Shut up, brave man! I don't want to atone for my sins to you!

"not good."

The pastor was a little speechless:

"Yes, I know you feel that his concern for you has changed after you said it. I know you, an idiot, just want to use this method to prove that he likes you, but..."

She sighed again, shrugged and spread her hands:

"If that stupid pig could really do that, he would have confessed his feelings to you and me long before you and I died."

"……I know."

"You know? Ha!" The pastor sneered in an exaggerated tone, "You know that guy is a stupid pig, and you still expect him to find out that you are not in good condition?"

Then she snorted again:

"Since you know he's stupid, just tell him directly!"

"I'm not you," the witch whispered back to the priest, "so I won't do that."

"No wonder he didn't confess his love to you until you were dying! You deserved it!" The priest rubbed salt into the witch's wounds.

The witch was deeply hurt by these words, so she raised her head suddenly and retaliated to the priest:

"Don't forget, he didn't confess to you either."

Then she added coldly:

"——And, until the end, you didn't have the courage to confess to him, right?"

The pastor was stunned.

Her face gradually turned red, and she became like a witch, as if she had drunk too much.

She was a little annoyed and almost stood up and raised her voice to retort, but in the end, she gave up and even became dejected.

"I am not you," she repeated what the witch had said to her, her tone low, "I am just... a fake."

"Well," the witch added, "and you're afraid of losing him."

At this point, attacking each other suddenly lost its meaning.

The two fell silent again.

After a long time, the witch suddenly said:

"He is a short-lived species, but you are an immortal species. When he dies of old age, you will be very sad."

Without any hesitation, the priest raised his head, looked directly into the witch's eyes, and told her:

"But I like him."

The witch seemed not to have heard her answer and continued:

"You've obviously made up your mind long ago. Three years ago, before you even met him, you already knew your true nature - if you fall in love with someone, you'll never forget them for the rest of your life, so you decided not to fall in love with a short-lived person no matter what."

The pastor raised his voice:

"But I like him!"

"Otherwise, after he dies, you will have to lick your wounds alone and endure the loneliness. You might even go crazy because of it."

"But I like him."

"Your love is heavier than anyone else's. We all know this. The reason why you dare not confess to him is precisely because of this..."

"But I like him..."

"Your love cannot tolerate even the slightest impurity. You are extremely possessive and you cannot tolerate anyone interfering with your relationship with him, even yourself."

"But I... like him."

"But you don't even know who he likes."

This time the voice did not come from the witch.

But again, the pastor never spoke.

At some point, the witch and the priest disappeared together, leaving only one person in the room.

She has both the rationality of a witch and the sensibility of a priest. Her voice is a mixture of both characteristics. She is both a witch and a priest.

——She is Rachel.

She closed her eyes, lay on the bed, and whispered:

"Why don't you confess your feelings to him? Because you think both witches and priests are fake."

"You're afraid... No, I... It's me. I'm afraid... He doesn't like me at all."

"The witch is fake."

When she first arrived in Pangaea, Lacie wore a mask to protect herself and avoid further contact with short-lived species.

He was too aloof, refused to socialize, and finally simply hid in the sea of ​​forests to live in seclusion.

"The pastor is fake too."

In order to join the brave team, Laciel took off her witch mask and put on a new mask called a priest.

She became enthusiastic, cheerful, lively and straightforward, and dared to love and hate.

But that wasn't her.

that……

Then, maybe it’s all her.

Sometimes, when people put on a mask, it seems more like they are taking off the mask at the same time.

Lacie suddenly let out a light sigh.

She reached out her hand, took the pillow beside her, and hugged it tightly in her arms, imagining that it was Charles, that annoying guy, that damn stupid pig...

Before she knew it, Lacie had buried her face deep in the pillow, breathing the thin air through the slightly rough fabric.

"What is the real me like?"

She thought blankly.

Maybe she is not as rational as the witch. She can easily endure loneliness and has lived in seclusion in the sea of ​​forests for decades, unwilling to have any contact with the outside world.

Otherwise, why would she do such a stupid thing as "sneak into the brave team, deceive the brave's true heart and then die, making the brave regret her for the rest of his life"?

Even though Charles destroyed the plane-traveling magic circle that she had spent decades to build.

