Chapter 107: Second Round |
Miles’s domain ultimately had too many flaws.
This was precisely why Samuel always felt he was far from the Perpetual Arboretum.
If this domain could truly advance to the level of a proto-Divine Realm, the first thing it should do is prohibit the enemy’s extraordinary abilities.
At the very least, it should prevent the enemy from manipulating his own memories.
When faced with mental-type abilities, Miles was utterly useless.
He was so weak he didn’t seem like a Law Contemplator.
He even needed to rely on a Law Object to use his abilities.
No matter how you looked at it, it was strange.
His mental state didn’t match his identity as a Law Contemplator either.
In other words, his abilities were only suitable for bullying the weak.
If he happened to encounter someone at the same level, there should always be a countermeasure… right?
Samuel wasn’t sure; after all, he had never fought a Law Contemplator. Since coming to this world, the only ones he had somewhat fought were Ethen and an unknown gaze from the Royal Family.
As for the assassin he encountered at the Pride gathering, that was just like now—purely playing with the other party.
But if he compared the major general before him to the assassin from the Fate Correction Society back then, he still felt Miles was lacking.
Samuel’s twisted lump of flesh twitched slightly, raising an eyeball to look at the withered Miles sitting in the chair.
Hmm…
Maybe he had played a bit too rough.
But Samuel felt no psychological burden whatsoever.
Miles could end this domain at any time; maintaining it this whole time was entirely his own choice.
Samuel thought he was such a good person, not even getting angry after being treated like this.
“Whoosh…” He heard the sound of a slow exhale.
Samuel stared at Miles in the chair and suddenly felt that the lingering sense of wrongness had disappeared.
He saw Miles, eyes closed, the corners of his mouth gradually lifting. His body stopped trembling, and his eyes beneath the eyelids no longer darted around.
For the first time in a long while, Miles’s emotions had completely calmed down.
How long had it been since he had felt this peace? Miles couldn’t remember.
But he felt that this countless waiting was finally about to end.
This so-called “waiting” didn’t refer to Samuel.
It was the “waiting” that began the moment he became a “Law Contemplator.”
He smiled, but it was no longer about winning or losing.
He felt he had crossed another threshold, achieved an elevation in his state of mind. Next time, maybe he could do even better.
Just as Samuel had guessed, his strength didn’t match his own rank.
He couldn’t even activate his abilities without the aid of a Law Object. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to wear down a soldier, who wasn’t even a Law Seeker, for two days just to interrogate him.
The reason he had become a Law Contemplator was the result of a forced ascension.
Although the practice of the Law must rely on one’s own effort, not external aids or brainwashing, the Royal Family and the military had many Law Seekers of [Ultimate Wisdom] and [Fallacy]. After a thousand years of research, they had always found some loopholes.
Grill was ultimately outdated. The technique for a Law Seeker to inscribe a Law Rhyme had been around for hundreds of years.
But then again, he was just a branch chief of the Public Security Bureau; it was understandable that he wasn’t familiar with this.
Miles slowly sat upright.
Now, he suddenly felt that maybe he could truly master this power.
He opened his eyes and looked at Samuel writhing on the ground, but his gaze held a completely different luster from the dead stillness before.
Miles recalled the conversation he had with Samuel when he first pulled him into the mental domain.
So, after a “hundred years,” he opened his withered mouth and, with a hoarse voice, spoke first:
“I remember you said that you came here… because you had a premonition you would encounter something interesting.”
“Cough… cough, cough…” He coughed forcefully.
“Eh?” The lump of flesh that was Samuel twitched, raising a small tentacle with an eye on its tip, like lifting his head, looking at Miles. “You’re finally willing to talk?”
“Ah, yes.” Miles grinned. “I don’t really care anymore whether I can finish you off here now.”
“I see. That’s quite nice, then.” Samuel’s eye bobbed up and down, as if nodding.
Seeing Samuel like this, a deep smile spread across Miles’s face.
“But you know, you look pretty bored right now.”
“Yeah, super bored.” Samuel wriggled a couple of times and replied. “But if I think of it differently, like a competition with you, then it’s not boring anymore.”
If Evina were here, she would probably treat this as a hundred-year-long abandonment game.
Thinking about it that way was even more satisfying.
“I’m not just lazing around,” the lump of mud on the ground writhed. “I’m playing a game with you.”
“Let’s see who gives up first.”
“It’s a lot of fun.”
This might seem like sophistry, but Miles didn’t think so.
He nodded his shriveled, aged head.
“I see…”
“Then… it looks like I won…” Miles looked at Samuel sprawled on the ground. “At least… I can still maintain a roughly human shape.”
“This is the world of the mind; you can’t lie.”
He paused and then asked.
“I am Miles Anthony, Major General of the Royal Army.”
“What is your name?”
Samuel looked back at him and answered without any intention of hiding:
“My name is Samuel Gavris. I am the ‘Stage’ of the [Troupe]. You can call me ‘Mr. Stage.’”
He casually fleshed out the organization Celt had improvised and gave himself a code name too.
He was the “Stage.”
After all, all the roles came from him, born “backstage” and coming to the “front stage.”
So he was the “Stage.”
He was the source of all roles, the stage on which both comedy and tragedy were performed.
“[Troupe]…” Miles repeated the name. “Never heard of that organization.”
“But I will remember it.”
He pressed his hands down slightly and stood up from the chair.
“This has been truly delightful, Mr. Gavris, Mr. Stage.”
He walked slowly toward Samuel.
“I doubt I’ll ever forget you for the rest of my life.”
He didn’t revert to his original appearance, still maintaining his withered state.
But he no longer cared.
“Ah, you’re already starting your victory speech.”
Samuel’s body twitched.
