Calm\~
Inside the cabin, in the quiet mountains, the atmosphere was awkward.
At that moment, the beetroot soup that Bronia and Shear had previously prepared together was already being served.
But.
Yes, the bottom of the pot is mushy, but if you don't stir it to death, the top can still be eaten.
Earlier, Ling Ke came to look after himself and left without lingering too long.
After that, the hearts of the two maidens could never settle down again.
Xier did not understand Ling Ke, so the reason she couldn't calm down was naturally due to the initiative of the other side. . . . . Or it was the enormous amount of information deliberately revealed.
And Bronia.
She is very troubled, very unsettled at this moment.
Cocolia, in her wheelchair, so withered, sat at her side.
Although she had lost her mind, this battered woman still seemed to have found her own support, her own backbone, holding Bronia's wrist with one hand.
The latter vaguely felt a bit of pain.
It seems that the reason why the godless man exerts himself so much is not merely that he is seeking support, but that he unconsciously wants to express something else.
However, Bronia at this point—no further action.
Shear sat in front of her without saying a word.
But Bronya really wanted her to say something.
Rather than, as if she were wielding an extremely cold violence.
The other person's gaze truly felt like a needle prick.
At that moment, between the two, besides the exaggerated beetroot meat soup, there was a photo.
That is, after the era of modern civilization had completely disappeared, there were few things that could be left to the current age——
In the past, a photo of Cocolia's orphanage.
In the photo were Cocoa, who at that time was still very lively, dressed in military uniform and shawl, Apricot, with arms crossed and looking extremely unsociable, and Arlene, who was relatively young and had a very different personality. . . . .
Also, gentle and pleasant, holding her own Xier from behind and... hugging the Hohm doll, her own dull-faced self.
Bronia knows that the short-haired girl across from her is waiting for her to take the initiative to speak.
But..... she truly doesn't know where to begin or how to explain it.
The atmosphere was stagnant and continued like this for a long time.
"Won't you say anything?"
In the end, Xier spoke first.
".
Bronia opened her mouth and had much to say.
But eventually.
"Sorry."
She lowered her head, pressed her hands against her knees, and clenched her fists tightly.
Incomparably nervous.
Like a child who is in great trouble.
The strange thing is, compared with her, Xier, who usually had an easygoing personality and was born in this era, seemed particularly calm.
"You know I'm not trying to hear this."
Shear looked directly at Bronia and her tone... sounded calm. "Explain it to me properly, I'll give you a chance."
"Maybe you've forgotten, but I haven't forgotten."
She added: "I said, I'll believe you."
"!!!"
Bronia's heart, at this moment, was particularly moved.
In the end, she barely prepared herself mentally.
Then.
"Bronia confesses to you."
The gray-haired girl lifted her head and looked straight into the eyes of the short-haired girl opposite her. "It's strange, but believe it, everything Bronia says is true."
"Mm."
Shear nodded. "Go on, I'm listening."
"Okay."
Bronia breathed deeply again and was about to speak.
Or it should be said: now she is really being forced onto the shelf and has no choice but to speak.
"These things should start from more than 50,000 years in the future. . . . . ."
Then, Bronia used her IQ of 180 to recount the most detailed details possible: how she was trained as a child as a soldier assassin, how later the name of the "Ural Silver Wolf" came to light, how she failed to assassinate Cocoa, entered the orphanage founded by her, and met her sisters. . . . . .
And, carrying out a mission in Changkong City, as a major part of it, induced a series of important subsequent changes.
All these causally connected series of events, she told.
". . . . . The man you saw today is called Ling Ke, the ruler of our time."
"To complete his revenge plan, he forcibly pushed time back more than 50,000 years. . . . . This is the current era."
"He said: If Bronia and the others want to save their own era, they must let the current era once again embark on the old path of destruction and death."
"But Bronia doesn't want that. . . . . ."
She spoke much all at once.
Xier also listened quietly.
She. . . . . In fact, she doesn't have that much patience.
But "only now she is surprisingly patient."
Until this moment.
"Fine."
Shear interrupted Bronia's following words.
Then she asked: "So the night we met, the reason you knew my name, the reason you called me so closely—"
"Is it because you thought of me as someone else?"
"Xier Fuleai. . . . . Really?"
Hearing this overly delicate question.
".
Bronia remained silent for a long time before finally gritting her teeth and responding with difficulty: "Yes!"
The expression on Xier's face did not change.
She asked again: "Then, the reason you risked your life to save me later, so that we could still have time to live together and find ways to overcome various difficulties—"
"Was it also because you saw me as a shadow of 'her'?"
"No!"
