Chapter 22: 10. Deceit

The blizzard had temporarily eased its destruction. As the sun began to set, the winter forest became tinted in a slight orange. The leafless trees, the snowy hills, and the branches sitting on the white ground painted a peaceful scenery for Wyliame and Onas to enjoy their walk.

“Are you sure it’s okay for me to be taking all of Mya’s clothes?” Wyliame wondered as he trailed behind Onas. The two had been walking for quite a while- to the point where the house was no longer in view.

“I’m sure she doesn’t mind. Besides, we’re practically family now. Sharing is caring, am I right?”

Wyliame shrugged. “Sure…”

The two continued walking down a straight path. For the next couple of minutes, neither of them spoke a single word, allowing the gentle breeze of the frosty land to emphasize its resonation. 

But during his walk with Onas, Wyliame couldn’t help but notice how familiar the snow around him had felt. Perhaps it was because they were at the exact location where Wyliame had fainted when he had first arrived in this new world. Or maybe it was a sense of deja vu, a discombobulation of the boy’s memories, that allowed him to feel a sense of familiarity at a place that he had never even been to before. After all, everything to Wyliame was foreign- even his own body, as well as his own mind.

…

Eventually, Onas settled down and took a seat below a withered tree. It was about the same size as any other, although its color was an empty black, quite unusual from the regular brown. He patted the snow beside him, signaling for Wyliame to take a seat.

“So? Why’d you bring me out here?” the boy wondered as he gently took a seat on the ground.

Wyliame wasn’t aware of it, but the tree that he sat under was no ordinary one. It was…

“...a remnant of the war fifty years ago.” Onas began.

Wyliame raised an eyebrow but didn’t bother to question what the man had suddenly blurted out.

“This tree was burnt to a crisp, all for the sake of destruction. I was the one who killed not only this tree that we sit under today but also the ten soldiers who had came to oppose me fifty years ago. My wife, Lorelia- my daughter, Myantha… and even my lost son, Myriil… they thought of me as a hero. This whole nation crowned me as a savior, purely from the strength that I provided for the army during the war. But isn’t that just wrong? What about the people that I’ve murdered? In a sense, they’re the heroes of their own kingdoms as well, but yet, we call them the sinners. It doesn’t make sense.”

But Wyliame remained silent.

After a few seconds, Onas turned his head toward the boy, letting out a faint smile of sadness. “You’re not from this world, are you?”

…

But for some reason, the boy didn’t seem shocked. “Hah… was I too obvious?”

Onas let out a chuckle. “I mean, asides from the fact that you act nothing like a kid, and your vocabulary sounds like one from a grown man, then no, you weren’t too obvious,” he smiled sarcastically.

“Oh, shut up!” Wyliame giggled. There was no point in him talking to Onas like he was a superior anymore. As of then, they began looking at one another as man to man, not a child to adult.

“But still, it’s kind of sad,” Onas continued. “Being in an entirely new world is frightening, isn’t it?”

The boy tilted his head toward the sky, watching each individual snow as it fell to the ground. “You’re right. I don’t even have any memories of my past life. That’s what makes it even scarier.”

“Ah, and here I thought you were faking your personality the entire time. I’m relieved to hear that, boy!”

Suddenly, a violet aura arose from the snowy ground, quickly molding into the shape of a woman’s body. Yris had made her appearance.

“What are you doing?” Wyliame asked, looking at her with a confused expression.

But the goddess ignored the boy and instead stared at the man sitting beside him. “Onas, how did you know that Wyliame wasn’t from this world? You say it’s because of the way he acts, but that definitely isn’t enough to reveal his true identity.”

Onas let out a sigh of annoyance and turned to Wyliame. “You were right. She does have a pretty annoying voice.”

“See?”

“I’m gonna kill you two…” Yris grunted

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They laughed at the sulking goddess. Eventually, Onas explained, “I noticed it when Lorelia and I found Wyliame’s body in the snow. When I picked him up to carry him back to the house, I also took that opportunity to measure his mana, and to my surprise, he had two supplies of mana. That also means that he’s got two souls in one body.”

