Chapter 3002: The Incredible Adventures and Astonishing Deeds of Heroic Dreamer Sunless, the Cold Duke of the North (Book XI, Abridged) |
“Life is far more pleasant now, at least." Sunny sighed again.
There was a long moment of silence, and then a voice that lacked amusement responded from the darkness:
"That's great. I am happy for you, I really am... but can you get out of my room?"
Sunny grimaced and glanced around with a dubious expression.
It's not like he wanted to be here, either.
“I mean... I can. But I won't. I'm afraid of Aiko, you see — so even if hiding in this pigsty pains me, I must insist that I stay."
He was, naturally, in the depths of the Dark Castle, suffering the sorry sight of Revel's messy room. Sunny was graciously tolerating the ignoble state of her personal quarters, and yet, his ungrateful minion... that is to say, the venerable Transcendent elder of his clan... did not appreciate his selfless sacrifice one bit.
Instead, she had the audacity to be unhappy about it.
Sunny was sitting on a chair he had manifested out of shadows, wisely choosing not to trust the surfaces around him. Revel, meanwhile, was glaring at him in displeasure from a lavish bed, where she had been lazing about prior to his arrival.
The Marvelous Mimic was back in the Dark City, and the Shadow Clan was busier than ever — not only because most of its members had kept their memories of the Plague, which made them indispensable in dealing with its consequences, but also because the Forgotten Shore was at war.
The eerie barrows in the north had opened, and a seemingly endless tide of the Barrow Wraiths was flowing south, threatening to consume his lightless realm. The ancient revenants were both immensely powerful and peculiarly elusive, so the Shadow Legion had been engaged in a ferocious defensive campaign in the last year.
The clash between the primeval abominations and the shadows was especially troubling because of the terrifying powers that the shamans of the undead tribes wielded. And then there were the terrifying chieftains, as well... and the unseen being who ruled them all, too. Among the powers wielded by the Barrow Wraiths was the eerie ability to steal the souls of their fallen warriors back, preventing the ShadowLegion from swelling with a torrent of new shades during the campaign.
In short, the Dark Lord of the Forgotten Shore was quite busy.
‘My top lieutenant is supposed to be busier, though? Why is she even loitering here instead of doing something productive? The gal! If anything, I should be the one telling her to get out of the room!"
Sunny scoffed and gave Revel a look of reproach.
She let out a heavy sigh, hugged a pillow, and leaned back.
"What is even going on between you and Aiko? She has been looking at you funny as of late."
Sunny coughed.
"Well. How do I put it? She might have remembered that I cost her a job, then hired her to be my assistant, then disappeared for a few years, leaving her to salvage a crumbling business in the absence of the main supplier... then appeared out of nowhere, bought the business back from her, made her my assistant again, forced her to work as a waitress for about a year... well, and so on."
Revel grimaced, as if experiencing a headache.
“Slow down. I didn't catch half of that. So you and Aiko go way back?"
Sunny nodded.
“Oh, yes. In fact, it was I who caught and blackmailed her into... I mean, found and convinced her to join Neph's faction in the Bright Castle."
Revel tilted her head a little.
“The Bright Castle? Since when were you... wait, no! Actually, never..."
But it was already too late.
Sunny grinned.
"Do you want the long version or the short version?"
Revel groaned quietly.
"lam guessing that I am not getting you to leave before hearing at least one of those?" Sunny smiled.
"Wow, you are so insightful! I really have the best eye for talent, don't I?"
She gave him a dark look.
“What the hell? | am bored. Let's hear the long version."
Sunny’s smile widened.
“Listen well, then. A long time ago, a boy was born in the outskirts of NQSC. The moment he was born, a vast shadow obscured the sun, and darkness swallowed the world, heralding..."
Revel waved a hand in the air.
"Not that long! Get to the point, please." Sunny gave her a sullen, remained silent for a few seconds, then shrugged.
