Chapter 1080 The Clues
[Target is in the midst of healing their consciousness. As claimed, there is a high possibility of all memories being reclaimed, as the consciousness would spring back to its perfect form. Spell being used for healing is one that has not been witnessed before. Recording for future use.]
Even after all these years, you still surprise me.
Looking at the Emperor on the floor whose expression was one of peace, Daneel got up and began to walk to and fro in front of the throne.
If any of his sovereigns were here, they would have been able to guess right away that he was extremely concerned about something, as it was something he always did in such situations. He could not share this news with them, though, at least right now, as he first had to figure out everything himself.
By now, he had had enough time to recover from the shock that he had been subjected to.
After a few seconds, deciding that walking would not help, he sat back on the throne and entwined his fingers below his chin before recalling the line of thought that had made him call upon the Emperor in the hope that he might possess any answers.
The first thing he had done after returning to the continent about half an hour ago had been to go back in his memories to that very first point when he had transmigrated to this world. He went through almost each and every moment painstakingly, looking for any clues that might indicate the reason behind the Basilisk wanting to kill him.
At first, because he had started from too early a point, he had found nothing, but slowly, like tracks beneath a bush, clues had started to emerge.
He kept noting them down even though they seemed almost like far-fetched conspiracy theories, and when he was done, he sat down and looked at the list.
Just a single glance at the length of it was enough to let him know that he was on the right track.
The earliest clue was also the most subtle. Hence, he had begun with that, with an attempt to flesh it out as much as he could in an attempt to lend it credibility.
He still vividly remembered his first encounter with the TriCobra sect. What had seemed like just a normal meeting place had turned out to be a den of vipers that had abducted him and almost ended his tale, then and there. It was only luck and the tendency of those powerful to ignore the ones much weaker than them that had allowed him to keep his life, and to this day, he cursed the foolhardiness that had landed him in that situation.
After he had become the King, the Church and the TriCobra sect had come together to storm the Palace and take control of the Kingdom that they had been working on for a considerable time. At that point, both of them had had trump cards which Daneel had been able to negate, but looking back on it, if the Basilisk really did have an oath to the Emperor that she had wanted to fulfill, then why had she not deployed more resources and tried harder to bend Angaria to her will(assuming that she might have wanted to help Angaria by taking control of it)?
She had lived on the continent, and hence, she must have known of the existence of the Order. So, it definitely could not be said that she had underestimated the power that was present here and had sent only the weakest of forces that could have been killed right away if the Order had decided to step in.
He had checked the records, and the decisions made by the Order had been visible to him: they had seen that the forces that had come to the continent were weak and had decided to study them both and step in only if it seemed as if they were on the brink of destruction. Daneel had successfully managed to chase them off, so they had decided not to expose themselves. The same decision had been taken in the Big Four, too, in regards to the TriCobra Sect, at least.
Taking into account what was happening now, Daneel landed on one very important point: it was most probable that no such oath existed, and that the Basilisk had only come up with that in order to justify her sudden interest.
True, it was possible that she had forgotten the oath thinking that the Emperor had died, and it was only after detecting that he was alive that she had decided to make good on it, which was exactly what she had claimed. However, if that were the case, didn't the fact that she had forgotten it until then prove that she was someone who didn't care about oaths? If so, why would she care about it now?
Any way he looked at it, something was wrong with the entire thing, which indicated to him more and more that he should have done this kind of research sooner.
The next major item on the list was the words uttered by the manager of the Treasury of the Gods.
When he had told that entity about his collaboration with TriCobra sect, it had been tremendously taken aback. In fact, now that he looked back on that conversation, he saw that it was one of the rare moments of emotion amidst the flatness that he had seen from the entity for the most part, so that gave him a big clue that the amount of surprise that it must have felt was not small, at all.
It had spoken about how the attitude and personality of the Basilisk must have changed if this was happening, but when Daneel recalled those words now, the very notion seemed laughable. The Basilisk had already lived for hundreds of years before it left the continent of Angaria, so how could anyone expect that such a change would occur magically later on?
The third major clue was the one that seemed the most like a conspiracy theory, but because his instincts had been telling him that he was on the right track, he had not been able to ignore it.
At that moment in time when he had made Xuan speak that prophecy, he had been busy with making sure that the ruse went well, so he hadn't had the time to make a perfect note of the reaction of the Basilisk.
He had had the system play it back to him, and that was when he saw it.
At that moment, the Basilisk's eyes had been filled with dismay and shock. Because it was a major emotion, he had noticed it then, too, but he had imagined that it must be what she was feeling due to the reveal of her force facing some great danger in the future.
Now, though, on looking at it again, he could see that those eyes had been directed at him, instead of inward or elsewhere, as should be expected if she was thinking of her followers.
No… his gut was telling him that it was dismay because of the fact that she might have to change her plans, and now that her absurd bloodthirstiness was revealed, it seemed very, very possible that he was right.
During all this reasoning, Daneel had paused to ask himself whether there was a point behind all of it. He knew that she was an enemy now, so did it matter that he understood her motives?
The answer had come right away: it was actually extremely important. Only by understanding her could he try to guess her plans, and only by doing that could he even hope to change the situation to be more helpful to him, and Angaria.
The last piece of the puzzle was the Emperor. After analyzing all of these things, he had gone to the root of the problem and seen that the reason behind her desire to drink his blood must stem from something that must have happened when she still resided on the continent. If so, only the Emperor could know of this.
He had already checked the memories that he had been given by the remnant of consciousness left behind by the man, but in them, there was no mention of the Basilisk, at all, except for a few of the earliest instances where he had met her. Perhaps this should have warned him most of all, but he had ignored it, thinking that the man must simply have deleted the memories as he might have thought that they needed to be hidden, just like he had decided to do the same for a few other things.
Waiting for this last piece to reveal itself, Daneel brooded on the throne while staring at the man.
An hour passed with still no change, but ten more minutes after that, Fenoras suddenly sprung awake and turned to Daneel with an expression of fear mixed with horror on his face.
He quickly got up and began to speak, and even though the words that were spilling out of his mouth were uttered in a tone of panic, Daneel listened to them with a smile that belonged to a detective who solved a murder that had left no clues.
\"I… I remember it all, now! She was a traitor! She wanted to sell Angaria to our foes! She can't be trusted! We have to get rid of her, now! NOW!\"