It was obvious that time was the cheapest resource for her, and it would be very simple even if she wanted compensation from Charles. She only needed to come forward herself or ask Lao Deng to communicate on her behalf.

She was probably just... tired of being lonely.

But she didn't look like a priest either.

Too paranoid, too emotional, and also too stupid. He would actually worry about such a simple thing and become self-defeating. He has simply lost all rationality and does not consider the consequences at all. He just acts on impulse.

She will be sad after Charles dies, right?

She couldn't imagine how it would feel to lose Charles, and she even foolishly thought about dying with him.

No, even if she died, she must die first. She didn't want to taste the bitterness of being alone, just like when she blocked the sword for Charles and then faked her death. She was very selfish. She wanted to say goodbye to Charles first!

Countless complicated thoughts enveloped Rachel, in the gap between self-contradiction, self-loathing, and self-forgiveness...

She vaguely recalled that after learning that the wishing well had fulfilled Charles' wish, she actually had a vague wish -

She wanted to know whether Charles liked the priest or the witch.

But she never made a wish at the wishing well.

Because she was afraid to know the answer.

Because whether it’s a witch or a priest…it’s actually her.

In an instant, an inexplicable, heavy sense of guilt overwhelmed Lacie, and she dropped the pillow in her arms.

She bit her lip hard.

My eyes are full of tears and my body is shaking.

She turned over and lay on her side on the bed. She stretched out her hand, which was trembling like her body, and moved it down, put her legs together, and slowly rubbed her knees.

Faint sobbing and suppressed, broken gasps slowly filled the room.

Lacele covered herself with the quilt, as if that would make her forget what she was doing.

She had long been accustomed to numb herself and deceive herself in this way.

Under the almost suffocating pressure, her cheeks flushed unhealthily, her panting became more intense, and she even began to call out the hero's name in a low voice:

"Char...ha...Char..."

Until the guilt finally overwhelmed her, until she closed her eyes, her hands stretched out from under the covers, grasping the sheets, and then quickly but weakly let go.

After a brief moment of calm, she finally realized what she had done.

But she couldn't stop, she already...

"Sorry……"

In the darkness, Lacier cried and kept apologizing to the hero:

"Ciel...I'm sorry..."

[To be continued]

-

59. What do you want to do?

The next day, Charles got out of bed early in the morning.

To use the words of a pastor in the past, his schedule was so stable that it was frightening.

Unless there are special circumstances, he will never stay up late. He will go to bed as early as possible to ensure that he has enough time and never carry over the fatigue of the previous day to the next day.

After getting up, he began to prepare for an audience with the emperor.

Although Mad John said that the emperor still retained his sanity, in Diesel, which Diesel lost his sanity?

All the Diesel guys are sober.

Apart from those who have not realized that they have turned into monsters and those who "play dumb" when strangers mention the Slender Man, most of them are even more sober than the investigators sent by the White Tower.

after all……

The first investigator who came to Diesel, that respectable old gentleman, had chosen to end his life after being contaminated by the black shadow, and died on the border between Diesel and Victoria.

And if Charles guessed correctly, the second investigator they had not found yet had probably also met with misfortune.

It's quite ironic.

The polluted Diesel people who have turned into tall and thin ghosts are more sober than each other, but the normal investigators... are going crazy one after another.

What about His Majesty the Emperor?

The emperor who experienced the disaster personally but miraculously survived, and even rebuilt the entire Diesel through the limited wish machine...

Charles opened the window of the room and looked into the distance silently.

His sight passed over a large area of ​​low buildings and finally fell on a particularly tall building that stood out from the crowd.

That was the imperial palace - although he had never seen such an... ordinary palace before, not at all magnificent or grand.

Rather than calling it a palace, it would be more accurate to say that it was a large house made up of several slightly larger small buildings. Both in scale and decoration, it was far inferior to the palaces he had seen in other countries.

But this may also prove from the side that the emperor... proves the integrity of Longjin I.

When the brave man reaches this point, he suddenly realizes.

He thought of the old lady they met on the street, the inn owner, or the mad John who was in a daze and didn't know whether he was sober or crazy.

When they talked about their Emperor, they would puff out their chests, smile, and be full of pride.

But if the facts are really as they expected, in the disaster thirty years ago, the emperor saved all his people by himself and paid the price of making a wish to the limited wishing machine alone.