Bronia seemed exaggerated and responded without hesitation. "Bronia didn't mean that."
She seemed so nervous she fell into a bit of a panic. "Xier, you're not the same as my Xier."
".
Bronia didn't realize she had said something wrong until she saw Shear remain silent.
She hastily tried to remedy it.
"Shire, Bronia didn't mean that, you know. . . . ."
"I don't know."
Shear interrupted Bronia again, still in an extremely calm tone.
Facing Bronia's extremely frightened gaze.
"I don't know, that you still had such a past."
"I don't know, that the world still held such secrets."
"However."
She slightly lifted the corners of her mouth and smiled. "Finally, you confessed it to me, though it was already a little late."
"Didn't clearly say which step was too late?"
"Xier."
"Eat first, Sister Bronia."
"It's not good to always be hungry."
Xier seemed unaffected. She stood up and brought the beetroot meat soup that was about to cool. . . . . The sticky beetroot soup was brought between the two, they took the somewhat dazzling photo and set it aside.
Bronia felt relieved.
She smiled and was extremely relaxed.
But perhaps she was too relaxed.
It's not surprising either.
In this case, it was somewhat self-deceiving.
Therefore, Bronia selectively failed to notice..... that Shear at this point... was gentle.
With a soothing tone and an easy smile.
She called her "Sister Bronia."
As if.
So the two enjoyed a not-so-delicious lunch.
The mutual smiles were much fewer, but still.
For the most part, it was Xier's smile.
And looking back at the smile on her face, little by little, Bronia did the same.
Only Cocoa, sitting to the side, trembled inexplicably, though delirious.
In the afternoon, Bronia wanted to prepare some liquid food that her own mother Cocolia could eat.
She was going to cook some porridge for the latter.
Shear did not object.
But she also did not help.
Bronia vaguely noticed that Shear's eyes were full of repulsion as she looked at Cocolia's mother.
Yes, Mama Cocolia had done many bad things and was often seen like this.
But there was nothing Bronia could do about it. She was caring for her.
Bronia went to make porridge outside the house.
At this point, Shear stood at the door of the wooden cabin and watched from afar as Bronia busied herself.
The reloaded bunny also tapped from the side.
Making fire, adding firewood.
For a moment, the cyan eyes of the short-haired girl gleamed blood-red.
Everywhere it seemed that faint phantom butterflies were flying.
She didn't even realize it.
On the position of her right forearm, the strange purple lines that originally spread over an increasingly large area faded like a rewind in an instant.
In the end, they were completely erased from the shapeless.
Just now, before Bronia's full confession, the girl received the revelation and the "blessing" of "God."
"God" gave her brocade robes, wine to aid death, and sweet dreams. . . . . .
She would finally have her own true "dream" in the quiet world after all.
At that moment, she had only in her eyes the gray-haired maiden, so busy that sweat beaded profusely on her forehead.
Softly, she murmured to herself: "Shear..... abandoned the gravely ill Nata, abandoned the orphanage children, abandoned everything of the past... and finally, came here."
"Xier has nothing left. . . . . ."
I thought you were the same.
At this point, in the palm of the girl's left hand, she didn't know when an extra photo frame had appeared.
She pinched the dazzling photo and—
"Click\~"
A crosswise shattering.
The group photo, together with the photo frame, starting from Xier's fingertips, withered in silence, turning into a black, coal-like substance. . . . . Most of it was destroyed.
In the end, only a small fragment remained; a fragment that reflected the image of Bronia in her early years, slowly falling to the ground.
Perimeter of cracks, nothing more.
"Bronia. . . . . Xi'er is so pitiful, now truly. . . . . . you are the only one left."
"Then."
The corner of the girl's mouth lifted, the curve strange. "Of course, you can only have Xier."
"That's fair, isn't it?"
Say "Let's go!"
The girl turned her head, her eyes blood-red, and looked inside the house, staring fixedly.
Once she had said in front of the gray-haired girl that that was the "burden" she disliked most.
"You really are an abomination."
"Why. . . . . are you still there?"
The girl standing at the door. . . . . Her face was too twisted and even very sickly, right in Bronia's blind spot outside.
She slowly raised her right hand.
On the tip of her index finger fell a phantom butterfly.
The latter, having emerged from the cocoon, symbolized ultimate death.
But wherever the strange thing touched, even the surrounding air silently withered.
It carried with it the power sufficient to make all things die and achieve the "silence of all sounds" from another level, that is, by flapping its own wings.
"Existence is something superfluous and annoying (people)."
The girl's eyes were cold, and she opened her mouth indifferently. "Let us dissipate with the butterflies.
"You who are rejected by 'God'. . . . . Phantom of the past!"