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Chapter 589.1: Making a Choice (1)

No place in the world was fairer than the world of dreams.

It was the one thing in the world that disregarded one’s wealth, gender, and age. Whether one was living inside the royal palace or roaming the streets, resting peacefully at home or fighting an intense war on the battlefield, they could have everything they wanted in their dreams.

Dreams had a special significance on the Sia Continent, serving as a basis for divination.

Roel Ascart was currently having a dream, but it was not a dream that belonged to him. He was spectating a woman’s life from a third-person perspective.

Peering into another person’s life should have been a mystical experience, but what he saw was hardly interesting at all—boring, in fact. It was a dream based on Wilhelmina’s memories.

Much of her memories could be summarized with one word: training.

There was a fundamental limit to a person’s time and energy, so those who wished to excel in a field had to make trade-offs for it. While Wilhelmina, with her potential expanded by the Shadow Warrior Armor, grew much faster than her peers, she had to make many sacrifices for it.

Her childhood had been dull and monotonous.

The intense training she went through, at this point, had been out of coercion rather than her volition. Countless times she had dived under her blanket to stare at the hero depicted in the storybook with hands worn out with blisters and blood from her swordsmanship practice. It was not just once or twice that she had cast doubt on the so-called vow.

That sight filled Roel with guilt.

He would have never thought that while he was working hard to live a peaceful life, someone else in the distant Knight Kingdom was undergoing torturous training from a very young age to protect him.

Fortunately, this piece of memory didn’t last long, possibly because it was too distant. The girl, who had grown older in the meantime, came to affirm her will. With her maturity, she came to see how important was the mission entrusted to her. She proactively strove to grow stronger so that she could fulfill the vow and protect her clan’s honor and all of humankind.

She wasn’t in as desperate of a situation as Roel, who was already facing the threat of the evil cultists by this point, but she had huge ambitions that coincided with his. But unlike Roel, who knew how to balance work and rest, Wilhelmina was heaping far too much stress on herself.

This continued until their eventual collision.

When Roel shattered Wilhelmina’s Swordheart manifested out of her faith, what she had obstinately persisted on thus far finally came to an end. He had released her from her arduous mission, but at the same time, he brought her a new goal and faith.

I have to become stronger to protect this person, Wilhelmina told herself then.

Unfortunately, she was oblivious to the seed she had sowed in her heart then. She thought that her changes were prompted by Roel’s acknowledgment and affirmation. It was only when her yearning reached an uncontrollable level over their year-long separation that she was forced to confront her feelings.

Roel watched as Wilhelmina consulted Teresa about her peculiar condition with fists clenched out of nervousness. He couldn’t help but smile at her innocence, but at the same time, he felt sorry as well.

“Is that how you came to realize your feelings? You sure are slow-witted… but it’s my fault for robbing you of your childhood.”

Wilhelmina’s life had been so overwhelmed by her training and responsibilities that she never had time to focus on herself. Growing up in such conditions made her extremely clumsy when it came to matters of the heart. She had an abysmal level of awareness of her own emotions, and she didn’t know how to express herself either.

All she could do was to swing her sword, again and again, until she infused all of her feelings into her Sword Intent. That was the only way she could keep herself sane in the year Roel disappeared.

Her self-abasing, secret crush was ironically both her greatest motivation and an impediment in her path to becoming stronger, though this changed when she stood forward to defend Roel.

The moment she vanquished her low self-esteem and uncertainty, the Courage Origin Attribute finally acknowledged her, and her Swordheart overcame its bottleneck. Her earth-splitting slash was her confession to him.

Her intense feelings of affection shook Roel, tugging at his heartstrings.

It was also then that the sight of the severely wounded Wilhelmina appeared before him. When he saw tears flowing down her ghastly pale cheeks, he felt like his heart was going to shatter into pieces. It was in this choking atmosphere that she voiced her farewell.

“Farewell, Roel…”

“!”

Roel suddenly jolted awake in the dimly lit stone chamber. A rush of sorrow and pain shook him from his dreams, and he anxiously called for her while patting the nearby area to look for her.

“Mina!”

Only when his fingers touched the woman lying next to him did his rampaging feelings finally calm down a little. Still gasping for air, he anxiously pulled her into his arms and listened to her much more energetic heartbeats. Slowly, his pounding heart slowed down.

“Was it a nightmare? N-no, that isn’t it…”

As he regained his composure, Roel recalled the dream he just had, which prompted him to look at the woman in his arms with an increasingly solemn expression. It was hard to dismiss what he had just seen as a simple dream, for it was simply too lifelike.

Putting all things aside, he had never seen the young Wilhelmina before, and the buildings inside the dream were of a style he had never seen before. If it had truly been a simple dream, it was peculiar that his mind had conjured those things out of thin air.

“Is it because I transplanted my heart into you… Are those your dreams?” Roel murmured to the woman in his arms with a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

His connection with Wilhelmina was closer than ever after having shared his heart and blood with her. This could have given rise to a mana resonation in the midst of their sleep, resulting in them sharing the same dreams.

On the bright side, this meant that Wilhelmina’s mind was still functioning as normal, and it was likely that she would wake up shortly.

This brought him to look at her with hopeful eyes.

As if answering his prayers, the woman with ash-blue hair actually opened her eyes under his watch.

“Roel…” Wilhelmina murmured as her eyes fluttered open.

“!”

Roel’s heart pounded hard. Words couldn’t describe his rush of feelings in that instant. It took moments before he found the words to answer her.

“Yes, it’s me. You’re finally awake. Welcome back,” he replied hoarsely.

“It’s… really you.” Still in a daze, it took seconds before Wilhelmina’s eyes focused on Roel. Horror slowly seeped into her eyes as she weakly muttered, “Why… are you here?”

“What?”

“I should… be dead!”

As soon as he heard that ominous word slip out, Roel gently pressed his finger against her lips to stop her. He looked into her shocked eyes and assured her, “You’re fine. We’re still alive.”

“We are?”

“I don’t want to hear such ominous words. You aren’t that weak, so don’t ever say that again.”

“…”

Wilhelmina slowly noticed Roel’s trembling body, as well as how cold the finger pressing against her lips was. She quietly stared at him as she began to realize something.

Worried that she might try to distance herself from him, Roel hugged her even tighter.

Wilhelmina’s death was a huge trauma to him, and it was only exacerbated by the nightmare he just had. He didn’t want to hear about it, even if it was just words.

Realizing that, Wilhelmina nodded and said, “Mm… I won’t say such words anymore. Sorry… and thanks.”

“I should be the one apologizing and thanking you instead. You were the one who swooped in and saved me from the deviants, creating an opportunity for me to escape from their clutches. I’m only doing what I should.”

“…I’m also only doing what I should,” Wilhelmina replied with a faint smile after a moment of thought.

“…”

Roel was rendered speechless. He rubbed her cheeks and asked, “How are you feeling? Anywhere aching, or feeling unwell?”

“It aches a little, but I can take it.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“But… my chest feels weird.”

“!”

Wilhelmina looked confused by the foreign sensation in her body, and that immediately piqued Roel’s vigilance.

“Weird? How so?”

“It feels… out of control as if it is rejecting me. My mana feels weird too…”

“…”

Is it as I expected?

Roel’s expression slowly turned grim as he realized that what he had been worrying about all this while had happened. The Kingmaker Bloodline and Dragon Bloodline, after a temporary alliance to save Wilhelmina’s life, had started turning against each other.