29 Chapter 29 - Truth of the Bonds

I was in the dark. Whether there was nothing to see, or I just couldn't see, I didn't know. All I knew was I was alone, again.

I hated being alone.

"Let's put a stop to that right now." A familiar male voice told me. Then the darkness vanished leaving me standing in a white room that seemed to have no end, it reminded me of the room reincarnators supposedly found themselves in before they were sent to another world.

There wasn't a god standing there waiting to give me an incredible super power and send me to another world to save it and build a harem. That was fine with me though, I already had the superpowers and the harem, saving the world sounded like way to much trouble anyways.

Only then did I remember that the bonds I had with my harem had shattered, An incredible sadness washed over me.

"Your bonds aren't gone Daryl." My father John Wallous told me from a white throne like chair that sat before a large ornate table filled with expensive looking foods and surrounded by two other chairs.

I felt relieved when he told me that. "A bit ostentatious isn't it?" I asked my parents.

One of the other two chairs contained my mother Janet Wallous, despite the divorce when I was younger she had retained my father's last name. For years I thought it meant they might get back together, but I had outgrown that hope years ago. Seeing them together now felt weird.

My father was a very handsome man, tall, broad shouldered, ruggedly handsome with black hair and bright blue eyes. For many years I had wondered if he really was my father given the differences in our appearances.

My mother while being thin and petite, was an absolute beauty despite her age. Her long black hair fell down her back like a sheet of onyx strands glimmering in the light. Her eyes were pools of sapphire light, while her looks could only be described as angelic.

With these two attractive parents I had long since wondered if I was actually there son. Even now that I had awakened the body ability and thinned down it was hard to say I resembled them despite my own black hair and blue eyes.

My father looked around at the room, chairs, and table in front of him then shook his head. "No, I think it is appropriate for the conversation we are about to have." my father replied with a smirk.

I wondered briefly if after falling unconscious I was having a nightmare but quickly dismissed the idea. It was subtle but I could feel a bond between my and my parents in front of me telling me this was all real.

With a sigh I walked closer to the remaining empty chair. Seeing my parents together gave me a bad feeling that I wasn't going to like what they had to say. Moreover I also had to wonder about my father's sanity. I liked Momma and got along with Kelly his current wife, but despite that I had never understood how he had left my mother for them let alone all the other women he had dated in between. I had asked him once during a rare father-son outing when he had steered the direction towards giving me 'the talk' and could only reply 'it's complicated, but you will understand when you are older.'

I was older now and I still didn't understand. Maybe it was just my bias as her son and the desire to see my parents together again. Whatever.

"So?" I asked as I sat down and grabbed a goblet full of dark red liquid a quick sip told me it was wine, and an expensive one at that. I couldn't tell the type or year, hell I didn't even like wine, but I had tasted enough from my father's collection to have a system, complicated and hard to swallow was expensive, just hard to swallow was cheap wine. I am sure an actual wine connoisseur would slap my silly if they heard my system, but it had worked for me so far.

I set the glass of wine aside and looked to my parents expectantly.

My father snorted seeing my reaction to the wine. "You really have no taste for wine." he told me.

I shrugged, for some reason I doubted this meeting had anything to do with my taste in food and drink.

"Your mother and I will be leaving this world soon." my father told me causing my blood to run cold.

My mother laughed at me seeing my reaction. "Don't worry, we aren't dying!" she told me.

I blinked at her surprised, then what did he mean?

"There are more worlds than just Earth and the Great Realm." my father told me. Then an image appeared in the air above the table. It was a three dimensional map of a world on the edges of the map were thousands of tiny little chains extending out from the map. "This is a very simplified example of the great realm and the other worlds. Each of those chains in a world chain. Each link on the chain is a world like Earth." father told me.

If each of the tiny links was a world like Earth, how big was the great realm?

"We are going to move out to another world on the chain." my mother told me.

I nodded, "Alright." I told them waiting for the but. I had no idea how they knew about all of this, or how they were going to accomplish it. Yet I was confident that they could. The simple fact that we were having this meeting meant there was more to my parents than I had ever known. I wanted to be pissed and demand and explanation, but that had never worked with my parents before. As they seemed like they were about to tell me something I decided to try the wait patiently tactic for once. I had the girls to think about now so I couldn't act like a temperamental child anymore. I was banking on that comment that my bonds weren't gone.

My father stared at me seriously for a while.

"You matured." my mother told me happily.

I nodded but didn't reply.

My father finally nodded seeming to be satisfied with something then smiled at my mother who smiled back at him.

"Daryl, as you might have guessed, we aren't normal people." my father started.

