Chapter 153: What the Fuck, Indeed

The moment Mirabelle touched the Territory Core, something seized her mind.

It felt as though an invisible force had caught hold of her consciousness and pulled.

She gasped. Everything she could see blurred.

The lake beneath her feet.

The ancient trees.

The glowing moss.

The countless tiny lights scattered through the shadows.

All of it stretched into indistinct streaks, rushing past her so quickly that Mirabelle couldn’t tell whether she was moving through the world or the world was being pulled away from her.

Then —

The forest was gone.

Mirabelle stood somewhere else.

Her breath caught.

There were no trees.

No lake.

No earth beneath her feet that she could actually see.

There were no walls, no ceiling, no horizon. Nothing that should have allowed her mind to understand the dimensions of the place around her.

And yet she didn’t feel as though she were standing in an empty void.

Soft, yellowish light surrounded her. It wasn’t coming from anywhere. There was no sun above her. No glowing object. No visible source at all. The light simply existed.

Warm and gentle, filling an expanse that seemed to stretch infinitely in every direction.

Mirabelle should have felt as though she were about to fall. There was nothing beneath her that she could see.bNothing to anchor herself to.

But strangely, the sensation never came.

She felt supported.

Grounded.

As though the space itself held her exactly where she was meant to be.

Mirabelle stared into the endless golden distance. Only one thing had followed her here.

The Territory Core.

It remained directly before her. Her palm still rested against its smooth surface exactly where she’d placed it.

Mirabelle hadn’t even had time to pull her hand away. Everything had happened within milliseconds. One moment, she’d been standing knee-deep in the luminous lake.

The next, she was here.

And yet...

Her mind insisted that far more time had passed.

Seconds.

Minutes.

Perhaps longer. There was no way to tell.

Time itself seemed to have stretched during that impossible transition, turning a fraction of a heartbeat into something vast enough for her to experience every instant of it.

Mirabelle swallowed.

Her fingers remained pressed against the Core.

And in that endless expanse of gentle golden light, she waited.

"Hello, Sprout."

A voice boomed through the endless space.

Mirabelle flinched.

It didn’t echo through the light.

It filled it.

For one disorienting moment, she had the impression that the voice and the strange golden expanse around her were one and the same, every particle of light vibrating with those two words.

The voice was distinctly masculine.

Deep.

Ancient.

And yet strangely difficult to assign to anything specific. Not old in the frail sense. Not young either. It carried the depth of something that had existed for so long that age had ceased to be a useful concept.

Mirabelle’s ears flattened against her head.

Her eyes darted around.

Left.

Right.

Behind her.

There was still nothing.

No person.

No creature.

No conveniently materializing ancient spirit.

Only the Territory Core beneath her hand.

"Terre... Territory Core?" she asked, feeling slightly ridiculous as soon as the words left her mouth. "Is that you?"

"Hohoho... that’s what they call me these days, yes."

The laugh rolled through the golden space.

Mirabelle’s lips twitched.

That had been dangerously close to Santa Claus.

She pulled a face, fighting the grin threatening to appear. She had absolutely no idea whether the Core could see her, but somehow laughing at an ancient entity within seconds of meeting it seemed unwise.

"Sprout, I’ve been waiting for you."

Mirabelle blinked.

Sprout?

Why was he calling her that?

Was it because she was a descendant of some ancient noble bloodline?

Oh.

Right.

She actually was.

Mirabelle had briefly forgotten that part.

Still, why did he speak as though he’d been waiting beneath a mountain for the chosen heir to arrive for the last thousand years?

...Although, considering what she had just discovered about him, that might not be particularly far from the truth.

"Waiting? As though you knew I was coming?"

Mirabelle couldn’t quite keep the humor from her voice.

If the ancient being noticed, he didn’t appear offended.

"I knew you would come. Eventually. I felt it in the bloodline. With every female of your family who came before me, it became more obvious. And yet it took centuries before you finally arrived."

"What?"

Mirabelle’s brows drew together.nWhat was he talking about?

Every female of her family? Had he been waiting for her specifically?

But the Core ignored the question entirely.

"I didn’t expect it to be you, however. There is quite a leap between you and your mother."

Mirabelle opened her mouth.

Then something inhaled. Deeply.

The sound was so enormous that her entire body stiffened. Her hair lifted away from her shoulders.

The warm light around her seemed to move as an invisible current swept past her face.

Mirabelle stared ahead.

How—

How could a crystal breathe?

And more importantly... Was it sniffing her?

The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, leaving her with the deeply bizarre sensation that some colossal invisible creature had lowered its head until an equally colossal nose hovered directly above her.

Mirabelle remained very still.

