Not understanding Illianna's question, Sian frowned as he lowered the cup onto the saucer.

"You mean controlling us with magic?"

"No," she shook her head. "I don't mean controlling or anything like that, it's more like manipulating us in a non-direct way."

Noticing that Sian's expression became even more confused, she continued.

"Even if it's hard to admit, the meeting between us was beneficial for both parties."

According to Illianna, with each passing day she has been noticing various things that have been happening. Although she paid little attention to it at first, it reached a point where it was no longer possible to ignore.

"I find you and Emily more and more alike. No matter how I look at it, you two are like real father and daughter," she said. "Including the fact that she was born with the same problem as you, she also really has an immense desire to try new foods. She always talks about a plethora of dishes that you will make for her to try."

"Even if I'm happy about it, it's just a bunch of random coincidences," Sian denied. "Charlotte also shares the same taste to try new foods, and this doesn’t make her my daughter. As for the problem with her mana receptacle, anyone can have bad luck."

But apparently, the similarities didn't stop there, Illianna also stated that Emily's foot posture is practically the same as Sian's. She noticed that Sian never stands with both feet parallel to each other. If he put a straight line behind his feet, his left foot forms a ninety-degree angle, while his right foot would form something between eighty and eighty-five degrees outward.

Even if the fact that the two were born with the same left foot problem isn’t enough, there is more. From her nose to her eyes it is almost identical to Sian's appearance. Fran herself who lived with him in the past confirmed they were both similar.

"That's too much resemblance to be just coincidence. Even Ophilia, who is the mother, doesn't look as muchas you."

"It's just extremely coincidental," Sian shrugged. "There are many similar people in the world, even if they are not blood related. Haven't you ever heard that a person can have one or two lookalikes scattered around the world?"

Although Sian denied it, Illianna wanted something like a paternity test, but even with Sian's knowledge, this was not something he had ever heard of.

After she stopped insisting on Emily's case, Illianna urged Sian to tell her if he ever had the feeling that too many coincidences were happening. Yielding to her wishes, he told her everything he could remember.

Starting from his arrival in Solaris, Sian talked about how Ophilia looked like Melinda, the woman who took care of the children in the orphanage. There was also the fact that she was the only one available when he visited the brothel, and he ended up falling in love.

Soon after, he discovered that she had a daughter, whom he took care of as his own. Then he met Tina, who looks like Fran, and then he met Fran herself.

When he needed it, he conveniently found Illianna, who had even better skills than he needed.

"You witnessed all this and still don't find it strange?" Illianna looked at him with a puzzled expression. "A wanderer like you suddenly decided to settle in a tiny town, and furthermore, you are willing to spend rivers of money to make a hotel... To do it all for a woman you just met, on top of that, she was a prostitute. Many people would think twice before doing what you did."

"How will I know if it's strange or not?" Sian waved his hands indifferently. "I don't remember ever falling in love before, but Charlotte said people do stupid things when they love someone. Besides, Ophi is an amazing woman."

"I'm not complaining about Ophilia, I'm just wanting to point out something too curious to be just a fluke of fate."

Illianna then told about the things she had noticed. According to her, she didn't try to run away from home once. The amount was enough that all of a person's fingers were not enough to count.

Whenever she tried to escape, the guards ended up taking her back. But when she knew that she would turn the gift to Sian, she became even more desperate to escape and conveniently found a loophole in the guards' patrol and escaped.

Soon after escaping, she fell into the hands of bandits who sold her to a slave dealer and not long after, she came into Sian's hands. Conveniently, a person with extremely unique and specific abilities like hers was exactly what he needed.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Contrary to all her expectations, Sian was unexpectedly docile. It was clear that this was due to Ophilia's presence. To top it off, there was the fact that she could tell Sian about the contract she had made with the yellow shadow she had met when she was reincarnated.

"With the stubborn personality we both have, if it were the usual you, I'd probably already be dead," Illianna faced Sian seriously. "For all I know, you've killed for a lot less. Despite that, when I threw a doll full of shit into your hand, you did nothing."

Ignoring her last sentence, Sian went back to drinking tea composedly.

"Are you saying that all this, something as laborious as manipulating our lives, was done by someone just to bring us together?"

"I know it's too absurd to be true, even so, that's suspicious."

