Chapter 264: Only Before You, I Refuse to Wear the Mask
“I say, no way.”
Dean Silver looked at Akxia not far away, feeling every strand of its fur stand on end.
What was going on these days? Why did it feel like anyone could casually see through the secrets hidden deep in its heart?
Wouldn’t the ferrets be allowed to live anymore?
“Little Shiya, aren’t you the ‘Death God’? Since when did you secretly learn the ‘Super Intuition’ of the War Chariot Sequence? Isn’t that Little Tina’s ability?”
“Or is it that the Fate Angel Grey I saw back in the Historical Echoes was actually fake, and you are the true Fate Angel, the one who possesses the ability to foresee the future?”
At the side, the girl with her ice-blue hair flowing loose did not respond to Dean Silver’s attempt to change the subject with flippant jokes.
She simply looked quietly at Dean Silver, then slowly lifted her hand.
In the next moment, Akxia’s pale, slender fingers tapped lightly in the air, writing out elegant characters.
“If I’m not mistaken…”
“The one preparing to harm Rast this time is still the same ‘Gravekeeper’ from two years ago, the one who caused him to become a vegetable, isn’t it?”
Ice-blue words were drawn in midair.
The strokes were cold as frost, yet carried faint tremors, as though she was struggling to conceal and suppress some inexplicable emotion.
“On that day two years ago… I knew nothing.”
“I could only watch alone from afar, as he detonated his own Nightblade and Sequence Long Stairs, as he fired that shot… and then just like that, he became someone lying on a hospital bed, a vegetable of uncertain life and death.”
Akxia’s gaze lowered slightly. Her ice-blue strands slid down along her cheeks, crystalline and translucent like falling snowflakes.
“In these past two years, every time I went to visit him in the hospital, every time I saw him sleeping soundly on that bed…”
“In my heart, there always arose a remorse and guilt that could not be put into words.”
“Regret that I didn’t discover everything sooner, guilt that I couldn’t help him at all… that I could only stand aside, powerless, and watch.”
“Unable to do anything, incapable of accomplishing anything.”
She raised her eyes slightly.
“I don’t know what he is going through at this very moment…”
“But this time—”
“I don’t want to be left behind again.”
“I don’t want, like two years ago, to be able to do nothing but watch Rast from afar, unable to help him, unable to do anything.”
Seeing the girl with ice-blue hair beside him, Dean Silver was secretly startled.
It had known her for a long time, and understood quite well the personality of this “Death God.”
Akxia had always been the ice-mountain type of girl: taciturn, unskilled in words. Even when communicating by writing, her style was always terse and concise, never like now, when she poured out a string of long sentences filled with emotion.
Dean Silver lifted its head slightly, gazing into Akxia’s eyes.
In those violet eyes, which had always seemed lifeless like a doll’s, there now burned an emotion so intense that it felt utterly foreign to it.
It was as if something razor-sharp was hidden within, ready at any moment to pierce through the misty haze.
It was only at this moment that Dean Silver realized—
All along, it had somewhat underestimated this “Death God” Sequence girl before it…
Because of her silence and reticence, it had overlooked the weight of the feelings Akxia held in her heart for Rast.
“I understand.”
It nodded.
After pondering for a moment, Dean Silver ultimately chose to admit it.
Putting itself in Akxia’s place, considering it from her perspective… it could also understand her feelings.
To watch someone precious fall into danger, while oneself remained ignorant, powerless to help, able only to watch from afar—that was indeed far too cruel.
“All right, I’ll be honest. Actually, Little Tina and that guy have indeed run into a bit of trouble recently.”
“You’ve now advanced to Legendary, and moreover hold the Star Grail of the ‘Death God’ Sequence… When calculating combat power, it wouldn’t be wrong to regard you as a Quasi-Angel.”
“If that’s the case, then for Little Tina’s Coronation Ritual in a few days… your assistance will indeed be necessary.”
Hearing Dean Silver’s explanation—
In the pale moonlight filtering through the window, Akxia’s murky, lifeless eyes gradually began to brighten.
Looking at the girl whose eyes were becoming luminous, Dean Silver couldn’t help but sigh.
“No choice, this can’t be counted as selling out my teammate.”
“After all, faced with such sincere feelings from a girl, who could possibly bear to let her down?”
Somewhat guiltily, Dean Silver flicked its fluffy big tail.
It couldn’t help but feel that, without meaning to, it had once again added quite a bit of trouble onto that boy.
But then again, that boy was already entangled in countless troubles, and in many complicated relationships with different women… one more shouldn’t make a difference.
…
Nightworld, Mental Image Scenery, the reborn Town of Canaan.
The faint morning light filtered through the window, casting a soft warmth across Rast’s face.
When he opened his eyes again, he found the pillow beside him already empty.
Only the creases left on the sheets, and the neatly folded quilt at the bedside remained, bathed in the sunlight of dawn, still lingering with a faint fragrance.
It was the scent of sandalwood, the fragrance unique to Emis’s hair.
Emis usually rose before six every morning. She would first stew a pot of thick porridge, then carry a small basket around the Town of Canaan to pick fresh ingredients. After returning home, she would take a bath, change clothes, and prepare breakfast for the two of them.
This had been her habit since long before the calamity of Temporal Collapse descended, before Canaan was destroyed… a routine that continued unbroken into the Nightworld illusion, and even now into the newly reborn Town of Canaan, day after day like a machine.
Rast stretched lazily, then sat up.
After washing in the bathroom and changing clothes, he went downstairs.
“Good morning, Little Ai.”
