Abyss 101

Alex let out a content sigh after taking a sip from his coffee. "Haaa, that hits the stop."

"Can we get started already?" Amelia asks impatiently from the other side of the table.

"Yeah, sure. Ask away." Alex nods.

"Right, first off, have you lewd the maid yet?" Amelia asks with a perverted grin.

Alex sighed again. They just got started and he already feels tired.

"No." He answers with the blandest tone possible.

"What?! Why not?! She's a CATMAID and one serving you at that! How could you resist such temptation?!" Amelia exclaims as if she could barely believe him.

"Aside from the fact that she's an Artificial Spirit with a body made of energy that doesn't have the correct... parts to do it, it's because I respect people's boundaries. Unlike a certain someone I know." Alex answers calmly after taking another sip of coffee.

"Oh... So we can't lewd the maid?" Amelia asks, just to be sure.

"No, Amelia, we can't."

"Aww man, and here I am getting all worked up over it." She sighs in disappointment.

"Don't you have other more important questions to ask?"

"I'll have you know, my questions were plenty important! I mean, how else would I-"

"Amelia." Alex cuts her off, "This is important. If you're just going to mess around, we can end it here."

"Fine. Take all the fun out of it, would you." She huff, "What is this place then?" She finally asks.

"The house or the Illusionary Dungeon?"

"Both?"

"Right. Well, to explain that, I supposed we should start from the beginning. This world is not all as it seems. Every myth, legend, and folklore is real... to a point and the only reason no one noticed is because long ago, the Gods got together and created what's known as the Abyss. It separated the supernatural from the mundane world into an illusionary space-"

"The Illusionary Dungeon!" Amelia connects the dots.

"Yes. As I was saying, the barrier between the Abyss and the mundane world isn't all that hard to pass through. Just about anyone could do it. Though the barrier is maintained by a being known as Gaia. Should anyone do anything that can leak the fact that there's a supernatural side of the world to ordinary people, Gaia will trap them in an Illusionary Dungeon at best or kill them at worst. A random lightning strike on a cloudy day or a runaway truck is usually enough to take care of most problems."

Amelia swallowed, "You mean to say that if someone saw me pull something from my inventory, I could have died?!" She asks in disbelief.

"Basically. So be careful when you decide to use your power." Alex nods.

She slumps in her seat looking defeated. "So I got powers and I can't even use them."

"I never said that. Just that you can't use them in the mundane world. You can use your power however you want inside an Illusionary Space."

"Really?! Awesome!" She perks up again at the knowledge that she can still use her power before pausing, "Wait. How do I get an Illusionary Space?"

"There are two ways to do so. You either find an already existing one and enter it or create your own. Though, you shouldn't enter the existing Illusionary Space willy-nilly if you can even enter them in the first place. They are often owned by the various factions of the Abyss. Some people are decent and will be willing to let you leave if it was an accident but most will kill you on the spot for "Invading" their territory."

"..."

"The Abyss doesn't sound like a good place."

"It's not. There are no laws in the Abyss outside of don't show supernatural stuff to normal people. You can imagine what kind of place it became when people can get away with anything so long as they have enough power."

"R-right... So, how do I create my own Illusionary Space?"

"That's the easy part. You just have to want an Illusionary Space and release your mana into the surrounding. Gaia will do the rest for you. Though, most Illusionary Spaces created this way is only temporary and will collapse when the person who created them leaves unless someone else takes over as the "owner" of the place. I have no idea how to create a permanent space."

"Huh? Then what about this place? Did you create it when we were walking here?"

"No. This is a permanent Illusionary Space. It was created a long time ago by someone I have no knowledge of. He passed it on to his student who passed it on to their student and so on until it got to the hands of my Master. I inherited it from them a while back."

"Is he here?"

"She," Alex corrects her, "and no, she passed away shortly after she gave me the key to this place." he sighs.

"Oh... sorry. I shouldn't have asked that." Amelia apologizes, looking uncomfortable.

"It's alright, you didn't know. Things like this happen all the time in the Abyss, I already paid my respect and moved on."

"..."

A long moment of silence passed between them before Amelia got the courage to ask again.

"So how did you learn about this whole Abyss thing?"

Alex closed his eyes for a moment to think back to what happened. After a few seconds passed, he sighs.

"Like you, I woke up with... powers on my 18th birthday. Because of my power, I have a higher level of Mana or magical energy than most people who just started out. It attracted the attention of some... unsavory people who wanted to kidnap me to sell to Mana Factories, places where they hook people up to machines that constantly drain their mana so it can be used elsewhere. Lucky for me though, Master was nearby. She saved my life and took me under her wings. She taught me basically everything I know about the Abyss before she passed away." Alex explain.

After another long moment of silence as Amelia takes some time to process what Alex said, she asks "Is that why you've been so distant lately?"

"It's... sort of. I don't want to drag you or any of our family into this dangerous world. At the same time, I've been so busy in the past few weeks that I didn't have much time to hang out like we used to."

"Busy? With what?"

"You've seen the name of this Space right? East Trinity Cleaner's base. I'm the owner of this place and the Cleaner of our district... well, the east side of our district anyway. The North, South, and West side is being taken care of by the Life Foundation Guild."

"I can guess what a Guild is but Cleaner? Are you a janitor or something?" Amelia asks after hearing the familiar and unfamiliar names.

"Right, a Cleaner is... well, to know what a cleaner is you'll have to know about one of the major sources of power in this world. The human imagination is a powerful thing. Individually, they can't do much but when hundreds to thousands to even millions of people gather together, their collective imagination, also called Idea Power, can become quite powerful. If nothing is done, these Idea Powers will gather over time to create natural Illusionary Dungeons. From them, various things are birth depending on the type of Idea Power it is.

Most of the time though, especially in cities like ours with so much negativity, the things born from these collections of Idea Powers are demons. Beings with no will or intelligence whose only purpose is to destroy. My job as a Cleaner is to get rid of these monsters before they grow powerful enough to affect the mundane world and cause problems."

"Huh... so you're basically a superhero! That's awesome!" Amelia concludes.

"..."

"Sure, if that's how you want to think about it." Alex shrugs, "It's not really all that grand of a job though."

"Do you have any more questions or should we move on?"

"Just one more. What is your superpower?" Amelia asks with sparkling eyes. Alex has a feeling that he won't be able to get the idea that he's a secret superhero out of her head anytime soon.

"There's a training ground in the backyard. Let's go there and I'll show you. In the main time, I guess I can help train you too. I know you won't stay away from the Abyss even knowing how dangerous it is." Alex said, getting up from his seat.

"You bet your ass I won't! I'm not going to let you go be a superhero alone!" Amelia declares before following along.