Chapter 2776 The Remnant Soul’s Obsession <TOC> Chapter 2778 The Two Faces of the Shepherd God
Translator: SumTLMan
Seeing that Angel did not respond for a long time, the silver-haired girl thought for a moment, and said: 「My question may be a bit presumptuous. How about this, I can give you one Gift-Word for free.」
Before Angel had time to Answer, Daus at his side muttered: 「Just now you were still saying you couldn’t see any links, that there were no Gift-Words. How come now you are saying you will give Gift-Words for free?」
The silver-haired girl had originally not intended to pay attention to Daus’ voice, but Daus’ words did indeed arouse the curiosity of the others, and they all turned to look at the silver-haired girl. She was silent for a moment, then still said to Angel: 「Although I cannot establish a link with you, there are quite a few things upon you that are reflected before my eyes……」
「Eh? Eh!」
The one who let out the sound was still Daus; one only heard his tone curl down from a high point, and his eyes also slowly changed from shock to lewdness.
Although he had not said a single word, that tone of Daus nevertheless seemed to contain a whole full essay.
The silver-haired girl gave Daus a cold sideways glance, forced down the stuffiness surging up, and lowered her voice to explain: 「The reflection of the heart corresponds only to intelligent living beings.」
That is to say, what the silver-haired girl called Gift-Words was not aimed at Angel, but at the intelligent living beings on his person.
For example Dangros, and for example the Wood Spirit.
Angel also heard the silver-haired girl’s words, but he had no interest at all in her so-called Gift-Words. Her so-called reflection of the heart, that is, Gift-Words, in Angel’s view how could it compare with Totoro’s prophecies?
One must know, several times when Angel was about to go look for Totoro, Totoro had already come ahead of time to the place Angel would go to and waited. Before Angel even opened his mouth, he would give important prophetic instructions.
Just like this time, when Angel went to look for Totoro, before he had even spoken of his own situation, Totoro had already given one line: 「The Wise One is Not a Fool.」
At that time, Angel had not even yet encountered the Wise One, which shows just how against the heavens Totoro’s prophetic ability is.
With such backing, why would he still care about any Gift-Words?
However, though Angel thought this way in his heart, on his face he still showed an 「a bit interesting」 expression.
After all, the relationship between Totoro and Phantom Island is not something outsiders know. Moreover, although Totoro’s reputation has currently spread in the outside world, what has spread even more widely is his performance on Star Observing Day. Star Observing Day had the bonus of a Mysterious Object, and cannot be counted completely as Totoro’s merit, so outsiders still have a little bit of doubt about Totoro’s own prophetic ability.
Before Totoro’s wings have fully grown, Angel does not want to expose the true state of his prophetic ability.
「This question, I must beg to be unable to answer.」
Amid the disappointed look in the silver-haired girl’s eyes, Angel continued: 「It is not that I am unwilling to answer, but that I do not know either. Before this, your so-called link, Time Body, reflection of the heart…… I had never heard of them at all.」
「I have never even heard of them; how could I guard against your so-called link?」
Angel shrugged: 「So, let alone that you are curious, I am also very curious as to what the reason is.」
Angel’s words were spoken very openly, and the others also nodded in agreement. They had all along been communicating through the mental connection; whether Angel truly did not know or was pretending, they could see at a glance.
What is more, Daus had repeatedly cried out several times that it was unfair, asking why the rabbit girl had directly handed the mask to Angel.
In this process, Angel’s behavior and mindset had all been unguarded. Whether he knew or not, it was laid bare before all present.
Therefore, this speech of Angel’s was something they all agreed with.
As for whether they were curious or not? Naturally they were also curious, but since Angel had said that he himself did not know, could they really still have Angel display, one by one, the things on his body and his own abilities, so as to prove which one was the 「truth」?
Angel was not someone who could be kneaded at will by others; back then, when facing the Sovereign of Wisdom, Angel had not shown any timidity either, and that he had trump cards on him was beyond doubt. How could they possibly go do the kind of thing that plucks a tiger’s whiskers.
The silver-haired girl quietly fixed her gaze on Angel, and only after a long time did she speak softly: 「That is true as well, it was I who thought too simply. Having floated for too long in that distant sea, with too many chaotic memories, has made me somewhat forget that everything in reality must follow logic; questions that do not speak in terms of logic will not have results.」
This speech of the silver-haired girl was expressed very implicitly, but the meaning was nothing more than: I know that in your heart you must have a conclusion, but I have no way to prove these matters, because the evidence I hold is insufficient and logic cannot let me deduce this conclusion. Therefore, you win.
