Volume 7, Chapter 64 – An Unfamiliar, Yet Familiar Wraith

The unstable dark blue light flickered and vanished. The golden-haired and black-haired girls appeared on the desolate plain. Perhaps the power of midsummer was too strong; the sunlight was intense enough to pierce the thick clouds and shine upon the town above. An uninformed observer would surely think this city in the Land of Exile was a sacred place blessed by the gods.

Anastasia, who had just stepped out of the portal, immediately raised a hand to shade her forehead.

“Mmm, it’s my first time seeing the Land of Exile with sunlight.”

“Wasn’t there any before?”

“No, it was always foggy before, so people here had very pale skin.”

But it was too bright.

Hard to be happy about it.

Fia and Anastasia walked in unspoken sync towards the small courtyard marked with a “Border Guard” sign. As usual, the yard was dilapidated, full of broken tiles and accumulated dust. Also, likely because [Sacred Relic Analysis] was used here some time ago, which the exiles took as a divine sign, there were traces of outsiders. The broom leaning in the corner had been moved, but it was too rotten; even the exiles didn’t want it, left discarded haphazardly by the wall.

“You said we’re going to clean. Such a big area, how are we supposed to clean it all?”

Just sweeping away the dust in the yard and clearing the broken tiles would take a whole morning, let alone the more structurally complex interior. Cleaning might sound trivial, but once you start, you find time mysteriously gets stolen away.

Besides, at this critical juncture, rather than something as meaningless as cleaning an old house, Anastasia needed rest more.

Anastasia took a bucket, many rags, and a broom from her storage item. She placed the bucket before Fia and handed her a broom.

“May I make an excessive request? I beg Your Highness to fill this bucket with water—I’m not planning on letting you be idle.”

“Ahh.”

In the past, she would have retorted, “Since when does Anastasia give me orders?” But now, she didn’t even have the energy to bicker. She just silently filled the bucket with [Torrent], picked up the broom, and walked into the courtyard. The more cheerful Anastasia acted, the more stifled Fia felt in her chest.

“Ah, let’s clean the yard later. First, go inside. Otherwise, when we clean the house later, we’ll dirty the yard again.”

Saying this, Anastasia pushed open the door of the low house. The oncoming dust made her cough. She wanted to use [Illumination] to light up the dark interior, but Fia beat her to it, illuminating the room.

The interior was no better than the yard. The wooden walls were rotten and moldy; cobwebs hung everywhere on the ceiling and in corners. For someone as petite as Fia, it was fine, but with Anastasia’s height, she’d run headlong into cobwebs.

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“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It really is exactly the same as my home…”

“Isn’t this Anastasia’s home?”

“Not mine, but the other me’s.”

Using the broom to gather the cobwebs in the entrance, Anastasia walked further inside, gently touching the walls and household items.

Past the liquor bottles toppled over a ragged cloth in the entrance—Fia guessed those were Clark’s—further in, one could see a bed in the living room and another in the room to the right. The bed in the living room was covered in bottles and old clothes, while the room on the right was much neater, though “neater” was a generous term; aside from a low stool, there was no other furniture.

Anastasia stopped at the room’s doorway, staring blankly at the dust-covered bed made of only a few planks. Her previously cheerful, clear blue eyes were now only vacant.

“Is this Anastasia’s room?”

“Yes…”

Anastasia slowly walked inside. She went to the bedside, crouched down, and reached her right hand towards a dark green stain on the bed—the mark left by something that had molded long ago on the ragged cloth.

But Anastasia’s eyes held only nostalgia; she even seemed to want to reach out and gently touch it.

Fia stopped her before she could.

“What is that?”

“It’s the food you gave me.”

From the story of the past Crown Princess?

“I don’t remember the past.”

There was a hint of sorrow in Fia’s tone. Anastasia turned her head, offering a “it’s okay” smile.

