Chapter 439: Broken Crystals

"I don"t know his name," Rae said. "Not that any of us Verniz people have names in this world."

"We have names, and you know yours,"

"Rae," she said as if testing the name for the first time. "A feeling swells in my chest when I say it," the previously cold and aloft woman said, to Arthur"s amazement.

A strange feeling overtook him as he looked at her. She looked older, no longer the youngster he once knew. She was mature now, forced to mature by this world.

"Maybe I"m the same," Arthur thought as he looked down toward his body. A missing limb, calloused skin, and weary eyes. They were all changed by this world of hardships and battles.

"I still want to know who he is," Arthur repeated his question, and Rae raised a finger to her lips. Then, she turned away from him and looked toward the mansion in the distance.

"I guess not everyone has turned into crystals," she said with a smile before walking into the town.

***

Arthur followed. There was nothing else for him to do because he needed answers to his questions. He looked at the white hair swaying in front of him, tied into a neat ponytail with a black hairband.

"I was sent here to rescue a few Demis and Verniz from being turned into perfumes and aphrodisiacs," Rae began explaining as they made their way through the town. Then, she stopped and turned toward a house that had been turned into crystals.

Her white scarf appeared again, and Arthur couldn"t understand how it had returned, but her memories have not. As far as he knew, an Abyssal Spirit damaged her soul. However, she looked fine, albeit different.

The white scarf turned into a hammer that flew across the air and struck the crystal door, smashing it to pieces. Rae walked inside, and Arthur followed.

"Who... who... who..." a man repeated like an owl as he sat in the corner, his two legs crystallized. Great terror was written over his face, and so was confusion.

"We are here to help," Rae said, surprising Arthur again. However, it seemed she was unaware of the change in her character. "Close your eyes."

"Why..." he asked, but Rae simply stared at his legs. Finally, the man seemed to pick the cue, and he did as he was instructed. Then, her scarf danced around the arm, destroying the crystalized legs of the man.

There were no pained screams, nor were there any surprises. Instead, the man fell on his back with his two legs now gone. He tried to stand up using his arms, but he slipped and fell back before lifting his head to look at his legs.

"My legs... they are gone... how... this is a dream, right?" the man choked on his words, but Rae simply walked toward him and picked him up effortlessly, and placed him on a crystal chair.

"Wait for the rescue team sent by the kingdom," she said before taking out several rations of food and giving it to him. Then, without another word, she walked out, and only Arthur remained with the man.

"Please, my family. Can you find my family? My wife and daughter, they were outside," the man reached out toward Arthur. When he turned to look outside, Arthur could see two crystal statues, with Rae standing in front of them.

"Can they be saved?" Arthur walked outside and asked with hope, but Rae shook her head.

"There is no lifeforce. Their bodies were too weak to resist the magic of the hydra, and they turned into crystals themselves."

"What about the man inside?"

"He was spared because he wasn"t wet, and his body being stronger."

"Do you call that sparing?" Arthur looked back at the man that had hollow and desperate eyes. "He just lost everything."

"Everything other than his life. He can live without his legs, and he can find a new family."

"Your apathy didn"t disappear, it seems," he said, almost in relief. Then, however, Rae snapped her neck at him.

"Your naivety is a first for me," she barked harshly. "This is how the world goes. It has nothing to do with how I feel. His life is a tragedy, but people move on. They need to."

"Are you talking about yourself? Moving on in this world without a name or a past?" Arthur knew that her words were right, but he was too unwilling to accept their loss this easily. He needed to feel sympathy or guilt to be the good person he thinks himself to be, at least inwardly.

"Exactly, and that"s what you need to do too," she said before leaving him and the two statues and walking further into the town.

Rae saved whoever needed saving and chose the difficult choices people had to make. Some survivors were hugging their crystallized loved ones, and they needed to let go to survive. However, they couldn"t bring themselves to let go, and Rae ignored their "idiocy." 

"Where is the hydra?"

"When I arrived here, and probably a lot before that, it disappeared. I believe it used all of its energy, and maybe its lifeforce, to turn everything around it into crystals before hiding. A wise choice."

"It needs to survive, so it did what it had to," Arthur said, and she glanced back at him.

"You sympathize with monsters," she paused, "even though you were just mourning the tragedy they caused."

"The hydra suffered at the hands of humans before it decided to attack back," Arthur said. "There is no good or evil in this world, only the side you are on."

"Maybe you aren"t as naive as you are unwilling to accept life," Rae said as they reached the mansion of the n.o.ble. The aroma of perfumes flew with the wind toward them. "We are here."

"The Lord of Perfumes should be here, right?" Arthur turned toward Rae, who was staring at the high walls of the mansion. "Are you alright?"

"I am," she ma.s.saged her temples before shaking her head. "Just an intrusive memory."

Arthur turned away from her and looked at the crystal mansion. It was a mythical building, a grand feat of both man and nature. However, he couldn"t imagine what kind of memory she was seeing.

If he remembers correctly, Rae knew of his real ident.i.ty before they were sent to Alka. At that time, she revealed that she signed away his a.s.sa.s.sination order before he disappeared from the world as the Saint of the Theocracy of Shon.

"I want to visit that place, ruled by the common blood and the father," Arthur thought to himself as he saw Rae walk into the mansion.

The soldiers have turned into statues, and they walked past them. Their faces were full of wariness, terror, and resolution. All of them were frozen forever, with no signs of life coming out of them.

The hydra"s child is truly the Ruler of Crystals.

The white scarf began to divide until it was countless threads that flew in every direction. Arthur waited without interfering with guiding her, even though he knew the layout of the mansion.

"Let"s go," she said after a few seconds, and Arthur looked at her departing back.

"How much of her powers are back?" he inwardly wondered as they walked into the mansion, following the path he came through a day earlier.

The interior of the mansion, albeit less than the outside, was coated with a layer of crystals. Arthur could see his reflection in the ground, and he was sure that the hydra"s child could become a great interior designer.

As they descended the stairs, which have been spared from the hydra"s powers, Arthur"s flame lit up to grant them vision. Then, finally, they reached the corridors lined with cells of shriveled-up Demis.

"Help me get them out of there," Rae pointed toward the cells, and Arthur looked at her with a puzzled look. "I think the Lord of Perfumes is down here."

After saying that, Rae walked past him, leaving Arthur alone in the corridor. With a defeated sigh, his spiritual energy destroyed the locks on the doors.

Then, a cell after cell, Arthur used his spiritual energy to get the Demis down and out of the rooms, healing them in the process. Finally, his mana has recovered somewhat, and it was enough to use his efficient runes.

After he helped them out, Arthur felt the corridor shake. He looked at the end of the corridor and decided to check on Rae, even though he wasn"t worried.

When he walked into the underground bas.e.m.e.nt, which was lined with many faucets in the walls that dripped perfumes and aphrodisiacs into vials, Arthur got to see Rae and the Lord of Perfumes.

"d.a.m.n you, white slave," the n.o.ble gritted his teeth at Rae as he wiped away the blood from his nose. "You are far too arrogant for a slave!"

A green gas exploded from his body, and Arthur could tell that it was poison. As he was about to use Heal-II to create an antidote gas, Rae walked toward and grabbed the man by the throat.