A faint shiver went through Aefia's mind as she slowly recalled the descriptions on the piece of paper that she had read about exactly four weeks ago. The memory was blurred, and thus...this was probably just another trap that she had led herself and fell into herself. The vary piece of paper that had her name signed into, was one which left her into a very long thought that ached her head.
Naturally, her face stayed neutral. No thoughts could be seen surfacing and Mr. Elephant took the opportunity to speak about this. "I had been following you, since you were twelve, young girl." He glanced while placing his hands like in a position where he seemed a principal of a school.
"I had already figured it out. Those glowing grey eyes were prove enough that you had followed me around back at Earth." She replied, with a stern face. Recalling the young ages, her nerves flared as she stayed silent for longer than what she could hold. "But for now, all I can say is my leave from the competition. You don't seem to be violated with how it was just said."
"Remember, the book that I had suggested the name to you back then?" He suddenly brought out the topic she was really willing to skip. Her nerves flared up, again. It was best to just have stayed at the palace then come over to end the contract which even she had forgotten about. But once the step was placed, there was apparently no more remaining to move backward.
Her eyes shadowed, as an evil smile surfaced across her face. "The exact same story that I am living, isn't that what you are trying to say? Dying in a Battlefield." She lifted her face, no source of magic or frustration, a serene calm even Mr. Elephant got scared. Her eyes were wide, at the realization that the whole entire time, she was living the life her character-self had led.
Finally, he seemed to get scared just like how the people she had faced until now, had explained about. Her dead, souless eyes were an exact description of what was told in the book, the fierce stare of a tiger who looked like they could rip your soul in a second. Just anyone, even an animal might say she were a ghost if her pale expression were included.
"In that story...I was a minor antagonist. In the same plot, Nada was the protagonist who had defeated me..." Her smile vanished. "Is it a wrong move? To try and change the course of the story? Just so you could survive at the end? Just so you could save the protagonist from dieing in the hands of a much more dangerous antagonist, assumably the Torture Cell?"
He trembled as he shoke his head. Based on the reflection on the glasses, it was as if in any split second, she could change to turn the table and split the room into half. Slowly, hints of red flashed below her pupil, a very dim almost unnoticeable. So she has learned to control her power? "Your pacing in the story, you have changed it to a very fast moving one." He replied after a short while. Maybe I shouldn't have brought up that part.
"I know a fact about this competition that you all have hidden very well until now." Her eyes changed back to their original shape as it dimmed back. "If you want...I could warn the others too." She spoke with a threatening tone which alerted him and made the table shake along with him. Somehow, she had a very good skill in adding fear into someone's mind.
"Before you do that...may I happen to know what that fact is?" Mr. Elephant spoke while constantly breathing out to keep himself calm. On the opposite side, she grinned while glancing at her pocket watch and taping on the glass surface. "What if... I told you after the contract termination? My memory may be foggy, but there is a vivid rule in my mind that stated 'Participant has free will of using the supplies, it is possible to take them home or terminate their use'. And the contract has 'my' signature...don't waste my time, I need to return soon."
So this was your trap? With the magic we had given you...there was an opposite use of it. But here...I need to know what she knows about this competition, and this needs to be told to the Guardian of Silence. He frowned while spreading his palm out in the air with a gradient bluish grey colour wrapping around the air and bringing out a few pieces of stapled paper.
He took out a stamp from a drawer and the ink. With a hard movement, he pressed down on the coloured fabric and then held it up. Before he placed it against the surface of the white paper, she interrupted him and made him stay with the same position until her sentence was finished. "Don't you think it's best to let me decided where to place the stamp?"
"Where?" Mr. Elephant replied with a tired face which stayed on for as long as she indicated it, located at the furtherest top where a single sentence stood. 'The specific Participant can request for whatever is needed.'
While looking at her one final time as a confirmation, just to see her smiling with confidents. He placed the stamp down, and with a hard clatter, a huge red 'terminated' came written against the surface with a very bright shine to it. Her eyes almost failed to believe they were holographic, because the shine was in a faded state earlier.
"Aren't you going to tell me about what you had found out about the competition?" Mr. Elephant spoke while passing a pen and the paper in front. This time, she took it to only sign a completely different style. With that, he felt like adding a last line of question with the initial, but hesitated since majority of it was similar, only an underline was added this time. Must be a trick, or a reminder.
"May I explain after you finish telling me about what to do after the termination?" She placed the pen back, and slid the paper halfway across the table. "For instance, I did get many things from here, do I need to return it? Maybe even considering the guns and the bullets? More specifically the weapons and the items we had received from the very first day?"
"If that's the case..." He spoke while rubbing his forehead. "Then keep them, but pay up the price behind it all. If you are willing to, how about fifty thousand angcles." He grinned while putting the two things away into his unseen inventory. Now how? You are left completely broke at this point and don't have a choice but to get back into this competition. So you will be left in between the sea with two boats moving away from you.
"That's alright by me." Aefia replied without hesitation and started pulling out bundles of cash from her inventory and rearranging them across the table. "If each has at least a thousand, then I guess I will have to give you fifty. Honestly, I do think the competition deserves more for what had been done." Around twenty-five bundles had already occupied the entire free space of the table.
