Ch.96Twins (3)

Llewellyn’s face was expressionless. But it wasn’t that he truly felt nothing.

He didn’t realize it, but he had adopted some of Isla’s habits while thinking about her.

Llewellyn thought expressionlessly about his mother, that entity.

As for his father, even when he heard about him again after arriving in Netel, it wasn’t completely unfamiliar.

In the game, the existence of the father wasn’t something entirely hidden.

So he vaguely knew that his father was a god, or something equivalent to one.

He had even thought that perhaps his father was an ancient sage who created the three tribes and then committed suicide in despair.

He had a vague understanding of the power his father wielded, and Llewellyn had even considered how he might apply that power if he ever obtained it.

But his mother?

He knew nothing about his mother until he heard about her recently.

What kind of being she was, what powers she possessed, whether she even existed at all.

He didn’t even know if she was an enemy or an ally. And there was a reason for that.

His mother was something never mentioned, neither in the game nor in Netel, which had become reality.

No one knew of her existence, and those who did kept silent.

Since even Llewellyn knew nothing about her, it seemed clear that Lucilla might have a vague outline at best, but no details.

Perhaps that’s why Llewellyn didn’t take it seriously when he first heard the term “vessel.”

At most, he thought she wanted to do something in the world through his body, that perhaps there was room for negotiation.

That arrogantly naive notion was shattered. Llewellyn met Selma’s eyes as she looked at him.

His mouth opened involuntarily.

“What did this being called ‘Mother’ want?”

Selma’s eyes scanned Llewellyn before turning to her sister. A faint anxiety had seeped into her gaze.

“I knew she bestowed power without asking for anything in return. But… it didn’t seem that way with me.”

“Really?”

“When I fought you, when I was trapped in that armor… ‘Mother’ approached me. She imprisoned me.”

Llewellyn hesitated briefly. Was it okay to talk about this?

Would they believe him?

The deliberation didn’t last long. Llewellyn made his decision.

“I came from another world.”

“…Another world?”

“You don’t seem to be joking.”

“I’m not. This is about my soul, not my body. I’m a soul from another world. A world completely different from here.”

“So what? Even if you ask if Mother brought you here, I can’t answer. I don’t know.”

Selma’s response was a bit sharp. She thought he was telling an irrelevant story.

But Llewellyn cleanly ignored the displeasure from her tone. Ignoring minor issues was one of his strengths.

“No, you don’t need to answer that. I’m already certain.”

Selma’s eyes widened. Llewellyn spoke expressionlessly under her gaze.

“The space where ‘Mother’ imprisoned me was the school I attended. More precisely… the place where I stayed every day after school following my sister’s death.”

The image of Llewellyn searching for his sister immediately after waking up flashed through Isla’s memory.

That was the first thing she had heard from him. Isla thought Llewellyn looked somewhat forlorn.

“I hated that place. I wanted to go home. But I couldn’t because people thought there was something wrong with my emotional state. They were afraid I might do something if left alone. That’s why I hated it there.”

“…Then what you’re saying is.”

“If Mother knew about that place, it means she was watching me even before bringing me here.”

As he spoke, Llewellyn solidified his thoughts.

It was definitely Mother who brought his sister and him here.

“She must have brought me here with the intention of making me a vessel from the beginning. I don’t know why she had to do that specifically.”

“I do know.”

Now it was Selma’s turn. She turned her head to look at the blue lake stretching out in the distance.

“Mother is that kind of being. For example… if she wants to get rid of something, she prefers to instill as much fear and despair as possible while the being is still alive before doing so. She prefers to eat offerings while they’re still alive.”

Llewellyn’s brow furrowed. An expression of disgust and revulsion.

That’s a relief. Selma concealed her true thoughts.

“Is Mother trying to be born for that purpose?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly, but it’s probably not a complicated reason.”

Selma recalled the first time she encountered the being called Mother.

The pleasure she had derived from following her as if entranced had long since disappeared.

Now it felt like emptiness.

“Rather, many follow her precisely because they don’t understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“They all desire pure chaos and malice. Whether they’re desperate about life or experienced some event, I don’t know…”

With a soft laugh, Selma seemed to be saying that she herself had no such reason.

Even from what he’d heard so far, that was clear. Llewellyn was about to ask why she followed Mother, but—

“Mother is the world. You could say she’s the will of the world. But the world isn’t Mother.”

“What?”

“Something that constitutes this world but can’t be said to be the entire world. What could that be?”

Llewellyn thought about Selma’s words.

The sea makes up most of the world. At least, Earth was like that. So it wasn’t that, image-wise.

Mountains?

Mountains are essentially the earth. If the earth isn’t most of it, what is?

Similarly, it’s not the sky either. The sky is vast and covers the world.

So the things he thought of quickly diminished in size.

People, beasts, madmen, wizards, magic—various things came to mind until Llewellyn finally spoke.

“The forest.”

“You have insight. Excellent. I really want to take it from you.”

“Don’t even dream of it.”

She wanted to take even that expression of irritation from him. Regretting that she wouldn’t have the chance, Selma smiled.

“Mother is the forest.”

Llewellyn nodded at the explanation that followed. It meant continue. Selma spoke calmly.

“You’ll see when you look.”

“What…”

“That endless vitality, lawlessness, the mixture of order and chaos, and… the appearance.”

After saying this, Selma poked her cheek with her index finger.

“I suppose the appearance is most important, right?”

