Nick looked at the entrance to the locker room leading to the Fog's Containment Unit and sighed.
He always felt a bit nervous before working with a Specter for the first time.
He knew that he would be able to work with it just fine, but the unknown still made him feel a bit apprehensive.
Next, Nick walked over to the huge console beside the entrance and inspected it.
He knew how it worked, thanks to the training course, but he still wasn't comfortable working with it.
Nick spent several minutes familiarizing himself with the console and looked at all the statistics.
The Fog was contained without any issues, but its escape attempts had cost them some Zephyx.
Obviously, keeping something like a Force Specter contained required Zephyx.
After being locked in the Containment Unit for over an entire day, the Fog had cost them about seven grams of Zephyx.
It was a necessary cost, but it wasn't super high.
One had to remember that the Fog was, at least, a Mid Adolescent, making it at least equal to the Dung Heap.
The Dung Heap had been here for much longer, but the literal food it required to grow was ridiculous.
The Dung Heap wasn't growing at its maximum capacity due to the limited amount of food it was getting.
Because of that, the Dung Heap had just recently become a Mid Adolescent.
And the Fog was most likely a Mid or Late Adolescent, and compared to the Dung Heap, the Fog was actually dangerous.
The most the Dung Heap did was try to consume a Zephyx Extractor, but it wasn't very agile.
Sure, if someone didn't jump away immediately, they would get consumed, but all the Zephyx Extractors would obviously jump away as soon as the Dung Heap showed any signs of aggression.
This made the Dung Heap as dangerous as a Mid Hatchling or something like that. Containing it wasn't an issue.
As long as it had its food, it didn't even attempt to escape.
It was just happy where it was.
Meanwhile, the Fog would kill any Zephyx Extractor in Dark Dream except for Nick since none of them had the power to escape from its domain.
Luckily, the Fog was killing them extremely slowly, which meant that Nick could still use others to work with it.
'Well, no need to delay the inevitable,' Nick thought as he walked into the locker room.
Nick left his spears at the side and walked in with only his fist weapons.
As soon as he opened the door, the forcefield inside the Containment Unit suppressing the Fog intensified, pushing the Fog away from the entrance.
Nick entered, and the door closed behind him.
The forcefield retreated, and the Fog enveloped him.
Nick immediately felt his ability deactivating, but that didn't matter for now.
Nick walked forward for about 50 meters, making sure that he was well and truly inside the Fog's domain.
The fact that he could walk forward for 50 meters inside a 5x5 meter room was proof enough that he was in the Fog's domain.
After that, Nick stopped moving.
'Well, now, we wait,' Nick thought.
Then, he scratched the back of his neck.
Minutes passed.
'It's a bit boring.'
There wasn't really much to do in an endless void of nothingness.
'I mean, I could train, but that would create gaps in the Fog, which would reduce the amount of Zephyx produced since it would need to repair the gaps.'
In the end, Nick just lay down and looked upwards.
There was just nothing to do.
Nick's mind drifted through his memories.
Whenever he thought of Horua, Nick felt like his insides were cramping up.
'I just have to redeem myself,' Nick thought.
'I just have to help all the people of the Dregs, and this guilt will vanish.'
But then, Julian's words echoed through Nick's mind.
Would Horua really wish for something like that?
How would helping others make Horua forgive him?
Horua had been a child, and he probably wouldn't sacrifice himself for a bunch of people who shunned and exploited him.
Julian had said that Nick needed to accept that he had committed a mistake and live with it.
Trying to redeem himself by helping others wouldn't lessen the guilt Nick was feeling.
Nick would just continue feeling guilty because he would never feel like he had done enough to redeem himself.
And that feeling would be there because Nick wasn't dealing with the root cause of the issue, Horua.
'Do I really need to repay the people of the Dregs?'
'So many of them stole my food when I was a child, and they even stole the little bit of credits I managed to collect.'
'Do they deserve a better life?'
Nick wasn't sure.
He just kept looking into the nothingness.
'But if I don't help the people, what's the purpose of my life?'
'Why am I alive then?'
'To become rich? What's the point of being rich when I can't even feel happy?'
'To get a girlfriend? My guilt would still eat me up inside.'
'To become powerful? And then what? Great, I'm now powerful, and I can do whatever I want. But what's the point of that when I still feel guilty?'
'What's the point of anything if this darkness in my chest won't vanish?'
Nick felt like his chest was shaking with nervousness, stress, and anxiety.
'As long as this darkness in my chest still persists, all kinds of achievements are meaningless.'
'But how can I deal with it?'
'Julian said that helping the people of the Dregs won't help with my guilt.'
'However, does it need to?'
'I mean, all my achievements won't mean anything with this darkness, but that's only if my goal is to be happy.'
'What if my goal is just to improve the lives of others?'
'A selfless goal, you know?'
'Couldn't I have then said that living my life wasn't a waste?'
'After all, who else can claim to have helped so many people?'
Nick took a deep breath.
'But I want to be happy…'
'No matter how grand my goal is, in the end, I still want happiness.'
'I don't know…'