Chapter 110

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Episode 24 - Isabella [5]

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"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

I let out a long sigh. It wasn’t out of disappointment or anything like that.

Rather, I found it amusing. I didn’t have a Trait that allowed me to tell whether someone was telling the truth or lying.

But even without being able to properly read her emotions, I could tell that she was lying.

I didn’t know why she was acting like that. After all, she had been rescued from a place where they had done all kinds of things to her.

And according to Luminus, Isabella had been prepared as a vessel.

I knew exactly what that meant.

A vessel was a way to allow a Lord of the Abyss to descend before the Third Calamity.

However, because of Luminus, no Lord of the Abyss descended during the First Calamity.

By the Second Calamity, the heroes of the Second Dark Era were already aware of the existence of vessels.

Before his death, Luminus had left behind all the information related to them.

After Luminus’s death, the Federation worked day and night searching for every possible vessel.

But there was something puzzling about all of this.

’Is she human?’

I used my senses on Isabella, but they clearly indicated that she was human and that there was nothing strange about her.

Aside from her perfectly balanced emotions—or perhaps hidden emotions—and her overly expressive expression.

There was nothing out of place.

And yet, Isabella had been prepared to become a vessel.

A clear example was Kyle and the result produced by the vessel preparation process.

According to the records, there were two conditions for a human or any other race to become a perfect vessel.

The first was related to Bloodline. Kyle probably possessed a mysterious Bloodline that met the necessary standards to become a vessel.

The second was Unique Traits.

If a Lord of the Abyss descended into the vessel’s body, it could obtain that vessel’s Unique Traits.

Of course, aside from Traits, a special constitution was also necessary.

Not a constitution acquired after reaching 5 Stars.

But a natural constitution, one a person is born with.

’It’s not a Bloodline issue. My senses can detect even awakened or dormant Bloodlines, like in Charlotte’s case.’

So Isabella had been chosen as a vessel because of the second condition.

That meant she possessed some Unique Traits, and Luminus had mentioned that those Traits were strange.

And most likely, because of her type of constitution, Isabella could use those Traits, though not completely, considering she still hadn’t Awakened.

In any case, I had to pull myself out of my thoughts.

Isabella stared at me, while I continued smiling.

"Well, alright. I won’t press the matter any further."

I let out a sigh internally.

The truth was that I didn’t care that much about digging into Isabella’s mystery.

After all, this world was fake.

I was still inside a Memory Gate, one I would leave once I completed this Chapter.

So I simply needed to act like some kind of babysitter or someone close to Isabella.

’Maybe I should just talk to her the same way I do with Astrid.’

Perhaps that was the best idea.

***

Day one.

Charlotte and I talked about adventures and all kinds of things that could excite a girl Isabella’s age.

She simply remained on her swing, gently swaying without saying a single word.

From time to time, she would ask a question, but nothing more.

I occasionally looked at her emotions, but that was all.

And just as Luminus had said, Isabella spent the entire day on her swing, staring at the black sky.

However, because of Charlotte and me, she stopped looking at the sky and instead began occasionally nodding.

At first, I thought about bothering her the same way I did with Astrid, but then I decided against it.

Anyway, even though Isabella openly showed expressions that should clearly reflect emotions, in reality, inside her mind, her emotions remained in perfect balance.

Exactly the same.

There was no change throughout the entire first day, and when Charlotte told me that the faint light that acted as "daytime" was beginning to fade, I understood that night was falling.

At that moment, Luminus appeared out of nowhere to ask a few things.

Finally, the first day ended.

Second day.

When I stepped out of the cabin, Isabella was once again swinging forcefully on her swing, her small legs moving up and down.

She had a smile that, until then, I hadn’t truly noticed, but it confirmed Luminus’s words.

Isabella showed a strange smile whenever she swung on her swing.

The second day was not very different from the first.

So we simply continued talking about stories and all those kinds of things.

Third day.

Isabella remained on her swing as always.

