Chapter 165: What happened

Evin woke up and found himself experiencing a severe headache. He opened his eyes and noticed that he was still inside the weird World, but differently from before, there was a bright blue barrier of some sorts seemingly protecting his surroundings. And there was this lingering feeling that something was wrong.

'What the fuck happened?' he tried to think despite the pain in his head. 

'I was attacked by that woman that came out of the tree… and then I saw her merge some dark orb into my body?' he thought groggily… before his hands hurriedly check his own chest.

'I'm still fine?' he thought with some confusion. Even the clothes that were ripped off reappeared on his chest like nothing happened. 

'Perhaps I was dreaming?' rubbing his forehead, he looked around himself and saw the woman lying next to him motionlessly, seemingly dead. It seemed like her gaze was locked onto where he was lying down a minute ago. An unbelieving expression was forever etched onto her face.

Well, she wasn't exactly 'seemingly dead', since her chest was ripped open, giving off pale blue light. But Evin's mind was focused on another detail. Looking at that face, Evin couldn't help but think it looked extremely familiar and even close to him, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't understand why she felt so familiar to him. 

'The last time I saw her, she was trying to kill me. As far as I know, at least...'

Then, unknowingly, his mouth began to salivate, and Evin understood that his body was craving something.

'Coffee? No… Something sweet… Since when did I crave sweets? Seriously, what the fuck happened?' he tried to think, but it was just too hard with the constant throbs of pain in his head.

"Oh, you're awake. Hmm… I can't say I'm not impressed by your resilience… Compared to you, the woman didn't seem to fare that well…" the voice of a girl sounded in his ears. Weirdly, the voice seemed to be distorted slightly, sometimes echoing in Evin's head countless times, other times sounding like another set of voices were overlapped with it.

Evin looked over and found a Twelve in a baggy pink T-shirt and jeans looking over him with a Cheshire smile. 

"Twelve," he muttered softly, not knowing whether to be scared or worried, to which the girl simply smiled and touched Evin's forehead. A calming sensation filled his body, and all the worry and pain he was feeling a moment ago disappeared.

"Not Twelve, I'm Four," she replied, her voice normal this time.

"What's the difference?" Evin asked, but Four frowned slightly at the remark, her expression depicting her unwillingness to talk about the subject.

'Isn't she the psycho one? Is the psycho one called Four? Why is she here? Am I going to be silenced?' lots of thoughts entered Evin's head, as his head began to remember the details he concluded about Twelve.

Evin was at a loss for words for a second, before he realized that the atmosphere was awfully silent and urged himself to say something.

"Did you save me?"

"Don't mind it, it's a small matter for me," Four shrugged emotionlessly.

It seemed like Four here really wasn't keen on talking. Evin didn't know how to feel when he heard his traumatizing experience be chalked up as some 'small matter', but he could only nod in agreement with the girl. But at this point, Evin was just glad that he had someone to converse with in this World.

The incident with the Ashen Giants and the people that came out of the Giant tree seemed like a bad dream to him at this point, but he definitely knew how real they were. Evin almost died(?) to a single woman that came out of the tree, while there were hundreds of them roaming around the area. 

'Besides, it probably is a very small matter for her… But speaking of small matters for her, what is she doing here?' Evin suddenly thought of the current situation.

"If you don't mind me asking, could you tell me how this situation happened to be?"

Four then fell into silence, seemingly gathering her thoughts. 

"From what I witnessed, you've been attacked by this corrupted soul here… After which she probably tried to absorb your soul for herself, but ultimately failed. Then… somehow… she supposedly tried to merge with you?" the girl murmured cryptically.

Evin was a bit confused as he listened to the girl trying to work out her words.

"Judging from how you were reliving her life with a distorted persona, uhh, you two seemingly attempted a merging method that the Empress usually calls the 'memory exchange'. Well, not you personally… like your soul attempted it. Anyway, the concept behind it is very simple, when two souls feel like their compatibility is questionable, they can just relive each other's lives in a kind of fast-forwarded way. So, it means that you've lived the entire 90 years of her life. But she lived the entirety of your 300 years of life. Actually, from what I can see, she seems to have given up and died at like the 100 year mark," Four explained with difficulty. 

'Wait what? 90 years of this woman's life?' Evin thought as he glanced at the body.

"Anyway, when the process is happening, it doesn't feel all that fast-forwarded… And by using this method, they can quickly judge how compatible they are with each other. In some extreme cases, they would even feel a rebound damage to their souls if it fails. And after this particular 'memory exchange', you turned out to be fine, kind of… But she failed and is now effectively dead," after the girl finished speaking, she sighed with relief and Evin could see beads of fine sweat appearing on her forehead.

"Please give me a few moments to digest this," Evin said. He was now properly overwhelmed. For a few moments, he tried to his best to make heads and tails of the cryptic words Four spewed out and finally made his own explanation.

'So this woman tried to absorb my soul, but failed. Then, our two souls automatically tried merging with each other (for some reason). The method of merging being this thing called the 'memory exchange' method, which basically has the two souls live each other's lives (for some reason). Supposedly, I lived out her life without issues, so I turned out to be fine, but the woman did not, so now she's dead,' Evin concluded.

"If what you're saying is true and I lived out her entire life, then why don't I remember anything?" 

"Oh, that's because it's all here. This soul core. It belongs to you. It's your trophy," the Four said, plucked out a dark orb from inside the dead woman's body and threw it to Evin.

It looked very weird to see an Authority(supposed) of a World, unparalleled power to go about digging through some random corpse's insides and casually throwing a dark orb towards him. 

'But since it was Four, maybe it was fitting?' Evin thought as his hands felt the cold, dark orb in his hands. Aside from the slightly eerie feeling it gave off, Evin couldn't really feel anything that implied a connection to his memories.

'What am I supposed to do with this?'

"Now, you'll learn of a method to work out those things in these things under me, as per the Empress', ugh, wishes and consolations," Four sighed annoyedly.

'What? The Empress? THE Empress? Wait, Twelve calls her mother, right? Is Four one of her children too? They look quite similar too'