Chapter 166: The body of the woman

His curiousity began to spike to very dangerous levels.

"How does this involve the Empress?" Evin continued his questions but an annoyed-psycho-glare from Four shut him up.

"You know what? Don't fucking worry about it, alright? Just learn well under me, burn that fucking giant tree down to the ground and you can fucking leave," Four suddenly burst out at Evin. 

The boy tactfully shut his mouth. 

'Why do you speak without pausing when you're swearing at someone?' Evin complained in his head. 

Four walked back and forth in an annoyed way, her eyes darting about, until she finally stopped and stood in front of the silent Evin. She stared at Evin for a few seconds, her mouth twitching itself into a smile.

'What does she want? Is she trying to kill me?'

"Urgh, sorry about that. After you learn how to absorb those thing, we'll have you learn some other spells, one of them being a spell called 'Soul Flare'. Or 'Soul Flame'. I forgot," Four apologized awkwardly and continued talking in a broken pattern: "Anyway, it'll help you burn that tree down. But you'll have to do it in one go, or else you'll die. Well, not die, since I'll have to help you out. You could fail. But even if you fail… there's not penalty so don't worry about it"

Evin nodded slightly.

"Well, thanks in advance for teaching me," he said softly.

Four nodded with agreement and her forced smile turned a bit more natural.

"Oh, and you don't have to worry about going hungry, or the outside World. Twelve did something and made it so that time goes slower here. Maybe you'll feel a bit hungry in about a month or so, which is about ten and a half hours in the main world… but not for now," Four said, surprisingly normally this time.

Evin expected her to continue talking, but for whatever reason, Four went into complete silence. Evin looked at her and found the other to be seemingly focusing on something, with her eyes closed and her hand on her chin. 

'I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but I guess I'll have to wait?'

… 

An hour had passed since then, and Four was still standing silently. At some point, her smile had disappeared, leaving only her determined face for Evin to look at. 

'Should I say something to her?' Evin asked this question in his head time and time again. And after each time, the desire to ask got greater and greater, but correspondingly, the act of asking also became harder and harder.

'No… I'll give it another ten minutes and I'll definitely ask afterwards,' Evin thought resolutely and shook his head with a shrug.

He then walked towards the edge of the golden barrier. 

Out of curiosity, Evin tried to walk through the barrier at first, but he was blocked off. He didn't bother trying to break through it, since he was very confident he wouldn't be able to. He couldn't use the Worlds here, and he couldn't use mana, so he just didn't want to bother. 

Instead, he spent his time thinking about the changes he was experiencing at the moment. 

Evin realized that he had developed a few habits that he didn't have. Certain words that he didn't really use before, certain likes and dislikes that popped out of nowhere, and certain thoughts that he didn't have before.

Since he had awoken, Evin was craving something sweet. He was pretty sure that if he was to crave something, it would be coffee. But apparently, time inside this place flowed differently, so it wasn't really time for him to feel hungry yet. 

'But she did say that I will feel hunger in a month or so, which was about ten and a half hours in the main world…' 

If Evin could count these numbers as accurate representations of how time flowed here, he could find the exact rate of how time passed inside here.

Evin did some simple calculations and realized that time flowed at a speed of about one to hundred inside this World. The number seemed pretty rounded up, so he decided it was so.

'But since she mentioned a month or so… doesn't it mean that we'll be staying here for quite a long time? Well, I suppose it's expected. She's teaching me a new form of magic after all,' Evin sighed. He wondered how he was going to spend all his time in this bland place, with nothing to do…

He occasionally glanced towards the reinforced window and the ray of light that came from the gap that Evin left. He could tell that it was daytime outside, and he was wondering if the corrupted souls would be flying about. Twelve only told him to beware the night, after all.

Thinking of the corrupted souls, Evin looked at the woman's naked body lying close by. She was lying on her back, with part of her chest ripped open. From the spots where her flesh should've been, a pale blue light eerily shining without stop. It was probably Evin's imagination, but he felt like some of the ripped off parts were regenerating a tiny bit.

But it was true that she looked much better compared to the last time Evin saw her, with none of the popped veins and the crazed expression she had.

Whenever Evin had nothing to do, he would find himself staring at the woman. Especially her face. It just invoked so much pity in him, he couldn't just ignore it. There was something inside him was constantly screaming at him to care and sympathize with the woman.

Evin understood why after he learned of what happened from Four. 

He had spent 90 years with this woman... So it was natural he would feel something for this woman. It would be weird if he didn't feel anything. Even if he didn't remember it himself, it was should be etched into his soul. At some point, this woman was basically him, after all.

A certain feeling of unease appeared in his head. A need of some sorts.

Evin thought about it a lot, but in the end, he couldn't make himself do it. 'What's the point?' he would say to himself and stop. But as time passed, it was getting a bit too hard to ignore this urge of his.

'Fuck…' he cursed in his head and walked over to the woman.

He closed the woman's eyes. He then straightened her head and her limbs into a more proper position. 

After staring at her for a bit, Evin tried to change her shocked expression into something more calm. He then pulled out a blanket from his wardrobe and covered the woman's body with it.

Sitting next to her, Evin's hands clutched the Dark Blue orb in his hands, before he tried putting it inside the huge cavity on her chest. The orb rolled into an indent on her mutilated chest... but the woman's expression was as calm as the blue skies. 

Evin paused a bit, wondering what the hell he was doing.

Almost unconsciously, his hands began to gather the woman's hair, slowly fixing it into a single braid.

"Shit..." he sighed, tears streaming from his eyes.