Wonderful Insane World-Chapter 107: Engraving (2)

"What is it on my back that you’re staring at like that?" Dylan asked, slowly turning his head toward the elf.

His voice was deep, still heavy with the exhaustion from the absorption, but tinged with genuine curiosity—not alarmed, not worried... just attentive. Like a man who senses he’s no longer quite the same, without yet being able to put a name to it.

Élisa, for her part, didn’t move.

Her eyebrows furrowed a bit more, slowly, in that particular way she had when something bothered her, without yet knowing whether she should worry... or marvel at it.

And she replied, without preamble:

"You mean you don’t feel anything?"

Her voice was low, almost strangled. Not because she was shocked, but because her mind was already racing—she was analyzing, cross-referencing memories, fragments of stories, snippets of old manuals.

She didn’t know much about stigmas. No one in her tribe had reached that level in decades. All she knew was that they appeared in certain Awakened individuals, rarely. That they marked a threshold. A passage. And that through them, the bearers developed supernatural powers.

It was a mechanism akin to demonic marks. Or spiritual beasts.

But stigmas, they remained. Clinging to their bearer’s skin like tattoos—living, moving, linked to their essence.

So if Dylan had indeed awakened a stigma... then it meant one thing:

He had unlocked a power.

The only question now was: which one?

Dylan straightened up a bit more, tensing his muscles to feel.

He ran his hand down his back, to the base of his neck, then down along his spine, where the skin seemed back to normal.

"No. Nothing at all," he replied after a moment.

He turned his head again, a bit more slowly this time.

"It doesn’t burn. It doesn’t vibrate. It’s not cold. It’s just... me."

A silence settled between them.

But Élisa was still staring at that pale, almost celestial glow tracing along his back like divine calligraphy.

And she whispered, almost under her breath:

"You’ve awakened your stigma, big boy."

Dylan froze for a second.

He turned his head slightly toward Élisa, eyebrows raised, his gaze troubled. Not worried. Just... perplexed. Like a man who’d been told he had a star tattooed on his back, without ever having looked up at the sky.

"A stigma?" he repeated, his voice hoarse.

The word felt foreign, almost solemn in his mouth. He didn’t pronounce it like someone who understood it—but like a concept just discovered, testing its weight.

And suddenly, a sound was heard: a sharp, crisp rustle, that of a body rising too quickly.

Maggie had stood up so abruptly that the leather of her clothes creaked under the movement. Her face, usually impassive, bore a rare expression—a glint in her eyes, a pure curiosity, almost brutal.

She approached in long strides, without a word, without preamble, and stopped just behind Dylan.

She leaned in.

He, surprised, straightened slightly but didn’t move further. He felt her approach, felt her warm breath against his neck. For a moment, he felt like a patient being examined. Like a sick man whose wounds were being observed.

She pulled back the collar of his shirt a bit to see better.

And she stayed there. Silent. Unusually long before speaking.

Her eyes followed the white line, the patterns pulsing on his flesh, with a strange regularity... almost hypnotic.

Then finally, she whispered, in a voice deeper than usual:

"So that’s what a stigma looks like?"

Maggie remained bent over Dylan’s back for another moment, eyes fixed on the patterns. She didn’t touch them, didn’t trace them with her finger. She just looked. Like a warrior examining an ancient weapon whose origin and true function she didn’t know.

She finally straightened up slowly, without taking her eyes off the mark.

"Didn’t you always talk about this?" she finally said. Her voice wasn’t surprised, nor even admiring. Just steady. Focused. "It’s supposed to be the third and final stage of awakening, the manifestation of an individual’s soul power, but Dylan possesses part of the demoness’s soul; she might be partly responsible for this sudden awakening."

Élisa glanced at her from the corner of her eye. "You say that as if it’s dangerous."

"It might be," Maggie replied. "Or maybe not. But it’s not trivial. A power strong enough to imprint itself in flesh is a power that refuses to hide."

Dylan, silent until now, lowered his eyes to his hands. He clenched them, then slowly opened them. Nothing happened. No spark. No vibration. No heat. Just his hands.

"So what is it?" he asked. "An ability? A kind of weapon? Or just a glowing tattoo to impress beasts?"

Élisa settled back near the fire, arms around her knees.

"We don’t know. Stigmas don’t all have the same effect. Some awaken latent gifts. Others strengthen bodies, or essence. And sometimes..."

She paused, as if the memory itself was heavy.

"Sometimes, it’s a curse."

A silence settled around the fire, heavier than the fog.

Dylan slowly raised his eyes to the gray sky, without really looking at it. The fire crackled beside him, but he no longer felt its warmth. It wasn’t fear. Nor even euphoria. It was something else.

A kind of vertigo.

As if he’d stepped onto a step he hadn’t seen coming. And looking down... he realized how far he’d already moved away from the ground.

He remained silent for a moment, jaw clenched.

Then, slowly:

"A curse, huh..." he repeated.

He turned his head toward Élisa. His gaze was calm, but his tone, it, was sharp.

"And you think I should be afraid?"

Élisa stared at him without answering, as if the question wasn’t meant to be answered. As if she was still weighing what she herself felt about it.

Maggie, she, didn’t look away. Her voice fell, clear:

"For now, it’s just a suggestion, even if nothing yet proves it’s not as well."

Dylan nodded, almost imperceptibly. He lowered his eyes to his own chest, then to his hands. The lines on his palms trembled slightly—not from fatigue. Just... from intensity. As if something in him was still vibrating, nameless.

"And what if I told you I want more?" he whispered, without irony. Just with that brutal sincerity one offers only after a battle. "If I told you that... I felt my body breathe for the first time. That it didn’t scare me."

He raised his eyes.

"That it almost felt good."