Chapter 196: The Eternal Embryo 2

The Eternal Embryo.

A Skill that allowed Felicya to come back to life regardless of her death. Essentially, she could always be reborn after dying. Forming a new body, with the same soul.

If everything went smoothly, the only thing she would have to do was raise her Rank again as soon as she could move.

The Eternal Embryo didn’t merely cause Felicya to be reborn. Her former strength, every bit of her Rank Progress, would surely return on its own, just as it had been in her prime when she died.

But that would only happen if everything proceeded normally.

’So that’s how it is.’

That knowledge had come with one of the fragments of memory that had just returned. Felicya didn’t immediately recall the whole event connected to it, but she began to understand how that Skill was supposed to work and why her present state didn’t match what she had expected.

As usual, the memory bubbles buried in the fog would always evaporate on their own.

Sometimes, Felicya would find random memories of her past self returning, but lately, the memories that returned were always important ones.

She herself couldn’t decide which memory she wanted restored. Even when she tried to remember something on purpose, sometimes there were only fragments of sound or feelings that were hard to connect to any particular event. But when a memory surfaced by itself, Felicya could understand something she hadn’t known at all before.

Starting with the one who had dropped her into death, that annoying traitor. And then, recently, something else had surfaced in Felicya’s memory.

A blurry figure, yet one with something Felicya liked very much.

A man whose voice always made her heart flutter, a warmth that came with it, and Felicya even remembered that she had held a hidden desire for that man.

’Who is he?’

Felicya wondered.

Oddly, that man’s voice was much easier to remember than his appearance. Felicya even felt as if she could recognize him right away if she heard that voice once more. But when she tried to recall when and where they had met, there was nothing clear enough to serve as an answer.

But of course, it was impossible for her to know who that man was. Her memories had returned, but the relationships and appearances of the many people connected to her were still very hazy.

Perhaps it was just another random memory. So Felicya didn’t think about it much.

If anything kept affecting her, it was another memory that had surfaced at the same time.

Something related to her present condition.

It was a curse that made each of her memories hard to recover, a curse that drained her Rank Progress as she used her Skills.

Something that the traitor had cast upon Felicya while she was dying, about to fall into the embrace of death.

That curse...

It was a major problem for Felicya, because she still didn’t know how she should find a solution to cure herself.

Now Felicya was beginning to understand that the problem wasn’t just waiting for her new body to grow again. As long as that curse remained, even the strength that should recover naturally through the Eternal Embryo couldn’t be relied on as it had been before.

And what was more troublesome, her own memories weren’t yet complete enough to tell her how to deal with the situation. She knew what the traitor had done to her, but still had no answer on how to remove its effects.

’...Annoying.’

Felicya didn’t like that state of affairs.

But thinking about it longer wouldn’t give her a solution right away either. So she simply let the newly returned memory stay in her mind, hoping that she might understand something when another memory surfaced later.

Without her noticing, their journey had stopped.

The wind that had kept blowing during the flight was no longer there. In its place, the calmer air of a forest wrapped around her body, while Felicya was still in that very familiar embrace.

"Felicya."

Sunk in that thought, Felicya heard a man’s voice speak her name.

A calm and light call, a voice that also made her body feel warm for no clear reason, and made lazy Felicya always want to respond to that voice.

She didn’t even have time to think. Her body reacted first, and her eyes opened, revealing eyes of gold and silver.

Then she looked toward the source of that voice. A man who, for some reason, always made Felicya feel comfortable in his arms.

It was only instinct. She didn’t even know that man or how things were. But her instincts, her body, always reacted before her mind.

"...May I ask you something?"

Felicya blinked.

It seemed to be night now. She remembered that they were currently on a journey to carry out some plan or whatever it was.

Hearing the sound of a campfire not far away, the way the fire kept burning, and the sounds of insects from the surrounding forest, Felicya lowered her head slightly.

It seemed they had stopped to rest. Felicya didn’t care much about the place, as long as nothing required her to leave Julian’s arms.

"Yes."

She answered briefly.

As for the man, Julian was the same as always. A man who seemed to have no emotions, who kept a flat expression as though nothing happening around him was worth noticing.

"It’s about you coming to the human world. I still haven’t gotten an answer from you."

"..."

"Felicya, is it alright if I ask about that?"

Why had Felicya come to the human world...?

Hearing that question, Felicya herself fell silent. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer, but fundamentally, she herself didn’t know what she should say at this point.

She hadn’t come to the human world by her own wish. Something more complicated was behind it, and it might have been only a coincidence.

While she was still inside the eggshell, she had somehow already been in the human world, and was found by whatever that cult was called.

When she had only just hatched, the first thing Felicya did was to obey her body’s first desire, something she didn’t understand but wanted to do. Namely, to find the man before her.

Why was that? Felicya herself didn’t understand.

Even now, Felicya still hadn’t found a sensible reason to explain that desire. She had no memory of when she decided to seek out Julian, much less why her body had instantly known whom it should find.

All she remembered was a desire that had arisen on its own after she hatched. There had been no command or clue she could understand at the time, but Felicya had still wanted to find Julian, as if it were something she had to do first.

And after finding him, she had no desire to leave.

As if realizing that Felicya didn’t want to answer, Julian’s voice sounded once more.

"I was only guessing before. But is it true that this has to do with someone you’re looking for?"

Someone Felicya was looking for...

She considered that sentence for a moment. She had no thoughts about it, but... Maybe...

’Maybe it’s you.’

Julian Clair.

Who was this man, really?

Why did Felicya always feel comfortable with him, why did her body have instincts and an attraction toward him?

Who knew?

If Felicya really was searching for someone without Felicya herself knowing...

’It might be you.’

For a moment, Felicya wanted to nod.

But she quickly thought better of it. Saying that Julian was the one she had been looking for felt like giving an answer to something she herself didn’t even understand.

What if her guess was wrong?

She had nothing that could prove it. Even if Julian asked again about her reason for seeking him, Felicya still wouldn’t be able to give a satisfying explanation.

But what was the reason, and why...

’My own memories will answer it.’

So until that time came, Felicya still felt torn about herself, and decided to close her eyes and shake her head.

"...I don’t know."