Two souls? So the other one must belong to Merth, Wyliame thought.

“Having two souls in one body is impossible. Or, that is, unless a god had tempered with the mortal realm. And there’s only one god who is able to toy with a person’s soul; Goddess Emma, the goddess of rebirth, life, and souls.”

“So from that alone, you came to the conclusion that goddess Emma transferred my soul to a preexisting body?” Wyliame asked.

“Exactly,” Onas responded with a nod. “Although, I’ll admit that I’m pretty curious now. Who was the original vessel of your body anyways, Wyliame?”

Hearing that, Wyliame simply turned to Yris. She hadn’t given him any information on Merth whatsoever, so he was unable to answer the question that Onas had asked.

But the goddess stayed silent. It was clear that there was a reason why she was unable to speak about Merth.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to say it,” Wyliame began, tugging on Yris’s hand as he did so. “But it would be helpful if you did. I don’t have any memories of my past life, so I would at least appreciate it if I knew who the previous owner of this body was.”

The blizzard became stronger, the winds harsher, and the snow on the ground grew deeper, but the three of them remained still. Wyliame continued insisting on hearing what Yris had to say, while Onas was gently using his magic to keep the air around them warm.

“The embodiment of darkness, a child named Merth,” Yris began, staring off into the gray sky. “Some people believe that evil isn’t created, but rather, it’s molded into an individual by the way that they experience life, while others believe that some people are born naturally evil. As a goddess, I say that the latter is true. After all, people were created with the idea of ‘freedom’ in mind, but with that freedom naturally comes the birth of evil. As for Merth… well, he was a boy that was born with pure evil within him.”

“Pure evil?” Onas repeated after her.

“Let’s say that there’s a fine line that dictates how ‘evil’ somebody is,” the goddess continued, crouching down on the ground to draw a long line on the snow. “The further right you are, the more evil you are. Wyliame would be on the very left of the line, as he is a new soul in this world. Since he has no memories of his past life, we will assume that his soul is still pure as he hasn’t committed any sins that he is aware of. You, Onas, would be somewhere in the middle of the line. You’ve killed many, many individuals, but at the same time, you’ve saved the lives of many people in your kingdom, so you are in somewhere of a gray area. That goes for the rest of the people who participate in war as well.”

“So Merth would be on the very right of that line,” Wyliame blurted out.

But the goddess shook her head. “Wrong. He wouldn’t even be on the line.”

“What?”

Yris proceeded to wipe out the line that she drew on the snowy ground. “I mean it when I say that he’s pure evil. He’s something that’s unimaginable.”

“I don’t understand. How could a human be born like that?” Onas wondered curiously. He noticed that Wyliame was beginning to shiver from the cold, so he gave the boy a slight pat on the back and quickly used his magic to engulf Wyliame’s body in warmth.

“That’s the thing,” Yris continued as she took a seat in front of Wyliame. “I don’t know how it’s even possible for a human to be born like that. I’m not sure what it was, but it was a voice in my head that told me to form a contract with that boy… a voice that transcended even the powers of us gods. I was drawn to Merth by an unnatural force. I, a goddess of the Land of Ember, was controlled by a greater outside entity.”

“...”

Wyliame slowly stood up and walked a few steps forward, staring at his two palms. 

“You okay there, boy?”

Onas gave a worried look at Wyliame but decided that it was better to stay seated underneath the tree. 

The falling snows slowed their descent, although the frigid winds remained powerful and burning. As Wyliame stood still, he felt his body slowly sinking into the ground beneath him.

“Hah…” the boy began. “So goddess Emma reincarnated me into a body of evil, huh?”

…

“She must’ve chosen you for a reason, Wyliame,” Yris said. “I know Emma very well. She’s a methodical goddess, one that uses her intellect to get what she wants. I would say that among all of the fell gods, she is the most deceitful.”

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