CHAPTER 18: SEARCHING FOR REI P3
~18.3~
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“How clearly do you remember the pain from the deaths of your children, husband, and our parents?”
“Like it was mere minutes ago.”
“Take that pain, and relive it every few decades. Many of their lives are spent without their memories. Naturally, they fall in love and build families. Even in lives where they have their memories and refuse to accept a lover or have children, it’s very rare that they don’t at least make friends. Every time they die, they have to say goodbye to their loved ones. The number of lives they originally told us was wrong.”
“Wrong? More or less?”
“More. Unfathomably more. Astraia and I found out and kept it to ourselves at their request. But considering everything, you should know. Kye has lived over one hundred and four billion lives over the past five trillion years, with an average lifespan of roughly forty-eight years. Alethea has lived just over ninety-eight billion lives over the same time, with an average lifespan of roughly fifty-one years.”
Atalante’s eyes widened. With some modicum of understanding, she was in a mixed state of shock and disbelief. “I can’t believe I haven’t thought about that. How the hell have they coped? The number of lives they’ve lived is so unimaginably more than what they told us. And over such a long span of time. It’s unimaginable.”
Astarte sighed and looked at Alethea’s sleeping figure. “It gets to them badly every now and then. I wouldn’t say they cope at all. In this life, though, we’ve seen them genuinely happy despite carrying all the memories from their past lives. You know they have the ability to sense mana so strongly that they can read the quantity and quality of mana in a person’s soul. Some of their classmates are reincarnations of their past friends. They both keep it to themselves, only talking about it with each other and the other two. Even though those friends have no memory whatsoever, likely because they’re not immortal souls, the fact alone that they are here has helped them heal somewhat.”
“That’s... incredible...”
“Yes. A few examples. You know that Chevalier girl in their class? She’s one of their friends. The Strauss girl, too. Even some of the royals are. Ginchiyo, Akane, and Rika from the Tachibana line. Hannah and Alaira from the Marshalls. Alexandra from the Romanovs. Mikan, Liliana, and Aliana from the Venturis, the last two on several occasions and even from before all of it in Athas. Kye’s own siblings, Yami and Zen II, as well. And of course their daughters. Rei is Suzuka, and Joey and Kaede are immortals that have been with them since basically forever. Adele, Michelle, and that woman from Realm 7, Luma, are also immortal souls from their early years.”
“Wow... To think, our world would be such a meeting place for all of those souls.”
“And those are but a few. There’s also Astrid Jorgensen. She graduated two years ago at the top of her year. And many others.”
Atalante grimaced as she imagined all the pain her daughter had gone through. “Whatever it takes, I will help them lead happy lives here. After all the pain they’ve suffered...” She paused for a moment and looked into Astarte’s eyes again. “When Rei is recovered and her kidnapper caught... the kidnapper will receive capital punishment.”
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“You’re sure?”
“Yes. It’s been a long time since we’ve had crime in our empire, but doing harm to a royal is among the highest levels of treason. I’ll preside over the case myself.”
“The child is your granddaughter! Not even you can bypass personal involvement!”
“I won’t leave a royal case to a non-royal judge, and there’s not a single royal that would dare try to take my place. Admit it, even you wouldn’t.”
“No, I wouldn’t. But, I do expect Kye will.”
“Yeah,” she conceded. “I will step aside for Kye and Alethea, but no others.” The two looked back at the sleeping Alethea again with mixed emotions. After a few minutes, they left the room. Atalante opened her NeuraPhone and sent messages to Adele, Michelle, Luma, Alfia, and Kye, requesting their presence at the main palace in Atlantis. She briefly went over her idea with Astarte.
Astarte was staying to guard Alethea while Atalante returned to Atlantis. Before she left, Astarte stopped her and added to their conversation. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but... I feel I should.”
“Tell me what?”
“It’s about the worldlines.”
“Worldlines? That concept was mentioned briefly during the incident on Atlas.”
“Yes. As it turns out, the future that Alfia showed us was the past. It was a worldline that already happened. After figuring out that silver mana, Alethea was able to soul dive much deeper. She has memories of twenty-three other worldlines. Memories I now have access to. And Elysium is but one of three cosmic realms. Elysium is absolutely gargantuan in size. There is one other realm of comparable size, and another realm much smaller. The bigger one is called Tartaros, and the smaller one is simply called the living world.”
“What are you saying?”
Astarte looked her straight in the eyes. “You know of the concept of heaven and hell? Elysium is the former and Tartaros is the latter. The third, smaller realm? It’s simply called the Living World.”
“Impossible.”
Astarte shook her head. “Lanti.”
“No. You are making this up.”
“You know me better than that.” Astarte signed. “Lanti, listen. When this is over and the dust has settled... you should talk to them privately.”
“About what?”
“About their loved ones that they’ve reunited with here.”
“Are you sure?”
Astarte smiled brightly. “You’re one of those loved ones, Lanti. Moreso than most. You knew them in the Living World.”
Her eyes widened, “Uh...”
*****
A message from Atalante, again. Don’t they realize that I won’t respond to their messages? They’re worried about me, but they’ll just have to wait. I’m not in a state where I can calmly speak to anyone. Even though Rei prays, I still can’t find her. I don’t even know what realm she’s in.
Despite thinking that, Kye still read every message that was sent to her. She gasped when she read Atalante’s message. In that message was a detailed plan for casting a world-tier spell to find Rei.
I don’t believe it. I didn’t include Eye of Providence in the spell directory, Alethea couldn’t cast it on more than one planet, and she expects me to believe that spell will do it? I don’t doubt Alethea’s control of it, but even we have our limits. Alfia is the only one that could scan more than a single planet in one cast. Could she do an entire realm? She’s been searching with us, though. If it were an option, would she not have tried already?
She sighed, knowing that she couldn’t say no to the idea. She channeled aether and casted Rift. On the other side of the portal was Atalante. Kye gestured for her to step through the portal. Surprised but determined, Atalante joined Kye. The portal closed, and they began discussing the plan.
“How do you expect the Eye of Providence to do the trick? Alethea couldn’t do more than one planet, and I doubt I could do more than two in a single day, if even that.”
“You know of my title, the Rune Queen, yes?”
Kye nodded.
“Only a handful of my rune spells are publicly listed in the archive. There are thousands of rune spells ranging from basic to ultimate, dozens in the latter category. I didn’t include everything in the message, so let me explain in detail.”
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Revision: 2024-6-28