Chapter 117 — In which attempts at sharing but not sharing information are made (1)

  Vern woke up as usual for the last month since his reincarnation.

  With a mild headache, a bloody ghost standing at his headrest — looking at him with as worried gaze as empty eye sockets could muster — and the thoughts.

  Many many thoughts.

  Many questions and not as many answers as he hoped a short respite would bring him.

  He ignored the ghost, turning off spiritual vision so he wasn't distracted by that pleading gaze that felt all too familiar, and started to warm up his stiff body.

  As he approached the desk, numerous drawings caught his eye.

  They were all familiar, yet unfamiliar faces.

  His siblings, with their reborn appearances, so different yet also extremely similar. Like leaves of the same trees.

  And the man he had lost.

  Was his face the same or different? He couldn't be sure.

  But for some reason all of them seemed to give him accusatory looks.

  He knew what they were angry about and what they would say to him.

  'Am would frown and quietly cuss seeing me and then incidentally leave a sleeping incense burning. Saf would bring a spreadsheet about benefits of sleep, and when I get distracted by correcting it, she would knock me out by force.'

  Vern chuckled to himself.

  Then he turned to the portrait of the man.

  He wasn't sure how he would react, what he would say or do.

  Their relationship never reached the point where they could openly express worry about each other.

  But then this time...

  He pushed those thoughts aside, as he grabbed the drawings and destroyed them.

  It would be bad if someone saw them, as by any account all those people were potential enemies of the state.

  Destruction complete, Ver instead turned to the notes he made before taking a nap.

  After watching all the records of the surveillance during the ceremony, he noted down three main concerns.

  1. Strange ritual of the Sun and Day Temple's priests.

  2. Wax dolls in likeness of Flavun's envoy, which moved with uncanny precision (simple magic puppets didn't have such capabilities).

  3. Assassination attempt on Crimo's life using a sun god relic.

  If any of those points got out to the public or were successful, a war would be inevitable.

  '... I didn't do anything to stop it.'

  While Saf and the leader of Purplus' envoy dealt with the priests and ritual, Am and Sangria prevented Crimo's assassination.

  As for the second point, the wax dolls' antics were dealt with by their subordinates and his cat.

  In all this time what Vern did was walk around, chasing after people, who looked familiar, and then just dealt with one bomb.

  The bomb wouldn't even work frankly speaking.

  Vern and Crimo expected the mages, who were dissatisfied with Archmage starting to put pressure on them, to express this disaffection somehow and prepared thorough defenses against any terrorism attacks.

  What they didn't expect was having to deal with antics of other states.

  Crimo, because he didn't expect them to be this bold and brash.

  Vern, because in part of his heart he still thought about Flavun and Purplus as led by his siblings and their supporters.

  'I must not repeat that mistake.'

  Especially now, when he saw the traces of his greatest enemy and probable cause of his and his siblings' death, as clear as day.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Vern never shared the bizarre theory he had with his siblings, but he suspected they had similar thoughts at least once.

  What if there was a being that could exist only in people's minds?

  What if that being was the same being that more than 400 years ago tied all souls in this land to the living world and imprisoned them in metallic constructs in the name of preventing death?

  '...This bastard really is still alive, huh?'

  His eyes shined like doom-spelling death stars.

  Ominous and cruel.

  Ver was someone who held grudges for a long — very long — time.

  It was a few hours later when Sangria knocked and entered Vern’s room.

  Sangria — who should have gotten some sleep — looked a bit disheveled and distracted, many thoughts weighing on his mind.

  He still looked much better than Vern, who had almost no sleep.

  And the man was quick to point it out.

  “Young Master, I believe we had an agreement.”

  “And what would that agreement be?”

  “That both me and Young Master Vern would take a break and get some sleep after all the excitement of yesterday.”

  “I’m afraid that Master Sangria misunderstood. The agreement was that you and your adoptive siblings would go to rest and wouldn’t have to do all those tiresome follow-up reports.”

  Sangria stared at Vern for a moment, then very slowly said.

  “I’m worried.”

  “… Yes?”

  “I was assigned to look after Young Master’s health, but even though the curse was lifted, Young Master seems to look worse day by day. Your skin seems to be more gray than brown, the eye bags under your eyes seem to be getting bigger, your bones seem to be protruding more and more… If Young Master looks even a little more dead, won’t Lord Archmage execute me for treason?"

  “Ah… Don’t worry, Master Sangria. I’ll explain to Crimo that it’s part of the beauty I wish to express to the world.”

  “Beauty?”

  Vern leaned against the backrest of his chair, revealing a neck so thin, the cartilages of trachea seemed to be visible.