A statement whose meaning was incomprehensible. Llewellyn frowned, but Selma said no more.

It was more like she couldn’t speak further.

“Anything else you want to ask?”

“How do you think she’ll emerge?”

“She’ll try to reclaim the vessel no matter what. She’ll send capable and trustworthy minions.”

Selma then looked at Llewellyn. A being who could shake off Mother’s influence.

Someone with superhuman mental strength, who seemed unassuming.

“If that’s difficult, she’ll interfere and try to capture you by controlling you.”

“What happens if I’m caught?”

Llewellyn’s question was actually the fundamental one that had been floating around in his mind all along.

Vessel, birth.

How does Mother come to be born from the vessel?

Selma had anticipated this question.

“Will she cut open my stomach and come out? Or like a baby being born—”

“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s different from that.”

Selma cut off Llewellyn’s words and said no more.

Her attitude suggested it was difficult to explain. When Llewellyn stared at her blankly, she nodded.

“But I’ll try to summarize it. So you can understand as clearly as possible.”

She retraced her steps with wide strides.

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

Llewellyn followed Selma cautiously, but she did nothing.

Not even until the moment her cell door finally closed.

Only when the black knights had left and the guards had distanced themselves did she sigh, leaning against the bed.

She was ruminating on a not-too-distant past.

It was a dream she had vaguely seen before waking up.

In that dream, Selma was a kind and capable younger sister.

A little girl who went hunting with her sister and fell asleep every night under the same leather cover on the same bed.

The sisters were complete together.

The same hair, the same face, even the same build.

Their abilities were also similar. What the older sister could do, Selma the younger sister could do too, and what Selma could do, Isla could do as well.

But the sisters always hunted together. When Selma shot, Isla finished the job, and when Isla shot, Selma finished it.

They were the tribe’s best hunters.

Everyone regarded her and her sister favorably.

The highest quality leather was given to them first, and the two fed the tribe without ever going hungry.

That was until the Empire invaded.

Their peaceful daily life ended there. It stopped abruptly and looked down at Selma.

As life became difficult, deficiencies emerged.

The tribe couldn’t use unique weapons. They were all remnants of the shapeshifters with no magic, and without magic, they couldn’t use what could be considered essential unique weapons.

They held out for a long time, but the limit approached.

Watching the tribe struggle, Selma wanted to at least take care of her sister.

At first, it was a pure desire.

She just wanted her sister to smile more often, to be safer.

At some point, that changed.

It was around the time when her sister’s body and her own began to develop curves.

She realized much later that it was sexual desire.

The leather they used to share became separate covers, and there were two beds in the tent.

Her sister was disappointed, but Selma wanted it that way.

Otherwise, she couldn’t have endured it.

And at the end of that swelling desire, someone was waiting.

Something that bore the name of a beast but wasn’t a beast.

Rather, it was something as old and twisted as an ancient tree, covered in patterns that stimulated the imagination of any human who looked at it.

From then on, everything was distorted.

Everything changed, becoming as it is now.

So Selma often thought:

What if I had never met it?

If I had chosen to leave with my sister, avoiding the tribe that had joined the three races, and come to the new continent.

Then surely.

Selma closed her eyes and imagined a scene.

Her sister, herself, and Llewellyn hunting together, lying on the same bed.

The three of them lying side by side.

How harmonious. How cute.

Selma’s muttering and the pleased smile she had worn gradually disappeared, and the snow leopard sighed as she opened her eyes.

Her gaze turned to the corner of the cell.

“…Really.”

As she rose, her shackles rattled.

“Never late, are you? What’s the rush?”

She smiled one last time.

*

Llewellyn couldn’t think of anything.

It was closer to a feeling that he wasn’t even allowed to think.

Faced with such an existence beyond common sense, Llewellyn’s mind refused to process it.

So Llewellyn just stood there blankly, staring at the cell.

Beyond the creaking sound of the wide-open door, there was the sound of someone collapsing.

It was Isla, who had been covering her mouth behind him.

She couldn’t help it. Isla was perceptive, and Llewellyn had good instincts.

Everything he had seen and passed by became clues, reassembled in his brain as intuition.

In his gray eyes was reflected something that had grown in the middle of the cell.

It was a tree.

Something that could only be described as a tree.

But if asked whether it was truly a tree, it would be difficult to answer.

It was covered in white.

From what should be called the roots to the branches, it was entirely a white color close to ivory.

A color that at first glance might be mistaken for bone.

And naturally, there was flesh attached to those bones.

Flesh that moved like a pulsating heart.

Underneath, the muscle fibers were fully exposed, writhing along their grain.

Fruit had formed at the ends of the branches.

Still pulsating, strangely heart-like fruit.

So this was a tree.

A tree fashioned from human material.

The naive question of why it was here didn’t arise.

Llewellyn realized it the moment he saw the tree, and the shackles that seemed to be buried in the center of it.

“Will you come back tomorrow?”

Selma had said she would organize her thoughts and asked him to come tomorrow. Saying it was difficult to explain.

The reason was visible.

Selma must have known.

That she didn’t have much time left.

Mother was a being made of malice, and if the punishment she inflicted was to be certain, it had to be at the moment when consciousness was regained.

Selma knew this would happen from the moment she regained consciousness.

Llewellyn looked at the still pulsating fruit of the tree.

And with a feeling like he was about to vomit, he covered his mouth.

He finally understood what happens to the vessel.