Chapter 64: Three terrifying possibilities

Before he entered his study, Alaric made a round to Marchioness’ office to ask about the one thing which had been lingering in his mind.

How did she know there was supposed to be a strange existence near House Orlen?

Because that was the first question she had asked him before starting her story.

When he reached her study and asked this question, Rowena chuckled.

"Yes, I forgot to tell you about this. But as a former top tier Paragon, I at least had enough vision back then during the fight to realise that Vharaketh began going just slightly easy on me at some point in the fight.

"He would’ve definitely taken the chance to kill me if it was possible, but if not, he was also content with letting me live.

"I believe that he found out my identity through his strange powers at some point during the fight.

"And then he specifically prepared that body so that I could take care of it and he could make use of that identity later.

"Why would he do all of this if it wasn’t somehow related to the enemy he so desperately wanted to kill?

"Why would he do all of this just to make me prepare a body and an identity which he can’t even conveniently use to kill his enemy?

"Therefore, I believed that his enemy must be somewhere around me or House Orlen in the first place, and this is why he made a body for me to prepare and nurture and give an identity to."

Once he got that information, Alaric nodded at her and headed towards his study.

He sat behind the desk in his room and took out several sheets of paper.

There were too many things mixed together inside his head.

Vharaketh, Alice, the System, Alastair Orlen, the Fall of Hundred Paragons and the original events of Tales of Golden Era all seemed connected, but Alaric couldn’t tell which connections were real and which ones existed because his mind was a mess and he was just desperately trying to connect the dots.

He decided to write down the confirmed information first.

Vharaketh had descended into this world twenty years ago to kill an enemy, but someone had interfered with his sense of time and caused him to arrive far too early.

His enemy possessed the ability to make reality conform to something they had written, and they became stronger whenever reality continued following that writing.

That same enemy had spent hundreds or perhaps thousands of years gathering treasures and making preparations to draw a supreme artifact into this world and write a story around it.

Finally, the enemy had entered this world with no strength and intended to regain everything by fulfilling the story they had written.

Everything pointed toward Alice.

After writing her name, Alaric began recording everything he remembered about Tales of Golden Era.

He focused upon the opening volume, House Orlen and the events surrounding the original Alaric’s death.

That was when the chilling thought he had experienced inside Rowena’s study became much clearer.

Marchioness Rowena Orlen had disappeared in the original novel.

When Alaric first read the story, her disappearance had seemed like an ordinary method of removing a powerful character from the plot.

House Orlen needed to fall, while Evan needed an opportunity to rise against Alaric without having a Paragon standing in his way.

Alaric now knew that Rowena’s disappearance had a much deeper reason.

She had already encountered Vharaketh.

She knew that he had created Alaric’s body for some future purpose, and she had spent twenty years waiting for him to return and take control of it.

Rowena had even planned to disappear once that happened.

Remaining nearby would have placed her in danger, while revealing the truth would have attracted the attention of the three empires and the existences above Paragon realm.

Only after seeing that the person controlling the body behaved nothing like Vharaketh had she changed her decision.

However, Alice had already written about Rowena disappearing in Tales of Golden Era.

Alaric stared at those words for a long time.

How the fuck did she know?

One possibility was that Alice hadn’t known anything.

Her ability could have forced reality to produce the result she had written regardless of Rowena’s experiences.

The other possibility was far more disturbing once Alaric thought about it. Alice might have known about Vharaketh.

She might have known that he had descended to kill her, that he had created this body and that Rowena intended to disappear when he returned.

Alaric couldn’t determine which possibility was correct.

This is insane.

His heart was pounding when he made the second guess.

Alaric placed that sheet aside, putting aside his thoughts regarding that and began writing about the System.

If Vharaketh’s explanation was accurate, Alice had sacrificed treasures significant even to her past true form and spent hundreds or thousands of years preparing to draw a supreme artifact into this world.

It was very likely that the Supreme Artifact was the System.

The System could produce treasures, improve talent and grant combat mastery through rewards.

In the Tales of Golden Era, it could grant rewards whenever the host completed a task which was absolutely not how reality behaved.

Who would give you rewards just because you defeated someone in a fight for no reason?

Well, keeping that aside, the System could even form connections with the greatest geniuses of this world and benefit its owner whenever those geniuses completed their quests.

