Chapter 2648 A Marvelous Encounter <TOC> Chapter 2650 Mirror Image
Translator: SumTLMan
After Cecia finished telling the story behind the parchment, she summoned Daus’ “ticket” from the darkness——a Holy Light Staff.
“As for this staff…” Cecia frowned slightly: “The emotions contained within are the most complicated among the treasures your teammates handed over.”
“A resolve to repay a favor, a steadfast will to protect friendship, a love that waits but never arrives, an indifference that ends in heartbreak, a farewell that may never see reunion, as well as an unspoken devotion… and so on.”
Angel looked a bit puzzled: “So, these emotions inside come from multiple people’s stories?”
“Four. If we count its maker, that makes five people.”
Angel: “….”
Originally, if it were just two people, he could already imagine a melodramatic play. Yet there are five people in this story… Wait, five people’s stories, wouldn’t that be even more melodramatic?
Angel thought for a moment: “In these five people, which part of the emotions belongs to Daus? He’s the one who gave you this treasure.”
According to Angel’s conjectured script, Daus might belong to the “love and longing” portion. After all, the vine staff ended up in his care, so gazing at it and reminiscing made sense.
Only, if that really was the script, then Daus’ apparent nonchalance earlier was just an act? Perhaps he still can’t let go. After all… he once loved.
However, before Angel’s melodramatic fantasy took shape, Cecia poured cold water on it.
Cecia said: “He doesn’t account for much among these emotions; we can consider it friendship.”
Angel asked: “The steadfast will to protect friendship?”
Cecia nodded: “Yes.”
“So if he traded this vine staff for a ticket, doesn’t that mean the ‘steadfast will to protect’ is gone?”
Cecia turned her head to look at Angel: “Why do you think that giving away the vine staff means protection no longer exists? Don’t be constrained by narrow thinking. Sometimes giving up is also a choice. As for your teammate, he once chose to keep it, and now he chooses to let it go. Perhaps in his eyes, letting go is also a form of safeguarding a friend.”
Angel thought for a moment. Indeed, what Cecia said wasn’t wrong. When it comes to emotional issues, he is accustomed to thinking in an overly linear and superficial way. In reality, any kind of emotion is quite complex, just like human moods, always fluctuating.
What you think might not be what it actually is, and what you deny might be closer to the truth.
The human heart is unfathomable; so too is emotion.
“I’m not very clear on the specific story of this vine staff, but it should be full of entanglements.” After Cecia finished, she whispered softly: “I don’t really like these treasures that contain such complex meanings. If I get lost in them, I’ll become entangled myself. But such treasures are the best way to pass the time, looking at the entire story from different emotional perspectives brings different insights.”
“These kinds of treasures, even if I don’t like them, are still more appealing to me than your two gold coins. I would rather choose something like this than those coins.”
Angel: … So now the two gold coins I gave have become a measuring stick for Cecia? She has to compare everything to them.
With a complicated look in her eyes, Cecia took one last glance at the vine staff, then threw it into the mist.
From the mist flew out the final treasure, a stone slab.
It was the same stone slab that once held the Black Count’s nose.
Angel didn’t really care about this treasure itself, but he was very curious about the Black Count’s story and what he had talked about with Cecia.
“This stone slab is the vessel for that split portion of the Black Count’s nose you mentioned,” Cecia said, leaving the slab floating in midair without holding it: “It carried the split portion of the Black Count’s nose for about sixty years, witnessing some of the emotional changes over that time.”
“However, those emotions are very faint; there isn’t much depth to them. One could say it barely qualifies as a treasure.”
“If he hadn’t said he was from the Noah family, I wouldn’t have agreed to take it.”
At these words, Angel immediately knew the gateway to the topic had appeared, so he asked with feigned surprise: “Is there some connection between the Noah family and the Laudsourcian race?”
Had Angel directly asked why Cecia treated the Noah family differently, she might have refused to answer. But by putting the Laudsourcian race and the Noah family on the same footing, Cecia was much more likely to explain.
Sure enough, Cecia frowned: “The Noah family is just a negligible wizard family in Nightfall City. How could they have anything to do with us Laudsourcians?”
Angel said: “Nowadays, the Noah family is a great power in the Southern Region.”
Cecia snorted coldly: “So what? The Southern Region, with few Legends in sight, can call any given organization or family ‘negligible’ if we go back ten thousand years.”
Angel rubbed his chin: “That’s true.”
“If the Laudsourcian race has nothing to do with the Noah family, then why did you treat the Black Count so favorably? Could it be… you value the power of the Noah family, wanting to pave the way for a Laudsourcian revival?”
Angel knew very well that was not the reason. Yet he mentioned it on purpose. Once Cecia meets Popoca, she’ll understand the current state of the Laudsourcian race. Apart from Angel, they really have no connections. If Cecia, like Popoca, desires the rise of the Laudsourcian race, it would be difficult to avoid being carved up by the wolves without more support, just as in ancient times.
