The Last Page III

Things did not go as planned. They didn’t go in any way Silora could have expected. In fact, no one could have.

The killer entered through Silora’s front door, not violently or by blowing it up in fear of traps. He just opened it and walked in.

Silora followed the plan of her mother’s consciousness and attacked the killer’s mind with the Mind as Fire spell. She didn’t heed the latter’s advice and used half of her mana reserve to launch a powerful mental attack. The spell’s backlash was something Silora could barely endure.

Silora felt intense heat as if her body was being torn apart from the inside, like something was eating her from within, every cell fiercely ablaze. Her breath became heavy as if the imaginary fire was consuming the oxygen around her. Even the psychological tension was as intense as the physical pain; Silora felt helpless against the spell’s destructive force that was messing with her senses. In the end, the remaining emotions were despair and the desire to escape at any cost.

In the light of Silora own torture and the distant screams of her mother’s consciousness, the killer seemed unaffected. He didn’t even react to her mental attack. Perhaps it was due to some kind of mind shield, yet he should have felt something and thus should have reacted. But no, it seemed the strange box Silora’s mother had gifted her was more interesting to the killer’s steady form.

Silora regained some of her senses; the pain from the spell somehow cooperated with her shattered body’s pain to put her in greater agony. But she managed to regain some stability as the spell’s side effects began to fade.

[You reckless little girl, run quickly, the spell won’t work. This is not what I tought—this thing has no mind. The spell won’t work on a mindless entity,] the consciousness sent with a mix of fear and helplessness through the mental link.

Despite the dizziness clouding Silora’s mind, she still heard the consciousness’s incomprehensible words and asked about it. “W-what, I felt the mind. How can I attack it if it has no mind? Mind shield—there.”

[It was designed to be this way. I thought something this advanced couldn’t be so ordinary, but I was wrong. You need to run now, I’ll think of something,] the consciousness sent, its fear making it unfocused in its words.

Silora found every word the consciousness resembling her mother said interesting, but she still did as she was told. The situation was already out of control.

Silora moved her body with difficulty and passed by the killer, who didn’t react to it. She left her room and closed the door behind her. Her polite act shocked the consciousness in the book in her hands. Ignoring the scolding words, Silora headed to the depths of the ship. She didn’t return the way she came, mainly because she didn’t want to face the consequences of her actions—not now, at least.

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Forcing her body to move, Silora increased her speed. “What now?” she asked with curiosity and despair.

Before the consciousness could answer, a scream pierced Silora’s eardrum, coming from the direction of her room. “no no no no no No, you have an incentive, why why Why. Where are you, come and talk to ME.”

Silora only increased her speed, her fear escalating with the killer’s insane words. But she pushed her fear and uncertainty aside—she had to hold on to whatever she could, she couldn’t die now. So she didn’t let her fear gnaw at her mind.

She turned part of her focus to her mother’s consciousness, “What is the incentive?” She felt it was very important.

To her surprise, the consciousness answered her. [It’s hard to explain, but they are things that found their way into the world we are in. These things aren’t supposed to exist because they were defined as such. But their existence seems to challenge the established laws. Generally, they are just… mental states.]

Another scream from the killer reached Silora, but the words were incomprehensible to her, holding no meaning. One thing, however, the sound was a bit farther away. But Silora didn’t let that give her any false sense of comfort. Her situation was getting more dangerous by the second.

But that didn’t stop her from asking the consciousness about what she thought was very important and might help. “I suspect the strange brown box is an incentive. Am I right?”

[You are right, the box is an incentive, the silver dagger is an incentive, your staff is also an incentive but it has served its purpose, even the book in your hands is an incentive, but its roots are too deep in the world we are in, so it won’t be of much use as we faced earlier,] the consciousness hurriedly explained.

Silora felt the consciousness was trying to steer her thinking towards something, but she continued asking while running aimlessly. “You keep saying the world we are in, instead of just referring to it as the world. Are there other worlds no one knows about?”

The consciousness laughed bitterly. [No, I don’t really know. According to my shallow knowledge, there is only one world.] The consciousness paused for a moment, then continued with difficulty. [A world you don’t live in.]

Silora accepted the information easily. She didn’t fully believe it, but she accepted the words of the consciousness resembling her mother. “Is my mother from this world you are talking about? Is that where she got the strange-colored box? - My mother once told me there are places in the world with green trees and brown trunks like the wood of the box.” Silora paused for a moment, then continued with suppressed anger. “Is my father’s killer from there? Are the strangers from this world you are talking about? Tell me…”

[Silora, calm down,] the consciousness interrupted. [It’s not that serious.]

“Not that serious,” Silora laughed with dark amusement. “I guess our opinions differ on what is serious and what is not. So you’d better start talking.”

With a tired sigh, the consciousness explained vaguely. [If it’s correct to say, this world is a replica of the real world. It’s not perfect as the gods used to make in the Age of Fixity, but it’s good enough given that a human made it. I will tell you everything…]

“No, later is not good, tell me now, or never,” Silora didn’t know if her naive argument would work, but at least she would test the credibility of the consciousness resembling her mother.

With another tired sigh, the consciousness commanded, [First, you need to head towards the passengers’ corpses, my plan involves them, if it is to succeed. Take a full turn and avoid any open path that might give the killer a clear way to you.]

Silora nodded at that, feeling a bit unsettled, but she kept silent.