Chương 79: Do You Want to Remember?

After the elf finished the tale of Adlon and Farryn, I sat there wondering how could those people in the Afterport be so fucked up. I already knew the Afterport was crawling with awful people, these so-called gods and goddesses who toyed with the fates of entire worlds like it was a mere simulation game. Granted, I'd only met three of them, but of those three, two were already lunatics. I'd never met Verdelia, of course. Still, she had to be Afterport too.

How she'd come to have influence over Lycora, though, was a question I'd need to check with Nyx or Greg later.

"So... Ladon's the threat Silvanis is dealing with?" Lunessa asked.

"I thought it just guarded the tree." The elf's face fell, showing a dismay I couldn't quite make sense of. She kept insisting the story was real, sure, but all of it had happened lifetimes ago. Had she gotten attached to it somehow, due to telling the story or hearing it too many times?

"It did, but lately, Ladon's grown unstable." The elf's voice dropped.

"For three centuries it did nothing at all. And in this past year alone, it's killed close to ten of us."

"Were they trying to steal the golden apples?" Lunessa pressed.

"N-no. No one's dared touch that tree since Farryn's incident was made public."

"How did it become public?" Evelisse asked.

"From what I've heard, Verdelia came to the elder in a dream, afterward, and commanded him to announce it to everyone." The elf's expression pinched.

"It was... a wretched thing to witness, by all accounts. Farryn, weeping on the platform, while the elder recited every detail of it, of how she'd betrayed the goddess." Oh, hell. That was just straight-up evil; The poor woman had lost everything already, and Verdelia paraded her grief in front of the whole kingdom. If I ever met this Verdelia crackpot, I might just deck her across the face.... Assuming she didn't turn me into a monster first. Which got me thinking, does Lulu have that kind of power too?

Because that would be absurdly broken. Then again, there had to be limits. The Eye of Love only worked on Lycora natives, after all. If these lunatics could just transform anyone and everyone into their personal monster-servants whenever the mood struck, the whole world would already be extremely chaotic. Evelisse's face softened with sympathy, then shifted, like a thought had caught her.

"If Ladon's genuinely becoming more... unhinged," she said slowly, "then why hasn't Verdelia done anything? Her own people are in danger." The elf's mouth twisted in frustration.

"The goddess hasn't shown herself in over a hundred years." Shit, so it was that situation; the one where somebody got reassigned to a different department, or their position got dissolved, or they simply stopped giving a damn, and the person-in-charge just... vanished, leaving a mountain of mess behind and nobody to clean it up. Except in this case, the mess had a real body count. The more I heard, the more messed-up it all got, and judging by the room, I wasn't alone in thinking so.

Evelisse, Lunessa, and Mel all wore the same grim, unsettled look. Nyx, though... was different; she looked lost in thought. I couldn't tell what part of the story had done it, but she'd gone somewhere far off, brow furrowed like she was wrestling with some impossible equation in her head. I doubted she'd registered a single word of the conversation since.

"But who made the prophecy, then?" Mel asked.

"If it wasn't the goddess." A very fair question.

"One of the elders. Around fifty years ago." The elf shrugged.

"He dreamed of a voice with no shape, telling him to write it down." That was pretty shady, but it wouldn't be a stretch to guess someone in the Afterport had set this up. Fifty years ago, though? That was one hell of a lead time. What kind of game did you have to be playing to need a plan that long?

"So we just have to slay Ladon to fulfill the prophecy?" I asked.

"Is there any other way to stop its rampage? I feel bad about having to kill the guy." Because that was the thing. Going by the elf's story, Ladon was just some poor bastard caught in a mad goddess's tantrum. A guy who wanted nothing more than to be with the woman he loved, and got tortured for it. And who knew? His mind might still be trapped somewhere inside that monster. Maybe he was forced to watch every death it caused, powerless to stop a single one.

A man locked inside a mindless killer's body, no control over any of it.

"Ladon can only be slayed by a weapon of pure holy power, or pure darkness. Nothing else would work." The elf paused.