I raised my eyebrow and nearly replied sarcastically but held it in and just nodded at him.

"Your mother and I are what is know as Immortal Wanderers. We are from a world that has long since been absorbed into the Great Realm. I should be sad about that, but I am not. Firstly because it was many thousands of years ago, and secondly the World Fall, as we call it, was a blessing for my family." he told me.

I had not expected that at all, the destruction of the world was a blessing for our family? How? So many questions welled up inside of me.

My father chuckled before he continued. "It sounds bad, but that is only because you don't understand that my family was heavily persecuted on my original world." he told me.

I frowned but nodded. "If that was so long ago then why does it matter now?" I asked.

"Good question, because the reason for our persecution remains." he told me. "I am not sure if you have noticed but the bonding ability you have is not a part of the other abilities that developed from the crazed mana." my father told me.

"It isn't a part of the abilities I received as a gold core?" I asked.

My father shook his head. "No, that ability is a bloodline trait of my family and the reason for our persecution. The bond ability we have is very powerful and hated by many. Can you guess why?" he asked me.

I frowned at him, how was I supposed to know? Rather than complaining I decided to think about what I knew of the bond in the short time it had been around. After a few moments I thought I had an idea. "It can bond anyone to me?" I asked.

My father nodded. "Yes, and no." he told me. "Our bonding ability is much more than just bonding things to yourself. You can use it to bond anyone to anything as long as you have enough energy and despite the will of those you are bonding. Worse there are many kinds of bonds, the ones you had with your girls is actually fairly tame in comparison to some I have seen." he explained. "I would like to go into more detail about it but we simply do not have the time at the moment. Instead I will give you a introduction to our ability and let you figure out the rest." My father told me then a bright light emerged from his head and hit me in the forehead. With it came a lot of information about my bond ability.

When I recovered from the download my father continued. "Because the bond ability can be horrible abused we have to be careful about each new successor. When the bond first appeared you will automatically bound several people to you, this is normal for our family, more importantly the type of people and the kind of bond you used tells me a lot about you and what kind of person you will be." he told me.

I frowned. "How so?" I asked uneasily.

My father smiled as my mother giggled. "Most of them all need help of some sort. Though I get the idea you and the girls already noticed this. The bond was the bigger problem. As it was meant to be permanent and had a persuasive and compulsion in it I had to give it some serious consideration. It could be you forcefully trying to gather beauties to you so you could indulge in depravity without having to worry about their resistance or care for their desires." he told me harshly making me flinch.

"However if that had been the case I think you would have chosen women with greater beauty and included a compulsion for them to come to you rather than you having to find them." my father told me. "Instead I am convinced that the need to help the girls, and the willingness not to avoid the women that are already burdened by children reveals more you insecurity of being left alone and your desire for a family. Realizing this your mother and I decided that you weren't a large risk for abusing our ability." he told me.

"And if I was?" I couldn't help but ask.

"We don't need to talk about that Daryl." my mother told me without answering.

My father nodded. "Instead I am proud at how many bonds you were able to make initially. Normally we can only form three or four when we awaken the ability. The Core abilities that developed from the crazed mana has an effect, but even the strongest of your elder siblings was only able to form seven bonds when he awakened." father said with a smile.

"But they shattered." I commented.

"Also natural. All the bonds that we form when we awaken shatter eventually. Our family has deduced that it is the way our ability teaches us how to form and remove bonds. Though usually the shattering of the bonds comes a few months later. Your extra bond shattered because of the sheer number of bonds you had and the tax it had taken on you when they shattered."

"But you said they were still there." I reminded him.

My father nodded. "They are. Right now your bond ability is finishing its awakening so you can't sense them. When you wake later up you will be able to sense them again, but the bonds will be thin and barely there. You will have the option to restore them to what they were, but I would recommend against that." my father told me.

I frowned for a moment but I didn't need him to explain this one. It was a permanent bond after all, and as it had been pointed out to me, several of the girls were practically strangers to me. If they were given the choice to have the bond removed I am sure some of them would take it.

"If you intend form a permanent bond like that with a girl, you should do it with the idea of marrying her. Not the current version where you can get a divorce a month later because you can't stand the way she eats her corn or rolls around when she sleeps."my mother told me seriously. "The next time you make a permanent bond, it really will be permanent and both of you will suffer if you can't make your relationship work."

I nodded my understanding, then something my father had just said sank in, "Wait, I have older siblings?" I asked.

My parents nodded. "Four of them, the eldest is your brother Corrin, and three elder sisters Ellina, Zelia, and Annitte." My mother told me. "Don't get your hopes up for another sibling relationship though, they each have their own harems."

"Mom!" I yelled at her angrily.