Keeping Him Loved

Chapter 18

        Add was relieved to find that (y/n) had already figured out most of the situation before he returned. It saved him time on explaining things to her. Raven had left them to speak together in private, so after giving a brief recap of how they ended up in Altera, he gave her a warning.

        "Raven is fully convinced that he is a nasod." Add replayed the words in his head that he had told (y/n). "Don't tell him that he isn't. He'll rampage and then forget what happened." Negotiations had been quite the struggle when Add first woke up. If he had known that Raven was so convinced that he was a nasod, Add wouldn't have even mentioned anything about it. Keepimg his mouth shut would have saved him some energy rather than using it to fight off the berserk captain.

        Currently, the Black Crow airship was approaching the bottom of the island. Add now knew why all of the crew members wore masks. They were all human. Raven must have also thought he was commanding a group of nasods. The question was, who was responsible for this deception? Add honestly didn't care. He just needed to cooperate long enough to get away from Altera. Anyone twisted enough to trap a person in a false reality was someone Add wanted nothing to do with.

        He was already doing his best to deal with the signal that was being transmitted to him from some unknown source. It was loud and unwelcoming. Now that he was so close to its source, it was nothing but irritating. Dynamo seemed unaffected by the disturbance, which baffled him, but Add made no effort to figure out why. The more he thought about it, the stronger the signal got.

        The entire island was a nasod graveyard, and he had both a good and bad feeling about that. Part of him was itching to get his hands on new data while the other part fought to ignore the plethora of information avaliable so that he could focus on his medicinal studies. He had already come across a way to create medical drones. He just hadn't gotten the chance to get her the materials he needed to craft them.

        The airship came to a stop near what seemed to be a port at the base of the island. Unlike a majority of the island, this section of the floating wasteland was not made of dirt. There were clear signs of rust across the metal shell surrounding the core of the island. Add determined that this was what kept the island afloat.

        Raven headed over to the ship's railing and watched the ship gradually get closer to the side of the island. A large panel opened on its own, but it wasn't large enough for the ship to fit through. Instead, a bridge came from within the open panel like a conveyer belt and stopped just short of the edge of the deck. The bridge was wide enough to comfortably walk across without fearing any unfortunate missteps, but it was the wind that Add worried about. At this altitude, there was no telling what kind of gust might come their way.

        "Come on. If you fall, there will be nothing I can do to save you, so don't try anything foolish," Raven instructed. He stepped on to the bridge and began to head into the depths of the island. Add amd (y/n) shared a glance of suspicion before he and Dynamo followed. Everyone else on the ship stayed behind.

        The pathway that they found themselves walking along was well lit with old lamps that Add remembered well from his own era. Seeing them brought back both pleasant and unwanted memories to mind. The further they went, the stronger the signal got. It was pushed to the back of Add's mind while he chose to focus on other things. "This place is far more ancient than I imagined." He was starting to understand exactly what this place was. "Home of the nasods? No...all of Elrios was their home." He narrowed his eyes and looked ahead of them past Raven. "This is their place of exile. He thinks he's one of them. That means some must have survived." Nasod Ruler's goal was to completely destroy the legacy that nasods had left behind. Seeing this meant that they hadn't entirely succeeded. There was probably still hope for the nasod race, but Add no longer cared.