Several hours had passed since Elliot and I returned. After taking a hot bath and changing my clothes, there was nothing left to do, especially since everyone was sitting alone in isolation with their own thoughts.
So Elliot decided to go sleep... yes, sleep.
I almost wanted to applaud him for that. I mean, who would go to sleep after escaping a nightmare just a few hours ago, even if they were tired and drained from battle?
I doubted Elliot even experienced a nightmare in the first place. He probably just smashed everything apart and forced his way out.
Or maybe the Nightmare Flower left him with something more than that hit... well, he did look at it a few times earlier.
And now I had nothing to do except sit here with my dear and wonderful thoughts like everyone else.
Whether the thing Leona saw was the Devourer or not, there was nothing we could do right now.
... I still didn’t understand what was meant by the vessel as mentioned in the game... what I was supposed to become, perhaps.
Was it the body that would contain the Devourer or something else?
If so, then where was the Devourer now?
And what truly happened in the distant past, whether here on Earth or before that in the world of Aetheron?
The only thing I knew was that the Devourer stepped into the world of Aetheron ages before humanity ever moved there.
And it was also what caused every corpse and remnant of the ancient inhabitants’ bodies to disappear.
Unless they were hidden somewhere we couldn’t find... and I doubted that.
Well, all of this depended on my memories. If they were real... and I doubted that as well.
"Haaah..." I sighed while staring at the storm still raging outside, the world flashing before my eyes.
"I wonder how things are going at the Axis right now."
It had been around a month since we took our mission to investigate Helin, and more than three weeks since our arrival on the Ancient Earth.
Not a short time, but not exactly long either.
If this hadn’t happened, we would’ve finished the theoretical and practical exams before taking our break.
Unfortunately, I had been planning to visit some nice places, wander around, and enjoy myself, but instead here I was getting a free vacation on the Old Earth.
Amazing, right?
It was actually beautiful now... even in the world of Aetheron, you wouldn’t see a shattered moon floating beneath a star-filled sky, nor would you find an ancient and strange city within a stone labyrinth.
Well, maybe you’d find things far stranger than this.
I also wondered how the Axis would deal with our absence. I didn’t mean the investigation, the search efforts, or trying to keep the parents calm.
I meant our spots in class.
As far as I knew, the Axis liked keeping the number of students fixed and making use of every available spot to train the largest number of talents possible, especially in the first year.
So when students died or became incapable in some way, they usually brought in new ones.
Whether by sending invitations to talented students from other academies and stealing them right from under their noses.
Or by finding some kind of replacement.
So it was entirely possible for us to return and find our places already taken.
Not that it really mattered anyway.
Time passed while I kept thinking and thinking in boredom.
I wanted to sleep earlier, but I changed my mind after the battle and all that tension... maybe it was finally time to get up and head to bed instead of sitting here thinking about all this.
With a small push, I stood up and turned away from the storm behind me, only to see someone walking toward me... though I already knew she was there anyway.
Ellen walked over, her black hair falling around her while her red eyes stared at me.
Our gazes met as she nodded slightly, her calm voice echoing out. "Thank you for getting us out of there."
I nodded with a faint smile. "How are you feeling now?"
She walked beside me, passing me until she reached the broken wall, staring outside. "I don’t know... but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for at least a week."
Ellen raised her hands and stretched her slender body in front of me, an unusual action coming from her.
"Haaah..."
She let out a long, comfortable sigh, like someone who had just felt relieved, before lowering her arms.
"Only now do I feel like I’ve truly returned to reality... and that everything is finally over..."
Ellen turned her head toward me, her crimson eyes staring into mine. "By the way, why was Leona awake? I didn’t think to ask her earlier."
I shrugged as I answered, "She couldn’t sleep in the first place, so she avoided all this."
That was the explanation we agreed to give the others regarding Leona being awake. As for Elliot and me, there wasn’t really anything to hide.
Ellen nodded, strands of her black hair moving with her. "How lucky." Her tone carried a hint of jealousy.
Still, she turned her head back toward the outside while I resumed walking away, only for her words to echo from behind me. "Thanks again for that."
"You’re welcome." I replied while continuing toward the room to finally get some sleep, leaving Ellen behind.
It seemed she had changed somehow.
Normally, she probably would’ve said she owed me for this or something similar, but this time she only thanked me.
"Ahhh..." I let out a tired yawn while covering my mouth with my hand.
...
After Caius left to sleep, Ellen sat there at the end of the hallway on the cold edge, letting her legs hang down while balancing herself with her hands against the ground.
Her thoughts drifted back toward the experience she went through a few hours ago.
A chain of nightmares with her older brother at the center of them.
The person who shattered her perception and made her become what she was now... even if she failed to become what she wanted.
It was true that Zen hadn’t killed her father, seized the empire, and waged war to conquer the world, but he had shown her his madness.
That day when she visited him in his palace and saw what he did to his servants and followers, the shy girl she once was shattered.
Her simple dreams shattered as well, replaced by something else.
A goal.
The goal of destroying her brother and preventing him from taking the throne no matter the cost... destroying the very same person she once would have done anything for.
She opened her hand while staring at her palm. Her skin was pale and beautiful aside from a few wounds that were still healing there.
But she wasn’t staring at her hand itself, but at something else... the thing Zen placed within her to stop her from opening her mouth all these years, even after seeing more of his madness.
Or more precisely, forcing her to witness more and more of it... again and again without being able to do anything.
’I don’t understand.’
She didn’t understand when he became like this or how, nor whether her father knew about it or not.
Because no matter how much she thought about it, it was difficult—perhaps impossible—to hide something like this from the emperor himself... especially when it concerned his eldest son.
Ellen didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it.
Train and become stronger?
She had already done that. She gave it everything she had... but it wasn’t enough.
Try to build political connections she could use to achieve what she wanted?
It was a great idea, if only she hadn’t failed at that as well. Not because she lacked ability.
She was simply already too late compared to her older brother.
Perhaps the best connections she had were with this group here. After all, everyone possessed a promising future, whether in power or political influence.
But would that be fast enough?
She knew Zen wouldn’t do something as extreme as in the dream where he directly killed the emperor.
But she was certain of one thing.
If Zen sat upon that throne and seized power, it would become a disaster for the empire... or perhaps for humanity itself.
Ellen stared at the raging storm outside. It was powerful and chaotic... just like her right now.
Sometimes raindrops would reach her and strike her face, causing droplets to run down her cheeks.
She knew her life rested in her brother’s hands. Perhaps he simply didn’t yet have the desire to kill her like he claimed.
’Can I even do anything at all?’
’What if it already ended that day?’
But even with those gloomy thoughts, a small smile formed on her lips while the sound of the wind filled her ears.
"Hmm... this place looks more beautiful than yesterday."