Angel understood her words, and toward the 「self-mocking accusation」 in her words, he did not feel much.
On the contrary, he was somewhat curious about her judgment.
「Why do you think that I must have an answer?」
The silver-haired girl: 「I cannot answer, because I cannot sort out a logic that would convince you.」
This really was a sore-loser kind of answer…… Angel silently sighed in his heart, yet on his face he said indifferently: 「All right, I do not need you to have a logic that convinces me. Purely from the point of view of results, you believe that I must have an answer, right?」
「Mm.」 A reply with almost no hesitation.
Angel smiled: 「Before this, what I was very certain of was that I had no answer. Whether I lied or not, you can walk out of the mirror and personally use True Word spell to take a look.」
「However, after your so firmly assured answer, I have started to have a bit of an idea.」
If the silver-haired girl’s judgment is, as she said, 「absolutely correct」, then what Angel can be sure of is that among the conjectures he had previously, there should be one that is the correct answer.
Among the Green Runes, the Source Fire, the Blood Night Sanctuary, the Wilderness of Dreams, and the Heavenly Eye, there is certainly one that is the correct answer.
But which one it is specifically, Angel cannot determine.
「In my heart I do indeed have several alternative answers; if your judgment is not mistaken, then I guess the answer you want should lie among these alternative answers I am thinking of.」 Angel did not conceal it and directly spoke his thoughts.
The silver-haired girl’s eyes suddenly lit up, and she looked toward Angel.
Angel shrugged: 「However, these alternative answers I am thinking of are basically all…… secrets, you know.」
When Angel spoke the word 「secret」, he narrowed his eyes: 「So, what qualifications do you think you have to make me speak out my secrets?」
Although this speech of Angel’s was spoken without the slightest emotional fluctuation, the content of the words was full of gunpowder.
However, the silver-haired girl was not angered by Angel, but instead thought very carefully over this question; after a long while, she probed somewhat hesitantly: 「Is the Gift-Words I spoke of just now not acceptable?」
「Do you think these intelligent living beings on my person would gain any enlightenment from your Gift-Words?」
Angel paused for a moment, then pointed at the others beside him: 「And do you think they would be grateful for your Gift-Words?」
「Using the so-called link to forcibly connect cause and effect. By means of the mask you left behind, you compel us to enter fetters and bridges of fate. Your so-called Gift-Words are merely arrangements the Sovereign of Wisdom made for you, not something we asked for of our own initiative, even less something we now need.」 Angel: 「One could say, when you use your so-called Gift-Words as a 『reward』, have you ever thought about how we view your Gift-Words?」
「These Gift-Words are nothing more than rewards you imagine for yourself while living in your own world. For us, they are burdens added onto our bodies for no reason at all.」
「What is more, your Time Bodies even brought out so-called questions to carry out tests…… it looks like tests, but in fact it is wanting to use this to make us produce causal connections with your Time Bodies, isn’t it? None of this is something we asked for, and we were even tricked into entering your links; on what basis do you think Gift-Words would make us be grateful to the point of tears?」
Previously Angel’s words had only a bit of gunpowder, but now he directly lit the fuse and opened fire.
However, these words he spoke really did make all the others freeze for a moment. Previously they had not thought from this angle, and had only been puzzled as to why it was tests for a while, Time Bodies for a while, and reflections of the heart for a while; now Angel had directly clarified the logic inside this.
In fact everything she had done was in order to produce cause and effect, to produce links.
The masks being left to them were also products of cause and effect. They obtained the fragment of the mask as this 「fruit」, and then the 「cause」 that planted this fruit naturally connected itself up.
Moreover, Angel also extremely suspected that if it were not for the causal connections established by the three Time Bodies, the silver-haired girl might simply have been unable to appear before them.
Because the silver-haired girl had said from the very beginning: my main body is still hidden in the distant sea, so I can only let my three Time Bodies take my place to come into contact with you.
At that time Angel had even asked: since the main body is still in the distant sea, then what is it that is appearing before us?
Her answer was: Mirror Shadow. That is to say, it is a single shadow.
According to this situation, she actually could have used a shadow to meet them from the very beginning, but she did not do this, and instead let the Time Bodies make contact with them in advance; that then means that before the Time Bodies had made contact with them, before any link of cause and effect was established, she could not even manage to have a Mirror Shadow appear before them.
One could say that everything, all of it, had been arranged by her.
They were kept in the dark, led by her on strings to do a series of things…… producing links, receiving the masks, turning into cause and effect, were all brought about by her alone.
