"Hah, you want me to entice her? What else does she care about besides the delusions in her mind? Are you suggesting I help her realize those delusions? Ansel, you really are—"
Evora's expression turned cold as she looked at Ansel, who remained silent with a smile. She began to speak with indifference, but halfway through, she suddenly stopped.
Ravenna Ziegler, the things she cared about most, aside from her unrealistic delusions and the Tower of Babel that housed them, was there really nothing else?
"Ziegler..."
The Elder Princess murmured to herself, her gaze gradually brightening.
"Speaking of which, I never paid much attention to how that old man died."
She shifted her gaze to Ansel's face, her tone slightly elevated: "Ansel, tell me, do you think our little puppet would care about this news?"
"These are all your own thoughts."
Ansel picked up his wine glass again and took a sip, chuckling with an air of detachment: "It has nothing to do with me, right?"
This was the gift Ansel had prepared for Ravenna.
A safer method that would not endanger her life, allowing her to obtain the answers she so desperately sought.
Otherwise, why would Ansel have deliberately waited for Ravenna to finish displaying Nidhoggur before instructing Evora to cease her prying?
As for the cost...
It was merely a triviality, something she had paid countless times before, simply a continuation of... selling her own soul and beliefs.
The venomous serpent gazed into the wine in his glass, whispering in his heart:
Accept this gift well, Venna.
*
By the time Ravenna arrived at the spot where Seraphina was, the girl was squatting by the stream, washing her face.
"Oh, you're here," Seraphina turned her head, her eyes slightly open, her naturally watery eyes now even more dewy, giving her a lively appearance: "Have you dealt with them all?"
"There are still some left, but they suddenly lost the ability to move, so I guessed you had completed the hunt," Ravenna shifted her gaze to Seraphina's surroundings, "So, where is the lesser of the Tidecallers?"
"Haha, right here!"
The girl stood up abruptly, shaking her head to cast off the droplets on her face and hair, proudly holding her head high with one hand on her hip, then pulled out a semi-transparent blue jellyfish from her... pocket?
"...Ha?" Seraphina casually pocketing the Tidecaller's corpse and tilting her head. "What's wrong?"
"I wish to ask you about something," Ravenna said, locking eyes with Seraphina, her words deliberate and measured.
"Is there any force in this world capable of compelling Ansel to change?"
"!"
Seraphina's expression shifted instantaneously, but she instinctively denied, "Wh-what are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? Who in this world...could, could possibly compel Ansel? Are you referring to the empress?"
"... No, I understand now, thank you, Seraphina."
The answer was unequivocally clear.
The girl who could not conceal her emotions had the answer written all over her face, which was... precisely what Marlina had once told her. Even the words that had been verified by her as truth now seemed to be conclusive evidence.
Ravenna, with trembling hands, struggled to push her glasses up her nose.
She felt a blinding whiteness before her eyes, her limbs became incredibly weak, and her ears were filled with a cacophony that, as time passed, morphed into the sound of her own heartbeat—thudding, increasingly rapid.
When she regained her composure, Ravenna realized she had begun to gasp for breath incessantly.
["Mr. Ansel... has forsaken something of great importance to him."]
This was the reality.
—Could there be a more terrifying entity that had abducted Ansel, coerced him, and led him to forsake something significant? Could that significant thing be... all that they had experienced together, the promises they had once made?
If so—
At that moment, Ravenna's inner void and bewilderment reached their zenith.
What was the purpose of all her resentment, hostility, and entanglement over these three years?
From initially reaching out to Ansel incessantly, hoping to get answers from him and harboring a faint hope, to after reuniting with him, trying to decipher his plans, constantly confronting him, and then becoming utterly passive and numb—until now.
In this prolonged period, what exactly was the nature of her negative emotions towards Ansel... what exactly...?
What on earth... have I done?
Peaking alongside this indescribable emptiness and confusion;
Was an overwhelming sense of regret that threatened to consume her entirely.
*