Chapter 50: The Missing Piece

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“Ow, ow, ow!”

Zeldryn instinctively tilted his head in the direction Kera was pulling, trying to ease the pressure on his ear. The skin already felt hot from the twisting pain.

“S-sorry, damn it!”

The apology slipped out before Zeldryn could think about it, but when he turned his head enough to see Kera's face up close, his expression immediately stiffened.

'Shit.'

Kera was genuinely annoyed.

The strange smile that usually seemed permanently fixed across his face had disappeared completely, and even his gaze looked different from usual.

'He's actually mad just because I ignored him?'

Kera continued twisting his ear for several more moments before finally letting out a sigh.

“Good grief... I'll forgive you this time.”

Zeldryn barely had time to feel relieved before Kera continued, keeping his eyes fixed directly on him.

“If it happens again, your ear won't be the only thing I twist.”

Zeldryn immediately decided that remaining silent was the safest response.

After delivering the warning, Kera finally released him. Zeldryn quickly pulled his head away and brought one hand to his aching ear.

“Ow...”

It was still hot from being twisted.

'Bastard, that actually hurt.'

Kera, meanwhile, turned away and walked several steps forward. Zeldryn remained where he was for a moment, rubbing his ear while watching the man's back.

A few seconds later, however, his gaze drifted toward Kera's hands.

Zeldryn frowned.

'Huh?'

Only now did he notice that both of Kera's hands were empty.

Earlier that morning, when Kera had been inside Zeldryn's room, he had been carrying a staff in one hand. Now there was no sign of it anywhere. Even while explaining the analogy between a glass and a Mana Hole, Kera had freely used both hands without ever putting anything aside.

'Where did the staff he was carrying earlier go?'

Curiosity quickly got the better of him.

“Kera.”

The man stopped walking. “What now?”

Zeldryn looked at his empty hands. “Where's the staff you were carrying this morning?”

Kera remained silent for a moment before glancing back over his shoulder.

“Do I really have to explain every single thing you ask me, damn it?”

Zeldryn clicked his tongue.

“Tch.”

'I was just asking.'

Kera turned forward again. “Instead of asking pointless questions, you'd better practice what I told you.”

He raised one hand and pointed toward the tree they had been using as a target. Several blackened marks already covered the trunk where Zeldryn's earlier explosions had struck.

“Make an even bigger explosion,” Kera said. “And blow up that tree.”

Zeldryn did not immediately obey. He stared at the tree for several moments, but instead of thinking about another explosion, his attention returned to his Mana Hole.

'Hmm...'

He focused on the area beneath his navel. The strange thirst that had bothered him earlier was gone, along with the dry emptiness that had made his body instinctively crave mana.

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'My Mana Hole doesn't feel thirsty anymore.'

After absorbing mana, everything inside him seemed to have returned to normal.

Even so, Zeldryn still had far too many questions, especially about what had happened the previous night.

'If what Kera said is true...'

There was some kind of gate associated with the Mana Hole. Opening it allowed mana to enter, while closing it stopped the absorption. Zeldryn had even managed to close that gate himself only moments ago.

Precisely because he had succeeded, however, another question surfaced.

'Didn't I want to stop that night too?'

Zeldryn frowned as the memory returned. He remembered the pain growing worse until eventually he had lost consciousness. There was no question that he had wanted it to end.

'I was in fucking agony back then. Obviously I didn't want to absorb any more mana.'

He fell silent.

'Wait.'

Had he really wanted to close the Mana Hole back then, or had he only wanted the pain to stop?

At first, those seemed like the same thing. If he did not want to absorb mana anymore, then the Mana Hole needed to stop accepting it, and stopping the absorption meant closing the gate.

'Not wanting the pain to continue means stopping the mana absorption. Stopping the mana absorption means closing the gate.'

They should have been equivalent.

The problem was that, at the time, Zeldryn had understood far less about the Mana Hole than he did now. He had known the term from Life Really Is Happy, Right?, but only in the vague sense that Manholers possessed one and used it to absorb mana.

He had not known what a Mana Hole looked like, how it functioned, or that anything resembling a gate was involved. He had certainly not known how to open or close that gate deliberately.

