"Nurturing Gaze."

The moment Lucien whispered these words, his pupils blurred, and an iridescent golden hue flickered in the depth of his emerald gaze.

And right there, in his field of vision, the overlay of a text materialized, overlapping with the image of a sleeping Mikky.

[Loading Target (1) Status...]

|￣￣￣\\\￣￣￣￣￣￣///￣￣￣|

[Name: Michael Johansefort]

[Age: 6] 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

[Status: Relaxed, Satisfied]

______________

[Physical State:

Healthy (Medium)]

|

{Low<Medium<High}

[Sickness: Null]

[Ailments: Null]

[Afflictions: Null]

[Disease: Null]

[Deficiency: Null]

[Growth: Not Stunted. Stable, But Slow.]

[Minor Physical Note: Slight Malnutrition]

[Recommend: Investing in

Healthy Nutrition. Low to Medium

return plausibility]

______________

[Emotional State: Healthy(Low)]

[Insufficient Positive Emotions

Over Long Periods of Time]

[Emotional Volatility: High]

[Emotion Suppression: Medium]

[Negative Emotions: Medium]

[Positive Emotions: Low]

[Outburst Tendency: High]

[Recommend: Balancing polar emotions.

Figuring out the right way without system aid.

High Prioritizing of Investing in an Improved Emotional State.

Medium to Supreme return plausibility.]

_____________

[Mental State: ...Moderate]

[Target 1’s Mind is Burdened by a Set of Plagues]

[Plague 1: Fear of Loneliness.]

[Plague 2: Trauma. Witnessed his parents die with his two eyes in a car crash that only he survived.]

[Plague 3: Lost his elder brother to a disease that they both carried. But he

survived after treatment. His brother did not.]

[Plague 4: Subconsciously believes he’s bad luck to those around him

and so deserves to be lonely.]

[Plague 5: Fear of eventually losing his new brother, {Lucien}, like his parents and elder brother, because of his being bad luck.]

[Recommend: Figure it out.]

[Note: Target’s mental state gradually improves as plague

1 and 3 are slowly melting.]

______________

[System Grade: Ex-Rank

Potential: Immeasurable]

[Recommend: Invest everything in Target now for greater future returns]

::::::::::::::::::::::

|Would you like to shorten the status?|

|Tap {here} to see supernatural

status in relation to mana.|

|＿＿＿\\\＿＿＿＿＿＿///＿＿＿|

Blink.

Blink.

The immediate silence that erupted as soon as Lucien read through the wall of materialized text was loud and deafening. The young man paused in place, and his fingers that’d been caressing Michael’s hair a moment ago froze.

"..."

Lucien didn’t say a word. He couldn’t say a word. He just kept staring, blankly, at the floating text.

And after a while of unnerving silence, he breathed out softly, gathering himself as he finally whispered:

"I... I see."

So this was it. This was the summary of every single burden that this little child had to bear.

Thinking about it now, Lucien had more or less braced himself subconsciously for something heart-stirring before he read through the status, but still, reading this made his heart ache like a bitch, because to be frank, this was not what he was expecting.

Yes, the information in his mind had given him the basic rundown of [Nurturing Gaze]. He knew the skill would be like a status window in those webnovels, giving him information on his Target, their stats, well-being, areas to invest in for returns, and even the target’s potential.

But this... this was not what he’d expected. If he’d expected this, he would have braced himself accordingly, and maybe his heart would sting less.

Lucien frowned, closing his eyes.

Those plagues...

He opened his eyes and breathed out, shaking the dread off his head as he stood upright. He calmed his racing heart, mentally erasing the status screen that still hovered in his vision.

And as the screen dissolved into nothing, the golden hue that’d once painted his emerald gaze disappeared, taking with it the whispers of the supernatural, leaving Lucien alone to his thoughts, his emotions, and the grinding sense that all he just read was reality.

See, Lucien understood Michael’s status. And almost everything there had either matched what he’d read in the novel as Jacob or the subconscious knowledge he’d attained as Jacob fused with Lucien.