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“Even if you hadn’t lost your memory, you probably wouldn’t remember. It was just an insignificant little thing to you. People in the Land of Exile aren’t kind enough to give food to outsiders, and my father was that useless, so back then, if I wanted to fill my stomach, I had to go out and find food myself. Winters here are long; many people freeze or starve to death on the road searching for food every year. That was true for adults, and even more difficult for a child like me at the time.”

“After two days outside without finding food, I thought if I continued, I’d freeze to death in the icy wilderness. So I slunk back home to see if Clark had exchanged his wages for bread, but he was nowhere to be found in the whole house. I had no choice but to lie down on this bed.”

“I was so tired, I just wanted to sleep. But it was too cold, the wind always blew through the cracks in the house, and my stomach kept growling. So even a good night’s sleep became a luxury. I kept waking up from the cold and drifting off, over and over, until I found I didn’t even have the strength to sit up. I thought I was done for, sure to starve to death at home. I was so scared I cried my eyes out, but besides the sound of wind and snow, there was nothing else in the house.”

“Until suddenly, the door opened. You stood before me with Maggie amidst the wind and snow. The first time I saw your clothes and face, I thought I’d seen a demon, that I was going to hell. But you had Maggie light a brazier in the room, then crouched down and held my hand. I had never felt anything so warm. I thought you were an angel and asked who you were. But you only answered, asking if I wanted to leave the Land of Exile with you.”

“Of course I wanted to leave this wretched place, but I was also afraid you were a messenger sent by the gods to take me away. I hesitated, crying for a long time… Thinking back now, I was really delightfully slow-witted back then.”

A smile graced her face, but mist gathered at the corners of Anastasia’s eyes. She hurriedly wiped them dry with her sleeve, regaining her previous composure.

“Later, Maggie, who was better with words than you, explained your purpose. She told me you were my half-sister, the current Crown Princess of the Kingdom. You would take me to the Royal Castle, on the condition I could only follow you as a servant, allowed to go nowhere else. I jumped at the chance, of course. Then you gave me a small bag of biscuits. I don’t know if it was my imagination, but back then, even though you had no expression, I felt like you seemed to smile.”

“Finally, you asked if I had anything I wanted to keep, then had Maggie take me away. I was wolfing down the biscuits and accidentally dropped a small piece on the bed. I wanted to pick it up, but Maggie was already holding my hand, leading me to the door, saying there would be more biscuits than I could ever eat at the Royal Castle. I had to leave it behind. All these years later, I still think about that biscuit I left on the bed. Perhaps it’s psychological, but I’ve never eaten anything as delicious since. Unfortunately, it’s moldy now, just a dark spot.”

Anastasia gently withdrew her hand from Fia’s, silently gazing at the dark stain on the bed, her fingertips tracing it lightly. After a long moment, she spoke with deep emotion.

“That was when you became as dazzling as the sun in my eyes. You appeared at my most desperate moment, pulled me out of this inescapable mire, took me to the wider world outside, and taught me to use all sorts of things I’d never seen before. Besides something more magnificent than the gods—the sun—I couldn’t find anything else to describe you. You became the meaning of my life.”

“Don’t say it so seriously…”

“It’s the truth.” Anastasia raised an eyebrow, emphasizing quite seriously. “Anyone in my position would be the same.”

Embarrassing words.

To have someone look into your eyes and say you’ve become the meaning of their life… no one could withstand such an attack.

Though for Anastasia, it was just stating facts.

Fia couldn’t help but be moved.

This was the first time Anastasia had told her the detailed past. Before, she only knew the Crown Princess saved Anastasia from the Land of Exile, unaware of the specifics.

Feeling embarrassed, she changed the subject.

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“Didn’t Anastasia say you came back periodically to check? It feels like the first time entering the house.”

