Mother

Hearing this, Felix immediately caught the flaw in Vichy's logic. Sure enough, Yaxiu asked as well, "In other words, from the very beginning, there was no need to remove the Ruby Chains at all?" "I don't want to argue with you," Vichy said, gazing faintly at Yaxiu, sounding completely righteous even in her quiet whisper. "I just wanted to take advantage of the crisis to trick you into releasing the chains. What's so hard to understand about that? Do you really have to embarrass me at a time like this?" *Why make it sound like it's my fault...* Yaxiu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. After pondering for a moment, he still shook his head. "I told you, I'll help you complete the trial. You don't need to face it alone." "But don't you still need to help Sword Princess and Witch?" Vichy's voice was weak and listless. Just this simple level of arguing exhausted her so much that she looked like a dog dragged from the water, a thin sheen of sweat breaking out all over her body. "You don't have to worry about me. Wouldn't it be better to focus entirely on helping them?" At any other time, Yaxiu would have suspected she was jealous and speaking in sarcasm, but right now Vichy didn't have the spare energy for snide remarks. She truly meant it. As Yaxiu wiped the sweat from her neck, he asked, "Why do you want to complete the trial alone so badly?" "Because I can. Isn't that reason enough?" "Not enough." Yaxiu suddenly cupped Vichy's face in his hands, forcing her to look into his eyes. "Were you lying just now? Do you actually have a wish that you need my help to fulfill?" Vichy tried to look away, but Yaxiu leaned in until his forehead touched hers. Closing her eyes, she said decisively, "No." Yaxiu clenched his right hand in midair. An illusory ruby collar manifested around her neck, its chain extending into his grasp. "Lying to me is pointless," he said calmly. "I can order you to tell the truth directly. If you have a wish, wouldn't completing it allow you to pass the trial? Why do you insist on—" His voice came to an abrupt halt. Vichy slowly opened her glistening eyes and looked at him through a blur of tears. A single teardrop slipped down her cheek, falling onto the back of his hand. "I don't," she said, her voice tinged with hoarseness. "I just don't!" "Don't ask anything. Just let me complete the trial on my own, all right? I really don't need you to care... Wouldn't it be better if you went and helped Sword Princess and Witch?" Yaxiu wiped away her tear tracks with his thumb and sighed helplessly. "Ever since I learned the exact nature of the trial from the Dramatic Poet, my biggest worry was that Sword Princess and Witch would stubbornly try to endure and finish the trial on their own just to avoid troubling me. The last thing I expected was for you to go against me... You learned what the trial was at the same time I did. You clearly know that cooperation is the easiest shortcut... I don't understand why you insist on doing it alone." "Are you truly so unwilling to let me know your wish?" Yaxiu's voice was very soft, as if afraid to pop a bubble he didn't want to face. "Does exposing your soul to me really hurt that much? You'd rather take such an immense risk than let a stranger into your world?" "No, it's not that." Vichy shook her head. "It has nothing to do with a wish... Don't think like that, please?" "Then why won't you let me help fulfill your wish?" "Because it's not you I'm refusing!" Vichy seemed to exhaust all her strength to utter those words, leaning against Yaxiu while panting. "What I'm refusing is... your help. I don't want you to help me, understand?" "I don't understand." Yaxiu couldn't comprehend it. "I thought you would be the most cooperative one. You're not like Sword Princess and Witch, who put my interests above everything else. In your heart, you yourself are the most important. You want to use me to become supreme in sorcery—did you forget? Couldn't you just shamelessly accept my help like you always did in the past? Why are you suddenly being so... rebellious?" To Felix's ears, it sounded rather odd. "Rebellious" was usually applied to a good child turning bad, but here it felt more like describing a spoiled heir who usually spent every day indulging in idle pleasures suddenly wanting to start a business and invest. "It's precisely because I myself am the most important that I have to refuse your help." The frail elf braced herself up with effort. "I can't rely on you anymore." "Why can't you rely on me?" "Because I'm afraid I won't be able to leave you." Vichy gripped Yaxiu's shoulders tightly and raised her tear-stained, stubborn face. "I'm afraid you really will lock me down!" "You all constantly worry that one day I'll betray you... In truth, I'm worried