Dimensional Descent

“Soft.” Leonel nodded to himself. 

Aina seemed to snap awake at these words, slapping Leonel’s hand away from her ass and pushing herself up and off his shoulder. 

She harrumphed, pulling her skirt down to hide anything indecent and smoothing out the wrinkles. Once she was finished, she gave Leonel a nice, long glare. But in return, she received a chuckle. 

“What’s with that look? Weren’t you just happy to see me?”

“Not anymore.” 

“Oh. If I give you a kiss, will it make you feel better?”

“No one wants your kiss,” Aina spoke, waving a hand and walking out in front, ignoring Leonel. 

Leonel laughed, swiftly catching up and taking Aina’s hand. Though she put up some mock resistance, she eventually stopped. It was all too easy to tell the difference. With her strength, shaking off his hand if she really wanted to wouldn’t be difficult at all. 

“Where is this place?”

Leonel couldn’t help but notice that this place was particularly… white. It was completely unlike the dark regions he had gotten used to in the last several days. Well, aside from the tenth floor of the Void Tower, that is. 

This place, though, was obviously not in the Void Tower and it had a distinct medicinal scent in the air. 

“It’s a hospital, obviously. Who asked you to come out of the tower with a hole in your chest? What the hell happened to you?”

Aina frowned, her slightly annoyed tone shifting to concern as she looked toward Leonel. The more she thought about it, the less it made sense to her as well. It was supposed to be a simulation. During her own death, she had become an old woman after expending all of her Life Force and her bones practically crumbled under the weight of her flesh. 

It was quite gruesome, but she eventually woke up just fine as though nothing had happened. If even a death like that couldn’t harm her, then what could have possibly harmed Leonel? 

“I’m not sure… A hospital? It wasn’t free, right? How did you pay for it? Did you get leaderboard rewards already?”

“About that, your cousin…”

“My cousin?” 

Leonel’s brows shot up. The only cousin he knew of was Noah, but he had a feeling that Aina wasn’t talking about him. Noah should be just as unable to pay for his treatment as Aina was. It wouldn’t make sense for Aina to be referring to him. 

“Yes… His name was Sceio, he said he was the Fourth Nova.”

Leonel’s eyes narrowed. The Fourth Nova. 

Though there were over a billion recognized to be among the Morales family’s Nova Generation, the only ones who gained numbers and titles like this were the seven who had awakened both Lineage Factors. 

“What did he ask for in return?”

Leonel still had the Segmented Cube and the Spear Domain with him, so it was obvious that his cousin hadn’t asked for them. Though, even if he had, Leonel doubted the Spear Domain would leave him. As for the Segmented Cube, it seemed to have a spirit of its own. However, in its current state, it was just an empty shell anyone could take for themselves. 

Regardless, Fourth Nova hadn’t taken it either. 

“He said that you owe him one favor and he wants 10% interest compounded daily. He made me sign a Void Contract, which is apparently a legal document overseen by the Void Senate. Any disputes are handled through the Senate or its branches.”

Leonel felt uneasy hearing these words. The interest alone was ridiculous, but the favor sounded… 

Leonel didn’t believe that Aina would ever make him return a favor that was too ridiculous, so there were definitely stipulations. But, as for what they were, he didn’t know. 

“Can I see the contract?”

Aina handed over what looked like a pendant without its necklace to him after hesitating a moment and his Starry Spirit Domain acted all on its own. Its information was displayed before him and he read through it all in the blink of an eye. But, by the time he had finished, his expression was as dark as the Void Palace’s usual environment. 

He realized now why Aina had seemingly hesitated, even if just for a moment. 

The collateral for this contract was essentially Aina’s life. Even though the Void Palace didn’t allow death, slavery was another matter entirely. If Leonel couldn’t fulfill the contract within a month’s time, Aina would be forced to work under Sceio. 

Leonel’s mother had already been here for over 20 years, and she still couldn’t leave the Void Palace freely. This meant that even if this contract was only observed within these walls, something that was unlikely to be true to begin with, that Aina would be stuck fulfilling this contract for at least that long. 

And, considering the fact the Void Palace, and by proxy the Void Senate, were the most powerful existences in the Human Domain, even leaving this place didn’t mean that you could ignore a contract witnessed by them. 

This much alone was more than enough to piss Leonel off. Aina was unaware, so he didn’t blame her. But, so long as he held on for just one more day, he could have completely healed himself after his <Instantaneous Recovery> recharged. 

In fact, so long as Leonel had been given a space without Anarchic Force to contend with, his Healing Factor would have been more than enough to allow him to recover to his full strength. 

Beyond this the description left for the favor left Leonel unsettled. The restrictions placed on it were heavy. Aina had insisted that such a favor couldn’t go against Leonel’s moral code, but as a rebuttal Fourth Nova seemed to slip in that said ‘moral code’ had to be provable by Leonel’s actions. 

That line alone was something Leonel knew Aina wouldn’t accept unless she felt pushed into a corner. It practically undid all of the restrictions so long as the clause was used cleverly.

Leonel didn’t think his mood could get any worse, but when he saw the bill, his temper threatened to flare up again, and only grew worse when he recognized the green hair of the woman across from him.