"As for another way to fulfill the prophecy, that's a question for the elder. I don't know of one, personally." So... the Mooncleaver, or my sword? The Hell's Sword? But hold on, the prophecy said the savior would come from the dark. So why would the Mooncleaver even be an option? If I really was the prophesied one, then holy power was completely off the table for me. I'd evaporate before I even finished swinging the thing. Shit. This was already more tangled than I'd assumed.

"In any case, we'll need to consult the elder before deciding anything," the elf said.

"You may well not be the prophesied one at all." She stretched.

"Now, if there are no more questions, I'd like a nap." And with that, she wandered off toward her room. The afternoon passed with a fairly normal lunch, Lunessa marveling the entire time at how convenient the cookstove was. Afterward, everyone drifted off to their rooms, and I, still the only person in my own kingdom without one, ended up flat on the rug by the fireplace again. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

If everything had gone to plan, Astrea should have spread word of the Hero's defeat by today, which meant a fresh surge in my Terror Level was coming. It would also mean Astrea had kept its end, and we'd be returning the two hostages, who'd also just had lunch, back home. Nyx would finally be rid of the strangers in her room, and I'd finally be free of gassing them unconscious every single day. With everything piling up at once, these last few days had felt far longer than they should have.

But at least after today, we'd be off to Silvanis. There'd be no shortage of trouble waiting there, but at least it was progress. If I could fulfill the elves' prophecy, ideally without having to kill poor Ladon, then maybe they'd help us against that douchebag Ywain. And after all that... maybe I'd just ditch the Dark Lord gig entirely and live as an adventurer. With the balance system gone and Ywain out of the picture, there'd be nothing forcing my hand anymore, right?

I might keep the title, sure, but at that point, convincing the Church I meant no harm, the way Evelisse had suggested, didn't sound so far-fetched. Come to think of it, had Evelisse decided whether to tell Lunessa and Mel about the isekai and Afterport business? I'd have to ask her. Neither of them had shown the slightest hint of knowing yet. And then there was Nyx. Cold again, out of nowhere. The last real conversation we'd had was yesterday, when she'd told me what I was cleared to share with Evelisse.

At lunch just now she'd eaten in total silence, washed her own dishes without a word, and retreated straight to her room the second she was done. It was strange, and Evelisse had picked up on it too, ever since dinner last night. I'd promised her I'd sort things out with Nyx, but how was I even supposed to start? Tomorrow was going to be hectic, and once we were on the road, camping out in the open and all that, I might not get a single moment alone with her. So it had to be today. Or, now. Dammit.

Looked like I was going to have to be the annoying one and knock on Nyx's door yet again. I shut my eyes and braced myself for it. She might slam the door in my face and flat-out refuse to talk, but I couldn't afford to lose my nerve now. She was getting harder to read by the day, and this couldn't keep dragging on. If she wanted to smack me for it, then fine, so be it. It had been a while since she'd last hit me anyway. I could probably take one. I opened my eyes.

Nyx was standing right over me, glaring down, arms crossed, one brow arched like I'd personally wronged her by simply existing on the floor. I scrambled to keep my eyes fixed firmly on her face and absolutely nowhere else.

"Wha—""We need to talk, pig-brain." Instead of her room, we ended up outside the house, on the same log we always used at dinner. Maybe she'd wanted fresh air for whatever she meant to say, or maybe she just didn't want to risk wrecking her room due to the possible irritation from speaking with me. I couldn't tell. But instead of sitting across from me the way she usually did lately, Nyx sat right beside me. These little... acts of intimacy, if that was even the word, always threw me off.

It felt like she's always the one in control; I could never quite tell when she was furious, or just being strangely, unnervingly normal. For a while, neither of us said anything. The breeze was good, at least; it was cool, carrying the smell of the forest, tugging at the grass in slow waves. I fixed on it, mostly to have something to do that wasn't sitting in the silence. Why isn't she saying anything? Should I say something? Break the ice, or—wait, since when do we need ice broken?

Have we always been this stiff with each other?

"I-I'm sorry," I said. I'd meant to say something to ease the tension. An apology came out instead. Nyx blinked, caught off guard.

"Huh? What?"