The only difference was that this time, she no longer completely ignored our presence.

Charlotte ended up talking about food while trying to guess what kinds of things Isabella liked, even though Charlotte clearly had no experience talking to children Isabella’s age.

Even so, Isabella responded.

They were not long responses.

Not even something that could be called a conversation.

But at least they were no longer simple nods.

From time to time, she said one or two short words while continuing to sway slowly.

And strangely enough, most of the time, Isabella looked at me first before responding to Charlotte.

As if she were unconsciously waiting for my reaction before speaking.

I did not know exactly what that meant.

Though it was not something important either.

Meanwhile, her emotions remained the same.

Perfectly balanced.

Not even when she smiled a little more while listening to one of my stories was there any real change inside her.

It was strange seeing such natural expressions over such an unmoving emptiness.

But at least that stillness no longer felt as cold as it had on the first day.

Fourth day.

Isabella began walking around a little more outside the swing.

Not too much.

She simply wandered in small circles near the cabin while Charlotte followed her, talking practically to herself half the time.

I stayed silent from a certain distance until Isabella eventually approached on her own.

She did not even say anything important.

She only asked what the outside world was like.

The way she said it was calm, almost like simple childish curiosity.

But for a moment, I noticed something strange.

Not in her emotions.

But in the way she stopped smiling the moment she finished asking the question.

It was something very small.

So small that another person probably would not even notice it.

Even so, the feeling it left behind was uncomfortable.

As if, for an instant, Isabella had forgotten to maintain that calm expression she always showed.

Although it only lasted a second before she returned to normal.

After that, she simply went back to sitting on her swing while Charlotte continued talking about cities, markets, and food.

And this time, Isabella listened until the very end without looking at the black sky even once.

Fifth day.

The distance between Isabella and us slowly began to disappear.

Not in an exaggerated way.

And not even remotely close.

But it no longer felt like we were trying to talk to an empty wall.

Now she responded more often.

Sometimes she even asked small, insignificant things.

About weapons.

About adventures.

About why Charlotte got so excited whenever she talked.

She even started staying near us even when we weren’t directly speaking to her.

It was a slow change.

So slow that probably only someone who had observed her since the very first day would notice it.

However, the more she spoke, the stranger the feeling around her emotions became.

They were still balanced.

They were still exactly the same.

But every now and then, a slight irregularity appeared.

Something tiny.

So small that it disappeared before I could properly confirm it.

Like an extremely thin crack across a perfectly smooth glass surface.

And every time that happened, Isabella would end up staring at me for a few seconds before looking away.

Sixth day.

By the time we left the cabin once again, Isabella was no longer on the swing.

She was sitting on the wooden railing near the small garden while Charlotte showed her some flowers she had found nearby.

The first thing I noticed was that Isabella was talking more than usual.

They were still short sentences.

But now the conversation moved forward without Charlotte having to carry it completely on her own.

Even when Charlotte went inside the cabin for a moment, Isabella did not return to silence.

She simply remained seated near me, observing the dark sky of that place.

She didn’t speak for several minutes.

And honestly, I thought we would once again return to that awkward silence from the first few days.

But then Isabella asked something so simple that it honestly surprised me for a moment.

She asked whether black skies also existed outside.

I answered that they did.

And after that, Isabella remained silent for another long while.

However, this time she did not seem distant.

Instead, it felt more like she was seriously thinking about something.

As I observed her, I once again noticed that small fracture in her emotions.

Just a tiny fraction.

An imbalance so slight that it vanished almost instantly.

But it was definitely there.

***

On the seventh day, an entire week had already passed since we arrived at the Final Chapter.

In the real world, it should already have been early morning by now, probably.

According to my calculations and the time my master had told me.

It was around 4 or 5 in the morning in the real world.

I only had about three hours or three days left in this false world.

Either way, Luminus had said that the village was holding a festival.

It was a long-standing festival dedicated to the ancestors who created the village.

So Charlotte, Isabella, and I went there.