Then another detail from his first attempt surfaced.

'Wait.'

He had not even understood why the mana was being absorbed in the first place.

That night, Zeldryn had simply closed his eyes and focused on the mana around him. The particles appeared within his awareness, and afterward, he simply allowed the process to happen.

Then the mana entered.

Zeldryn's frown deepened.

'Why?'

At that point, he could not consciously move mana particles yet. He had only discovered that ability this morning after being tortured by Kera.

Which meant that during the previous night, he had not been directing those particles toward his Mana Hole at all.

Yet they had still entered.

'Does the Mana Hole absorb mana automatically?'

The idea immediately felt wrong.

If a Mana Hole continuously absorbed mana on its own, then every Manholer should be taking in mana constantly without realizing it. They would absorb it while walking, eating, sleeping, and doing practically anything else until eventually they exceeded their capacity.

'That doesn't make sense.'

Something had to trigger the absorption process.

The question was what.

Zeldryn stared toward the tree without truly seeing it as he replayed the previous night in his head.

'Why was mana able to enter back then?'

He had been sitting down with the deliberate intention of experimenting with mana. He had focused on the particles and then...

Zeldryn suddenly froze.

'Wait.'

There was one thing that had been obvious from the very beginning.

He had wanted to absorb mana.

That had been his entire goal.

Zeldryn had not known how the process worked. He had not understood the mechanism of the Mana Hole or known anything about its gate. Yet somewhere in his mind, the intention itself had been clear.

He wanted the mana to enter.

'So...'

A much more reasonable possibility began to form.

'The mana wasn't absorbed by coincidence. I opened the Mana Hole's gate without realizing it.'

Perhaps he had not known how to open it consciously, but his desire to absorb mana might have been enough to trigger the process instinctively.

That would explain why the mana had started entering despite his complete lack of technical understanding.

'Yeah. That's the most reasonable possibility.'

Which meant that his first successful absorption had not been luck, nor had the Mana Hole simply swallowed nearby mana automatically. Zeldryn himself had opened the gate.

He simply had not realized he was doing it.

'It's becoming clearer.'

The satisfaction lasted only a few seconds before another contradiction appeared.

Zeldryn's expression stiffened.

'Huh?'

If his intention had been enough to open the gate unconsciously, then why had the gate not closed when he wanted the process to stop?

His thoughts immediately returned to the previous night. Once the pain had started, he clearly no longer wanted to absorb mana. His concentration had fallen apart, and the only thing occupying his mind had been the desire for the pain to end.

Yet the mana continued entering until he eventually lost consciousness.

'Why?'

The contradiction bothered him more the longer he examined it.

'If wanting to absorb mana could open the gate without me realizing it, shouldn't wanting the absorption to stop have closed it the same way?'

Perhaps there was a difference between not wanting to absorb mana and actively wanting to close the gate.

Still, even that explanation did not satisfy him.

'But I didn't know about the gate when I opened it either!'

Zeldryn remained staring ahead as his thoughts began circling the same problem from different directions.

'So why could I open it unconsciously but not close it? Do opening and closing require different kinds of understanding? Was my intention wrong back then? Or is there still something about the process I don't understand?'

Every possible answer immediately created another question.

'If it really is only based on intention, why didn't it stop when I wanted it to stop?'

The more Zeldryn thought about it, the more tangled the entire problem became. Every time one piece seemed to fall into place, another contradiction appeared and knocked it loose again.

Eventually, he grabbed his head in frustration.

'AAARGH, DAMN IT! My head's going to explode.'

Mana had seemed simple when he first discovered it. The deeper he went, however, the more complicated everything became.

Seeing mana, absorbing it, moving it, using it, opening the Mana Hole, closing the Mana Hole, and whatever other mechanisms he had yet to discover were beginning to pile on top of one another.

'What the hell even is this mana system? It's such a damn mess.'

In the end, Zeldryn slowly raised his head and looked toward Kera.

The man was a Level 3 Manholer. Whatever else Zeldryn thought about him, Kera obviously understood mana far better than he did.

Unfortunately, that left Zeldryn with only one realistic option.

He sighed.

'Shit. I really have no choice but to ask that four-eyed bastard again.'