too." She said, "I worry that when that day comes, I will no longer be capable of betraying you." "And what will I have left then? A beautiful empty shell called a demon maid? Maybe in your eyes, that version of me would be the best—having emotions, having bonds, possessing armor as well as vulnerabilities... But if I lose the self I've clung to for thousands of years, how is that any different from being dead?" "When you bound me with the Ruby Chains, I wasn't afraid. Even if my soul was chained, my heart was still free. But when the trial began, I had an overwhelming premonition..." Vichy said softly, "If I accept your help this time too, I truly won't even have my last shred of freedom left." Felix stared blankly at Vichy laying her true feelings bare, as though seeing this mad villain clearly for the first time. Vichy, who appeared completely unprincipled and driven purely by self-interest, actually possessed a bottom line that no amount of profit could crush, one she refused to compromise on even before Yaxiu... Because that bottom line was her entire life. If she denied that bottom line, what would she have left? "Yaxiu, tell me, who am I?" Vichy grabbed Yaxiu by the collar, biting her lower lip as she demanded, "Who can I be? Who should I be?" Her attitude was so forceful, yet the glistening tears in her eyes were so soft that Yaxiu was momentarily captivated. After a brief silence, Yaxiu sighed, his fingers tightening around the Ruby Chains. A glimmer of sorrow flashed through Vichy's eyes, yet stubborn defiance remained on her face. She opened her mouth and leaned in, trying to bite him. Yaxiu reached out with his index finger and pressed it against her forehead, the chains swaying in front of her eyes. "Spectre Prophet," Yaxiu said seriously, "Every restriction I ever placed on you is void as of this very second!" Vichy stared at him blankly. Her expression hovered between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry, making her look unexpectedly endearing. She seemed to want to say something, but her eyes fluttered shut, and her entire body relaxed, slumping into Yaxiu's embrace. Yaxiu and Felix exchanged a glance, both breaking into helpless smiles. As Yaxiu lifted Vichy into his arms, a streak of silver light darted through the corridor, transforming into a voice that echoed in their ears: "Something's happened to Sword Princess." When Yaxiu rushed into Sword Princess's bedchamber, Weise asked, "Where's Felix?" "She's taking care of Vichy." Yaxiu hurried over to the bedside and reached out to touch Sword Princess's forehead. It was so scalding hot that his palm flushed red. "What's going on?" "Not long ago, her condition suddenly took a turn for the worse, and her body temperature began climbing steadily. If this is her soul body's defense mechanism kicking in, it means the trial's curse is growing stronger." Weise said, "If this continues, I suspect either she or the trial's curse will survive, but not both." "Why did it deteriorate all of a sudden?" Yaxiu was flabbergasted. "Witch's condition clearly improved—" "I don't know if it's connected," Daidalos said from the side, "but when Sword Princess's temperature started changing, Observer Seat, you happened to have just returned from the high tower with Witch." Perhaps because it concerned Sword Princess, Yaxiu immediately deduced the connection between the three of them in this trial: "When I help one of them complete the trial, does the curse on the other two grow heavier?" "We can't rule it out," Weise said. "The question now is, how do we help Sword Princess?" "The current clue indicates that fulfilling their wishes will help them pass the trial, but..." Yaxiu held Sonia's hand. The once-lively red-haired girl's brow was tightly knit in pain. Amidst his heartache, he suddenly recalled Vichy earlier, who had been so weak she could only crawl across the carpet. No wonder the first thing Vichy asked upon seeing him was who had finished the trial—her curse had intensified as well... Seeing Sword Princess suffering so deeply, Yaxiu couldn't begin to imagine how much agony Vichy had been enduring while bargaining with him. Yet with Sword Princess unconscious from her fever, how was he supposed to learn her wish? Suddenly, Yaxiu heard Sonia murmuring something. He immediately slipped beneath the covers and lay down beside her to listen. Quite naturally, Sonia rolled over and leaned against Yaxiu's chest. Yaxiu felt as though he were holding a giant furnace. Sonia's voice was hazy and faint, like an unconscious sleep-talk. Yaxiu listened intently for quite a while before finally catching a single key word: "Mom." Yaxiu gazed blankly at the red-haired girl, whose furrowed brow was gradually relaxing. With a gentle sigh, he held her tightly in his arms.