And when Specter lifted her head to look at him, the words she spoke didn’t sound like something a madwoman would say.
They sounded real.
Genuine.
And her eyes—normally flickering with some strange, unfocused light—now shone with a painful, lucid clarity.
The source of that pain was her spine.
She didn’t even need to close her eyes. The agony that radiated from her back and spread through her entire body was constant, unending. Even when she wanted to stay lucid, the torment was there to drag her back under.
Her slender fingers brushed against her back for a moment, as if trying to soothe the searing discomfort. What she really wanted—what she desperately wanted—was to tear that spine out of her body with her own hands.
But she knew that was impossible.
Even Rhodes Island couldn’t help her. Not really.
The Originium concentrate fused with her spine wasn’t something that could be extracted. If it were to leak, it could destroy an entire city. And since it had been injected into her spinal cord, removing it without killing her was basically a fantasy.
Unless someone planned on cutting out her entire spine—and every connected nerve.
And if they did, well… she wouldn’t be Specter anymore.
She’d just be a corpse.
Steven didn’t say anything at first. He simply met her gaze—those blood-red eyes full of anguish—and then reached out to gently ruffle her hair.
“If that’s the case,” he said softly, “then why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“If it hurts… just say it.”
“Only when you say it can I start figuring out how to help you.”
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