?"Suit yourself," Albert said as he drank a cup of coffee that he had made before Nick had arrived.
Nick just looked at one of the windows.
He felt horrible.
'But I have to do it.'
'I did the right thing.'
Nick turned to look at Albert.
'He must be sacrificed for the good of the city.'
Albert hadn't talked to Nick in years, but he could tell that something was up with him.
Albert noticed that Nick seemed absentminded almost all of the time and that he looked in seemingly random directions without any purpose.
There was also the fact that Nick said nearly nothing.
Lastly, Nick probably wasn't just here to casually chat.
Albert could see that Nick was deeply troubled by something.
"How are things going?" Albert asked, trying to get a conversation going. "I heard a couple of things, but I want to hear what happened after I left the last time. How's the job? How are you? Did anything interesting happen?"
Albert smirked. "Do you have a girlfriend?"
Nick took a deep breath and sighed.
He thought back to the last time they met.
"Working with the Dreamer wasn't difficult after you left," Nick narrated absentmindedly.
For the next hour, Nick talked about things that had happened to Dark Dream while Albert asked some questions here and there.
Overall, this could be seen as a pleasant and interesting conversation.
When Nick talked about the first yearly meeting of Manufacturers, Albert became very interested.
He asked several questions about the meeting.
That was when Nick remembered that Albert had never been to these meetings, which made him feel weird.
Albert was so much more powerful than Nick.
And yet, he didn't have the status to attend these meetings since he wasn't the owner of a Manufacturer or a Chief Zephyx Extractor.
Something that Nick had done as a John was something that Albert couldn't possibly do as a powerful Expert.
The more Nick told Albert about the past years, the more shocked and impressed Albert became.
Nick was really powerful, and it was insane how many real fights he had been in just five years.
Albert was over a hundred years old, and he had needed to fight for his life for maybe a total of three times.
When Nick heard that, he became skeptical.
Only three times in a hundred years?
"Yes, fights like that are very rare," Albert said. "Most Extractors die during their shifts. Only very few die to other Extractors."
"I mean, in how many fights have your employees been?"
Nick blinked in surprise.
Actually, yes.
There were only two times in which his employees were involved in fights.
One was when Nick had fought against Cycle.
Back then, Kiara and Jonathan had been in a fight.
Nick sighed.
Sadly, both of them were already dead.
The other time was when they had chased after the Empath, and that wasn't even a fight against another Extractor but a Specter.
Sure enough, Dark Dream's employees basically never really fought.
And according to Albert, that was the norm.
Fights were very rare in Crimson City.
"I think you have more battle experience than me," Albert said. "In fact, you might already have more experience overall."
Nick furrowed his brows. "I can get the first statement, but the second one is ridiculous."
"No, no, listen to me," Albert said. "The only thing that I did for over 80 years was to work with my assigned Specters."
"I got an assignment from my team leader, did the assignment, got another assignment, did that assignment, and so on."
"That's all I did for over 80 years."
"Have I seen more Specters than you? Absolutely, but that doesn't say much."
"I wasn't the one that found out how to work with them."
"I was very rarely involved in capturing them."
"I just worked with them."
"And when I finally quit, I joined the city's forces."
"Ever since then, I was basically cooped up in my little lab on the upper layer with my colleagues, researching things."
"I know A LOT of theoretical things, but I don't have much practical experience with said things."
"I know perfectly how to use my weapons, but I've never truly used them."
"I know exactly what to do if a huge containment breach happens, but I've never been in one. Ironically, I wasn't on duty when the Crimson Sea broke out, which meant I wasn't even part of that one."
"Meanwhile, you captured several Specters, fought against them, had many fights with Extractors, and you also created ways how you can work with Specters."
"Do you know more about how Specters and Zephyx work? Definitely not, but do you have more experience with these things? Yes, most likely."
"That's shocking," Albert said as he leaned back in his chair. "In just five years, you went through so many things."
The next moment, Albert released a sigh.
"You also saw your home getting destroyed when the Crimson Sea broke out. That was probably also hard to witness for you."
The image of the melting people of the Dregs involuntarily shot through Nick's mind.
It was difficult to look at that image.
"Yes, maybe," Nick answered absentmindedly.
He couldn't muster up the motivation to actually think about his answer and just stated it.
Albert raised an eyebrow in a concerned expression.
"Nick, why are you really here?" he asked in a soft voice.
Nick's heart rate spiked at the question, and his mind became alert immediately.
"What?" Nick asked.
"Why are you here?" Albert asked with a sigh. "I can tell that something is bothering you."
"While it's nice to think that you are just here to chat with an old man, that's probably not the truth."
"It's not hard for me to see that something is bothering you. I've seen many people in my life, and I can see when someone needs help."
Nick grimaced as he avoided Albert's eyes.
"Help?" he asked with a tone representing pointlessness.
"Yes," Albert said. "While I don't know what happened, I can tell one thing."
"You might not realize it yourself, but your entire demeanor screams two words."
"Help me."