“Because it is the first time entering the house. Before, I always just looked around the yard. After fifty years? Or longer? In the past, I was afraid coming inside would recall terrifying memories. I don’t know if it’s because I’m entering with you now, or because so much time has passed, but now, entering the house, I only feel nostalgia. Ah, not nostalgia for the suffering, but nostalgia for when I first met you. I still remember that expressionless face clearly.”

“Should I reenact it for you?”

“The current you definitely couldn’t recreate it. Ahh, enough of that. Today’s task is cleaning. We’ll leave the dust to the house fairies. The moldy parts will have to be handled by Your Highness with the [Cleaning] magic.”

So Anastasia also knew to leave the hardest work to magic.

“And Anastasia?”

“I’ll organize the furniture and useless items, then clean the cobwebs. Also, there might be insects and mice under the cabinets and bed, so I’ll handle all of that.”

Anastasia stood up, her face brimming with a bright smile.

Isn’t that picking the easiest tasks?

But given Anastasia’s current condition, she couldn’t handle physically demanding work anyway.

Fia put her hands on her hips, sighing helplessly in agreement.

“Yeah, yeah. Leave the mopping to me too. With magic, it’ll be solved quickly.”

“Having the Crown Princess of the Kingdom do servants’ work, my face must be huge.”

“What’s with that triumphant tone?”

The cleaning progressed swiftly amidst their back-and-forth banter. As Fia said, with magic’s aid, progress was quite fast. Even without using [Torrent] combined with [Airflow Control] to flush, just controlling over a dozen [Spatial Hands] with [Telekinesis] to hold brooms, rags, and buckets could quickly clean the room spotless. As buckets of dirty water were carried out and dumped by [Telekinesis], by the time the sun passed the noon line, everywhere was cleaned.

If they also threw out the two plank beds and few stools serving as furniture, the room would be so tidy you couldn’t tell it was in the Land of Exile.

It’s completely transformed.

Even Fia had to admit that cleaning was something that seemed troublesome before starting but felt cathartic once begun. The feeling of emptying one’s mind made one forget worries, especially after finishing and looking around the tidy room—an indescribable sense of accomplishment arose.

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“That’s done.”

Tossing the last bucket of dirty water, frozen into an ice ball, far into the distant wilderness, Fia, standing on the wooden platform in the backyard, let out a long sigh. It was now noon; Anastasia was inside preparing a simple lunch.

The hot wind blowing from the plain brushed her neck; the feeling of evaporating sweat was wonderfully cool.

The air was so quiet, only the rustle of grass blades rubbing together remained.

It was almost like living in seclusion in the mountains.

Only she and Anastasia were here. She would gather food, Anastasia would cook. This reclusive life wasn’t bad. But if they really chose seclusion, it would definitely become much livelier than this. Claire, Liti, and Milu would surely live with them, with occasional visits from Nola and Tilulu.

Nola…

Thinking of that red-haired girl whose cat ears burst into flames when she got shy, Fia couldn’t help but tilt her head slightly, looking up at the higher, more distant sky. Now that the one-month deadline was approaching, it was time to think about how to respond to Nola’s feelings.

No.

Right now, Anastasia is more important.

Pushing the chaotic thoughts aside, Fia turned around. But something at the edge of her vision made her heart lurch.

A shadow hidden under the eaves, something you wouldn’t notice unless you looked carefully.

Its build was similar to hers, even the hairstyle—shoulder-length twin tails. But because its body was a mass of black, constantly flickering, it looked like a wraith, its outline extremely indistinct.

Fia had seen this thing before when leaving the Witch Hall. Back then, she hadn’t paid much mind to this wraith. But last night, during Anastasia’s soul transfer, the flickering and instability of Anastasia’s soul were almost identical to this wraith. Fia couldn’t help but freeze in place.

Neither afraid nor making a fuss, Fia, with a reaction different from a normal person, quietly observed this black mist that had suddenly appeared behind her.

—She felt no sense of threat. Or rather, this wraith held no hostility at all. Fia even felt a bizarre, faint sense of familiarity.