207. Too Late, Even If It’S Not
“Explain yourself, Rex. You were dispatched on a mission to rescue Mr. Myeong, yet you prioritized combat over rescue. Why?”
“······.”
This was the kind of situation that would make one go crazy and jump around.
Rex had to rack his brains to choose his words as he bowed his head before the priestess.
Should he say that he got excited because his opponent seemed to be unusually skilled?
Should he say that he couldn’t help it because he felt like he wouldn’t be able to clear up the misunderstanding if he missed this opportunity?
No matter how he thought about it, it all sounded like excuses.
And in fact, it was an excuse.
“I acted on instinct.”
“······.”
But he couldn’t help it.
At that moment, he simply had a strong feeling that he had to do it that way.
He hadn’t made a rash judgment driven by the excitement or impulse of battle.
Rex had charged in because he had judged that it was an opportunity to uncover the identity of the unknown opponent he couldn’t see, but he had come up empty-handed.
Or maybe he hadn’t come up empty-handed.
His memory had been erased again.
Someone had tampered with it again.
In other words, something so great had happened in the meantime that it had to be erased.
This was definitely the correct answer.
Even now, after the fact, Rex thought so.
“Haah······.”
Facing the dignified Rex, Mia said nothing and simply put her hand to her head.
Certainly, Rex’s intuition was sharp.
He was a candidate for the position of patriarch.
The Alliance operated such a system only for its executives.
They employed executives because they trusted them, and once they had employed them, they had to trust them.
Whether Rex’s intuition was right or wrong, they couldn’t ignore his intuition until they had come to a complete conclusion.
The water had already been spilled.
It was true that for about a second after Rex had done it, everyone present had lost their memory, so for the time being, it was right to focus on the changes that had occurred in the meantime.
“The magic stone. And the capture of the Great Demon······.”
Mia sighed again as the Great Demon’s screams turned into a murmur from beyond the door.
The following things had happened in that short moment:
First, the unidentified enemy that Rex had been facing off against and Myeong had opened up space and teleported away.
Second, a black magic stone had appeared in Rex’s hand, though it was unknown when he had gotten it.
And third, the Great Demon had been sealed in a sword and was now lying on the ground······.
“Ah. I really don’t know what happened······.”
Mia, who had been covering her face with both hands and groaning, turned her head slightly.
Now that she thought about it, there was something she had to do.
“Linda. Erase all records of today’s events for now. Designate it as top secret and keep it only in handwritten documents.”
[Yes. Understood.]
After ordering the data to be erased, Mia turned around again and sat down in her chair.
It was really a mess.
Just a few hours ago, she had been very nervous, wondering what the Great Demon would do when it landed.
Now the Great Demon had been captured in a pitiful state and was being interrogated by the Frost Monarch in the interrogation room, so it was a huge discrepancy.
And what was this magic stone?Even though the Frost Lord said with a confident face that it was something Eugene had with him, Mia couldn’t believe it at all.
In the first place, wasn’t the Frost Lord the woman that Eugene had avoided and hated so much?
He was saying that this was Eugene’s thing after seeing and smelling the Demonic Stone that he had only seen for a few days three years ago?
‘It’s a bit of a sorry thing to say, but it’s highly likely to be a mistake.’
She didn’t have anything to say outwardly, but there was a high probability that this was the Frost Lord’s misunderstanding.
He wasn’t some creepy stalker who would never forget anything after seeing it once if it belonged to that person, so how could the Frost Lord remember everything in detail?
It was an unrealistic story.
Of course, even if this wasn’t Eugene’s Demonic Stone, it was still suspicious enough.
A Demonic Stone that had suddenly appeared at the moment when everyone’s memories had disappeared.
Could there be anything more suspicious than this in the world?
“Hmm······.”
Thinking about it like this, it also seemed to be reminiscent of Eugene, who had disappeared without leaving a body behind.
Since he had suddenly disappeared, wasn’t it possible that he could appear at an unexpected moment?
This sense of anticipation was truly something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
For the first year after Eugene had disappeared, she had been filled with this sense of anticipation and hadn’t been able to sleep properly every day.
She had thought that maybe Eugene would come back alive.
She had thought that he would come looking for her with a calm smile on his face, holding his hungry stomach and saying, ‘Oh, I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?’
However, as she entered the second year and then the third year, that hope gradually faded away.
The only person left who could still excitedly talk about the story of Eugene coming back alive was the Saintess.
No. That person was out of the question because she was a woman who wouldn’t be strange if she hanged herself and died right away if she didn’t deceive herself with such stories, as her heart would wither away.
During that time, Mia······.
“Sigh.”
“Saintess-nim. Do you have a cold?”
“It’s nothing like that. The Saintess will soon make a decision, so as soon as I receive it, I will search for Mr. Nameless and that unknown enemy within the Alliance’s sphere of influence. If they are within the mortal realm, they will definitely be caught.”
“Yes. I will do as you say.”