“True. You can’t lie in this world.” Samuel shuffled forward a bit, then his lumpy body slowly rose. “But maybe I turned myself into this on purpose?”
His body twisted a few times, slowly standing up under Miles’s gaze, the writhing mass coalescing into a human form.
First came the legs, then the body, then the neck.
Finally, the last bit of mud lifted from the ground, falling into Samuel’s hand and turning into a head.
Samuel held the head in one hand and placed it on his own like a hat.
“Yo, Miles.” Samuel raised a hand and waved it lightly. “Next up is Round Two.”
Seeing Samuel completely restored in an instant, Miles was a bit surprised but found it not hard to accept.
He should have thought of it sooner.
“Ah, fine.” He raised his withered right hand, a white crystal slowly forming in his palm. “Then let’s begin the second round.”
Ripples spread out from beneath Samuel and Miles’s feet, and the pure white space began to shake.
But this change soon stopped.
Samuel tilted his head, not noticing what Miles had done.
“What did you do?” he asked curiously.
“I probably did nothing at all.” Miles spread his bony left hand.
As if to avoid misunderstanding, he added, “I wanted to read your mind, but I couldn’t get anything.”
“Maybe I don’t have a brain,” Samuel replied with a smile.
Miles seemed apologetic for failing to do what he intended.
“I’d like to see what you wanted me to see at the very beginning. Is that okay?” The crystal in his hand glowed faintly as Miles spoke in his hoarse voice. “I hope we can have the second round of the contest in that setting.”
Earlier, during the first round, the reason he could manifest the scene from Samuel’s memory was entirely because Samuel had cooperated.
But now, since Samuel couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do, he naturally couldn’t cooperate.
“Why the sudden urge to see that?” Samuel asked, one hand on his hip, tilting his head. “You ran away pretty fast last time, didn’t you?”
He didn’t mind, though.
“Just curious, I suppose,” Miles said. “I want to see what kind of environment could cultivate someone like you.”
“Cultivate?” Samuel picked his ear. “Ah, yeah, I guess you could call it that.”
“Can’t you just manifest it directly?”
“I can’t.” Miles shook his head. “I can’t see directly into your heart.”
“My ability can manifest the most vivid memory in your mind, reflecting the turning point that made you who you are.”
“But right now, I can’t sense anything at all.”
Miles openly revealed his ability because he knew Samuel wouldn’t refuse.
Show me the turning point that made me who I am?
Samuel thought back.
That would be far too long.
If I had to say, the hundred-plus years of repeated cycles before transmigrating all counted.
But if I had to pick the one “most unforgettable”…
Hmm…
The sixth time, definitely.
The most intense one.
Of course, another reason was that it was the most recent one.
It hadn’t even been a month yet.
“I see.” Samuel nodded with a smile. “Then, I consent.”
“After all, I am the ‘Stage.’ As long as the audience wants to see a show, of course I won’t refuse.” He spread his arms, letting Miles manifest his memories.
The next moment, a steel jungle rose from beneath their feet.
Towering buildings, intricate roadways, traffic lights, cars, electric scooters, and all sorts of facilities Miles had never seen before.
The sky was overcast, and rain began to fall.
Samuel stood on the rooftop where it all began, letting the rain pass through his body.
Just like in the memory Samuel had first shown to Pride, this rain couldn’t touch Samuel and Miles either.
But Miles was different. For some reason, the rain actually landed on his head instead of passing through.
“So?” Samuel asked eagerly. “What are the rules of the game now?”
He looked at Miles, whose hair was being wet by the rain in this “memory,” and felt the raindrops passing through his own body. He had a rough idea.
“It shouldn’t be an endurance contest anymore. If it were, there’d be no need to come here. The original venue would be more suitable.” Samuel said with a smile.
“Yes, the rules have changed.” Miles walked to the edge of the rooftop, looking down at the scene below, astonished by a sight far beyond his experience.
But he quickly suppressed that astonishment.
He didn’t care if this place was an alien world or something; he just knew it was probably different from the Kingdom of Liastan he was used to.
“Is this your hometown?” he asked softly.
“Something like that,” Samuel replied.
Miles looked at the scene below and laid out the rules.
“Then, next up, the rules of the game are simple. Here, I will destroy the ‘Law’ within your heart.”
Samuel looked at Miles, watching as he was actually able to get wet by the rain of this world, and a grin spread across his face.
“Ah, that’s really cheap~.”
“I don’t know what you’re planning, but you guys tried to make the person in Wyatt’s memory betray his own ‘Law’ for the same reason, right?” Samuel asked.
Miles turned his head to look at Samuel’s face, a smile on his expression that had been absolutely impossible before.
“I didn’t expect you to know so much.”
His withered body seemed to be nourished by this rain, gradually swelling and regaining its muscular state from the beginning.
“That’s my ability.” He flexed his muscles.
“In this ritual, I am one of its cores. Liant Town has three cores in total, and the source of the ‘memory’ is me.”
Samuel nodded, but he cared more about the current game than the ritual in Liant Town.
“And me?” Samuel asked with a smile. “What’s my win condition? Kicking you out?”
“You could certainly do that,” Miles said, tilting his head back to let the rain hit his face, but looking down at Samuel with his eyes. “You could do it easily.”
“But I’m sure you won’t.”
“Because a Law Seeker of [Absurdity] wouldn’t just break the game outright.”
“So I won’t use any provocation on you. It’s unnecessary anyway.”
“Your win condition is: Before the spirituality I use to maintain this memory runs out, the past version of you must not betray his own ideals, and must not be twisted or destroyed by me.”
“How about it? Do you have faith in your former self? Or are you going to kick me out now?” Miles extended one hand, looking at Samuel.
“Haha.” Samuel’s grin stretched from ear to ear.
“Fine by me.”