Chapter 144: Memory Recorder (1)

Misha could only stare at her. Of all the things she could have learned tonight, apparently, one of them was that the fake name she had invented under pressure possessed its own accidental funeral poetry.

The meaning itself should probably have been the part that bothered her, but it wasn't. Her thoughts had caught on something considerably stupider for others.

Marigold. That was the original meaning of her name.

"My parents actually named me after that flower."

That made Astrid blink. "Really?"

"Yes."

After making sure the door was locked, she crossed to the other chair and sat down. With only Astrid and Caius in the room, Misha finally removed her mask and set it aside before leaning back and folding her arms.

The more she thought about the younger girl's words, the more absurd the coincidence became.

"My mother loved marigolds. She said they were bright enough to look like pieces of sunlight growing out of the ground." A faint smile touched her lips as a memory surfaced, softer than most things she allowed herself to think about inside the Tower. "My parents wanted the name to mean good fortune and prosperity. Something about growing surrounded by warmth and always being able to find the sun."

Astrid chuckled softly. "I suppose that depends on the culture, then. In one place, marigolds can represent warmth, prosperity, or the sun. Somewhere else, they're tied more closely to remembrance and the boundary between life and death."

Misha stared blankly at her. "So my parents thought they were giving me sunshine, and somewhere else I'm a funeral flower."

Pressing her lips together, Astrid tried to bite back a laugh, but the amusement slipped out anyway. "That is one interpretation."

"Wonderful. How fitting for a Gravekeeper like me."

"That part is admittedly unfortunate."

"Or suspicious." Misha narrowed her eyes. "Maybe my mother knew something."

"You think she predicted you becoming a Gravekeeper?"

"At this point, I'm willing to accuse everybody of everything."

Another laugh was heard from Astrid.

Misha allowed the conversation to settle for another moment before something occurred to her. She had already suspected that Astrid had been trained far beyond what an ordinary seventeen-year-old Academy student should have been capable of. That was why, among all the students who had helped during the siege of Genesis, she had been one of the few who immediately caught her attention.

Shifting in her chair, she couldn't help but ask: "What floor are you from?"

The younger girl rarely hesitated over simple questions so when Astrid paused, Misha noticed. Most of the time, it did not mean she was searching for an answer. It probably meant she was deciding how much of the truth she was willing to give.

"Well…" Astrid began.

Rubbing her thumb lightly against the side of one finger, she glanced at Misha. An awkward smile pulled briefly at her lips, almost apologetic, as though she already knew whatever came next was going to create problems.

"Originally, I'm from Floor Eighty-Three."

Misha froze, and the room seemed to grow noticeably quieter.

Caius continued breathing on the bed, entirely unaware that somebody had just casually dismantled part of Misha's understanding of civilization inside the Tower.

Finally, Misha opened her mouth. "Eighty-three? But… the last Settlement is Floor Sixty-One…"

"The last recognized Settlement Floor."

She slowly straightened herself in the chair. "Explain."

Astrid had apparently expected that exact response. She rested her hands together over her knee and spoke more carefully now. "Floor Eighty-Three doesn't have a Settlement in the normal sense. Nothing registered with the governments on the lower Floors. It has no recognized administration, no headquarters, it's just a very small village founded by my father and his brother."

Then she glanced toward Caius before continuing, lowering her voice instinctively even though the boy was unconscious. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this. My mother would be furious if she knew."

"Then you don't have too."

Despite how curious she was about the higher Floors, Misha had no intention of forcing the answer out of her.

"I'm suspicious of people, not entitled to their secrets."

Something softened in Astrid's eyes, and that apparently made her decide. "The village exists inside a region the Floor Quest doesn't normally require Raiders to enter so you can climb through that floor without ever knowing it exists. The route leading there changes depending on the time of the day, and the entire area has natural concealment around it. Even people who know roughly where it is can miss the entrance."

