Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!-Chapter 252: Darkness (2)

Darkness.

This was both the fabric, the content, and the highest goal of the world I was stuck in.

For how long?

I had no idea.

With absolutely no stimulus for me to experience, keeping track of how much time has passed was simply impossible.

What was this darkness? I didn't know. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't really figure it out. But such was the fate of someone locked with absolutely no means of learning more about the world I was locked in.

Maybe I was supposed to study this darkness? But how do I even go about doing so? How do I study something that I cannot feel, touch, sense, or…

'No, that's not the way.'

The logical side of my soul continued to fill my heart with the obvious truths.

Locked in this world of deprivation, I had no means of figuring anything out. Any sort of logical conclusion had to be based on some discovery, on something that I was sure was rooted in reality.

But how I was supposed to find this founding thought in a world where nothing sparked even the tiniest inspiration?

For only God knows how long, I continued to squeeze all the juice out of my brain in my desperate attempts to crack the mystery of this place, to crack the barrier that locked me in this eternal locket of darkness.

But the only thing that awaited me down this road was ever-growing desperation… And a sense of loss.

At first, I didn't even notice it, too driven by my desire to figure out what was going on and move on. But as I continued to stack losses in the battle of my brain against the world of total deprivation, as my motivation died off and thoughts calmed down…

As my consciousness started to wallow in the misery of being locked away from the world like that, I finally sensed it, noticed it.

The thing that I grew extremely used to, yet forgot over the course of the past few weeks.

"It's lonely in here."

By the time those words escaped from my mouth, I was already stuck in what I arbitrarily named the furthest corner of this endless space. With my hands wrapped around my knees and my body curled up, I closed my eyes and tried to summon my bond with Fay…

But it was no use.

Whatever blocked all the sensations and even aura away, appeared to work on my bond with my beloved as well.

'I really wish to see her.'

It took me a long time, but only now was I starting to finally realize just how idiotic everything that I was doing was in reality.

Who needed to conquer Fay's world? Sure, doing so would make us into the most powerful couple in both of the worlds…

But was it really something I actually wanted? Or was this just my stupid manner of trying to do my best?

'I'm not worthy of her.'

Bit by bit, I continued to uncover the deep thoughts and feelings that I never had the time….

No, not time.

I started to uncover the deep and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that I never had the guts to confront.

I'm not worthy of her. Thus, the only logical thing to do was not to wallow in misery but look for ways of making myself worthy of Fay. After much thought, this turned out to be the deepest truth behind my actions that I was willing to admit to.

It was my desire to make myself worthy of Fay, and my desperation to cover up my insecurities with bloated achievements that led me down this perilous path.

A path that by all means and purposes, brought me to the prison I might never be able to escape from.

'I guess I was just an insecure piece of shit,' I summarized all my inner discoveries as I sank deeper and deeper into this overwhelming feeling of loneliness.

This was my one and only escape, to turn myself as numb to being alone as I was for most of my life. To forget about all the great memories I made with Fay, her affection, her love, her energy, her smiles, the way she happily experienced more and more fun things that the modern world offered…

'God, I really wish I could see her…'

I continued to sink deeper and deeper… Yet, as if to fuck me all over, no matter how much I tried to turn myself hollow, to forget about myself and stop the pain of being all alone in this dark world… There was something stopping me from doing so.

A distant echo of warmth… Like a memory of being cradled at the lap of my mom, with her soft hum caressing my ears and calming all the worries I could have as an infant…

A warmth that continued to resist my attempts at losing myself to cope with the torture of endless imprisonment in this sensation-deprived world.

And then…

And then the sense of aura struck me like a hammer.

The dark world I was locked in suddenly rocked about, as if it was a tightly-shut box that someone just threw down the stairs.

And amidst all the chaos that suddenly replaced the nothingness of this word… This warm, cozy sensation grew stronger.

It wasn't just warmth. It was the deepest form of affection I could imagine. An endless desire to reunite that matched my longing for Fay and my desperation to free myself from this prison.

And it was through this strange gap that someone created in the void of my prison, that I finally managed to sense the richest form of aura I've ever experienced.

Shaken awake, I rushed to lock my entire consciousness of both the sense of the rich aura flowing through the darkness and the warmth that soothed my strained soul.

After only god knows how long I spent deprived of any and all sensation, my sensitivity to it went through the roof. And with that in mind, it took me only a second to realize that the aura I felt… Wasn't any richer than the auras I felt before.

It was my own perception of it that improved. What used to be just a single strand of aura, now grew into an endless ocean. And it was with this stimulus, this experience, that I finally managed to sense something within the void I was locked in.

An extremely deep, muted, and hidden form of aura I've never noticed before.

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Aura that was too simple, too straightforward for me to notice, just like how one couldn't feel the taste of water after burning their taste receptors with liters upon liters of chemical soft drinks.

It was with this newfound taste, newfound ability to perceive this deep aura, that I realized the world I was in wasn't empty at all. It was choke-full of this endlessly complex ocean of aura that I simply couldn't notice before.

Right as this realization appeared in my mind leading to thousands of realizations more, the darkness around me collapsed, freeing me from my imprisonment and ejecting my consciousness right back to where it always belonged.

Right into the tight and focused embrace of Fay's desperate affection and her crystalized wish of reunion that perfectly matched my longing to see, to feel…

To experience her once more.