But the information he’d read under the Mental State tab... he didn’t know most of them.

Yes, he knew that Michael’s parents died in a car crash. The novel had stated that. But it was never really explored much, never mentioned that the child was in that car crash, that the child survived the car crash. That the child watched his parents die.

He never even knew that Michael once had an older brother. One who’d died of a disease that he survived.

For Michael’s fear of loneliness, sure, Lucien understood that to some degree the kid must have been lonely, but he didn’t know that he actively feared loneliness.

Now Lucien wondered, all those times when Mikky was all alone at home for hours, just what was he thinking?

Lucien dreaded that thought. Only imagining the things that might’ve been running through Mikky’s mind made all the hairs in his body stand on end.

Reality. This was reality, not a novel. The details, the background, everything was more real, more true than any backstory Chapter could cover.

Now it made even more sense why Michael had become the calamity of wrath. The Outburst Tendency was already there and already high. And, following the original timeline, Lucien was to die in two months. He was to die in front of Michael, eaten by a random monster as Michael watched helplessly, unable to do a thing. Just like how he watched his parents die. Just like how he watched his older brother die.

And just like with them, he would be the only one to survive as Lucien died.

That moment was probably when the outburst occurred, as in the novel, Michael cried out in blood, raging, thrashing, just before he got sucked into the trials of Eden.

The birth of the Calamity of Wrath, the one who believed himself to bring ruin and curse to anyone who came too close to him. The one who lived an entire life avoiding any form of human connection, avoiding another loss. The one who eventually held the curse of IT and became a calamity. The one who finally let himself fall in love but still watched his lover die in front of him. The one who’d died after living a life devoid of peace and warmth.

That person, that entity, was Lucien’s little boy. Michael.

And it made Lucien shiver to think that the seeds of that entity had already begun to grow right under his nose.

’I will kill that seed,’ Lucien thought, running a hand through his hair as he paced around the room.

A moment later, Lucien buried all his negative thoughts. He found that after getting [Mental Fortitude], it became easier to do so compared to his past self, when he would let his mind rumble and run on and on. Back then, novels were the only things that took his mind away from the reality and negativity of his life, but now there were no novels for him. And he reckoned that maybe now he didn’t even need them anymore.

Nevertheless, he forcefully pushed the thoughts away.

A few moments ago, he had crafted an incredulously meticulous plan. Now he dared not spend another moment delaying the execution of it.

Lucien twisted his neck left and right such that the joints cracked into place, and he outstretched his hands, interlocking his fingers and cracking them simultaneously.

And as he did all of this, he breathed in deeply.

Then breathed out.

The first step of his plan was to locate another one of the five.

One whose current location was closest to Zerozone-sector 5.

Zerozone-sector 3.

This meant that it was time for Lucien and Mikky to leave this sector and this... apartment.

Lucien looked around his small room, noting the rusting, the dullness, the smallness, the littleness, the crampness — was that a word? — the miserableness.

And he sighed.

’It certainly won’t be missed.’

It would take at least two days to get to sector 3, and Lucien planned to leave tomorrow with Michael before dawn, when the world was yet to awake.

He didn’t know where exactly in Sector 3 he was supposed to go; he just knew that he was supposed to be there, considering the details of the novel.

But that uncertainty could very well be fixed.

’Assign Nurturing Target.’

The system screen popped up.

[Nurturing Target(s)

Slot 1.) Michael Johansefort{Active}

Slot 2.) _________ {Inactive}]

Lucien smiled, his gaze softening at the sight of the notification.

It was time to relieve the little calamitous lady of her suffering.

’Fill slot two,’ Lucien thought, feeling a swirling storm dissolve in his mind. ’And for the target name...’

His smile widened.

"Amira Virangel."

[Nurturing Target(s)

Slot 2.) Amira Virangel (5yo){Active}

Would you like to track target |Y/N|?]

"Hell yeah."