Misha leaned back. The way Astrid delivered it sound as ordinary as explaining where she had gone to school.

"So you grew up there."

"Partly."

"Partly?"

Astrid smiled faintly. "My mother never liked staying anywhere for too long, so we ended up moving between places. Sometimes we stayed on recognized Settlement Floors whenever she had business there, but she never let me follow her onto the more dangerous ones. Instead, she would leave me with friends she trusted until she came back." She paused for a moment. "She used to say that people who spend too long climbing eventually become uncomfortable living under permanent roofs."

"That sounds unhealthy."

"Yes." Astrid chuckled, though there was a resigned quality to it suggesting this was far from the first time she had reached that conclusion.

"Your father didn't have anything to say about dragging his daughter around the Tower?"

The humor faded gradually from Astrid's face. Her smile disappeared first, then her finger, which had been moving idly against one another, stopped.

Misha regretted the question before Astrid answered.

"He's actually the reason my mother became like that." She lowered her eyes toward her hands. "He's missing."

There was no tremble in her voice. The girl had clearly repeated the fact enough times to make it sound stable but that did not make it hurt less.

"That's why I wanted to become a Raider," she continued. "My mother still searches the upper Floors whenever she can. Eventually I told her I wanted to go with her, and she said no. She told me that if I wanted to accompany her above, I needed to earn the right to reach them myself." A faint rueful smile touched her lips. "So she sent me all the way back to Genesis and made me enroll in an Academy."

"Making you start at Floor One… your mother is cruel."

Astrid smiled more genuinely. "I said roughly the same thing."

For a moment, Misha almost smiled back. Then, the similarities settled in. Astrid had entered the Tower's climbing structure because she was searching for someone, just like her. Different missing person but same stupid desperation, and the same decision to keep moving because staying still accomplished nothing.

"How long has he been missing?"

Astrid's thumb rubbed once along the side of her index finger. "Since I was three."

Misha's chest tightened. "That long?"

She nodded. "I can only remember pieces of him now… being carried on his shoulder, and also the way he used to tap my forehead whenever I tried to grab something I wasn't supposed to." A small, wistful smile appeared on her face, but her eyes remained lowered. "My mother said the reason he kept climbing with his brother was because they were searching for a way to save their sister."

Misha frowned slightly. "Their sister?"

"Yes."

Then she reached toward empty space beside her, a ripple passed through the air, and something emerged from her subspace. It was a small yellow orb not much larger than a piece of fruit.

Astrid held it carefully in both hands. "This is all I really have of my father now."

Her gaze landed at the orb. "What is it?"

"A memory recorder."

She infused a thread of mana into it, and the orb glowed. Light unfolded into the air above her palms, stretching outward until it became a rectangular projection. The image shimmered once, then stabilized.

A couch sat against one wall, cluttered with blankets and cushions. Afternoon sunlight came through a nearby window. The image wobbled slightly as whoever held the recorder adjusted their grip.

A woman's quiet laughter sounded from behind it, then the image settled on a man sitting on the couch with a toddler sleeping against his chest. A much younger Astrid rested there with one tiny fist curled into the fabric of her father's shirt, her red hair still barely long enough to curl against one cheek.

"My mother recorded this," Astrid said softly.

Misha barely heard her. The moment the man shifted and his face came fully into view, something inside her seemed to seize. Her breath caught so sharply it hurt, her fingers went cold, and for one disorienting second, the room tipped around her.

She knew that face, she knew it before her mind could even form the name, and the recognition hit with such force that she could only stare.

Older, that was the first thing her mind registered, he was older than the face lodged inside her memories.

The faint lines that had once framed his black eyes had deepened. He even have some beard now. His chestnut hair was still recognizable, though gray now threaded heavily through it, especially at the temples. He looked older, wearier, unmistakably changed by decades she had never been there to witness, and yet there was no mistaking him.

"...Teo?"

Astrid turned toward her. "Hm?"