<727 – A Peaceful Day (7)>
Avalon had no intention of making Darknodi cry.
Rather, her intention was the complete opposite.
‘The clone will be happy to hear news from the original.’
A kind gesture born from a simple, one-dimensional thought.
And so, Avalon said.
“I’ve prepared a cradle for you, the clone. It’s a place where I’ve also stayed for a long time.”
“It’s time to… go back?”
“By now, everything should be ready, so it won’t be too late to depart.”
The original, who surely hadn’t forgotten about the clone, had prepared a wonderful gift, so there was no way Darknodi would dislike it.
In stark contrast to Avalon’s perfectly reasonable logic, Darknodi was feeling a total mess.
‘Ah, the original has sent a proxy to order my return.’
My life as an Oknodie ends here!
Tears streamed down Darknodi’s face, unable to bear the unbearable sadness.
Unconscious tears are always beautiful.
Her expression didn’t crumble grotesquely, and it emanated a simultaneous sense of sorrow and beauty, like the tears shed by actresses in front of cameras.
This scene secretly observed by Ishtar became the reason Oknodie looked doubly pitiful in her mana detection network.
‘That girl made Oknodie cry!’
Avalon, sweating bullets, tried to clear up the misunderstanding.
“Why would a cradle be a cradle? It is a place that gently embraces a child with a comfort that sways but does not move. It is the perfect spot for you, so don’t be sad.”
“…!”
Tears flowed from Darknodi’s eyes like a faucet had been turned on.
‘Ah, Oknodie has created a prison from which I can never leave!’
There was no other reason to create a cradle if I, not a child, am being talked about in terms of ‘motionless comfort.’
A miracle is a miracle only because it happens once.
Oknodie was not the veteran player who would allow the same swap twice.
‘Hey, aren’t you seriously misunderstanding something here?’
Avalon couldn’t hide her troubled expression under the golden glow.
Few had eyes good enough to pierce through her true form while withstanding her magical light.
There was ample reason not to manage her expression, but to Darknodi, who had grown accustomed to the light of Titosso, it was still perceived as a threat.
“If you keep crying like this, people will think I’m the bad one. Do you plan to see me as an existence who lived in a place where I couldn’t live, while you were cozy in the cradle?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… It was just such a sudden piece of news, I couldn’t help it…”
“The sadness is so persistent that it’s wounding my pride. Listen well to how magnificent my cradle is. It boasts such powerful defenses that no invader has ever breached it for hundreds of years. No king’s stronghold compares to it.”
Oh, so Oknodie has dug a trap from which even a Demon King cannot escape!
With the original’s intent being this forceful, imagining living on in infinite despair is unbearable!
Watching Darknodi create a noose out of mana to hang around their neck, Avalon felt she might lose her mind.
‘Why are the youth of today so weak-hearted that they cry and try to die at the drop of a hat!’
Having analyzed the abilities of Professor Weird on the way, Avalon thought it remarkable that there were students who attacked such a professor in groups.
And that even this very Oknodie’s clone fell within the category of those suicidal-like students.
The Academy had definitely spoiled its students rotten and made them timid.
If she had it her way, she’d want to treat them harshly.
But that was something to be dealt with after addressing the Darknodi before her, who looked ready to commit suicide at any moment. Avalon sweated profusely, urgently calling out to Darknodi.
“Stop it!”
“Somehow, somehow… all I need to do is disappear, right? At least I should be able to choose a way to vanish…?”
“Why are you so temperamental? Did the original tell you to repeat, ‘What use is living, when I should be a proxy for you?’”
Sob.
With a stuffy sound, Darknodi shook their head.
Avalon quickly tossed a magical handkerchief with a sleeping spell engraved on it to encourage Darknodi to blow their nose.
“Now, sniff! Calm down a bit. Sniff!”
Tears gushed forth alongside snot.
The beautiful image had all but vanished, but because of that, the will to live felt even stronger.