And after doing all of this, she not only felt that she herself had no errors at all, but even thought that giving 「Gift-Words」 counted as a kind of repayment.
This really was far too much a case of not putting them in her eyes.
Even though they were looking forward to the Sovereign of Wisdom’s so-called surprise, that did not mean that they could accept such an utterly arranged surprise in which they had no right to know at all. To dismiss them with a single line of Gift-Words? What about the links of cause and effect that had been established?
If the links of cause and effect could let the silver-haired girl see the so-called reflection of the heart, could she not use this link to do some other things?
Prophecy wizards are often able, through information factors as well as so-called cause and effect, to perform prophecies upon others and even curses.
The three major schools of the prophecy system even have coined special terms for this: plucking the Strings of the World, diverting the long River of Destiny, and disturbing the Wheel of Time.
These situations, if put in the silver-haired girl’s terms, are they not precisely 「links」 and 「bridges of fate」.
Prophecy wizards can use this to curse others; could it be that the silver-haired girl’s links have no power of attack?
Letting them produce links in a state of not knowing and not sensing, does this not count as a kind of deception? Can a single line of Gift-Words really dismiss it?
Precisely because Angel had, from her mouth, learned the truth of the so-called links and bridges of fate and clarified these matters, he came to feel that the silver-haired girl was simply…… brainless and ignorant.
If the other side had not raised demands, then Angel might just as well have buried these words in his heart.
But after the silver-haired girl learned that the answer in Angel’s heart was a 「secret」, she still wanted to continue probing and even felt that Gift-Words could exchange for Angel’s secrets; this was the main reason Angel would light the powder keg.
Of course, inside Angel was not as angry as he outwardly appeared. The reason he did this was also to use it to observe the silver-haired girl and at the same time test out her personality, abilities, origins, and bottom line.
The little calculations in Angel’s heart were probably only something the Black Count could see through. Daus and the two apprentices, however, had completely entered into the 「victim」 backdrop that Angel had created.
The more they thought along the direction Angel had raised, the more deeply they empathized.
Their angry gazes fixed deathly upon the silver-haired girl.
The silver-haired girl probably had not thought that Angel would suddenly open fire. Moreover, the words he spoke really had stirred up everyone’s emotions.
The silver-haired girl was not someone who took herself as the center, and she was also attempting to understand Angel’s anger.
In her view, everything was to repay the Wise One’s former kindness, and there were fundamentally no other thoughts. However, this was only when seen from her own standpoint; if one stood on the other side’s standpoint, there really might arise the various negative emotions Angel had mentioned.
Because of such differences in understanding, events that led to everyone turning their backs and leaving one another she had seen countless times in that distant sea filled with all sorts of shattered memories.
Through the manifestation of these memories, she seemed to have come to understand a little why the other side would be so angry.
After hesitating for a moment, she slowly stretched out her hand.
Her slender, fair fingers, through the prism, pointed at everyone.
As her movement began, Daus instantly pulled Vai and Kael behind him; at the same time, Eremy crawled out from within the shadows, and Speedling also stepped to stand beside Eremy, blocking in the very front.
While they were on alert, the silver-haired girl lightly tapped the prism.
The mirror surface was like a lake surface, and it raised wave after wave of ripples.
At the instant the ripples appeared, one figure after another walked out from within the prism.
They were not the silver-haired girl, but rather her three Time Bodies, namely the bard, the astrologer, and the rabbit girl.
After they appeared, the bard and the astrologer each spread open their palms.
Rings of light rippled out from their palms; within these halos there was no energy of attack at all, but instead they displayed all sorts of scenes from when the Black Count, Daus, and the others had previously been answering questions.
These images turned into a stream of flowing light and finally merged into that Elderstone mask being held in the Magic Hand.
Once the halos had disappeared, only then did the rabbit girl step forward; from her carrot satchel she took out a mask and set it before everyone.
This mask was precisely that Elderstone mask with a female appearance carved on it, which the silver-haired girl had been holding in her hand earlier.
After doing all of this, the three Time Bodies disappeared at the same time.
At the same time, the silver-haired girl’s voice echoed by their ears: 「Although links and bridges of fate, for me who am merely a Mirror Shadow, do not have much use and in the end will only sink back into the Mirror Abyss…… yet since you care about their existence, then I shall return them to you.」
「The links have been restored to their original positions, and the bridges of fate have already been severed.」
「And the Two Faces of the Shepherd God are my compensation for my discourtesy.」
Chapter 2776 The Remnant Soul’s Obsession <TOC> Chapter 2778 The Two Faces of the Shepherd God