Chapter 66 - Mother And Child

What should I do?

Without much thought, my eyes widened and my pupils constricted once again before my body decayed too much.

The space around me distorted and my eyes were on the necklace.

My figure disappeared.

Then it reappeared, but there was a grimace on my face.

The stake had shattered and my hand broke off of my wrist, decaying and crumbling after hitting the ground.

Ah... this is bad.

The necklace was laying on the floor, no longer emitting black mist.

Was it... dead?

A sense of danger came from behind me.

My head turned around to see a dagger flying towards my face.

I forgot about that thing.

My legs already couldn't move...

A bitter smile appeared on my face and my eyes closed...

The sound of a baby crying rang out.

My eyes opened to see a pale blue light in front of me.

The knife had stopped in front of the light.

"My child?"

Crying continued to come from the pale blue light. The mist was dispersed and the decay on my body receded.

A gentle touch appeared on my arm and my hand slowly regrew.

The mist left the knife and transferred itself to the necklace. The necklace floated over to the pale blue light.

"My child, it's me, your mother. Come to mommy."

The crying grew louder and angrier.

The necklace backed off.

"Child? Don't you recognize your mother?"

The pale blue light continued crying but calmed down.

My eyes were on my hand that had suddenly regrown, it was like the injuries were a lie.

Leon walked over to me.

"This is quite the strange situation."

My shoulders shrugged.

"I don't really get what is happening."

Leon looked towards the necklace.

"It seems as though the mother wishes to reunite with the child."

Leon's eyes narrowed when he looked at the pale blue light.

"But the child does not trust her."

Mark also walked up, then chuckled.

"Why don't you convince the child to return to his mother?"

Osric had followed Mark. He frowned when he heard what Mark said.

"Perhaps there is a reason the child doesn't trust the mother. Who's to say that it would be better for the child to return to the mother?"

Mark shrugged.

"Well, the choice is your hands, Jay."

My hand scratched the back of my head. My eyes were on the pale blue light and somehow I felt it was looking back at me.

"Um, do you want to give your mother a chance?"

The pale blue light let out a whimper, while the necklace was jumping around.

The necklace got a little closer.

"Yes, yes, please, my child, give me one chance and I will prove that I am a suitable mother."

The pale blue light got closer to me.

Why did the decision come to me? I wouldn't know what is better...

My head tilted to the side.

"Hey, just do what you want. I won't force you to do anything."

The pale blue light let out a small whimper.

For a few moments, there was only silence. The necklace couldn't stop moving, a testament to the anxiety it felt.

The pale blue light let out another whimper. This light dimmed and slowly moved towards the necklace.

The necklace was trembling.

"Oh my child, you have come back to me!"

The necklace wrapped itself around the pale blue light. The dark mist receded into the necklace. It then began shining, the rust and cracks that covered the necklace disappeared as though they were never there in the first place.

Leon let out a small sigh.

"I suppose that is all."

The corner of Osric's lip twitched.

"Anyhow, we need to divide what we have acquired."

Mark smirked.

"It appears this journey has benefitted Jay greatly. I doubt the kid and his mother would follow any of us."

My hand pulled out a glowing blue bean from my pocket and tossed it to Osric.

"I guess you should at least keep that."

Osric caught it and bitterly smiled.

"Haha, alright."

My hand then unraveled the cloth bag.

"And since you were the only one that didn't get one of these, you can have it."

Of the remaining four black fruits, one was thrown to Osric.

Osric caught the fruit and raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, thank you."

My hand waved dismissively.

"No problem."

Leon began gathering mana.

"We should leave now, there is little reason to stay."

Leon walked over to the pathway that decayed and the rest of us followed.

Leon raised his staff.

"Thankfully the mana is not as thin as before."

A few gales of wind were stirred up and the path was filled with earth once again. We walked down the path and made it to the center platform.

Leon took a deep breath.

Winds rushed downwards from the hole in the ceiling, blowing away the dust around us.

The platform below us abruptly began rising, but none of us were fazed.

The sound of scraping stone filled the air and there was a moment of silence.

Leon turned his head from one side to the other, his gaze lingering on each of us as it passed by.

"This endeavor was quite successful. When all is said and done the four of us cooperated splendidly. I am willing to do something similar in the future."

I nodded without much thought.

"Yeah, it was pretty nice."

Osric's face twitched, but he nodded a few times soon after.

"I agree."

Mark shrugged his shoulders.

"There is no disagreement from me."

The platform abruptly stopped and we were above ground. Where there used to be an ice pond was now a stone platform.

The forest was as snowy as always, already on its mission to cover the stone platform below us.

Mark casually waved.

"Goodbye for now."

His figure twitched, then disappeared.

Osric cleared his throat.

"Farewell, to you lot."

Osric became a white mist and went into the forest.

My hand was awkwardly waving.

Leon turned to me with a neutral expression.

"That was fun. Do you have any other plans?"

My shoulders shrugged.

"Uh, not really. I guess my only idea was to continue down this way."

Leon nodded.

"I see, you go do that. As for me, I have a village to take care of. It would be unfitting of me to shirk a responsibility I gave myself."

My eyelid twitched.

"Wait, now that I think about it, my village also needs to be taken care of."

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"You have also put a responsibility onto yourself?"

My hand scratched the back of my head.

"Not exactly. My village is in a really bad state, people are killing each other for food and are forcefully turned into slaves."

Leon chuckled.

"Bad state? That sounds like any other normal village to me."

My eyes widened.

"What? Is your village like that too?"

Leon laughed.

"No, but that is an exception. This is more so a hobby than anything else. After all, there are an innumerable amount of people in the situation you described."

The base of my palm rubbed against my temple.

"You... aren't powerful enough to change that?"

Leon shook his head.

"Not even close. This world is much larger than you could possibly imagine."

So it's still not enough?

A bitter smile formed on my face.

"In that case, my journey this way will continue."

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"Is that so? In any case, may you have good luck in your prospects."

My finger scratched the side of my hand.

"Thanks, you too Leon."

The ground began to shake and Leon was lifted up by some earth. The earth formed an arch, carrying Leon along with it. Before he hit the ground, another arch burst from the ground, lifting him further.

My eyes lingered on Leon for a few more seconds, before my head turned around, and my steps continued forward.

As my feet navigated the forest, some thoughts circulating in my head.

What condition was the village in right now?

Were they holding up fine?

Was it already too late?

My head shook.

There was no point in thinking about it now.

"So, is your name Jay?"

A voice came from behind me, so my head turned around. The crystal and pale blue light with a necklace around it were behind me.

"Uh, yeah that's my name."

The necklace trembled slightly.

"Ah, then hello, Jay. My name is Amy."

My footsteps continued, and my hand was on the back of my neck.

"Oh, nice to meet you, Amy."

A voice was emitted from the necklace.

"Yes, yes. Anyways, do you know what happened to... me and my child?"

My eyelid twitched.

"Er, it's a long story. I'm not sure if you would like to hear it."

There was a solemn silence.

The necklace was shaking.

"Please tell me. It may hurt me, but it's something I need to hear."

A soft sigh escaped me.

"I guess to start, I should talk about the papers."

I walked through the snow and retold the story to some objects that were following behind me.