System vs Rebirth

Anna pressed her chest while looking at Noel. Was this the first change Noel had shown? Did it mean she had a chance?

At the same time, she didn’t realize that she was like the women Noel saved from the bandits a few months ago.

He showed the kindness like this, making her heart moved. She didn’t expect that anyone would be able to say this.

‘This is bad… I’m slowly getting addicted to this kindness. In the future, when Noel has forgiven me and we can act like a true friend or partner, will this become a daily life? Now that I think about it, is there any woman with Noel in the previous life? That woman must be the happiest woman in the world.

‘Wait a minute, I don’t think Noel has any woman in his life.’ Anna muttered inwardly, misunderstanding Noel’s action. He just didn’t want to owe her anything.

Noel’s action earlier could be seen as him playing hard to get. He seemed to have a change of heart even though his words were the exact truth without any meaning.

But for Anna, Noel truly had changed.

“Well, if you know that already, then I think I want a delicious meal.” Noel snorted, trying to push her away.

“Ah, right!” Anna remembered she was in the middle of cooking. “I’ll cook your favorite, beef stew tomorrow.”

“What? What do you mean by favorite?” Noel took a step back, startled.

“Isn’t it your favorite food? Whenever I cooked the stew, you seemed to be enjoying it more than any other food. So, I thought it was your favorite stew.”

“You must be imagining things.” Noel tried hard to remain calm.

“So, should I change the menu for tomorrow?”

“There’s no need since you’ve planned it that way.” Noel closed his eyes while adding inwardly, ‘As expected, she’s a witch. I have learned the knowledge about cooking, but it still can’t be compared to Anna’s… Ugh, I should improve my cooking as soon as possible so that she doesn’t trap me like this.’

Anna chuckled, looking at Noel’s expression. “Sure, sure.”

Noel always showed his strong front because of their relationship, but her meal seemed to be able to make Noel forget about it for a while.

Once he forgot about it, Noel’s true character was usually shown. Anna personally enjoyed when Noel acted natural. She felt like this was what truly happened if Noel became her true companion.

…

The next morning.

Anna gradually opened her eyes while letting out a soft moan. “Mhm.”

“What is this? I feel a bit lighter after sleeping. This is my first time experiencing it. Is it because I told Noel all that? It’s true that I feel like a heavy burden has been lifted from my heart, but…” Anna squinted her eyes, not knowing the answer.

In the end, she decided not to think about it and began fixing her hair before coming out of the tent, finding Noel standing on top of the mountain, looking at the terrain.

She didn’t know what Noel was doing, but whenever Noel showed this kind of expression, he always figured out something.

She quietly approached him while asking, “Did you find anything, Noel?”

Noel didn’t answer her immediately as if he was still in the middle of thinking. Only after a few minutes did Noel open his mouth. “What if this pattern means another thing?”

“Pattern?” Anna tilted her head, confused.

“Yeah.” Noel nodded and showed the paper to her, pointing at the patterns. “If you look at this, don’t you think you can find that the pattern is actually connected to each other?”

“Connected to each other…” Anna muttered before understanding what he meant. The pattern might look all over the place, but if they actually tried to connect them, it was truly what he said.

The furthest mountain had a ‘-‘ pattern on it where as the next mountain had a curve, but if they connected it, the second mountain had a slight straight line that connected the second mountain and the curved could easily attach itself to the third mountain.

“Are you implying…” Anna sucked a cold breath.

“See the second last mountain?” Noel pointed at the second pattern on the right. Only this one actually didn’t connect to other mountains as if it was acting as a wall. In the symbol, this one vertical pattern was acting as the blade pattern, but if they were looking at this, the vertical pattern represented a wall.

“If we’re following this logic, it means that the last mountain is where the tomb lies. The wall is stopping people from entering the wall and the rest of the patterns are basically the place’s structure or you can say the map…

“In other words, the entrance should be at the furthest mountain in our left. And the trip inside might be similar to this pattern since if you place structure underneath that area, you can prevent the trees from growing, creating all these patterns.

“And there is one more reason… If you add the Ardagan Family Crest, it means the only one who can enter the tomb is someone from the Ardagan Family.” Anna explained her conjecture from what she had seen from this pattern.

“Yeah.” Noel nodded in agreement as he had reached the same conclusion. “Anyway, I’m going to bring you in. Whether you will get anything or not, that’s not within my responsibility. Understood?”

Anna made a small smile. “Yes. Ehm… Thank you, Noel.”

Noel nodded. “Anyway, we should start packing everything. This is only just a theory, it means nothing if we can’t find anything there.”

“Alright.” Anna hurriedly turned around and walked together with Noel to the camp, going to pack up everything.

“By the way, how do you know there’s a ruin in this place? If this is related to my family, shouldn’t you have no clue about this?” Noel squinted his eyes, staring at Anna. 𝗼𝐯𝐥.𝗻𝐭

Anna smiled and said, “The same applies to how you know this is the Sword Saint Tomb.”

Both of them truly had a deep secret that they already suspected but didn’t want to talk about.