novelBetween Truth and Illusions
| ← Ch.374 | Ch.376 → |
The person that had appeared in front of Yale was a woman who despite not having a bad body, it would be difficult to say that she was a beauty because she had her body full of scars.
Moreover, even ignoring the scars, just looking to the expression on her face, it was enough to feel displeasure as she gave the impression that she was a wicked woman.
"I never expected that I would find you here. I heard that you fled from the Special Realm and left Imperial City hidden to avoid being noticed."
The woman looked at Yale with hatred in her eyes as if she was looking at her worst enemy.
"I will never forgive you for filling my body with scars. I don't mind if you are just Yale's consciousness, but I need to get rid of you!"
The woman tried to grab Yale's throat, but the attack was easily avoided.
"I also hate you, Lor. I don't know how you managed to enter this place, but you are a real shadow. However, I know very well what to do against someone vicious like you."
Before the shadow of Lor could say anything else, she was cut in half by Yale. Yale had already acknowledged that she was real, but there wasn't any rule against attacking a real shadow after acknowledging it.
"To think that the first real shadow was the shadow of Lor... If she dares to appear in front of me in the real world, I need to make her receive the same suffering."
Yale wouldn't look for her, but he was decided to kill her without any mercy if she appeared in front of him again.
After all, Lor had evil intentions against Aizu back then, so even though nothing happened at the end, and Lor was the only one who ended suffering, Yale didn't plan to forgive her if she appeared in front of him once again.
Stopping to think about Lor, Yale continued moving ahead thinking that it would be difficult meeting someone else who could surprise him, but the next one to appear surprised Yale even more than meeting with Lor.
The surprise was because Yale didn't meet a person, but a wolf, a big Frost Wolf.
"This should be a joke, right?"
Although it was a wolf, Yale couldn't mistake that wolf because it had left a huge impact on him.
"You are Wyba's mother, right?"
Yale quickly reached the place where the Frost Wolf appeared and patted her head.
Meeting Wyba's mother had been a great surprise, but the problem was that Yale was unable to deduce if she was real or not.
Before, he noticed it because the Lor he had meet didn't match correctly with the one on his mind, but everyone else was almost exactly like he remembered them, which was normal given that they were created from his memories.
All the shadows had the appearance of the moment when they entered the Timeless Border, so it was a good way to differentiate them.
The only problem with that method was if someone entered the Timeless Border while having the same aspect as Yale remembered because then it would be difficult to ensure if it was real or illusory. That was the reason Yale could easily notice about Lor at first sight, but for those who were fake, he had needed to exchange some words first.
In the real world, Yale could rely on his bloodline to understand wolves, but he didn't have any blood in his current body, so he wasn't sure if he would be able to speak with Wyba's mother.
"We meet again. From here I saw that you treated my daughter very well, thank you."
Yale was worried for nothing because he could understand Wyba's mother without any problem.
In fact, in the Timeless Border, everyone would be able to communicate with Wyba's mother, and the same would apply to any other beast.
"She is my dear little sister, and I will do anything to protect her, but... I have already failed..."
Hearing the words of Wyba's mother, Yale started to feel guilty by how Wyba ended in that war. Although he also knew that even without doing anything, Wyba would still be alive and without any danger, he couldn't avoid feeling guilty.
"I know, but it isn't your fault. You already did more than you should at that moment. I am sure that she will think like me."
Yale felt that she was too smart for being just a normal Frost Wolf, but given the peculiarities of the Timeless Border, Yale couldn't discard that even a normal wolf would be able to obtain wisdom.
Of course, since Wyba's mother was already dead, the fate wouldn't twist for her, but Yale feared how could that affect Wyba as he still didn't know what could happen in that situation.
"Make me disappear. You are hesitating about if I am real or not, but that doesn't matter. I am already dead and what happens to me won't affect my daughter at all."
Wyba's mother couldn't read Yale's mind, but he was showing hesitation in his face, and Wyba's mother seemed to know the situation.
Yale was shocked after hearing that as it would be really an easy way to solve the problem, but before saying anything else, he hugged the Frost Wolf in front of him.
"Again, you are ready to sacrifice yourself to help others... I already owe you a lot, and I don't plan to owe anything more by choosing the easy way. You are real."
At that same moment, Yale understood that his answer was correct and Wyba's mother was a real shadow and not a mere illusion.
Yale guessed that Wyba's mother was like the Battle God and had met his future shadow just after she came here as that would explain that she knew about the trial.
However, Yale forgot that in case of failure his shadow wouldn't remember anything about the test, so the fact that Wyba's mother knew about it meant that he would succeed or that she had obtained that knowledge from someone else.
"Thank you."
Wyba's mother said those words before her shadow disappeared and returned to the normal Timeless Border. Although there was no way that her real self would be harmed as she was already dead, her shadow would have suffered a lot if Yale had told that she was fake.
"Two consecutive real shadows, it seems that thinking about patterns is useless here. Fortunately, I never planned to do something like that."
Yale started to move away while remembering the sensation of the fur from moments ago and he couldn't avoid remembering Wyba and Aiwai.
"I will definitely create a happy future for them and also for me... Aiwai must avoid the harm in her soul, or there won't be any happy future for us. I won't be able to forgive myself, and Wyba will definitely be sad. Isn't just changing fate? I will do it! Even if I need to change the past instead of the future, I am decided to succeed no matter the consequences!"
Something changed in Yale's will at that moment, but Yale was unaware of it. Of course, he was also unaware that he had just mentioned the correct method to save them that his previous self and the Mysterious Expert had hidden from him. For Yale, those had been just words that reinforced his determination, but he hadn't lied and was ready to face anything.
"I can sense your determination. You may look a bit different, but you are definitely the Liye I know."
Yale was shocked when he heard those words as he hadn't noticed that he was already in front of the next person.
However, Yale's shock was even higher than the previous two times because he knew that the person in front of him couldn't exist even in the real world, let alone the Timeless Border.
Yale was sure that the person in front of him was fake, a mere illusion, but he was unable to say it.
"Master, I never expected that we would meet again being in this situation."
The man in front of Yale was the same master that appeared in the memories of the Life and Death Trials from where the name of Liye originated.
However, Yale knew that the Life and Death Trials were fake, and thus, it should have been impossible for the shadow of someone to exist. That was the reason for Yale being sure that the other party wasn't a real shadow, but at the same time, he still felt happy for meeting him.
From Yale's perspective, that master had always been illusory, so there wasn't any difference for him between the illusion in the Life and Death Trials and an illusion in the trial that was facing.
It didn't matter if his master was real or fake, Yale knew that he owed a lot to that master that couldn't exist.
"However, I always felt that we would meet again even after you said those strange words before your death. Reality sometimes surpassed our own expectations, and those words of yours helped me realize a lot of things."
Yale felt that maybe his master really existed when he heard that, but he instantly rejected that idea as that was just what he wanted, so it wasn't strange that the illusion in front of him hinted that there was a chance that his time in the Life and Death Trials hadn't been illusory.
| ← Ch. 374 | Ch. 376 → |