Lustre of Echo

6.3 - Village from the past

"Did you manage to discover anything new?" Sydia asked.

She turned her gaze towards me, at the moment she was not paying attention, Laen snatched the book from her hands.

The red-haired man got up from the couch and held the open book above his head. Sydia immediately got up from the lying position to the standing position on the couch and did not give up on retrieving the novel.

"Give it back! It's mine!" She shouted, trying to reach the book with her hand.

"Hmph... let's see what you're reading there. Ooo some romance novel." He smiled when he managed to look at its content.

Sydia turned all red.

"T-that's none of your business. This book is for me to like, not for you! " I didn't know how to comment on this situation.

And... Sydia asked what we managed to discover. I almost forgot.

"Tomorrow I'll show you one such place. " 

I only just gave the answer now.

Laen gave the book back to Sydia.

Sydia immediately snatched it from his hands and snuggled up to it as a sign that it would never fall into the wrong hands again.

"It must have been an important matter if Ethen went there personally." Laen interpreted.

The boy folded his arms and sighed.

"I wanted to go too, but he didn't even offer to."

Hm? Ethen then mentioned that he didn't have time or something like that. What a liar!

Did he deliberately want only me to go with him?

"And where did Ethen go? He was standing here just a moment ago."

"To his laboratory. If you discovered something really intriguing, it's possible that he won't come out of it for weeks or even months." Sydia spoke up.

"That long?""It's always like that." Sydia added.

(Fidelia, Clovis and Menard's perspective)

The three of them were sitting in the tavern. They were not dressed in their knightly uniforms, because these were hours outside of work.

"I saw with my own eyes how houses appeared out of nowhere and the people that were building them too." Menard drew attention to the subject.

Menard was a middle-aged man. He was short, wore a long cloak and beard. In his hand he always had a huge staff, which served as a wand in combat. He was one of the royal knights.

"Menard, have you not been drinking anything?" Clovis expressed his opinion.

"I am not joking. One of the residents of the so-called Alexandria approached me. He started to explain to me that there was no other option but to live there, because they were given such permission."

"It is hard to believe that the government would agree to such an absurdity." Fidelia intervened. 

"Mrs. Lfevre, that is not all, please hear me out to the end."

Menard grabbed a mug of beer with both hands.

"The man I was talking to also mentioned that only this planet has such good living conditions. He also added that they had no other choice."

"Do you mean to tell us that these are inhabitants of other planets?" Fidelia said confidently.

"Exactly. They look like average people." He hung his head sadly down. 

" Hmph... And I thought we were getting out of trouble."

"Life never goes downhill." Clovis choked out.

"Unfortunately."

"So why did you offer them your help? I'm talking about the barrier against the Hardy's." Fidelia asked.

"I didn't know how to approach this." Menard explained.

"I think you did the wrong thing. You could have not helped them, then the Hardy's would have killed them off over time, and we wouldn't have a problem like we have now."

"What's done is done. We will monitor the Alexandria area. If there are any suspicious activities, we will deal with the situation." Fidelia suggested.

"For now, I will try to investigate this matter personally. I will inform the new queen about this matter." She added.

" Exactly. When will we reveal the situation with the queen in a civil manner?

No one knows about her yet." Clovis asked the question.

"Miss Mabel Sullvan does not want to reveal her position for now. She is a well-trained knight. She is not a queen who only sits on the throne, represents the continent, reveling in luxury and sipping tea." Fidelia showed her point of view.

"It seems that you know Miss Mabel Sullvan well." Clovis assessed.

"It happened that we talked about knight-related matters a few times."

Fidelia Lfevre closed her eyes slightly and raised her head towards the ceiling, then she was thinking about what was happening in this world that they did not know about.

(Ethen's Perspective)

Ethen walked up to a chair in his study with a piece of stone in his hand. It was the same piece of stone that had led them to Alexandria earlier. A tiny girl was sitting on the chair.