Mia forcibly swallowed her tears and snot.
She had lived a life where she couldn’t even say that she was fine with empty words.
Of course, she couldn’t show it because there was someone who seemed like they would collapse at any moment, but because of that, Mia had to rot her heart a lot.
‘It seems like all three of them were close to Mr. Eugene······.’
She had already known about the former Saintess, Julia, but the Saintess, Jill Diner, and the Frost Lord, Yerina Frost, were too unexpected.
In fact, it wasn’t easy to accept even now.
It was to the point where she wondered if that man had a fetish for strong and high-ranking women.
At first, it was so ridiculous that she didn’t have time to think about anything else.
She just thought that he was just that kind of man.
She thought that she had gotten over it well since she had known to some extent that he was a bit of a womanizer.
‘But why did he approach me?’
‘Does he act so friendly even to people he doesn’t like?’
‘He’s too close to an outsider, and she’s even a Saintess of the World Tree. No matter how I think about it, that person only wanted to do something to me.’
However, as the days passed and the sun rose and set, she thought about Eugene more and more often.
It was mostly complaints and dissatisfaction.
Since he was someone who had already died and disappeared, wasn’t it normal to think about his heroic actions and good points when he occasionally came to mind?Strangely enough, every time Mia opened her eyes, one or two complaints about Eugene would come to mind.
It wasn’t the first time she had felt this way.
Surely, these complaints had been piling up inside her ever since the moment she first met him.
However, she had never once thought about them consciously, let alone spoken them aloud. She had simply buried them deep within her unconscious mind.
That was the priestess.
When it came to communing with the World Tree and the spirits, one’s innermost thoughts became completely meaningless.
Having grown accustomed to such a life, Mia had never spoken carelessly or had any unholy thoughts.
This was the backlash.
The resentment, complaints, and irritation she had been suppressing towards Eugene were now gushing forth from her unconscious mind.
The things that had been piling up below were now bubbling and boiling over.
It was the first time she had ever felt this way.
Until now, she had thought that she had perfect control over her inner thoughts.
Never before had she experienced such a backlash of ‘bad things’ that she had buried away.
“Ahahahahaha…”
Mia, who had been sitting alone in contemplation, let out a hollow laugh.
It wasn’t the cheerful smile she had always shown, but a new kind of smile.
A smile that was a mixture of bitterness and exhilaration.
It was not the kind of smile that a priestess would make.
“Now I understand…”
Until now, she had accepted everything in the world and only selected the ‘good things’.
She kept the ‘good things’ in the realm of consciousness so that she could retrieve them whenever she wanted.
She threw the ‘bad things’ into the realm of the unconscious and ignored them.
Had the unconscious reached its limit?
That wasn’t it.
Only Eugene’s ‘bad things’ were boiling over.
Only then did she realize.
It was a very simple story.
Mia could no longer turn a blind eye.
She wanted to know, think about, and talk about not only Eugene’s ‘good things’ but also his ‘bad things’.
She wanted to affirm everything about him.
She wanted to know everything about Eugene.
She wanted to treat him as a person, not as a priestess.
“I guess I was in love…”
To put it simply, she liked Eugene.
Mia’s feelings for Eugene had grown so large that she could no longer hide them all in her unconscious mind.
She had only just realized this fact.
Three years after Eugene had disappeared.
It was too late, far too late.
Tears streamed down Mia’s face, covering her eyes.
.
.
.
“Gulp! Gulp, cough…”
“Master, Master!”
Rustle, rustle.
The short, numerous legs of the small beast moved quickly as it ran, carrying a cup of water on its head.
The small beast headed towards the dark and gloomy depths of the cave.
There, a large fox spirit lay weakly, its hand reaching out to take the cup of water.
The slender hand trembled as it struggled to hold the small cup properly.
“Thank you…”
Grin.
She smiled faintly and patted the giant fox’s head.
In the darkness, a large scar could be seen on her cheek before it disappeared back into the darkness.
“Yes…?”
“The Frost Lord sent this.”She groaned as she found a note attached to the bottom of the cup.
Top secret.
It meant that it was a document containing the most important information that should never be leaked.
However, she swallowed her doubts about how it could be a top secret when it was scribbled on thin notebook paper and stamped with a seal, and her slender fingers began to unfold the note and read it.
“What the hell-“
“Master?”
Before she had even read half of it, she burst out in curses.
The summary of the contents was as follows.
1. I am the Lord of the West.
2. I regret it.
3. I’m really, really sorry.
4. I have something to ask for your understanding.
5. Don’t be too surprised and listen.
.
.
.
41. I lost the enemy. The nameless one is missing.
“Damn it, you bastards······!”
“Master! You’re spitting blood, blood! Oh, what do I do!”
It was the news that her second disciple and the best friend of her first disciple had been in trouble.
Despite being weakened by a fatal injury, the murderous rage that had not faded as much as expected spread and stained the entire mountain.