Meanwhile, after parting ways with Edsac, Trellis walked along the forest path for over ten minutes before a wave of confusion hit her — she had no idea where she was even supposed to go next.
Honestly, ever since handing over that ring, she wasn't even sure what the Witch cult's attitude toward her was anymore. Would they send people to hunt her down indefinitely?
If so — where should she even go from here?
In the original story, Edsac had died, and Trellis had set out on a path of revenge — hiding, fleeing across Backlund, ultimately sacrificing her own life to destroy one of George III's tombs, completing her vengeance.
But now, having personally rescued Edsac herself, she no longer had any need for revenge at all.
When she'd first become a Beyonder, all she'd wanted was to grow stronger by any means necessary, make more money, find more women — but all of that had turned to dust the moment she advanced to Sequence 7.
Women — meaningless now.
Money — Edsac had already given her plenty.
Growing stronger further would only push her further into becoming, fully, entirely, a woman — and to process the "euphoria" that came with it, she'd need to seek out men, something she couldn't stomach at all.
Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit her.
By the time her vision cleared, she found, bizarrely, that she'd left the forest path entirely, a familiar, briny sea breeze blowing against her face.
This was...
Pulitz Port — the Kingdom of Loen's largest, busiest harbor.
Trellis's pupils contracted sharply, and she scanned her surroundings warily.
Then she spotted a figure in a classical robe, a black hood pulled up, dark eyes hidden in the shadow beneath it.
For some reason, Trellis suddenly felt like she'd been reduced to infancy — utterly powerless, with no capacity to resist whatsoever.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Her legs trembled violently, but her whole body refused to move.
This person... was more frightening than anyone she'd ever encountered — even that high-Sequence witch who'd once put the sapphire ring on her finger seemed, next to this figure, hardly different from herself.
The thought had barely crossed her mind when the figure raised a hand, giving it a light wave toward her, and tossed something glowing faintly blue in her direction.
Trellis caught it almost on instinct, then her breath caught — it was unmistakably the very sapphire ring she'd handed off before!
It had come back to her?!
Which meant — could this person be some even higher-Sequence witch from the Witch cult?
Before she could make sense of it, the figure seemed to be erased, stroke by stroke, like something wiped clean, vanishing from sight — as if it had never been there at all.
"..."
The night wind brushed past her, and Trellis felt a faint shiver run through her, a touch of cold settling in.
She stared down at the ring for a long moment, her head lowered — in the end, she couldn't bring herself to throw it away, but she didn't put it on either, instead tucking it into a small tin box she always carried with her.
She looked out at the massive ships lined up in the harbor, and took a heavy step forward.
...
The next day.
Having spent most of the night filling Bernadette in on "gossip," Vincent opened his bleary eyes, and instantly felt the ache and exhaustion radiating through every inch of his body.
It felt like getting hit head-on by a truck, then run over repeatedly by a passing steamroller for good measure.
Partly, this was leftover fallout from yesterday's "Ambitionist" state. Partly, it was because his own damn spirituality had taken back control from him!
Heh. After today, I'll advance to Sequence 4 and become a demigod. After that, whether you like it or not, you'll be under my thumb.
He lay in bed for a good while, letting the ache ease off, before finally hauling himself out of bed with a wince, his joints popping in a chain of small cracks.
He shuffled into the washroom and looked at Bernadette's beautiful face in the mirror, waving a hand. "Morning."
"Morning."
Bernadette responded lazily in his mind.
Once he'd finished washing up, Vincent instinctively swiped a hand across his face, half-expecting to shift his features — but the mirror still showed Bernadette's face, no change at all.
"Did you forget? Amon stole the Blood-Draining Wristguard."
"...Forgot."
I hate Thieves!!!
Vincent fumed silently. Sure, the Blood-Draining Wristguard hadn't done much in the fights so far, but as an item forged from a Shepherd's Beyonder Characteristic, no matter how high his Sequence climbed, it would've kept being genuinely useful — especially paired with the Faceless's ability!
"Are you planning to advance to Sequence 4 today?"
Bernadette asked.
"Yeah. If I advance today, then when we swap tomorrow, you can advance to Sequence 2, and our combined strength jumps up a huge amount all at once!"
"Once you're Sequence 4, you won't need to rely on the Faceless to change your appearance anymore."
"True enough."
Mystery Reenactment's illusion abilities might not match the Faceless, but they'd be more than enough for everyday use.
"I'll take a walk outside first, then head to Emerald City to advance."
The real reason for the walk was to check how yesterday's events had ultimately played out.
Vincent hailed a hired carriage and rode toward the East District, in the direction of the factory district, eventually stopping in front of a cemetery on the district's outskirts.
Even from a distance, he could hear the mournful sound of weeping, grieving people scattered everywhere, and rows of simply-wrapped bodies laid out across the ground.
All of them dead from last night's Great Fog.
These people would likely never know the truth of what had really happened.
All they'd have was the bitter sense of fate's cruelty — that life was already hard enough as it was, and yet somehow, even more disaster had come crashing down, dragging them further into the abyss.
Goddess of the Evernight — George III and his people were never any good to begin with, but you're not exactly better.
After all, none of this could have happened without her own tacit permission, her own tolerance of it.
Honestly can't figure out why future-me, going back into the past, would end up getting tangled up with you of all people.
Vincent shook his head and picked up a newspaper, flipping through it quickly.
Just as he'd expected, everything had been dressed up in a story ordinary people could swallow. The plague fog the witches had unleashed was blamed on toxic gas leaking from factories. The string of explosions across multiple districts was attributed to aging pipeline infrastructure.
As for Red Rose Manor, razed to the ground with nearly a hundred dead, and the tragedy at the royal palace — both were pinned on Prince Edsac, framed as having conspired with a cult and foreign powers, triggering the whole disaster.
The great and merciful King George III expressed his deepest condolences for everything that had happened, and swore he would make sure those responsible paid the price.
"Phew—"
Vincent let out a slow breath.
Thanks to his own intervention, the total death toll from last night's Great Fog came to only around four or five hundred — a hastily estimated figure, sure, not perfectly precise, but unlikely to be wildly off from the truth.
Even a few hundred deaths was still no small number, but compared to the tens of thousands from the original story, it was a fraction of that.
In truth, the number should have been even lower — Vincent had arrived at the "Despair Witch's" location the instant she'd released the plague, stopping her from spreading it any further and using a large number of scrolls to disperse the plague already in the air.
But Derek Augustus's sudden appearance had cut his rescue efforts short, keeping him from finishing off the plague fog entirely — those few hundred deaths, in a very real sense, belonged squarely on Derek's own head.
Vincent had no idea whether he'd ended up dying afterward or not.
"This is already the best outcome I could've managed."
Vincent said quietly, looking out at the grieving crowd across the cemetery, then turned and walked away.
To be continued…
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