Chapter 555: The Spark of the Second Act (3)
"Carmen... soon I’ll have to fight another battle, and this time the enemy will be the Church. I’ll be far away, so I need you to stay with Ada and protect her. Stop her if she tries to do anything stupid. Break her legs if you have to, but don’t let her leave your current hideout," Frey said, his face devoid of expression, while Carmen sighed in unease.
"Frey... what Ada needs right now is you, not me. Too many have died already, and if she loses you too, I don’t think she’ll recover from it. Your return is probably all she wants right now."
"You know I can’t do that, Carmen. My presence has become necessary in this war," Frey replied with a bitter smile. Overnight, he had gone from a worthless weakling to the main combatant for the Empire’s side as a whole.
"I know... I really do," Carmen said, a certain memory surfacing in her mind.
"You’ve become like him... like your father."
Just as the father had shouldered the burden of the War of Light, the son now walked the same path in the War of Darkness.
"I suppose it’s a curse placed upon our family," Frey laughed, and Carmen smiled faintly.
"It’s wonderful to become a great man like your father... But don’t die, Frey. Don’t let this war take away the most precious thing you have."
"And what might that be?" Frey asked.
"Your life."
"My life... huh?"
Frey gazed up at the sky, while Carmen pulled out a cigarette and placed it between her lips. She had been smoking a lot lately.
"Given the situation right now, I’d probably take one of those cigarettes from you if I were beside you," Frey said with a laugh, but Carmen shook her head.
"You won’t learn to smoke from me. Find someone else for that."
"I see you still treat me like a child even after all these years."
"You’re nineteen, Frey. You are a child."
Perhaps his power and achievements so far had made some forget the truth, but whether it was Frey, Snow, Sansa... or many others, they were all still just young people at the very start of their lives. It was a cruel reality—burdening them with the weight of an entire war and the fate of countless lives.
Since the beginning of the War of Darkness, hundreds of thousands had already died... whether on the Ultras continent, or within the Empire under the Church’s purges.
"Maybe I really am just a kid... Normally, people my age are supposed to just live their lives—eat, sleep, find a beautiful girlfriend, and live comfortably without the pressures of the world."
"Is that your ideal view of life? Eating, sleeping... and by ’girlfriend’ you clearly mean sex. That sounds very close to how you were before your personality changed."
Carmen wasn’t wrong—Frey had always lived making full use of his privileges, except for the brutal torture he used to indulge in. But whether it was the old Frey or the current one, deep down, they both longed for the same thing.
"I’m a much simpler man than I look. And for the record, I didn’t necessarily mean sex when I mentioned having a girlfriend. Your old brain has clearly gone rotten with perverted thoughts."
"No need to deny it—only gays pretend otherwise."
"And that mindset of yours is exactly why you’re still alone at your age," Frey said with a smirk, before the two fell into silence.
Frey stared at the sky, Carmen focused on her cigarette.
That lighthearted conversation, brief as it was, managed to push away the shadows of war hanging over them... if only for a few minutes, before reality came rushing back.
"I’ll hang up now. It’s time," Frey said, drawing a puzzled look from Carmen.
"You’re not going to call her?"
In response, Frey shook his head.
"I’d rather not. I’d only end up making her suffer more."
Especially once she found out about the raid he was about to undertake.
"That’s... really cruel," Carmen said quietly, as Frey bid her farewell.
"Take care of yourself, Carmen... and of Ada."
Carmen nodded, flicking the last of her cigarette away. They both hung up at the same moment.
"Don’t die... Frey..."
It was the last long conversation they would ever have—both oblivious to what the war had in store for them.
...
...
...
—Frey Starlight’s POV—
"Time to deal with that damned Shadow..."
I made my way back to camp, occasionally checking my body along the way.
That cursed Engineer... Gehrman had been right—in one way or another, the war had shifted so much that I now found myself heading into the Church’s territory.
I was counting on finding the answer to dealing with the Fourth Shadow once I reached that place.
I still remembered the way I’d lost control of myself in the last battle, how that black substance had crept under my skin. Losing control like that would be fatal in the battles ahead, so eliminating the Shadow had become my top priority.
The second problem was Uriel herself.
She was still active on my system’s interface, but I couldn’t see anything through her via the third-person perspective.
That meant she was unconscious, preventing me from spying on her or learning her situation. Considering what the Church had been doing lately, I doubted a delicate girl like Uriel would willingly take part in such acts—even if it was in the name of the being she followed as her god.
In other words, it was possible she’d been attacked or imprisoned by those hypocrites.
Knowing that, there was nothing I could do but hope I wasn’t too late.
Her request from that day still echoed in my mind—she had asked me to save her, and I had promised I would.
"I haven’t forgotten our promise, Uriel."
I’d get her out of that place, even if it meant bringing the whole building down on their heads.
"Wait for me..."
There was little time left before the raid began. When I returned, I’d thought I would be the first to arrive—but someone had beaten me to it.
Sitting alone, staring up at the sky, lost in thought... was Snow.
Approaching him quietly, he turned when he noticed me.
"Frey... you’re back."
I nodded, taking a seat beside him.