While Gabriel was revealing potentially life changing bits of information, Nero was listening. But only a very small part of his brain was paying attention. His larger focus was on something else entirely.
It would be too much to call it a crisis, but he was experiencing a fair bit of turmoil in his mind.
If what he suspected was true, then it wasn't even the fact that Radix Augmentation had been leaked or someone suspected its existence which had caused his family to be targeted. Rather, it was someone eliminating competition for this, or any other Vaults that might exist in Lumina.
How long ago had Patrick been sentenced? Almost two and a half years now. How long ago was Lumina revealed? Much, much later. Or was its existence revealed long ago, but it had been kept hidden?
There were too many unknowns. Even with Nero speculating as liberally as he was, he could not create speculations out of thin air. They had to be tied in with real facts.
Did that mean that someone had been secretly exploring the mines long before anyone discovered them? His brother got involved somehow, and so was sent away immediately. But sending him away rather than directly killing was an odd choice. That made this theory unlikely.
That wasn't to say that something wasn't amiss.
There was also the fact that the city had been uncovered by an earthquake. Was it really an earthquake that uncovered the city? Maybe someone did it on purpose, or maybe two very powerful card masters fought and the result was the collapse of the mountain.
But it wasn't these speculations that was causing Nero turmoil. No, it was the fact that someone had been targeting his family even though they were not involved in any of this miss. They were acting covertly, which is why they didn't dare take drastic measures.
After all, his family had connections too. No matter what his role was, it was a fact that his father was in or had been a member of the Whisper Guard. Since they were known to be crazy, apparently, who knew how they'd react if Nero's entire family was wiped out?
Instead the attack on them had been subtle. His mother had been wounded in such a way that she could no longer have kids, thus eliminating the future generations. His brother had been sent away, and though he had survived so far, that might also be because of the additional security his father got for him.
Was this all the Dom family's doing, or were they acting under someone else's orders? Moreover, if they had been attacking Nero's family to eliminate old families, then other such families should have been attacked as well.
Nero recalled the assassination attempt of Invictus Hammel. The assassin had claimed that someone had tried to attack him because he was annoying certain people. But what if the real reason was because Invictus was a descendant of one such old family?
At this point, Nero was just coming up with random things. There was absolutely no proof to suggest such a thing.
But he wanted to keep his mind busy, his thoughts distracted. After all, he could feel the last of his childish notions about honour and valour fading away.
After all, how could an entire Eldrim ruin be hidden? It couldn't unless someone or multiple people with immense power purposefully hid it.
Somewhere, deep down, Nero still wanted to believe that Kolar was a nation of warriors. That it was a nation of soldiers who fought to protect one another, unified against the evils of this world. But maybe he had just taken his childhood story books too seriously. Maybe he held onto those dreams much too long.
Maybe that's just how the world was, and to make it a little more bearable, everyone lied to themselves, talking about things such an honour.
The problem was… he didn't know who could be trusted. Obviously not everyone had been targeting them. Most people were still trustworthy. Or was it that they were not trustworthy either, but just that he was who they had been targeting?
He could feel his loyalty towards this country fading away, and all that was left behind was himself. He was still loyal - Nero couldn't change that. It was who he was. But he could choose who to be loyal to. He could be loyal to himself, to the people and things he loved, towards his goals.
If this is what the world was… and this is how everyone behaved then he could do it. He could make use of others, as they made use of him. He could plan and scheme.
Suddenly, Nero saw a vision. It was his childhood room, filled with his old, favourite toys. More importantly, it was filled with his memories, placed on cupboards and shelves like prize decorations. In that room, he saw himself, as a child, looking out the window at the mountains in the fog.
"I'm going to close this door for a bit," he heard himself say to his younger self, his voice soft and kind. A hand wearing black, leather gloves came into view as it grabbed the door handle.
"Okay," the child responded. "Is everything alright?"
"Everything's fine. Don't worry about it. Just doing a little renovation."
"Oh, are you making a hero's castle? No wait, a soldier's den. No wait, soldiers don't live in dens. You're going to make a barracks, right? If you're going to make it, then make it super cool, and then we can show Patrick."
The child grabbed onto a toy car that had belonged to Patrick that they had permanently borrowed.
For a moment nothing happened. He didn't speak, and the hand remained frozen on the handle. But it lasted for only a moment. -your-story-source
"Don't worry. I'm going to build a castle that'll keep everyone safe. I'll call you out when it's done."
The child nodded excitedly, and that was the last thing he saw in the vision before the door closed.
Suddenly, Nero found himself back, standing in the Vault. Gabriel was still explaining what the most valuable things in the Vault were, and the difficulties getting to them. He was being extra detailed in his explanation, and Nero suddenly understood why.
He was afraid that Nero wouldn't be from one of the old families. He was trying to convince Nero that he would share all of these treasures with him, so that their trust would remain.
Nero smiled a genuine smile. Of course Gabriel had trust issues. Who wouldn't feel a tinge of greed in the face of so many treasures? Who wouldn't want to monopolise this great treasure?
At that moment, Gabriel almost looked like a cute little child to him. It was good that he was cautious, but Nero never harboured any malicious thoughts towards him at all. Moreover, he certainly would never think about monopolising this place. No, such thoughts were what would lead to death.
Unless he could become a Sage overnight inside the Vault, any attempts to monopolise it would lead to death. He would, instead, take whatever gains that would help him immediately. For the rest, he would see how he could stand to benefit the most.
"I get the gist of it," Nero interrupted Gabriel, who was talking about baseline enhancements. "Shall we start exploring. After all, Arter's right. We can't let Jessie monopolise all the benefits herself."
Gabriel turned his head, feeling as if Nero looked a little odd. But upon a closer look, he was completely fine. As for that excited smile on his face - who wouldn't be excited in this situation? Even Maximilian was struggling to keep his calm.
"So I just need to scan to check if I can use the machines here, right?" Nero asked as he placed his hand on the lit up scanner.
All three of the others looked as they saw the scanner light up. Nero felt something warm enter his body through his arm. It wasn't exactly aether, but it felt similar. The warmth spread throughout his entire body, before slowly retreating back to the scanner.
"Identity confirmed. 51st generation descendant of Soren Daelor identified. Please submit your name and a blood sample for record keeping and progress reports."
Gabriel and Arter were genuinely surprised, and Maximilian's eyes gleamed with excitement and possibility. From what he could tell, Nero's background might be even simpler than his own. If he had one of these ancient bloodlines, then chances were high that so did Maximilian.
"Nero Grant," he said out loud casually, and walked over to another machine that had lit up, and placed his arm inside. He could see a needle pierce his skin and take a small blood sample - barely a few drops - before retreating.
"Sample complete, access granted. Welcome, Nero Grant, to the Lumina research centre for anti-corruption research."
Nero turned and looked back at the dumbfounded expression of Gabriel and Arter.
Gabriel distinctly recalled that a few months back Nero had asked him if he had ever heard of the Soren family. At that time, he didn't find anything significant. Now, it seemed like it was not such a random question after all.