Abyssal Awakening

After arriving at the tavern, Alice immediately asked for a room, some mead for herself and spicy skewers for Alyss.

Even though she wanted to gather some more information, she couldn't help but admit that the fatigue was catching up to her.

When paired with her injuries, a good night's sleep was what she needed the most rather than information.

Making arrangements to meet up with Selen again tomorrow morning, Alice made her way back to her room and threw herself onto the bed.

"Ouch…" She groaned, feeling the pain across her body.

Relaxing herself in the bed for a moment, she sat up and glanced at her arm.

Peeling the bandages off, she could see the state of her body clearly. Bloodied scars riddled her arm with parts of it threatening to burst if she wasn't careful. In fact, some of them have already burst and Alice could see her flesh all the way down to her bone at certain parts.

Her blood and flesh tried its best to sew itself together but it was slow.

'Selen said she fed me quite a bit of Healing Blood too but it wasn't that effective.' Alice thought with a sigh.

She wasn't sure why her regeneration was slowing down and Cayla wasn't awake to explain. Not that she would know in the first place. Alyss seemed pretty clueless on the whole situation as well.

Closing her eyes, Alice tried to activate her third Sigil.

*KSHK!!!

Furrowing her brows, she opened her eyes and saw that all of her wounds simultaneously burst apart. Her body was akin to a broken flask that was barely taped together.

Too much water and it'll begin to leak and crack apart again.

'What a hassle.' Alice sighed.

With all of her wounds breaking open, she'll need to clean her body and redo the bandages.

"There should be a bathhouse here…"

Switching controls with Alyss to let her enjoy the skewers before taking over again, Alice rummaged through her pouch and grabbed some warm clothes. In order to conserve as much energy as she could, she needed to keep herself warm.

The outfit she chose was a large fur lined turtle neck coat reaching down to her thighs. It was coloured white that blended into a soft blue with golden accents. A pair of shorts with black tights and fur lined long boots.

Adjusting her hair after putting on her warm fur hat, Alice moved some strands over her right eye.

Looking at herself in the mirror, Alice gave her body a twirl and smiled, feeling satisfied with her outfit.

'All ready.'

Glancing at the clock on her table, she could see that it was 11 pm at night. She wasn't sure if the bathhouse was open or not but a walk wasn't bad either.

Grabbing her flask Alice made her way out of the tavern.

Compared to earlier, the town had calmed down a lot more with only warriors on patrol. Now that it was reaching midnight, everyone had gone back to their homes to sleep.

Asking the guards where the bathhouse was, Alice found out that it was located near the lake and made her way over.

###

"Ahhhhh~" Letting out a satisfied sigh, Alice smiled happily while soaking her body in the open air bath.

It was just her at the moment since it was rather late but it worked out perfectly for Alice. After all, having others see this scar riddled body her's wouldn't be good for their mental not to mention the blood.

Allowing the hot water to wash away her blood, it stun against the open wound yet was also strangely satisfying. Alice had to question if she had a hint of masochism in her but quickly dismissed the thought.

With the strange blend of a hot bath and the cold air, Alice felt as though she was in paradise.

'Seems like they don't use Abyssal Engineering as much compared to the Abyss. Going through such roundabout ways to obtain hot water for the bath.' Alice thought to herself while glancing at the statue that was pushing fresh hot water into the bath.

She couldn't see any signs of the usual mechanisms used for Abyssal Engineering and figured it was probably something else entirely.

Either way, if everything was like this bath, she could get used to it rather quickly.

Just as she was about to relax fully, Alice's ear twitched as she immediately stood up and grabbed the towel near her.

Narrowing her eye, she grabbed a nearby bucket.

She could be hallucinating but for a moment, she heard some movement from the bushes and trees.

Her senses were rarely wrong and at this moment, Alice tuned her focus to the max. With her body in this state, she wasn't able to deploy a zone.

After waiting for a long time, peace seemed to return as Alice couldn't hear any more movement.

Furrowing her brow, Alice decided to cut her bath short and made her way to the changing room while keeping her bucket beside her at all times.

Without a weapon right now, this bucket was her best friend.

Unknown to Alice, just as she left, a figure let out a sigh of relief from the trees.

A girl could be seen wearing dark clothing and a large hooded cloak hiding her figure.

She didn't know what kind of person appeared in Kvia but to think they could detect her presence.

All it took was her landing on the tree for the split haired girl to notice her and go on guard.

Had it not been for the countless wounds across her body, perhaps they would've been forced into a confrontation.

Regardless, she was glad that the girl decided to leave after a long pause.

The hooded figure decided to postpone her mission for the night in fear of unknown variables.

'I'll need backup from the rest of the squad if we want to do this successfully.' She sighed inwardly while sneaking out of the outpost.

Compared to trying to avoid Alice's notice, escaping the outpost was a piece of cake. None of the guards noticed her even if she made some noise. Most of them only thought it was a wild animal or the wind.

This only served to prove her concerns about Alice and needing more support.

If she was still around when they begin their mission then the chances of it failing increases drastically.

###

After getting changed and leaving the bathhouse, Alice didn't detect any more abnormalities and couldn't help but begin to doubt herself. Perhaps she was being too on guard due to her wounded state but it was far too strange for it to be the wind.

However, that brief scare was enough to reinforce her belief that she should fix her body as soon as possible.

While the surface may be far safer compared to the Abyss, dropping her guard like earlier and leaving herself in a vulnerable state was the worst thing she could possibly do. Even with such safety a sneak attack is all it takes to kill her!

'If Abyss Blood doesn't work that well perhaps there's something else that's holding me back.' Alice speculated.

It was about time she dug into the secrets of her regeneration. At first, she had thought that it was part of Alyss's power but that was clearly not the case. There was another source and that source was her.

And if it was her, what was wrong with her body for her regeneration to slow?

In previous instances, her regeneration would slow when she took too much damage and couldn't keep fighting.

There was another theory of hers and that it was something to do with her Spiritual Heart.

She noticed the regeneration of her younger self coming close to a halt once she had severed the connection, essentially turning her into a vegetable.

If cutting off the link to the spiritual heart caused the regeneration to stop then there was a chance that Alice's own link had been damaged in that fight.

'What a hassle.' Alice sighed.

She had two plans tomorrow.

First to find the Underground. Second was to see if she could find a healer to check out her body and resolve the issues.

Of course, there's an inherent risk with finding a healer since her secret could be exposed. But staying as she is right now, unable to use any Sigils was worse. A choice where she's picking the lesser of two evils.

###

"So you're planning on looking for the Underground?" Selen asked while eating the breakfast.

Compared to the breakfast in the Abyss, there was far less beast meat and mostly just eggs, butter, bread, stew and some fruit.

"Yep. I need to tell my friends that I'm alive and where we should meet after all." Alice nodded, dipping her bread into the stew.

"You'll probably struggle then. The Underground is mostly an organisation that operates within the boundaries of Extalia with some influence in Sikha. But due to the attitude of the Northerners, the Underground struggled in Verona.

"Plus, the Northerners have a different way of finding and passing information. They train specific beasts that travel back and forth from the capital by shuttling through the Void.

"Void Hawks. That's what they're called. It takes them about a week for a round trip to the capital and back but the Northerns have perfected the training system. There are probably a few thousand of these shuttling back and forth constantly as we speak." She shrugged.

Scratching her chin while listening, Alice wondered how they were shuttling through the Void.

Depending on their method, there was a chance she could recreate it using her own abilities.

The thought of shuttling through the Void to throw a bomb at someone's face then running away brought a smile to Alice's face. It would be the perfect surprise attack.