Chapter 72: Sentinels

"And what are these Sentinels for?"

He had shrugged. He didn't know any more than that.

Anyway. Blanche had even cooked after going fishing with Nicky to cheer him up. The grilled fish would have been unanimously praised if Glen hadn't grumbled about so many lives sacrificed.

"At least when D goes hunting, he only kills one or two animals."

Nicky had also shown her his fusion skill. He spoke about it with an almost embarrassing casualness, as if he didn't realize how completely extraordinary what he could do actually was. Yet from the very first demonstrations, Blanche understood that the ability was as fascinating as it was terrifying.

He could transform his body into a transparent liquid like water, or into earth, which made him frighteningly resilient. When he became water, his silhouette dissolved entirely before her eyes, losing all human shape as it spread across the ground in a smooth, silent movement. Light passed through his translucent body in shifting reflections, almost unreal, like a living current capable of reforming itself several meters away at will.

The first time, Blanche had genuinely thought he had just died.

Then he had reappeared behind her with a grin far too proud of himself.

His fusion with earth was even more impressive in a way. His skin slowly cracked apart, taking on the raw texture of stone and compacted clay until it looked as though a golem had replaced the awkward boy she knew. In that form, blows seemed to slide off him without any real effect. Even his movements changed: heavier, slower at times, yet filled with crushing power.

But the craziest transformation was his lightning form — unstable, difficult to control, and particularly dangerous.

This time, there was nothing fluid or stable about the process.

His body literally exploded into light.

Arcs of electricity burst around him in a brutal crackling storm, the entire air vibrating under the overload of energy before his silhouette vanished in a blinding flash. For a few seconds, he almost ceased to exist in any comprehensible form, reduced to a mass of living electricity tearing through space at terrifying speed.

And every use of it seemed dangerously close to slipping beyond his control.

Even Nicky looked nervous whenever he used that form, as though he were constantly dancing on the edge of a catastrophic accident. Lightning sometimes struck the ground around him without warning, leaving black scars in the snow or stone. Even his return to human form remained unstable: sparks often continued racing along his skin for several seconds afterward.

Blanche stayed silent for a long time after the demonstration.

Because beyond the impressive spectacle, one thought lingered stubbornly in her mind:

If Nicky ever learned to perfectly master that ability, he would become monstrously dangerous.

Blanche had watched the demonstration high in the sky, perched on Phénix with Stéropès beside her — Nicky's familiar assigned to keep an eye on her.

As if you needed any more protection.

The grumbled remark in her mind had been their first real moment of complicity. A familiar wasn't supposed to communicate with another player besides its owner.

To Nicky's great surprise, the antisocial cyclops then started spending more and more time with her and her familiar — something he had never done in six months.

The Otherworld was taking up an enormous place in Blanche's life. The days she spent there no longer felt like strange interludes between returns to reality: they were becoming a reality of their own. Little by little, her habits, reflexes, even her thoughts seemed to reorganize themselves around that brutal and fascinating world.

The redhead finally seemed comfortable among the players.

Now she moved around the barracks with a new ease.

At home.

Glen and Derek spoke to her more often.

Nicky threw jokes at her that she sometimes answered — to her own surprise.

Even their looks had changed: less wary, less curious, as though they had finally accepted that she belonged there just as much as they did.

And deep down, Blanche was beginning to believe it too.

As for Aaron, he remained kind and charming.

He kept that warm, steady presence that naturally drew others toward him without ever becoming overwhelming. Yet with her, he showed an almost infinite patience. He never pushed Blanche, waiting quietly for her to come to him.

Never did he force her to speak more than she wanted to. Never did he try to drag out the memories she still kept locked behind her silence. He simply stayed there — close without being invasive, attentive without insisting.

And that gentleness was probably the most destabilizing thing of all.

He no longer told anecdotes: now it was her turn to share stories, without daring to admit that she remembered exactly who she was.

As the days passed, she found herself talking more and more. And each time, Aaron listened with genuine attention, as though every word she spoke carried a special importance.

And every time, Blanche felt a dull guilt growing inside her for not being able to tell him the truth.

"I missed you so much," he repeated every time he saw her.

Argy and he had become more openly affectionate. She received hugs from the kid, and almost-too-innocent caresses from the other whenever they found themselves alone.

Fenrir, meanwhile, remained completely absent. Sometimes she thought she caught sight of him in the distance while swimming or flying: leaning against a tree, or sitting on a snowy rock... as though she actually mattered to him.

Yeah, right.

As the week drew to a close, she had gone from killing fifty goblins to one hundred and fifty in order to complete her quest. Once again, she had done it alone — after already secretly finishing another one beforehand.

Argy had chosen to stay by his uncle's side, worried about him because of the difficulty of his quest. Blanche had then thought that if her son cared about that irritable sociopath, then somewhere beneath it all, he probably deserved it.

Nicky was being helped by Aaron and Glen. Aaron would then help the elf before doing his own quest alone afterward. He had reassured Blanche: it was only a gathering quest. What he had "forgotten" to mention was that it took place on the Island of the Metamorphs, on the opposite side of the known world.

The one hundred and fifty goblins had been easy enough: just long and exhausting. Twelve straight hours without sleeping... waiting, fighting, and leveling her skills.

At the end, when faced with the choice between upgrading her "black heart" to level four, improving her poison resistance, or leveling her lying skill, Blanche chose poison resistance. For now, it was the most useful. What was the point of being powerful if a simple poison could kill you in minutes?

Besides, she could transfer that resistance through her blood — an advantage for the whole group. Raising the skill, however, was not going to be easy.

And somehow... that skill kept returning.

As though the game itself were whispering that she would need it one day.

With that thought, she lay down before vanishing, fully determined never again to be caught off guard and fall face-first into the grass.