"Did you use your skills to rob a bank?" He spoke with suspicion in his voice. "It seems that you had been using your magic for the wrong use, I am afraid you will have to have it sealed if it continues like this. Do I need to explain why? You don't want to be a criminal on the hunt while also being from the royal family, am I right?" With that he felt like she was probably caught, but the strange, insulting reply that came back, flew through his mind as if like an arrow.
"Yes, well being from the royal family, I do get a huge allowance, so maybe I don't need to worry about money matters anymore. And you will actually be surprised to know, a person who says something like that, is said to have done something similar to it before. So...did you ever rob a bank?" Aefia spoke while placing the last bundle and returning to her seat.
"That is surprising how you have a sharp tongue, although...I should have noticed it from earlier when you were twelve." He let out a sigh as he pinched his forehead. Remembering about one of the things she was wanting to discuss for a long time, eventually raised her voice with a serious tone.
"I am curious...why had you been following me from that young age? And even when you knew that I had found out...why didn't you stop your work and progress like that?" A shadow fell over her eyes as a sign of disapproval and suspicion. Those vivid memories of the talented girl holding a gun in one hand as she flashed a grin and with a bloody face, flew back into his mind as he stared at the same young girl now in front of him in his true form.
"Do I need to give a reason where the book title was what I wanted to tell you." He spoke while his forehead got covered in beads of sweat and he was trying his best to keep a calm complexion. "Alright I have some work left to do so you can come back another day."
"There won't be another day...thinking of the disadvantages you are bringing people saying this was 'just' a competition." Aefia spoke with a strict and harsh tone. A death stare was locked at the direction of the now stood up Mr. Elephant. It seemed as if she wasn't going to let go of the situation that easily.
"Don't get me wrong, but you look panicked. I suppose you had other reason to why you had followed me since that age. You basically saw me grow up and then set up a trap against me that brought me from Earth. Back then, I wasn't a magic user with resistive abilities, so I know for sure I had been enmagicked to fall for it. You may ask why...but now that I am a magic user myself, I don't need to explain it in details." She too stood up and summoned a book from her inventory. A copy of the story 'Dying in a Battlefield'.
"Explain it...the first time you met me and that time you took the opportunity. It was as if...you were testing my skills. Everyone in this competition and every members, they all have a unique mindset. It was a fish-net where it was thrown in a pond that guaranteed your favourite kind, and you randomly selected fifteen out of them." Aefia explained while flipping to a specific page and pointed at the last line of a paragraph.
'She entered the realm, only to find herself surrounded by a group of people who were exactly the same kind of mind as her.'
"Isn't it referring to either me or Nada? But the story is in protagonist view-point." She then aggressively flipped to another page, where another paragraph had a specific line written. "And look at that, a point I really wanted to prove from the time we started to be educated of this universe."
'They learned, took lessons, and at the end, they were all just falsehood that led them to a completely endless route of insanity.'
"I found it true just a week ago, when I was told about Nikoan itself. Did you think anyone would be a fool enough to believe, that a planet only consisted of three states?" Then slammed shut the book. "Have I managed to show you what caused me to leave this competition not even mid-way through the contract?" Dark souless eyes started at Mr. Elephant as he tremendously shoke in place.
Behind him, a faint white figure, that only he could see, was flashing warnings at him. He glared at them, with a traditional weighting scale in one hand and the other holding a thick book. On the scale, an invisible weigh dropped and he immediately diverted his eyes from that completely white and glowing figure with a single wing stretching from the right side. He was shook with fear as he sat down and noticed the shadow that fell over the bundle of cash.
Aefia, who was looking at what he was seeing just seconds ago, smiled as she stared with her face slightly lightening. "Don't worry, you may have done many things until now, and there is still a chance for redemption." She spoke with a calm and peaceful tone to her voice. Mr. Elephant grabbed his glasses from the table and placed it around his neck with the strings attached to the ends.
"I am not on Earth, and I can't look after my family the way I could before. As being in a completely different mission in a completely different planet, I need someone to keep an eye on them until I return. I may be living in another completely different area from the competition, but I still have to find out who the Torture Cell leader is and what their intentions are. As you know, the destruction has already started." She placed a hand on the desk while moving the stuff away from the small area.
"What I am trying to say is, can you keep an eye on my brother and uncle while I am not yet back at Earth?" Her face was softened as if she was a completely different person. It was because that she was talking about her own family and was handing over the safety before their health and well-being to someone else.
Mr. Elephant slightly nodded. "Since I had ruined your childhood and young life, I guess this is the most I can do for you as a way to apologize. I know you had missed it earlier, but you also want me to look after your cousin Nada too, am I right?" A smile was forced onto his still panicked face as Aefia glanced back at what he was truly worried about.
"Yes sure! Thanks for the help, although this is my last day. And by the way, you will be surprised to know that I didn't pay the full fifty thousand knowing you were scam!" She turned around and walked towards the door, while glancing backwards to confirm just one more thing. With a smile, I see...so you were the one behind it, Guardian of Silence...At the last minute, she finally diverted her eyes.