  “There are some people, who enjoy this type of sick noble beauty. I’m simply serving to their taste.”

  Sangria was deadly silent for a moment and then asked with a voice devoid of any inflections.

  "Excuse my ignorance, Young Master, but who would be into a corpse?"

  Master Sangria was truly a cold-blooded creature.

  *-*-*

  The morning after the coming-of-age ceremony of the Lesser Lord Mage Vern, Phlox was met with an unexpected scene.

  All this time — a month — she spent at the Universe Temple taught her one certain thing about the Saint of Purplus.

  He loved working.

  No. He was obsessed with it. Like deer desperately running away from wolves.

  Perhaps that’s why, even though the head priest Rasin held actual executive power, Amara was still deeply entrenched in state management.

  He was the voice that stated and taught the rules to the people, the advisor who all important figures came to for advice, and the consultant numerous people were opening hearts to.

  Before entering the Universe Temple, Phlox believed that Amara had no interest in human affairs and was turning a blind eye to the rot that was eating away at the state of Purplus.

  But upon meeting him, she realized that not only he was deeply aware of the problems, he was carefully watching for the opening to turn this current status quo upside down.

  Therefore, finding him vacantly gazing at blue hydrangeas, letters and documents left unattended was most shocking.

  Phlox briefly worried if during her short trip to Rubrun, the Saint wasn’t cursed.

  You never knew what those sly mages had in their sleeves.

  But when cold purple eyes turned to her and a graceful hand gestured for her to take a seat, she quickly pushed her thoughts aside and got into her role.

  Her current objective was to appear to desperately try to get unmoved, cold Saint to look into the corruption hiding in the shadows.

  Seeing Amara’s gaze returning to hydrangeas, she struck up the conversation.

  “May this priest ask what is on Your Excellency’s mind?”

  Amara’s gaze turned to her.

  He seemed to be searching for something in her gaze and demeanor, and then said:

  “I’m thinking about flowers.”

  *-*-*

  Amara spent the night rather sleeplessly to great sorrow of many gods.

  That couldn’t be helped.

  The excitement of seeing his siblings, the assassination attempt on Archmage’s life and strange-to-be-coincidence death of the throne ruler of Flavun all kept him from sleeping, no matter how much he tried.

  There were many things Amara thought about that night.

  But there was one thing that kept coming back to him no matter how much he tried to push it aside.

  Was that person he met, the same person he lost?

  In the first moment after meeting him, the feeling of exaltation at seeing and hearing something so familiar clouded his judgment.

  But as his head cooled down, doubts crept in.

  Was it really possible?

  Wasn’t his soul and body completely destroyed that day?

  Even if by some miracle he was the reincarnation of the love he lost, was it still the same person?

  Or was it a new person, familiar, but different?

  Where one person ended and new began?

  “I’m thinking about flowers.”

  So he answered to Phlox’s question like this.

  "Flowers?"

  Phlox glanced at the blue hydrangeas, seeming to try to recall their symbolic meaning.

  But the Saint wasn’t thinking about simple worldly matters.

  "Each year when the winter comes, they all die. Yet some of them sprout again from the ground when spring comes around."

  Amara paused for a moment, reminiscing on the conversation he had with Ver once.

  "Someone once told me that it was because the root under the soil remains alive. It sprouts when the ice lets go and warm winds blow. Therefore, as it comes from the same root, has the same appearance and the same elements at its foundation — it's the same flower."

  When Amara fell silent, Phlox hesitated a moment and then asked:

  "Do you agree with it, Your Excellency?"

  "... I'm not sure. Are they really the same? If the flower doesn't die and braves through the harshness of the winter, would it be the same as the flower that died and sprouted again? But as the flower can only be one or the other, dead or alive, we'll never know for certain if there is a difference."

  Phlox seemed to consider it for a moment.

  Some emotions flickering in her eyes, before being quickly covered up.

  "... Perhaps. But for the viewer who saw the flower die, the reborn flower will be unmistakably different — for they are now a whole winter apart."

  "You think that the viewer’s perception affects the truth of the flower's existence, Miss Phlox?"

  "Whether 'truth' exists or not, it has no bearing on our relationships to things, does it?"

  Amara thought about it, tilting his head, as he gazed at the hydrangeas.

  ‘That’s true… Ultimately, I have no way of knowing the truth of existence. What matters is what I think of the person I’m looking at.’

  He picked up a fragile, slightly damaged flower from among the shrubs and twirled it in his fingers.

  Amara put it at the side of the tea cup Geod just served him, and said with a smile:

  “I think I’m in a mood to fall in love.”

  Clang!

  Geod almost dropped the tea pot.

  Phlox’s tea cup wasn’t so lucky.

  *~*~*