Chapter 11: Childish and Contradictory
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"I have my own judgment." Isha's expression darkened to an unsettling degree. The priest's words had shaken her, but she refused to show weakness in front of him, keeping her tone as cold and firm as ever.
Having achieved his goal, the priest said nothing more. He let Isha push open the kitchen door and take Su Ling away, then poured out the remaining half-cup of lukewarm milk and washed the glass.
Despicable? Shameless? No matter how others chose to judge him, he didn't care. The only thing he cared about was his family living in the New Kingdom. Isha's fate was undeniably pitiful, and he did feel guilty and sympathetic toward her, but Isha was not his family. She didn't weigh enough in his heart for him to give up his own kin for her sake.
Su Ling was pulled out of the tavern by Isha. She had naturally heard every word of the exchange between Isha and the priest, and with it came the understanding of what the so-called "source of corruption" in her quest actually referred to.
With a creeping sense of dread, she realized that her own feelings were in direct conflict with the quest's requirements. If she wanted to save Isha, her quest would fail without a doubt, and the price of failure went without saying. Losing her status as a Contractor meant losing everything she currently had, and being sent back to the moment she was on the verge of death.
But if she wanted to complete her quest, she would need Isha to confront the source of corruption, at the cost of Isha herself.
If not for those 2 days they had spent together, Su Ling might have truly steeled herself to use Isha. But now, the words asking her to go deal with the source of corruption simply wouldn't leave her mouth. This fate, far too heavy to bear, was just too unfair for Isha.
"Am I kind of useless? My own life is on the line, and I still ended up feeling sorry for someone else." Su Ling let herself be pulled along by Isha as she walked. The words wouldn't come out of her mouth, but Lu could hear them.
A silhouette gradually took shape beside Su Ling, a girl in a teal ruqun, with ink-black hair and crimson eyes, appearing beneath the moonlight. She didn't answer Su Ling's question right away. She simply looked up at the sky, gazing at the full moon as it cast its glow across the darkness.
"You really should learn to be more ruthless." Lu answered softly, lifting a hand to ruffle Su Ling's hair. As a sword spirit, she should not have been able to touch anything physical, and yet Su Ling felt the gentle pressure on top of her head, felt the warmth carried within that softness.
"But I won't take away your right to be childish. You've only just arrived in this fantastical world, how could you be expected to grow up so fast?"
Hearing Lu's response, Su Ling didn't know what to say. Was she childish? At 20 years old, she was without question an adult by the standards of her old world. By any normal adult's measure, she might not have been particularly mature, but calling her childish felt like a stretch, too.
And yet, given her current values and mindset, faced with a world as surreal as this one, she still couldn't bring herself to be decisive and ruthless, to use others without a hint of guilt. Maybe, in the eyes of the strong, she really was childish.
"Don't overthink it. I'll be here to grow alongside you. Whatever kind of person you want to become, I'll be right by your side supporting you."
Lu smiled with a gentleness that belonged only to Su Ling. That warmth made Su Ling's nose sting, and she felt the urge to cry welling up, but the tears weren't hers to command. Her eyes remained clear, with no sign of spilling over.
Isha continued pulling Su Ling in silence toward the edge of town. In the few unavoidable encounters along the way, she ultimately drew her sword and cut down the monsters. The knight's sword grew all the more corrupted for it.
Lu, meanwhile, spent the journey debriefing Su Ling on the finer details of her first battle. Su Ling herself thought she had done reasonably well, and on the surface, the result seemed flawless, but in Lu's eyes, there were still far too many rough edges.
Reaction speed and the like hadn't even begun to be trained yet, so that was set aside for now. Just in terms of timing and choices around her dragon transformation alone, Lu had a number of optimization suggestions. The burst power of Silver Dragon wings was nothing short of explosive, but it was not meant to be used as a standard charge attack.
Because right now, Su Ling had almost no reliable means of ensuring her own survival. The burst speed of the Silver Dragon wings was practically her only emergency evasion tool.
Using that as a setup for an offensive move was simply too reckless and wasteful.
Next was the dragon claw, unless she had no other way to break the stalemate, this ability should be saved for pressing advantages and snowballing momentum, not used as an opener.
The last-second dodge with the dragon tail, on the other hand, was actually well-executed. Though according to Lu, that was the move that should be used for standard attacks or probing, in terms of ability priority, Lu felt like Su Ling had basically been running the whole list in reverse.
Faced with Lu's debrief, Su Ling didn't argue back. She knew full well she was a complete rookie, and Lu vastly outclassed her in both strength and combat experience. Better to sit through the debrief now than to be listening to funeral music from inside a coffin later.
About 30 minutes later, Isha led Su Ling to the edge of a barrier. Lu had also just finished the debrief on Su Ling's first battle and retreated back into the sword to rest.
Isha extended her free right hand and pressed it against the air. There was nothing visibly there, but her hand met something solid, soundless when tapped or knocked, yet her hand was firmly stopped, unable to push through no matter how much force she applied.
Isha's eyes flickered. She pulled back her right hand and tugged Su Ling forward, gesturing for her to try. "Xiao Ling, give it a go, see if you can get through."
Su Ling sighed inwardly. She could roughly guess what Isha was thinking. With a resigned look on her face, she extended her left hand and stopped it at the same plane where Isha's had been blocked.
Of course she couldn't pass. Su Ling's golden slit-pupils had already seen the wall formed by the barrier. This wasn't something that targeted Isha alone. If it had, the monsters inside the town would have long since spilled out.
The priest likely knew the way out, but there was absolutely no chance he would share it with Isha. To make sure she properly fulfilled her "duty," he had even stayed behind in the town himself right up until now.
Perhaps he had never intended to leave alive from the very beginning.
The town had become a cage that no one could enter or leave. There was one, and only one, way to break through: for Isha, as the Saintess, to bestow purification upon the previous generation's Saintess, who was on the verge of complete corruption.
At the cost of herself.
"So it really doesn't work." Isha let out a bleak smile. Su Ling could feel the grip on her hand tighten. She looked up at Isha's lowered face. Those violet gemstone eyes, usually so bright and striking, were now burning with rage and conflict.
The barrier had completely sealed the town. She could feel just how strong it was, not something she could shatter by brute force. Pure Heart was effective against contamination, yes, but it was utterly useless against a barrier like this.
The whole town was only so big. If it was true, as the priest said, that the Contaminators would instinctively chase after Pure Heart, then it was only a matter of time before they all swarmed out looking for her.
And when that happened, even hiding alone would be a struggle. With Su Ling by her side, could she really protect her while holding back from killing every monster?
She was just someone she'd known for 2 or 3 days. Not even a friend, probably. Leaving her behind should be simple, right?
If she just ditched this deadweight, she could stall the Contaminators on her own. Once the previous generation Saintess fully collapsed into corruption, the barrier might not be able to hold against the Contaminators' assault. Chaos would be her chance. As long as they broke through the barrier, she'd get her freedom back.
As long as she could... leave her behind.
Conflict and contradiction flickered across Isha's eyes without rest. The grip on Su Ling's hand grew tighter and tighter, but just as Su Ling was about to feel real pain, Isha's strength suddenly released, easing back to the same gentle hold as when she had first taken her hand.
"Looks like I'm still... just as childish, huh."
Isha's smile carried relief with a tinge of helplessness. Those violet eyes, deep as a still lake, no longer rippled with any trace of darkness. What remained was only a gentleness, flowing through them like calm water.