The tension in the room was so thick it felt like a physical weight, vibrating with the residual energy of Alice's glowing mana. Her hands were still bathed in that intense, dense light—a warning to anything that dared to breathe in her presence.
"Don't you touch my baby!" a voice screamed from the shadows behind her, jagged with agony and maternal rage. "If you lay a finger on him, you won't leave this hut alive, outsider!"
Alice didn't flinch, though the air around her crackled with the woman's desperate intent. She kept her voice low, a calm but freezing chill that cut through the hysteria. "If you want your child to remain unharmed, then lower your guard. I have no intention of fighting a mother defending her nest. Now, answer me."
As if a switch had been flipped, the suffocating pressure vanished. The murderous aura that had threatened to rot the very wood of the hut evaporated into the night air. Alice slowly turned her head, her eyes widening as the breath hitched in her throat.
Standing there, trembling but defiant, was Liza—the same fragile, weeping woman Alice had rescued from the debt collector at the inn.
"Liza?" Alice's voice was a whisper of pure shock. "What is this? You told me you lived in the forest, but you never mentioned... this. When I saw you at the inn, you were a victim. Now, you stand before me radiating the power of a high-tier sorceress. Why the deception?"
Liza's face was a battleground of sorrow and resolve. She let out a ragged sigh, her aggressive posture slumping into exhaustion. "It's a long story, Alice. All I want is for my son to grow up in the light. I want him to have a normal life, surrounded by humans, far away from the shadows I was born into. I want to give him everything I was denied—the happiness I never tasted. For that, I would face any consequence. I would commit any sin."
She moved toward a small, rustic table, her movements fluid and practiced. With a flick of her fingers, magic—subtle and ancient—dragged two wooden chairs across the floor. She began to brew coffee, the aroma filling the hut with an earthy, grounding scent.
"Sit, Alice," Liza said, her voice regaining a gentle, weary warmth. "Drink this. I haven't poisoned it, I promise. You've earned the truth."
Alice hesitated for only a second before taking a seat. She took a sip of the dark liquid, and a surge of warmth rushed through her. It was, without exaggeration, the finest coffee she had ever tasted—rich, complex, and oddly nostalgic.
"See? No poison," Liza said with a faint, sad smile. "I owe you an apology for the ordeal outside. My home is protected by an Illusion Field. Anyone who enters without my bloodline is cast into a void of their own worst memories—an infinite haunting. No one has ever escaped it before. I am... truly impressed by your strength of will."
Alice looked down at her cup, her reflection shimmering in the dark liquid. "I came here following a mission, but I think I was drawn by something else. You created a sanctuary for your child, Liza. You've achieved the very thing I failed to do." Her voice trailed off, becoming gloomy and hollow. Her own face, reflected in the coffee, looked like a ghost's.
"Don't be so hard on yourself," Liza whispered, reaching across the table. "When you broke my void, I saw glimpses of your heart. You have suffered in ways I can barely imagine. I know why your memories are locked, Alice. They weren't stolen—they were sealed. Your husband used a power far beyond the mortal realm to bury those precious moments deep within your soul."
Alice's head snapped up, her crimson eyes flashing with a desperate, furious hope. "He sealed them? Why? If you know this, then unseal them! I need to know what happened to us! I need to see my child's face clearly, to know why Arka would do this to me!"
Liza shrank back slightly from Alice's intensity. "I can't, Alice. Please, understand—that seal is a masterpiece of divine-tier magic. It is far beyond my reach. He likely did it to protect you, to keep the weight of the past from crushing your spirit. But the seal is leaking; that's why you see those fragments in your dreams. In time, the truth will reach you, but I cannot force it open."
Alice slumped back, her breath coming in jagged hitches. The silence of the hut was broken only by the soft cooing of the baby in the cradle. "Then tell me about you," Alice murmured, trying to steady her heart. "How did a woman like you end up hiding in a black-tier mission zone?"
Liza's expression turned brittle. "I am a crossbreed—a freak born of my parents' insatiable greed. They were human, but they wanted a god for a daughter. When I was barely a year old, they fed me the blood and flesh of witches and demons, obtained through the darkest illegal channels. They broke the laws of nature to turn me into a weapon."
She stared into the corner of the room, her eyes seeing a past full of shadows. "I never had a childhood. I lived in the darkness, a monster in a human skin. Eventually, the authorities discovered my parents' crimes. They were executed, but the stigma followed me. I've spent my life shifting my shape, hiding my true self just to survive the hatred of the world."
Alice felt a profound ache for the woman across from her. Two mothers, both broken by the world, sitting in a small hut in the middle of a forbidden forest. "And the child?" Alice asked softly, glancing at the cradle. "Is he like you?"
A radiant, beautiful smile broke across Liza's face—the first truly happy expression Alice had seen on her. "He is my miracle. The moment he was born, my world turned from grayscale to vibrant color. He is the reason my life has meaning."