This meant Darknodi hadn’t used Avalon’s handkerchief, understanding the sleep spell from the original’s mana technique.
‘Ah, trying to secretly put me to sleep means you plan to keep me stored in a cradle from which even death cannot reach, and then to let me out when the time comes!’
The more Avalon attempted to manage the situation, the more Darknodi, declaring they didn’t want to die, continued the vicious cycle of tears and snot!
It was akin to the tale of Sun Wukong’s demise.
Zhou Zhou, striving for the restoration of a royal family, dismissed all the nobles and sent a hollow food container to Sun Wukong, equating his loyalty to the empty container wrapping a lifeless royal court.
Having received this, Sun Wukong laughed heartily, saying, “The prime minister sent me an empty container! What use is there in living more!” and drank poison to take his own life.
Avalon’s cradle had thus become an empty container; given time, misunderstandings could have been cleared up, but unfortunately, a witness to the cradle incident was present.
Crash!
Suddenly bursting through the door was Ishtar, aiming her most intensely glowing holy sword at Avalon, her face twisted in anger.
“You trashy girl, get away from Oknodie right now!”
“…It’s a misunderstanding. Saying it’s trash just because my communication with the clone was poor is a harsh remark. More importantly, why are you eavesdropping on my private conversation, breaking things as you barge in, and acting so brazenly?”
“I’m the one who’s taken aback by your audacity!”
“Fine. It worked out. If you are a friend of the clone, wouldn’t you help soothe and persuade them? I heard you belong to the same ‘Foundation’ as the original. If you share the same affiliation, there’s ample reason to assist me.”
“Indeed…”
Ishtar’s holy sword suddenly unleashed lethal strikes towards Avalon.
Avalon met the barrage of attacks with an expressionless gaze, deflecting the deadly techniques with a magic circle, but Avalon’s confusion grew despite her adept skills.
She had asked a friend to calm the child, and yet she was the one who was escalating things further than the clone!
“Ah, now I get it. Foundation, Foundation, that infamous Foundation!! What you all do is ultimately this kind of thing. I foolishly thought it might be different for Oknodie, if only for a moment. I’ll never trust you again. I won’t leave this child in your care. You are the worst organization!!”
Avalon took a step back, wounded by the hurtful words that she didn’t understand why she had to endure.
“Are you saying birds of a feather flock together? If that clown is crying, and this child has become this emotional, then I can understand the level of their brutality.”
“Brutal? The will to live exists in everyone. If you want a life that quietly dies like a doll, then that sort of existence can’t exist in this world, nor should it!”
As Ishtar witnessed the holy sword’s powers fully manifest, her conviction about the presence before her being evil only solidified further.
She had no idea that this was an ancient Great Evil that had existed long before the current Empire, which once sought world domination, was birthed.
Avalon couldn’t destroy the facilities where Professor Weird had graciously permitted her to stay, thinking to end these insufferable children.
That would be an act of utter ingratitude toward Professor Weird, as well as toward the original.
They had saved her life through kindness, yet killing the beloved proxy merely for not heeding a few words would be an act only a psychopath would commit, akin to strangling a dog simply because it growled when being sent back home.
At least it wasn’t an appropriate tale for one who would conquer the world.
“Phew. I will withdraw for today, but remember that no matter how obstinate you are, that child’s destination has already been decided. Should this not end here, worse consequences will surely follow.”
With perfect composure, Avalon flawlessly defended against the lethal techniques of those special attacks and left gracefully.
Proud of herself for handling the childish attacks without being swept away, Avalon felt satisfied; however, what Ishtar felt was despair.
If the other had attacked instead of defending, she didn’t even want to imagine what would have become of her and Oknodie.
A shattered form lying there.
A broken holy sword.
And… Oknodie, being dragged away right in front of her.
Merely imagining it made her heart feel as though it were being shredded, a horrid scene she never wanted to store in her mind again.