"For... being so pushy. About asking you things."

"Oh, that." She looked away.

"W-well. Good. It was pretty annoying."

"And thanks. For helping me out with the Greg stuff."

"... What's gotten into you?"

"What?"

"Trying to sound all sincere. It's cringe." The heck? She'd gone weirdly quiet after saying she wanted to talk, so I tried to break the ice, and now the ice-breaking was cringe? It might've been cringe, sure, but it was still an effort.

"Hey, I was just trying to be polite. You've been a bit weird lately, like, on and off. Sometimes you feel... distant."

"And is that a problem?" Her voice sharpened.

"You've got your dear Evelisse. Why would you care whether I'm distant or not?"

"B-because it just felt weird, okay?" The words came out clumsier than I wanted.

"If you'd stayed the same, it'd be fine. But you keep... shifting. I can't get a read on you."

"Why do you even need to get a read on me, you creep? When you first showed up here, you told me you wanted me acting like a proper assistant. That's exactly what I've been doing. So what is it you want now?"

"I just—want you to be you. Right now it feels like I did something wrong and you won't tell me what."

"This is me, Milo." Her eyes flashed.

"I don't know what version of me you've cooked up in that perverted head of yours, but deciding that's the only me I'm allowed to be, that's weird, and rude, and a genuinely idiotic way to think." Crap, she was right.

"Or maybe you'd like me to go back to slapping and kicking you around?" she added.

"I'm happy to oblige, if you don't mind losing what's left of your dignity in front of Evelisse."

"N-not the slaps, please." I held up my hands.

"They'll think you're abusing me and that I'm some kind of masochist. Which I'm not, for the record." Nyx huffed out something that was almost a laugh, and I took that as a step in the right direction. I'd nearly torpedoed the whole thing, but luck was apparently on my side.

"Look. I just... want to help, Nyx." I tried to keep my voice even.

"Lately you've had this look, like there's some problem you can't solve, and I don't think it's good for you." She said nothing.

"I know you told me there's nothing I can do about it. But these past few days, I think I've been okay? I wouldn't claim I'm fully competent or anything, but I should be reliable enough for some things by now."

"I already told you." Her voice flattened.

"It's not something you can do. Period."

"Not even the current me?"

"Especially the current you."

"... What does that even mean? Are you on some kind of time limit with it?"

"No. It's just something you have no power over."

"Then can you at least tell me? Even if I can't do anything, maybe getting it out would help. Make you feel a little better." Nyx went quiet.

"Nyx, whatever it is, it's eating at you. You keep disappearing into your own head lately. I'm worried that one of these days, something bad's going to happen to you because of it."

"And why would you care about that?" Her voice cracked, just barely.

"Just—just let me be. I'm nobody to you anyway."

"You're not a nobody to me, Nyx." Something shifted in her face.

"I told you this before. You've helped me more than I can count. You saved my life. Sure, I whined the whole first few days, but you stuck around anyway. We might not be great at whatever it is we're doing, but we're figuring it out. Together." I pressed on before I could lose my nerve.

"You risked your job and your life for me, more than once. You can call it dodging a pay cut or whatever you want, but reasons aside, you did it, and I appreciate that." I looked at her.

"We had a rough start, but with how things are now? I'd say we make a pretty good team. So... no. You're not a nobody to me." Nyx looked at me, and her eyes had gone glassy, which I didn't expect, because I was fairly sure that little speech had been cringe and not remotely inspiring. Her mouth opened, like she was about to say something. Then she thought better of it, and looked away, down at the grass.

"W-whatever." Her cheeks had gone faintly red.

"It's not like I care what you think of me."

"But—""Enough." She cut me off.

"It's my turn now. We haven't even gotten to the thing I actually wanted to ask you." Oh, right. She'd been the one to say we needed to talk, and I'd gone and slipped into full anime-protagonist mode with that stupid speech. Nyx was quiet a moment. Her lips moved slightly, soundlessly, like she was running through a line she'd rehearsed. Then she drew a slow, deep breath.

"If you could remember your past lives," she said, "would you?".... What's with these difficult questions lately?