She had long silver hair, down to her ankles. She had a blindfold over her eyes, so she couldn't see anything. She was tied to the chair with belts so she couldn't escape.

Ethen stood in front of her.

"Where did you get an artifact like that stone?"

"I-I c-can't tell you!" She squealed, scared.

Ethen walked closer and grabbed the creature's neck tightly with one hand.

"If you don't give me an answer, your head will disappear from this neck right away."

The girl started sweating and was scared of the current situation.

"I-I was offered life on this planet, b-but on one condition..." She began.

Ethen squeezed his hand even harder, the larynx of her neck.

Thanks to this, the girl knew that she had to tell him everything she knew, otherwise it would end badly for her.

"I was supposed to h-have this stone always inside me and carry this memory until it was forgotten. T-this stone is not only a memory, but also the core of this village. It is proof of its existence. If this a-artifact disappears, even those who remembered this village will forget about it." She was sweating from stress, with every word she spoke.

Ethen lowered his hand from the silver-haired woman's neck.

The beast began to breathe deeply, tired from the momentary lack of oxygen.

Ethen approached her from behind and grabbed her by the shoulders. He put his head over her shoulder and began to whisper directly into her ear, quietly and slowly.

"If you carried this memory inside you all this time, and it was only to forget about it, what did you really want to do with it? You didn't intend to complete the task entrusted to you?" Ethen whispered.

"I-I.... " All scared, she didn't know how to answer.

"Y-yes, I-I was supposed to destroy this core- "She wanted to show her perspective, but she didn't manage to finish.

"How were you supposed to destroy this core?" He butted in and quietly whispered in her ear.

"I-I was given a task to get rid of this knowledge, so I was supposed to die. He told me that it was the only solut... " She realized that she had just told Ethen that someone specific had told her to do it.

Ethen started laughing.

"HAHAHA.... ha... " After literally a moment, he stopped.

" T-there were no people living in this village, they are not entered into the planet's chronology and this was the only solution." She tried to defend herself, but she could do nothing, because with each subsequent attempt to defend herself, she only gave more important information.

Ethen did not interrupt her.

" Every move of an earthling is recorded in the chronology, everyone has a past and their own future. Unfortunately, beings not from this planet are not entered into its chronology, so this small stone was their small database."

Ethen let go of her arms, to which she was relieved. He stood in front of her.

"Do you think your death is the only solution to get rid of this ,,database"?"

"That's what I was t-told!"

Ethen leaned over her. The height of the silver-haired girl's head was the same as Ethen's.

"You were lied to. Someone simply wanted your naive death. You're just a pawn to be used. You know what... you trusted me enough, so I can help you on one condition. Unlike that person, your death is meaningless to me."

Tears began to flow from the beast's face, it was as if it saw a momentary hope in its life again.

"I-I carry a grave sin on my conscience and I have to atone for it. A-all of this was a punishment for me." She began to cry hard.

"At the time you dropped that s-stone, these memories were available to everyone, the person who gave me this t-task must have found out about it by now. Nothing good will come of it to me anymore. will not meet anything but death."

"And you would die while carrying out the entrusted order."

"Huh.... And who ordered you to perform such cruelty?" He added.

"I-I can't...- She wanted to deny it, but she realized that death awaited her anyway.- ...Altair!...- She shouted his name loudly.

Blood began to flow from the heart of the being. Her clothes were completely wet from it.

Ethen quickly removed the blindfold from her eyes and touched the being.

"Wait! What's your name?!" He shouted at the last moment.

"Aileen.... "

His ability was that he could change the form of the thing he touched and saw during time. Thanks to this technique, for example, he could be eternally young or bring the dead back to life.

Ethen was trying to rewind the body of the being in time, when she didn't have this wound.

Her physical body changed with age, unfortunately the wound was recorded, every moment of her life. In the future as well as her past. He failed to save her.

Her body dissolved into thin air.

Ethen wondered for a moment if the soul of this being was still wandering somewhere.

"...Altair..." He quietly mumbled the name under his breath and smiled devilishly.