"Well, anyway. Eventually, the boy entered the First Nightmare, picked some berries, and received the blessing of Shadow God as a result..."
Revel frowned.
“Wait, wait! How does picking berries lead to receiving a divine blessing?"
Sunny blinked a couple of times.
“Why, because the boy murdered three people and an Awakened Tyrant thanks to those berries! You might not know it, but people from the outskirts and fresh fruit make for a perilous combination..." Revel stared at him silently for a moment. “Never mind."
Sunny grinned.
“The boy also received a Divine Aspect and a crippling Flaw. Then, he returned to the waking world and met a radiant princess of a fallen clan..."
Revel rolled her eyes.
“Actually, I changed my mind. Let's go with the short version."
Sunny fell silent and glanced at her with a hurt expression. Eventually, though, he acquiesced.
“Fine, fine. Well, you know how these stories go. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with the girl... boy becomes magically enslaved by the girl, gets left behind when she sacrifices herself to save his life, vows to become stronger than her, finds her after years of separation, gets into a huge fight with her, storms out to a different continent to join a suicidal war..."
Revel's expression turned progressively more incredulous.
Sunny did not mind, though.
"...boy gets reunited with the girl in the Third Nightmare, breaks the fate of all existence with the help of a devious blind oracle to free himself of her, gets forgotten by the entire world as a result, loses his mind and wanders the Dream Realm for a few years, slaughtering all kinds of Nightmare Creatures, regains his senses and meets the girl again, signs a contract to be the fake lover of the girl, conspires with her to conquer the world, kills himself, kills the Sovereigns, pretends to be killed by her, kills a mad bird to become her magical slave again, gets robbed blind by the dead bird..."
Sunny sighed.
“You know... the usual."
Revel exhaled slowly and rubbed her temple.
“Okay, I'll need to hear a longer version after all. But not too long. How about a medium version? A between version? Can you do that?"
Sunny beamed.
“Why, naturally! So... where was I?"
He scratched his chin with a thoughtful expression and then said:
“Anyway, Nephis and I got to know each other on the Forgotten Shore. At first, she thought that I was an assassin sent by the Great Clans to kill her, while I thought that she was a mad demagogue planning a mass slaughter..."
Revel nodded.
“Oh? Enemies to lovers. Great stuff." Sunny glanced at her in confusion before continuing.
"But despite that, the two of us quite liked each other. It was just that Cassie had received a prophetic vision showing that the two of us were destined to fight each other to the death. So, the knowledge of what the future held stood between us..." Revel was staring at him intently now. “No... star-crossed lovers! Even better!" Sunny frowned.
"So, anyway, as I was saying — Nephis was playing the role of an enlightened savior, and everyone was dancing to her tune. Except for me. I was the only one who told it to her like it was, and as a result..."
But Revel interrupted him.
"Wait, wait!"
She studied him with a look of concentration, then mumbled:
“Why does it make sense, though? Changing Star is a reserved young woman suppressing her feelings, then you appear and blow up her whole stoic routine with your nonsense. The roles are reversed, but aren't you a picture-perfect manic pixie dream boy, then? I like it!"
Sunny stared at her with a baffled expression.
“A manic pixie... a what? What the hell are you talking about?!"
Revel shook her head.
“Don't think about it. You can continue." Then, she raised an eyebrow.
"Wait, but what about Han Li Caster? In the Song of Light and Darkness, the two of them were clearly..."
Sunny scoffed.
“What, do you believe everything you see on the screen? That guy was the real assassin sent by the Great Clans to kill her! Actually, shouldn't you know, Lady Song?" Revel's eyes suddenly glinted in the darkness.
“Oh! So it was a doomed love triangle!" Sunny almost fell out of his chair out of pure outrage.
“What? No! There weren't any triangles, okay?! None!"
Revel gave him a doubtful look.
"Sure."
Sunny gritted his teeth.
“I told you there weren't, didn't I?!"
She glanced at him with a deadpan expression.
“And I told you ‘sure’, didn't I?"
