"Wow, that’s a lot," Ryuk said out loud, surprised as the green wardrobe was opened up. An entire line of well-wrapped clothes came pouring out of it.
Each of them was still in their sealed nylon, and they numbered in the hundreds, forming a small mountain beneath Ryuk and Lydia’s feet.
"Yeah, he sends them to me once every week. It’s been continuing for some years now, so..." she said, as Ryuk bent down, opening one of the sealed nylons.
But his expression marred when he saw the clothes and looked back at Lydia’s figure, who rolled her eyes.
"Could it be that he doesn’t know you’re a female or something?" Ryuk couldn’t help but ask.
The cloth he held was a regular shirt and trousers, seemingly made of some high-quality fibre, but there was no doubt about it—it was clothing for males.
It would make any female wearing it look like a tom boy.
"And he sends almost the rest like that, as if... Don’t tell me—you lied to him about what you like, just to give yourself a reason not to wear them?" Ryuk said with furrowed eyebrows as Lydia shrugged.
"He once bought clothes like this for me when Mother was still around, and I loved it. It was like my favourite. Hence, why he keeps sending these after. To him, this is what I love wearing," she said before moving onto her bed, burying herself in her mattress.
"You can take as much as you like. I’ll probably never open them until I grow old. And we elves live for 200 years at least," Lydia said with a loud yawn.
Ryuk’s eyes lingered on her for a while before he focused back on the clothes, getting himself into a seated position while grabbing one of the clothes, which had a white color.
A simple shirt, made of some thick yet fluid material, long-sleeved, with an equal trouser that reached down to the ankle. It was the perfect size, but looking at it, Ryuk’s gaze seemed lost in the cloth instead, even though he was staring right at it.
---
"Tell me, Uncle Bob. Who took everything away from me?"
"Your own family."
---
Uncle Bob’s voice resonated through his head as Ryuk’s eyes grew cold, before slowly softening.
’I really wish things turned out differently sometimes,’ he mused to himself.
As mature as he may seem for his age, that didn’t mean he couldn’t get jealous.
He had seen the chemistry between Morgaine and the Half-Fallen One.
Secretly, Ryuk wished for something like that—a tie with one who had the same blood flowing through him, even if it somehow didn’t seem perfect at first glance or seemed to have a few obstacles.
He wanted one still. And sometimes, he just wished things turned out differently.
He wished Uncle Bob was still alive.
He wished the body he was currently in was his true body.
He wished his own family never tried to hurt him.
He wished he knew who they were.
Even if he ended up only possessing a mortal family, Ryuk would gladly give away all of his current strength just to get that loving life.
"Hey, you okay?"
The voice resounded through the room as Ryuk awakened from his thoughts before nodding his head.
"Yes, I am."
"Sure? You’ve been sitting there for five minutes now without moving an inch," Lydia asked worriedly.
Ryuk shrugged and rose up to his feet.
Following him, about three of the wrapped clothes rose up before getting stowed away by him, and the remaining ones on the ground all floated up before getting stacked back into the wardrobe. Ryuk shut it close.
"I’ll take three. Thank you for the offer, Lydia," Ryuk said.
"Do you still need the money?" Lydia suddenly asked, as Ryuk shook his head.
"No, I don’t. I’ve gotten all I would have used it for anyway..." Ryuk mused with indifference as Lydia chuckled.
"What?"
"You’re oddly very easy to satisfy for a human. Majority of them would have still wanted the money on the premise of ’just in case.’"
"Guess I’m part of the minority then?" Ryuk stated with a smile before heading out of her room, but he was stopped.
"The bed is softer than the seats..." Lydia said, as Ryuk smiled before replying.
"A certain grumpy person wouldn’t like that."
"Goodnight, Miss Lydia," he said before switching off the lights on the way out and locking the door behind him.
In the next instant, he took off his battle suit, ice washing over his body, getting rid of any impurities he might have had before they faded into ash in the air.
Ryuk then donned the new pair of a simple white shirt and trousers he had picked, giving himself a new look.
Not feeling that sleepy, Ryuk moved to the window, looking at the full moon in the sky.
In the next instant, the world faded, and a world of ice and snow was revealed, where a figure lay, eyes staring at an enclosed object.
"What do you think of it, Isha?" Ryuk asked as Isha turned her head, finding the familiar figure sitting by her side while staring at the incubator.
"The Void Aura is growing stronger with every passing second," Isha voiced her thoughts to Ryuk, who smiled.
"That means it’s surviving, then. What do you think it’ll be?" he asked.
Isha looked furrowed at the Pet Incubator, her narrowed eyes dimming before she spoke.
"I can’t see much within, but I can see its cup and the liquid it holds," Isha said as Ryuk’s eyes flashed in seriousness, and he turned to her.
"You... You can see it?" he asked in shock.
Of course, he knew Isha could see people’s potential based on their cups and the liquid in them, but he never expected her to be able to view the cup of a yet-to-hatch beast.
"Yes, I can."
"Do you plan on keeping it?" Isha suddenly asked, looking dead straight into his eyes.
Ryuk matched her gaze for a while before collapsing under their pressure, averting it, before giving his reply.