Shades of the New World

Chapter 228: Rith

Very soon, the two Cosmics disappeared through one of the most masterfully created portals Evin ever saw and only he and Rith were left in the World of Space. They too, soon left the World and reappeared on boring old Alvox.

"Well, that certainly worked well. I definitely did not expect my father to contact His Excellency Devin but I suppose that's the best-case scenario for you," Rith commented.

"I assumed that you weren't so close to him from how you spoke of him previously."

"Oh, we're as close as we can be, considering he also has literally hundreds of other kittens and perhaps even thousands of grandkittens born from his blood. I'm also quite sure he also has another thousand or so siblings and cousins. At that point, the concept of blood relations really start showing its uselessness and meaninglessness. At best, they act as a quick and easy path of connection," Rith sighed wistfully.

"But although you call them useless, they seem to bother you very much so," Evin remarked casually with a shrug.

Rith eyed Evin back with a gloomy face and sighed.

"I sometimes wish I was you; I really do. Indifferent to the mockery of strangers, unaffected by the whispers of bystanders, impassive to the gaze of the surrounding, and so used to the possibility of detachment," the Cosmic uttered dramatically and chuckled dryly in the end. She then turned around and jumped onto Evin's bed.

Evin was a bit surprised by her sudden outburst of emotion. He wanted to ignore it as a joke due to feeling a bit tired, but his experience told him that if he did so today, the consequences might be severe. His brain started to work full-throttle on the cause of the Cosmic's depression.

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Without hesitation, he accessed the World of Thoughts, while Rith was facing the other way.

'If I can help it, I should definitely avoid asking her what happened. It would be great if I can find out what caused her to get so riled up. From what I can notice, she was fine when she woke me up and only after I was finished speaking with Devin, she started acting like this' 

Evin concluded that something must've happened to Rith during this time frame. But as far as he was aware, Rith hadn't spoken a word through the whole thing. Neither did Abe or the elder Cosmic, except when he was prompted by Devin.

'Can Cosmics speak to each other telepathically?' Evin thought and concluded that it was possible. After all, Rith spoke to Runa and Enri all the time through telepathy, so it wouldn't be surprising if she could do the same with Abe and her father.

It wasn't hard to conclude that Rith's family members told her something she didn't want to hear, most likely her father. And since Rith had also mentioned that family members being quick and easy forms of connection, then it wasn't hard to guess that her father urged her to stay next to him and hopefully dig out more information about Earth.

'It's a bit of a narcissistic thought process, but at the end of the day, I had just finished probably one of the biggest transactions in the history of Alvox,' Evin decided.

The other conclusion was that Rith just wasn't feeling very good and was having a fit of some sorts, but Evin found it very unlikely, as she also mentioned his imperviousness to the words of others. Most likely there were some serious undercurrents running rampant in the background of that conversation and Evin simply didn't bother to pay attention to it. Which Evin definitely didn't. He had looked at Rith's father only twice during the entire time: when he first noticed him, and when Devin suddenly called him out. 

'Sigh, but now that I've found the cause, what am I going to do about it? Console her and hope everything will be okay? Tell her to leave the Group behind and live life as a vagabond of some sorts? Or tell her to cut off her family and leave everyone hanging'

The last two suggestions were definitely not plausible, as Evin could clearly tell that the Cosmic cared about her family, even though she acted like she didn't want anything to do with them. So Evin telling her to casually cut off her family probably wasn't going to help.

Another thing that Evin could do was to play dumb and try dodging around the topic and see where it brings him. And when he feels like the atmosphere was alright, he could bring up the topic. But it was a bit hard to do right after Rith had thrown her poetic expression of her emotions at him. He at least had to respond in a passably reasonable manner to that. 

'Or I could play the "spirit" card. Talk about how I'm so used to death and loss how simple it is for me to forget things and move on. How fickle the random thoughts of others seem in front of my massive wealth of experience,' Evin sighed.

'Yeah, probably not a good idea,' Evin thought and started to properly mull over a response.

But, in the end, Evin realized that there was no right answer to a Cosmic wallowing in despair. He could only think of comforting the Cosmic and acknowledge her claims, hoping she was willing to talk further. But that too seemed unlikely to work well. 

Like in many cases, Evin was simply too logical in his approach to things with him literally entering the World of Thoughts to mull over the problem. But when he imagined himself trying to comfort another, he couldn't help but feel like he would sound either too cynical or too sarcastic. He would much rather bring up the core of the issue and hope everything goes well in the end.

'Shit' Evin cursed and exited the World of Thoughts.

He looked at Rith and noticed that thankfully, the Cosmic didn't catch him access the World of Thoughts. He then started mulling over what to say once more, but nothing seemed good enough. 

He debated going into the World of Thoughts again, but Rith had turned around to face him once again, making it impossible for him to access the World without being noticed.

"It's not that I don't care about what others think, it's just that I'm very good at ignoring the ones I don't want to think about," Evin said.

'Guess I'm going to pretentious way this time,' Evin sighed inside.

"Isn't that the same as being uncaring?" Rith asked back. 

"Not necessarily... Being uncaring is a cool guy thing, but just ignoring is the same as running away from it... I suppose? And besides, only about one in a thousand or so people are truly impervious to other people's thoughts. Might be even one in ten thousand," Evin murmured.

"And why is that?" 

"It's because humans are social animals. From an evolutionary standpoint, we're designed to live as a group in some sort of community. So, when you do something that's unacceptable to said community, your brain is wired to feel bad and remorseful. I'm pretty sure the Cosmics function in a similar way."