Chapter 342 The Baptism of Growth

"Don't you think this is ridiculous?"

Haena opened her eyes wide and asked back.

"...What's ridiculous?"

Sherlock was even stunned for a moment before he finally realized what Haina was referring to: "Oh, I see. It's okay."

"Objectively speaking," Aiwass chimed in, "I mean, considering the objective conditions of Avalon and Star Antimony, this kind of development isn't completely impossible."

"But in the future I encountered, Avalon was in chaos! Corrupted dark magic permeated the earth, and no food could grow. Famine had lasted for several years. The Round Table had completely degenerated and become a joke, and the Supervisory Bureau was reduced to ruins. The corpses of animals and plants, corrupted by the power of shadows, stood up again. Their souls could not enter the dream world and were imprisoned by the magic of the earth. Those wandering shadow souls were at least at the third level of energy, and they attacked everyone indiscriminately..."

Haina's speech speed even became noticeably faster.

It was like a madman who had seen through the truth of the future, desperately and alone telling a future that no one would believe...

"Don't worry, don't worry."

Aiwass helplessly reached out and held down the increasingly agitated Haina: "It's not like we don't believe it..."

...The only problem is that Haina was actually the last one to know what she said.

This is what Avalon would have looked like in the future if Aiwass hadn't awakened his past life memories and had done nothing. With Sherlock's vast investigative resources and the secret intelligence of so many important figures, he must have anticipated this future with his intelligence—which was why he initially treated Isabel so harshly.

He might not have known as much as Haena, but he had certainly guessed Avalon's future direction long ago. In the original game, he hadn't reacted much to this matter; and when Aiwass had vaguely mentioned it to him at the Bishop's house, he had simply hummed and ended the topic.

Shylock's loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen had made him ready to devote himself to the cause until his death. That wasn't loyalty to Avalon, nor to the Avalon royal family, but simply loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen.

As for Lily, she didn't care about those things at all. Besides, she was a firsthand witness to the depths of the Round Table's decline—her biological father was a minister of the Round Table, a spy colluding with the Star Antimony people, and had just been killed by Aiwass and Lily.

——Come to think of it, Haina actually didn’t know about this.

Because Minister Droste's death was a top secret in Avalon—he had to be "alive" to have any meaning. This way, they could constantly extract various "confessions" from the void, keeping those people in a state of fear. Maintaining this kind of political pressure would make it easier for those people to reveal their flaws.

"Why don't you tell me first," Aiwass said gently, "In that 'future', what did you experience and foresee? Or, in other words, what was the specific content of the ceremony you participated in this time?"

“…That’s quite long.”

Haina calmed down a bit and rubbed her temples in distress. "My memory is almost completely blurred now... but this dream was extremely long, really, really long—perhaps more than a month, or maybe two or three months."

"Can it be this long?"

Aiwass was a little surprised.

"Yes," Haina nodded, fear still in her eyes. "In that future, I was an inspector of the Inspectorate... But in that future, people no longer trust inspectors. My mission was very simple... It was to 'protect civilians,' but even such a simple mission..."

As she spoke, her words choked a little.

Aiwass sat quietly beside her, waiting for her to calm down, while Lily came over and hugged her gently, whispering something soothing in her ear.

But Haina was a strong knight after all. She did not cry in Lily's arms, but recovered in less than ten seconds.

"At first, I found twenty-eight civilians. I remember every single one of them. They were extremely distrustful and hostile to me. It took me a long, long time to gain their trust... It wasn't until I was exhausted in a battle with those monsters that they slowly began to trust me. It was then that I realized what had happened in that world..."

Aiwass noticed that Haina subconsciously described the dream fragments as "another world."

Aiwass liked this reaction very much. It meant that she subconsciously did not regard those fabricated simulated souls as afterimages or ghosts, but as real people.

Although strictly speaking, this is somewhat naive and stupid.

But just as Aiwass likes puppies and kittens, he also likes friends who he can trust from the bottom of his heart - even though he doesn't have much contact with Haina.

"I don't know what the others' mission is, but I've faced a betrayal."

Haina gritted her teeth as she spoke of this. "I remember that man—his codename was 'Pastry Maker.' When I heard that codename, I thought he was a good person, otherwise he wouldn't have used something so soft and sweet as his codename... But just after I trusted him and brought him into the gathering place as a teammate... those civilians started disappearing.

"When the tenth person disappeared, I finally realized he was preparing the ingredients for the ritual. He mocked me for trusting him so easily, and used the ritual to tear the tenth person into pieces before me, then attacked me. That was a girl's mother, who had just prepared porridge for me that morning. She had even thought of taking her daughter away to Iris to learn music...

“It wasn’t until then… that I truly realized what the New Moon Ceremony meant.

"I was furious, but being angry was useless. There was no way I could defeat a ritualist who was so prepared—especially while protecting those people. In the end, I was still protected by those people before I could escape... and by the time I fled to a safe place in a panic, only six of the twenty-eight people were left.

“—I’ll always remember their names.”

Haina said seriously.

Her words were sincere and fiery, and the anger in her clenched fists was tangible.

"If I could meet him in real life... I would definitely teach him a lesson."

“What exactly will the lesson be?”

Aiwass suddenly interrupted and asked.

Haina was silent for a while, then said seriously, "I will kill him."

This girl, who used to only say "I'm going to arrest you" when threatening others... finally, with her own clear mind, and without being impulsive, seriously said that she wanted to kill someone.

Aiwass smiled with satisfaction and nodded slightly.

It is much better to grow in a dream than to wake up after losing something in reality.

"very good."

He said calmly, "You have indeed grown. Okay, I'll help you with this."

"...What?" Haina didn't react.

"I'll help you find him, and then I'll let you kill him."

Aiwass sat on the edge of the bed, smiling softly as he murmured, "This will be a baptism for you, and it also foreshadows your eventual maturity. People rarely have the opportunity to sacrifice the person who brought them enlightenment, but the nature of that is ultimately different. The one who truly angers you should be ended by your own hands. This is the meaning of power."

Sherlock, who was standing by, always felt that Aiwass at this moment was like a devil who was bewitching people.

His expression became extremely subtle, but he ultimately failed to stop Aiwass.

Never mind, let him do as he pleases...

(End of this chapter)