"There are few beings that can fool my senses, even if they could, it wouldn't be for long," Sian spoke with a confident expression. "I have thought about this possibility a while ago. I even used some large-scale magic, but I didn't find anything suspicious."

"Even if you say that, you can't affirm with 100% certainty that it's all coincidence," Illianna insisted.

"Of course it does, even though it pains me to say it, in Emily’s case, she is not my biological daughter. I've never been to Solaris before and after she became a slave, the farthest Ophi went from here was two cities away, which I've also never been to."

Sian continued.

"The last client she had was the same day I fought Frygor. On top of it, according to what she said, she spent some time sick before that. That client was the first after she resumed services, and also the last."

"That fight was you?!" Illianna was surprised. "I didn't expect you to be so strong to be able to fight a dragon even five years ago."

"Well, besides him not being that strong, I had my methods for dealing with him."

Although Sian says that a dragon is not that strong, this does not mean that it is weak. Any dragon poses an unprecedented threat. But there are ranks among dragons and being a relatively young dragon, Frygor, The Furious is at the bottom of it.

"Although I want to know the reason for the fight, I feel that if I ask, we will get too sidetracked."

With that said, Illianna continued to voice her suspicions. Even though Emily was not Sian's blood daughter, she firmly believed that something was wrong. She recalled the fact that Ophilia was living a quiet life until she was turned into a slave.

Although becoming a slave was not something unusual, her circumstance was very different from normal. After giving birth, her situation was as if she was in waiting mode, just waiting for Sian to show up to get her out of the brothel.

"I understand," Sian spoke contemplatively before continuing. "But from my point of view, you are just nit-picking."

Although she was silent for a brief moment, Illianna seemed to have suddenly realized something and argued again.

"You pray constantly, perhaps because you are strong, the gods are helping you to gain your favor?"

"I pray just out of habit, I've been doing that since the orphanage. And Zenobia is just a lesser goddess. Even if it was one of the main gods, I don't think they'd do something."

Perhaps the only god who could do what Illianna was implying would be the God of time, Feeus. He was the only one who could use time magic, but according to what Sian learned from Ayze, he is in a state where he can't use his powers for anything. Apparently he is still in a deep sleep due to the remnants of the war that happened 100,000 years ago.

Despite Sian's denials, Illianna insisted that something was going on behind the scenes and it was all a preparation for the future. She believes that the gods will want the help of all the strong people within their reach. Otherwise, they would not bring people from other worlds and give them strange abilities.

"Charlotte has the same feeling I do," Illianna said. "The world she came from seemed to have books that talked about it. People were taken to another world to fight demon lords and protect people."

"Well, there are demon lords with ambitions to rule the world, but they're not that strong," Sian denied. "Even if the entire demon continent rebels, they wouldn't be able to conquer the world."

"Since I came to this world, I have found that nothing is impossible," Illianna said as she took a sip of her already cold tea. "You don't have to know how to use time magic to manipulate the lives of mortals. They can simply be watching a movie from above and moving at just the right moment, like when you made that screen to watch the children."

"Even though I don't know what this movie thing is, I think I understood a bit. But if it is as you say, then even if we try to figure something out, we won't get out of the place. They are supposedly beings of unimaginable powers, we have no way of knowing whether they are doing this or not."

"We may not even find out anything from them, but there is someone suspicious we can get something from," seeing Sian's curious expression, Illianna paused dramatically before continuing. "Badonis, the things he did was very suspicious. Why would he keep Ophilia away from work? There's no way it's out of kindness, otherwise he wouldn't use slaves."

"Come to think of it, I remember Ophi telling me that when she went to meet me at the brothel, Badonis specifically told her to please me..." With his elbow resting on the sofa arm, Sian leaned his chin in his hand and got thoughtful.

There was also another important question, why did Badonis send money to the orphanage and ask them to take care of Emily?

To make things more suspicious, Badonis had still not returned to Solaris even after so long. According to the employee, Badonis and his wife were happy before he supposedly fainted.

"No matter what way I think, he's too suspicious..." Sian sighed. "But no matter how much we dig, it only gets darker and we're back to square one without knowing anything."

While they remained in this debate, Tina came through the door with Emily. According to them, an unexpected visitor appeared.