At first, Cecia assumed Angel was just mocking her, because his tone was so full of teasing.
Just as Cecia was about to retort, she suddenly froze. On second thought, Angel seemed playful, but behind that tone lay a very real question.
Restoring the Laudsourcian race requires more than reclaiming the Source Fire and relighting the Ancestral Altar.
Revival is the goal, a result. But there’s no result without a process. Can Cecia alone and that unseen Popoca accomplish such a thing?
Cecia’s gaze grew solemn. The more she thought, the narrower her path seemed, and the darker the future appeared.
At that moment, Angel opened his mouth: “Suddenly silent, are you refusing to answer, or are you thinking about how to brush me off?”
Cecia rolled her eyes: “I’m just thinking!”
Angel wore a look that said: “I see.” “So this is your routine for The Past ten thousand years? Whatever you start thinking about, you think until you lose sense of time, and that’s how you muddled through the years?”
“If so, I don’t really mind. Are you planning to keep Popoca waiting until he grows old and dies?”
Cecia: “… You have so many fanciful ideas, but all your guesses are wrong.”
Angel responded casually: “So they’re wrong. Doesn’t matter to me whether I’m right or wrong. I just want to remind you that these distant matters are better kept in mind until the time truly comes. After all, the Laudsourcian race is supposedly favored by Destiny. Their restoration might be predestined, like a mountain that looks impossible to climb from afar, but only when you get close do you discover a stairway leading straight to the peak.”
At those words, Cecia instantly understood that Angel saw right through her thoughts. Or, more accurately, he’d steered her thinking in that direction from the start.
The feeling was quite unpleasant.
“You know, you’re extremely irritating like this,” Cecia said, staring at Angel.
Angel wore an innocent look: “What did I do? I even arranged for you to meet Popoca.”
Cecia went silent for a moment, then gave a light snort: “I’m too lazy to bother with you. Also, I need to rescind something I said earlier.”
Angel: “Oh?”
Cecia: “I once said nothing endures forever, and there’s no such thing as Destiny. I’m taking back the second part. I hope some things are indeed destined.”
Both Cecia and Angel clearly understood what those “some things” were.
As soon as she said this, the gloom that had been building in Cecia’s mood began to disperse. If credit were due, it would chiefly go to Angel, though Cecia would never admit that she’d allowed a “little brat” to stir her emotions. So, she shifted the topic.
“Returning to the point, you just asked me why I treated the Black Count kindly. There is a reason.” Cecia looked as though she was about to embark on a long explanation.
Angel remained suitably quiet, as though giving Cecia the utmost respect.
Cecia said: “Back then… which is ten thousand years ago, I was sent to Nightfall City by the Grand Prophet. For certain reasons I can’t discuss, I met a friend.”
The so-called “can’t discuss” basically had two possible reasons: either bound by the Merck Soul Source Oath, or the Grand Prophet’s special assignment.
Angel couldn’t determine which it was, but so long as it didn’t affect his main question, he had no desire to pry.
“My friend’s identity was quite special. She had an incredibly prominent background, but although she seemed lofty, she was just a bird trapped in a cage, her entire life arranged in advance.”
“She longed for freedom, yearned for everything beyond those bars.”
“Back then, my status in Nightfall City was unique, so her family wasn’t against our association; in fact, they were quite happy about it.”
As Cecia spoke of the past, her gaze drifted: “At first, we were both on guard, but then something happened, and we became the closest of friends…”
“Once we’d become best friends, I learned of her circumstances. Driven by compassion, I found a pretext that convinced her family to let me take her out of that ‘cage’ to unwind.”
“And here we are, with me still not knowing if taking her out was right or wrong.”
Angel hadn’t intended to speak, but seeing Cecia slip into reminiscing, he felt compelled to gently move things along: “Why do you say that?”
“Because she met someone out in the world.”
So that Cecia wouldn’t once again drift into deep thought, Angel prompted her further: “Up to this point in the story, there’s still no mention of the Noah family. So this must be where the Noah family appears, right?”
Cecia nodded: “Yes, it was a young wizard from the Noah family.”
“What follows is presumably more love and entanglement?” Even as he asked, Angel was pretty sure that Cecia’s friend was Margaret, the daughter of the warden, and the young wizard from the Noah family was Augustine.
“As you suspect, yes, they felt an odd attraction. It contained love, entanglement, but no resentment,” Cecia said simply: “That Noah wizard had a mysterious quality about him, and he was someone whose thought processes and actions were always surprising. My friend was drawn in by those aspects.”
“So was it a one-sided crush, or mutual affection?”
Cecia: “An interesting way to put it. Actually, neither. Let’s call it… mutual secret affection.”
