Chapter 19: Dreamscape
"Put more sincerity into your request," he ordered.
Clara tried.
Her words made no difference.
Neo snapped his fingers and re-trigged the violent devouring of Paul's Death Mark.
He woke up with a startle and let out blood curling screams.
"W-what are you doing? Why are you harming Paul?"
"I'm warning you. If the Queen dies, don't think I'll let you two go."
Dark lines appeared on Neo's face.
He couldn't think of anything to save the Queen.
Not much time was left.
"P-please save m-me… m-mom…," Paul spoke in a whimper.
Neo frowned when he saw his pathetic actions.
However, the Tyrant Queen's fingers twitched.
She heard Paul?
Neo looked at Clara. His eyes told her what she needed to do.
She opened her mouth,
"M-mom, please wake up…. I… don't want you to d… die."
The Tyrant Queen reacted.
Just when Neo thought he found a way out of the situation, he felt an incredible sense of sleepiness attacking him.
"What are you doing to me?" He glared at Clara.
"Huh?" Clara shouted. "Hey, what's happening to you!?"
Her words hinted that she wasn't behind the drowsiness.
Before Neo could do something, he fell asleep.
…
Bright sunlight pierced through Neo's eyelids.
He woke up with a grunt.
"I feel like fuck."
Rubbing his hair, he scanned his surroundings.
He was at a harbor where a proud, wide, broken ship was docked.
Countless citizens were gathered in the area.
Listening to them, Neo found out that they were celebrating someone's… their Queen's… safe return.
"Where am I?"
Neo remembered falling unconscious while trying to save the Queen.
He pushed through the crowds to find out what was happening.
His eyes widened.
He saw a young Elizabeth, with dark, sunken cheeks, coming out of the ship.
She looked famished.
In her hands, a little girl, five or six months old, slept.
"Elizabeth and Amelia?" he thought.
A guard approached Elizabeth.
"What about the king and the prince, my Queen?" the guard asked.
Elizabeth shook her head.
She tried to calm the citizens and the guards, but their sorrow was palpable.
No one seemed in their right mind.
Biting her lips, she hid her tears, and donned an expressionless mask.
"Stop crying. We don't have much time left." Elizabeth spoke with a firm voice. "The Falcon Pirates will arrive on our island in a few weeks. We have to prepare and…
"There are survivors on the ship. Take care of them."
"M-my Queen, what about reinforcements? Can't we ask other countries for help?" the guard asked with a fearful expression.
"…I've tried but they refused. Our country has no longer anything of value to give them, they have no need to help us."
The Queen moved towards the palace.
The people were shocked and helpless.
They seemed sure of their eventual demise at the hands of the pirates.
However.
Seeing the Queen, who stood firm, they regained a bit of hope.
The soldiers and the citizens got to work.
After a bit of the time, Neo noticed familiar people among the survivors of the ship.
Paul and Clara.
Both of them were kids; Paul, only a few months or perhaps of the same age as Amelia, and Clara, a year or two older.
Neo was scouting the surroundings when he heard someone talk to him.
"The Queen had been living with her husband until now. Her ship was attacked on her way here."
Turning around, he noticed a ten-year old Amelia.
No.
She looked similar to Amelia, but something was different.
He couldn't put a finger on it.
Still, he could tell she was not Amelia.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Guess who I am?" she gave a cheeky smile.
"…Elizabeth's secret child."
"…"
She stared at him as if looking at an idiot.
"No one can talk or see you except me. Shouldn't you have thought I was this dreamscape's owner?"
"Oh."
Neo's eyes slightly widened.
He looked at her carefully.
"I didn't know you were a pervert who thought of herself as a kid, despite being so ol—"
"Old? You weren't going to call me old, right?"
The pressure of the Tyrant Queen surrounded her.
Neo took a step back and shook his head unconsciously.
"I wasn't."
"Good," she smiled. "Follow me."
They walked on the beach alone.
Neo knew he had to persuade her to transfer the curse to him, but judging from the situation, it seemed Elizabeth pulled him here for a reason.
She must've something to say to him.
He decided to hear her.
"The pirates won't be able to defeat my country," she told him.
"I know. Since the Mermaid Country is still standing, you must've won against the pirates."
"That's not it." She shook her head. "The pirates never attacked. After all…"
She turned on her heels and faced him.
"They were annihilated when they attacked the ship."
"...Why didn't you tell your people about it? All of them are worrying the pirates will attack again after their ambush on the ship failed."
Elizabeth let out a smirk.
It was a good thing she was a kid, otherwise Neo might've received a heart attack seeing her smile so much.
"I couldn't tell them how the pirates were defeated. Can you guess how it happened?"
Neo thought about it.
The answer was clear…
She did it with the help of the Tremor-ranked Spell of the Mermaid Country.
Unlike what everyone thought, the Spell was not the Country's heritage.
It was given to Elizabeth by Amelia's father, the Great Ocean God, Poseidon, when the pirates attacked.
This was revealed in the novel.
No one knew the true identity of Elizabeth's husband other than her.
"You can't guess it?"
Neo stayed silent.
"The pirates were defeated by my twin sister."
"…?"
It was the first time he heard about Elizabeth having a sister, much less a twin.
She laughed when she saw his expression.
"So even you can make a face like that."
"Twin sister?" he asked.
"Yes, my twin sister. She was Amelia's birth mother and the wife of the Great Ocean God, Poseidon."
"…what?"
...
A/N:
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