Chapter 135 The Truth 1
Although his former master's words made Daneel raise his eyebrows, he had already decided that he would take everything the man said with a grain of salt. Still, he couldn't help but agree that this question had been on his mind for a long time.
From everything Kellor had told him about Jonah's character, he knew that he was a man who valued favors highly. Kellor and the academy had helped him grow, and Jonah had apparently always talked about serving Lanthanor to repay everything.
Yet, he had chosen to ally with the church in order to obtain revenge. In fact, Kellor had even asked him to wait for someone like Daneel. Like with Felix, he tried to make Jonah an observer who could pick out potential seeds.
But for some reason, he had still chosen the church.
Getting up from the throne, Daneel motioned for Jonah to lead the way. With the space locked, they had no choice but to traverse the palace on foot.
Daneel had already given the order to empty the corridors. Thus, only the sound of two people walking could be heard in the empty hallways of the Palace of Lanthanor.
Halfway along the route to the secret passageway which led to the Academy, Jonah started talking.
"I guess that from your perspective, it makes sense that I allied with the Church in order to take revenge on that bastard Richard. Indeed, when the Church approached me, I had half a mind to accept their offer due to this exact reason. The other half stopped me."
A wistful expression appeared on Jonah's face as he thought back to that time. His parents, grandparents and his sister had all been taken away from him in a short span of time. Due to heartbreak, his legendary comprehension had slipped down to Red. From all angles, it looked like he would have no chance of obtaining revenge on the King who was the reason for it all.
"I rejected them. No matter how much I yearned for what they offered, I knew that I still owed a debt to the Kingdom which raised me. I wanted to join Kellor and find someone like you who could do good for Lanthanor. In that way, I would be able to both get my revenge and fulfill my dream to serve my nation."
As Daneel heard him speak, he felt the passion in his voice whenever he spoke of Lanthanor.
Indeed, just as Kellor had said, Jonah was a deeply patriotic man.
Yet, this realization only served to make him more puzzled about the reason for him swearing the oath in the end.
They had already gotten to the academy through the secret passageway, so Daneel caught Jonah's shoulder and teleported to the cottage directly.
Seeing the place he had called home for so long, a sad smile appeared on Jonah's face.
Entering, he first waited for Daneel to make his way inside before carefully closing the door.
The cottage was completely empty, as all of the items had been taken to the Palace and checked for clues on Daneel's orders. He had wanted to find some information regarding Jonah's whereabouts, but he hadn't had any luck.
Inside the empty cottage, Jonah first looked around and took everything in, as if reminiscing about all the time spent here.
With Daneel watching on, he walked to a specific corner of the cottage and pricked his finger, drawing a pattern that looked like a shield on the wall. A secret compartment opened, in which lay a hand-sized cylinder-shaped object that looked like it was made of bone.
Taking it in his hands, Jonah walked to Daneel and said, "If you want answers, use your blood to bind it."
By this point, the rage that Daneel had felt before had already subsided.
Although he was puzzled at Jonah's words, he still took the cylinder.
It felt cold to the touch, and no matter how much he tried, Daneel couldn't understand just what material it was made out of. One thing he knew for sure was that it wasn't any metal that he had ever seen since coming to this world.
After dripping some blood on it, the cylinder glowed slightly before absorbing it and turning spotless again in an instant.
[Memory Interface detected. Would host like to enter the memory?]
Hearing this kind of notification for the first time in his life, Daneel was initially a bit startled.
"Yes."
[Beginning memory sync.]
After a few moments, Daneel felt as if someone had used a hammer to hit his head.
His vision blurring, he swung from side to side before finally collapsing to the groud with the cylinder still in his hand.
As the blackness completely covered his vision, the last thing he saw was Jonah walking to another side of the cottage and using his blood to draw a different symbol, which opened another compartment whose contents seemed hazy due to Daneel already giving in to the pull which yanked his consciousness away.
.....
Pain.
As he roused from his stupor, Daneel felt excruciating pain wrack his body, making him wonder whether he had fallen into his former master's trap and had somehow been beaten up.
Yet, as he opened his eyes, he saw a sky filled with smoke.
As the rest of the senses returned to him one by one, Daneel realized that he was clad in some sort of armor. It had numerous holes, and each of these holes were the locations from which the pain was coming from.
Apart from that, horror appeared on his face as it dawned upon him that he could only feel one leg.
Screams of terror resounded in his ears, making him get up to look around.
As he set one arm on the ground as support, it slipped, making him fall back down with a groan.
His hands were covered in some sort of gloves, yet as Daneel brought them to his face, he saw that a red sticky substance coated them completely.
With realization dawning upon him that it was actually blood, he hastily used his other hand to bring his upper body up.
Looking around, he saw that the area was filled with mangled bodies. Pools of blood were already congregating on the hard soil, and Daneel had slipped on one such pool when he had tried to get up.
Looking down, he almost fainted when he saw that his leg was cut off from the knee down. It was a clean cut, and the wound had already been cauterized as if whoever had done the deed had also taken care to close the wound so that he wouldn't die of blood loss.
Regardless, Daneel was already bleeding from the holes in his body. Finding a stick beside him, he somehow propped himself up and ambled forward.
He did not know why he wanted to move. Yet, his instincts told him that he would really regret staying at that location.
Thus, looking around at all the bodies lying around him and hearing the distant screams, Daneel slowly made his way through the blood while taking care not to slip.
He was on a plain, and as he turned his head around, he estimated in his mind that there were at least 10,000 bodies in just his vicinity alone.
With this horrific fact glaring at him, Daneel finally started wondering just what the heck was going on.
The situation and his blaring instincts which had been screaming at him to run hadn't allowed his mind even a moment of idle thought, but even now, those questions halted in his mind as he had just seen something a little ahead which made him use his free hand to rub his eyes.
There was a pile of 3 bodies on top of one another, with the two on top having their heads angled downwards making it so that he couldn't see their faces.
Yet, the body at the bottom lay on its back on the ground, with the eyes still open, staring into the sky.
Stumbling forwards, Daneel fell on the ground beside the bodies and stretched his hand forward to wipe away the soot covering its face. He had to make sure.
With dread, he saw that he had indeed been right.
It was his mother, Maria Anivron.