Alaric had only seen a tiny portion of its abilities, yet it had already given him things that powerful noble houses would struggle to acquire.

The description of a supreme artifact certainly suited it.

However, that created another question.

Why had Alice arranged for Evan to receive it instead of taking it for herself?

There could have been restrictions preventing her from becoming its owner.

The System might have required a particular kind of host, or Alice might not have been strong enough to control it in her past true form or after entering this world with zero strength.

Perhaps Evan was only intended to carry and develop the System throughout the story.

Once Tales of Golden Era reached its ending, or simply just ended, and Alice had regained her former power, or even surpassed it by successfully forcing reality to follow her entire plot revolving around the System, she might have planned to take the System from Evan.

That would explain why someone as powerful as Alice’s past true form had spent so much time and so many treasures preparing everything.

If she could have claimed the System directly, there would have been no need to build an enormous story around Evan.

Of course, this was still a guess.

Alaric didn’t even know whether the current Alice possessed all the memories of her past true form.

Her behaviour didn’t resemble an ancient existence who had spent thousands of years arranging the fate of an entire world.

She could be hiding everything, but Alaric considered it more likely that her memories were sealed or incomplete.

Rowena had advised him to keep Alice nearby and earn her loyalty.

The System had also pushed him in the direction of forming a connection with her.

Maybe it is really safe to maintain contact with her and I really should start putting more effort into that.

If Alice eventually regained her memories and power, having her remember him as someone who had protected and supported her would be much safer than giving her a reason to view him as an enemy.

Alaric placed the second sheet beside the first and wrote one final line upon the third sheet.

The death of Alaric Orlen.

This was the part which disturbed him the most.

Vharaketh had created Alaric’s body because he intended to use it after twenty years.

In Tales of Golden Era, Evan received the System and eventually killed Alaric Orlen.

If Alice had known that Vharaketh was coming for her, could this body have been part of a trap?

Perhaps Alice expected Vharaketh to descend into the vessel he had prepared.

Her story would then place that vessel in direct conflict with Evan, the owner of the supreme artifact, before ensuring that Evan killed him.

Was she perhaps borrowing the power of this supreme artifact to ensure that Vharaketh was killed? If so, this was certainly a terrifying and well thought out plan.

Rowena’s disappearance might also have been written for that reason.

Once she left, no powerful protector would remain beside the body, and nobody who knew the truth about its creation would be present to interfere.

If that theory was correct, the moment the System entered Alaric’s body instead of Evan’s had disrupted the entire arrangement.

The supreme artifact that might have been intended to kill the owner of this body had somehow entered the body itself.

Alaric’s attention moved toward another name he had written earlier.

Alastair Orlen.

Rowena’s father had appeared after remaining missing for years, questioned his daughter about Vharaketh and secretly followed her afterward.

He had watched as other Paragons attacked his daughter without offering any help, possibly because he wanted to discover what Vharaketh had given her.

Could Alastair and Alice have been working together to target Vharaketh?

Alaric had no evidence of that.

He didn’t know whether they had ever met, whether Alastair understood what Vharaketh truly was or whether he was strong enough to become involved in a conflict at that level.

Still, the possibility couldn’t be ignored.

Vharaketh had paid a horrifying price to send one avatar into this world.

If he descended again to occupy the prepared body, he might have weakened his true form even further.

Alice might then have used Evan, the System and her ability to kill Vharaketh through Alaric’s body, while Alastair attacked his weakened true form or performed some other part of their plan.

There were massive holes in that guess.

Alaric had no idea where Vharaketh’s true body existed or how Alastair could possibly reach it.

He also didn’t know why Alice would trust Alastair with something so important.

Perhaps Alastair had merely been greedy, and Alice had nothing to do with his actions.

Perhaps Vharaketh had recognised that the body was a trap and deliberately refused to descend into it.

That possibility brought Alaric back to the question he had been avoiding.

If Vharaketh hadn’t entered this body, then who had brought Alaric here?

Why had his soul crossed from Earth and occupied an empty vessel created by an existence capable of slaughtering nearly one hundred Paragons just with an avatar?

Why had the System meant for Evan appeared inside that same vessel?

Alaric slowly looked over the pages covering his desk.

He still had no idea what role he was supposed to play in the conflict between Alice, Vharaketh and possibly Alastair.

However, he was now certain about one thing.

His transmigration had never been the simple accident he had believed it was.