He glared at her for a short while, then scoffed and glanced away.
“Well, anyway. The Forgotten Shore was a bit tough on us, Sleepers. By the end of it all, I had killed around four hundred Awakened abominations — and a few Fallen ones, as well. And a Great Devil! All of that despite being a mere Dormant Beast. | also lived in the Dark City alone for a while — alone with my friends, I mean. A shadow, a talking rock, and a mute statue. Ah, those were great times. I only kept my sanity because of them..."
Revel's expression turned peculiar, for some reason.
Ignoring that, Sunny continued his story, eventually reaching the siege of the Crimson Spire and the fateful duel at its pinnacle.
“...but actually, Nephis pretended to lose — all of it was a ploy to get me to leave. She wanted to sacrifice herself to save me. "
He heard a peculiar sound and glanced at Revel with wide eyes.
"Hey. Did you just... squeal?"
She glanced at him chillingly and said in a somber tone:
"I did not."
Sunny hesitated.
"But I clearly heard..."
“You were mistaken."
“Are you sure? I am a Supreme, after all, so my hearing is pretty great."
“Oh, is it? How come you didn't hear me telling you to get the hell out of my room, then?"
"I did hear! I heard it perfectly well — I just chose to ignore it."
“I wonder where Aiko is. Maybe I should invite her here to help me check your hearing."
“Anyway, back to the story!"
Sunny continued to recount various events from his life. By then, Revel produced a bottle of spirit wine and two crystal glasses, as well as some Earth snacks and strips of dried monster meat.
The head of the Shadow Clan and its field commander got pretty serious about playing hooky after that.
"...I took a bad tumble and spent a few weeks falling into a bottomless abyss of endless darkness. Then, the darkness spoke to me. And do you know what it said? It said... why is it so dark? I kid not, those were its first words!"
“And then, he cut my head clean off. Being beheaded is not fun, let me tell you. But anyway, I put my head back on and killed him... no wait, it was the other way around. I killed him first, and put my head back on after that..."
"So there I was, thinking that we were both going to die, looking into her eyes while she glanced into mine. Time seemed to slow down. And then, she took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and finally admitted it... it was me who broke your projector, she said. The projector. The PROJECTOR! Can you believe that woman?!"
“You know, nothing is more romantic than spending a month drifting together on the corpse of a Great Monster..."
Revel's reactions, meanwhile, were quite monotone.
“Wait... you are Mongrel?!"
"Wait... you are the Devil of Antarctica?!" “Wait... that is where you draw the line, really? Honey?!"
Sunny frowned.
What was she on about? Naturally, only a complete lunatic would like honey. He was not the most sane person, but eating insect vomit was too much even for him!
‘Rich people...
Eventually, Sunny got to the end of the tale. "And that was how everyone remembered me. So, here you go. That is why I am hiding from Aiko."
Revel stared at him with a complicated expression.
"That's peculiar.’
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
Revel shook her head.
"If everyone remembers you now, how come I don't?"
He blinked a few times.
“Isn't that obvious? It's because we've never met before I became the Lord of Shadows." He paused for a moment and then offered helpfully:
"Because you are an antisocial shut-in who never goes out.”
Revel glared at him.
"Is it? Or is it because you were too unremarkable and insignificant to meet me?"
Sunny scoffed.
“I met Seishan, didn't I? And Morgan. And Mordret, too. Naeve from the House of Night... actually, I met Beastmaster as well! She called me little brother... so, it's just you. Way to go, recluse."
Revel nodded.
“I see. I see... than Song of the Fallen must have made a mess out of your head, at some point. Do you expect me to believe all that nonsense?"
Sunny opened his mouth to retort, but at that moment, someone knocked on the door.
He froze, his porcelain face turning even paler than usual.
‘Oh, no..."
A pleasant voice resounded from outside: "Hey, boss. Are you there? Don't answer... I already know that you are..."
His eyes widened. His voice shook as he whispered.
“S—she found me..."
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