"Seems ancient blood flows through you. She must have found a strong line and thus turned the time forward."

The Core sounded thoughtful now.

Mirabelle’s confusion only deepened.

She? Her mother? What strong line was he talking about now?

Before Mirabelle could ask, another tremendous inhalation swept through the space. Her hair fluttered upward again.

"And you..." The voice seemed to linger over whatever it sensed within her. "...have already stretched your roots into new territories."

Mirabelle’s expression slowly changed.

Roots.

Bloodlines.

Territories.

Centuries of waiting.

Whatever she’d expected from touching the Territory Core... It definitely hadn’t been this.

"I don’t understand."

Mirabelle made another attempt to communicate the sheer extent of her confusion.

"Hohoho, of course you don’t understand. No sprout knows what she is. But soon she stretches her roots deep and wide... secures powerful lines and ensures that her bloodline becomes a new dynasty."

Mirabelle’s head was beginning to hurt.

A dynasty?

Was this about the thing Pebbles kept rambling about in his system notifications?

Fragments of blue windows surfaced in her memory.

<A dynasty does not stand upon a single pillar. Its strength grows with every bond forged.>

Something like that, anyway?

And there had been another one:

<No dynasty can flourish without land to call its own.>

Then another sentence came back to her with sudden clarity.

<The Territory Development System may only be granted to individuals possessing a qualified Founder Bloodline.>

Mirabelle went still.

Founder Bloodline?

She’d mostly accepted the term because the system had thrown so many bizarre concepts at her since arriving in this world that questioning every single one would have become a full-time occupation.

But now...

"Isn’t my bloodline already special? I mean, here I stand, like many of my female ancestors before you, asking for permission to oversee the lands of our duchy."

"Ohohoho, Sprout. Of course. Of course. But your bloodline had not yet matured. But you... you are finally the seed from which something new can grow."

Mirabelle stared at the Core.

That clarified absolutely nothing.

’Great...’

"What is different about me?"

For a moment, the endless golden space seemed almost unnaturally quiet.

Then the voice answered.

"Not only do you see the land, but the land sees you."

Of course.

Of fucking course.

Why did every ancient, magical, divine, or otherwise ridiculously powerful being in this world insist on speaking in riddles?

Mirabelle sighed. Her free hand rose to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"And that means?"

She asked the question fully expecting another cryptic statement involving roots, seeds, rivers, blood, or perhaps a particularly meaningful tree.

Instead, the Core answered immediately.

"It means that I do not merely permit you to govern."

The light around Mirabelle seemed to still.

The vast presence behind the voice suddenly felt heavier. More serious.

"I permit you to rule."

Mirabelle’s fingers slowly fell away from the bridge of her nose. Her expression changed.

This time, however, Mirabelle didn’t get the chance to ask.

The back of her hand began to burn.

The hand still pressed against the Core.

At first, it was only heat.

Then—

Fire.

Mirabelle sucked in a sharp breath.

It felt as though someone had set her skin alight. Instinctively, she tried to tear her hand away.

She couldn’t. Her palm remained fixed against the smooth crystal.

"Ahh —"

The sound hissed through her clenched teeth.

Mirabelle pulled harder. Nothing.

The burning intensified, spreading across the back of her hand in searing lines.

Then the golden space collapsed.

There was no other way to describe it. The endless expanse of soft yellow light suddenly folded inward, rushing toward her from every direction at once.

Mirabelle’s stomach lurched. The Core vanished beneath her hand. Or perhaps she vanished from it.

She couldn’t tell.

It felt as though something had grabbed her consciousness and hurled it backward with tremendous force.

And from somewhere impossibly far away, already fading into the distance, she heard the Core’s voice one last time.

"Use the power I entrust to you wisely, or your bloodline ends with you."

Then: SPLASH. Mirabelle landed ass-first in the lake. Her hands shot backward automatically to catch herself.

The instant her right palm broke through the surface, the burning stopped. Completely.

The lake’s strange freshness surged through her again.

Coolness rushed up her arms and through her body, washing away the lingering pain as though it had never existed. Her muscles relaxed. Her breath came easier. The shock cleared from her head almost immediately.

Water soaked into her green dress. The fabric darkened and grew heavy, slowly clinging to her legs and waist as she sat there.

Mirabelle didn’t notice.

She didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to remember that she was sitting in the middle of a lake.

She simply stared at the enormous Territory Core hovering before her.

Her mouth hung slightly open.

For several long seconds, the only movement came from the ripples spreading outward from where she’d fallen.

The Core continued to glow.

As though it hadn’t just granted her some mysterious power, threatened the extinction of her entire bloodline, and thrown her back into reality.

Mirabelle blinked.

Once.

Then again.

"What the fuck?"