The blonde-haired girl poured milk into their matching glass cups and placed them on the table. “Good morning, Rast.”
Today’s breakfast was milk with sandwiches stuffed with fried eggs and bacon. The bacon slices carried a faint smoky aroma, clearly freshly smoked not long ago.
“Actually, Little Ai, you are the Creator of your own Spiritual World now, the one who made this Town of Canaan.”
“For meals, you don’t need to cook with your own hands at all. With just a thought, any kind of delicacy could be instantly manifested in your Mental Image World.”
Rast had brought this up with Emis many times.
But every time, she only listened quietly, then nodded obediently to show she had heard him.
Yet whenever mealtime came, Emis would still happily hum the folk songs of Canaan while busily cooking in the kitchen.
And when she saw Rast finish every last bite of her cooking, her face would always reveal a deeply satisfied expression.
For this girl, preparing three meals a day for Rast, then watching him eat her handmade food at the table, seemed to be a joy in itself.
Rast sipped milk and ate his sandwich, letting his mind wander.
Using the divinity of the Deep Blue Port’s Evil God as a medium, he sensed through the subtle link between Nightworld and the Present World’s Western Continent, observing its current movements in real time.
By now, several days had passed since the Gravekeepers and various cult groups across the Western Continent had held their secret gathering.
Originally, Rast had only half-jokingly posed as the Lord of Twilight, issuing divine ritual demands to the Iron Cross Cult and that Turncoat.
Yet unexpectedly, that Turncoat had truly taken it seriously.
Renowned chefs from across the Western Continent—whether head chefs of luxury restaurants within the Empire, or chefs from the Holy Kingdom of Fran, the Alliance of Lords, and elsewhere—were all invited to the Granwell Empire’s Imperial Capital under various pretexts like “chef seminars” and “culinary exchange.”
The pretense was a cooking competition and skill-sharing.
But behind the scenes, their actual task was to use every possible method to make those skilled chefs chop meat into stuffing, preparing minced fillings.
“Whoa, they’re making it such a big deal?”
Rast bit into his sandwich and couldn’t help but comment.
He felt that if this kept up, it wouldn’t be long before chefs within the Empire would see their status rise sharply.
Soon enough, perhaps even a culinary academy might appear, governed jointly by the Ten Masters and a Head Chef, where students would duel in cooking battles from dawn to dusk.
“Come to think of it, what I’m doing should count as contributing to the culinary culture of this wasteland called the Granwell Empire, right?”
Rast recalled the so-called “delicacies” he had eaten in the Imperial Capital.
And his evaluation of them could be summed up in one phrase—
“West Lake Vinegar Fish.”
“Hopefully, when the Imperial Princess sees the good intentions behind this, she won’t fuss over such trivial matters as me hiding the fact that I’ve already awakened.”
Rast slowly withdrew his Spiritual Power from the Western Continent, returning once more to the Mental Image World.
There, he noticed the blonde-haired girl had already finished her breakfast at some point.
Emis was now resting her chin on her hand, quietly tilting her head as she gazed at him.
Under her gaze, Rast swallowed the last bite of sandwich, then leaned back comfortably against his chair.
Seeing this, Emis finally let a faint smile appear on her fair face.
“Well then, how would you rate today’s breakfast?”
“Delicious, very tasty.”
“Just that?”
Emis tilted her head. “Rast, honestly, you say the exact same thing every single day.”
“Mm…”
Rast looked at the sandwich wrapper in his hand, thought hard for a moment, and said, “Really, really delicious. Exceptionally, exceptionally tasty.”
“The sandwiches you used to make already tasted very good, but today’s is especially unique.”
“Especially, especially delicious.”
Pfft—
Across the table, Emis let out a laugh she tried to stifle.
“I knew it. Today I used a special seasoning I’d spent an entire week experimenting on… If you’d said it tasted the same as usual, then your taste buds must have been broken.”
She smiled faintly.
“But Rast, you really are as vocabulary-poor as ever.”
“You always used to boast about being the host in the Deep Blue Port’s nightclubs with zero bad reviews, saying every visiting woman praised your service endlessly.”
“And yet in the end… even when you try so hard to think of something to say, this is all you can come up with?”
“As you are now, you’re nothing like that so-called perfect host you described. You can’t even manage the most basic smooth-talking flattery for pleasing girls.”
“Is that so?”
Rast raised his head slightly, pondering the question.
“These differences in me…”
“I think they come from whether or not I’m wearing the Mask of Personality.”
He looked silently out the window at the beautiful little town, bathed in morning light, brimming with vitality.
“If it were during those three hundred years of time loops in Deep Blue Port, or back when I had just left the Historical Echoes and entered Starfall University… then I wouldn’t have minded putting on that false mask of personality, disguising myself as another person—”
“That flawless host, always stunning the crowd upon entrance, winning the adoration and tips of female patrons.”
“After all, glib flattery, no matter how corny, is precisely what women love to hear. Even if they know it’s a lie, know it’s mixed with perfunctory insincerity, no woman dislikes being praised.”
“By wearing that false mask and becoming the perfect actor, I could become more likable, more harmless, more dazzling, and more popular.”
“From a purely pragmatic perspective, that is without doubt the optimal choice.”
“But—”
Rast drew his gaze back from the window, fixing it upon the blonde-haired girl before him.
In his dark eyes now flickered a more earnest light.
“Here, in this Town of Canaan alone… I refuse to wear such a mask.”
“What you see, Little Ai, is the disguised me, the one who hides behind that false mask—”
“This alone, I will never do.”