“My friend rarely got to go out. So, I became their go-between. She liked the Noah wizard, but they’d only met once. She thought the Noah wizard only saw her as a friend. But I knew that from the moment he first saw her, he’d fallen head over heels. He kept asking me to help deliver letters. Still, I understood there was a gap between them that neither could bridge.”
Angel: “Did you deliver those letters?”
Cecia nodded: “Yes, but each time the Noah wizard wrote love poems, I’d drop a hint or two, so they wouldn’t appear too blatant.”
Angel: “Even if they weren’t blatant, they were still love poems. Wouldn’t your friend have noticed?”
Cecia: “Noticing doesn’t change a thing. She dreamed of escaping her cage, but she also knew it was only a dream.”
Angel: “So they kept exchanging letters?”
Cecia nodded: “The Noah wizard’s expressions grew more intense, while my friend grew more withdrawn. Yet emotions are difficult to hide, especially when the other party is a keen wizard. The Noah wizard could sense my friend’s feelings behind each hesitant, wavering line.”
“Even so, at the time, neither of them had any way out.”
Angel: “What happened next?”
Cecia shook her head: “I don’t know. I was only their go-between for a time. Then circumstances forced me to make an unavoidable choice, and I chose a path no one foresaw, which turned me into what I am now.”
“You became a box?”
Cecia nodded: “After I became a box, I slept for many years, my soul completely merging with this vessel before my consciousness gradually woke up again. By then, Nightfall City was basically at its end.”
“So you never found out what happened to that Noah ancestor or your friend?”
Cecia found the question odd: “Why are you so interested in how it ended?”
Angel: “I’m not personally interested. Think of it this way, suppose I told you some gossip involving a teammate’s ancestor, got you excited, and then refused to tell you how it ended. What would you do?”
Cecia: “… I’d probably go mad from curiosity.”
Angel: “Now you see how I feel.”
Cecia: “I don’t know what happened to them. I asked the Sovereign of Wisdom, but it gave me a vague answer. No matter how I pressed, it wouldn’t elaborate.”
“That’s all there is to tell. I met that Noah wizard because of my friend. Although his gift for writing love poems was mediocre, he was a very mysterious person himself.”
Angel, who had once helped Augustine with love poems, mused silently: His ability with love poems isn’t just mediocre, it’s downright dreadful.
Angel: “Mysterious? This is the second time you’ve described him that way.”
Cecia thought for a moment: “There’s something very strange about his presence, something I can’t put into words. Moreover, he’s incredibly erudite. Once you’ve visited the Noah family, you’ll notice how entirely different he is from the other idiots in that clan.”
“He had a truly mysterious presence, mysterious knowledge, and more than that, I, as a prophecy witch, couldn’t see his future.”
Angel: “So it sounds like that Noah ancestor was harboring quite a big secret.”
“Maybe,” Cecia said, glancing at Angel: “But speaking of secrets, don’t you have secrets? Your knowledge, skills, actions, even your thinking clearly don’t match your age.”
Angel did not answer, only smiling.
Cecia really wanted to know Angel’s secrets, about the Source Fire and about how he came to know the Laudsourcians. But he refused to take the bait, so she’d have to set that aside… Perhaps she could ask Popoca, that fellow Laudsourcian?
Might the clan member be swayed by Angel? Cecia didn’t think that far. Even if Popoca was indeed swayed, in her mind, someone of the same blood was always closer than an “outsider” like Angel, and would be easier to win over.
“Though that Noah wizard was quite mysterious, I learned a great deal from him. In a way, he was my second true friend in Nightfall City.”
“So, for the sake of my friend, I naturally decided to treat the Black Count, a descendant of the Noah family, with leniency.”
Angel’s expression was one of sudden realization: “So that’s the reason. But that Noah ancestor likely never expected that you would show favor to his descendant’s avatar, but literally kick away his real descendant.”
Angel was referring to Vai, whom Cecia had kicked out of this dark space at the very beginning.
“How is that my fault? I’m not omniscient. How was I supposed to know Vai was also from the Noah family?” Cecia said crossly: “Even if I had known, it’s not as though I’d show so much favor that I’d let him pass for ten magic crystals.”
Angel brought up Vai simply because he sensed Cecia’s mood drifting back into the memories of the past, sinking into gloom.
Once Cecia’s emotions turned gloomy, asking her anything more would probably become tricky.
Hence, Angel mentioned Vai.
Sure enough, it was easy to divert Cecia’s attention, and her mood quickly shifted at Angel’s remark.
While Cecia was no longer downcast, Angel quickly asked: “Speaking of the Noah family, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
Cecia gave him a puzzled look: “But I hardly know anything about them. I only know that one person.”
Angel: “My question might well relate to him.”
“Oh?”
Chapter 2648 A Marvelous Encounter <TOC> Chapter 2650 Mirror Image