The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 142

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 142

“I did, quite a lot.”

Oli twisted the corner of her mouth with a cold expression.

“Pascal, you see, magically modified the children’s bodies so that the summoned ancestral souls could properly settle in, to become as similar as possible to the souls. They ‘processed’ the flesh like processing Oaths. That’s how those bodies came to resemble us so closely. That entire process was recorded in detail.”

“…Crazy, that crazy bastard, worse than any demon beast…”

“But Rita, Gid already knew all of that unimaginable record content without even reading it. He explained it all like a lecture, pointing to each page. What Pascal’s Children are, how they were made, what Pascal’s research on ‘return’ really was…”

Rita closed her mouth.

Oli was right. Gid after her death had acted very strangely. And there was only one hypothesis that could explain why he could act that way.

Olivia’s low voice continued.

“…After that, Gid told us to inherit Pascal’s research and try the return together. To go back to where we were originally born, that Rita would already be back there. Since all other hypotheses had been discarded, this was now the only way to get Rita Pascal back…”

“Other hypotheses? Discarded? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I asked, but that damn Gid Pascal vaguely brushed it off and moved on. I told you, there are many ambiguous parts.”

Oli shook her head and spoke unusually slowly.

“Anyway, we… had to digest those overwhelming truths before we could even settle the shock of your death. It took a full three days for everyone to come to their senses and decide on the return. During that time, Gid pieced together fragments of your corpse to make a coffin.”

“…”

Her mouth tasted terribly bitter. Lillieta tried not to imagine that underground scene.

On the other hand, as if that moment, both past and future, was still vivid, Olivia’s gaze wandered through the air. She quietly added.

“Come to think of it, Gid was incredibly skilled at that horrible puzzle… Like he’d done it dozens of times before.”

Rita’s eyes widened. Oli stared at her thoughtfully before continuing.

“After that, we settled into Pascal’s Research Facility. Sera and I dug through Pascal’s materials researching return methods, while Ethan and Luca took turns standing guard and managing daily life and chores. Is and Gid went back and forth between the research facility and the Last Line of Defense, gathering all sorts of supplies.”

“Wait, they went back and forth between the ruins and the Last Line of Defense gathering supplies? Just the two of them?”

“Strange, right? It was a path that all Beacon Members had to give their all to break through. Even if you did that damn self-destruction show and wiped out a massive number of surrounding demon beasts, it wasn’t a path two people could break through. Especially while carrying supplies… But they managed it time and again.”

Oli’s expression became peculiar.

“Is said this. With Gid guiding the way, dangerous situations never arose at all. It was seamless, as if he knew in advance what would be ahead, what demon beasts would jump out.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Right, it’s an impossible story. But there are even more impossible things?”

Olivia shrugged her shoulders.

“For example, while we completely settled in Pascal’s Research Facility, tearing everything apart and even researching with the Star, Pascal himself never showed his face. Even though he came to find us when we departed for the ruins and even gave us clues.”

“…!”

“He knew very well that we were going to his research facility, even guided us there in a way, right? I’m not sure what Pascal’s purpose was, but anyway, if we touched the Star, there should have been some reaction, shouldn’t there? When I asked Gid if we shouldn’t prepare for that guy somehow since it was worrying, he said there was no need at all.”

“…Why, because Gid had already killed Pascal?”

“Yeah, he said he killed him so don’t worry about it and just do the research. When exactly? We didn’t even notice.”

“…”

“There’s something even more impossible, Rita. Pascal researched for decades, maybe over a hundred years with the Star, grinding through thousands of Pascal’s Children, but couldn’t find a way to return. But we figured out the method in less than a year of researching with the Star. How was that possible…”

Oli rubbed her face tiredly and spat out the words.

“Whenever we got stuck or had problems, Gid would ghostily provide the answers. Like he had the answer sheet in his head. Like he already knew I would get stuck at that part.”

“…”

“What was even more incomprehensible was that the solutions he provided, in their solving process… had traces of mine and Sera’s habits. We’d never solved such things, but it was as if we had.”

“So, really, Gid was…”

Rita started to speak then stopped and covered her face with her hands. Oli picked up the conclusion she couldn’t bring herself to voice.

“How should I put it, Rita, he didn’t have much will to hide it. Maybe he didn’t have the luxury to hide it.”

Her words were mixed with a sigh.

“We unsealed the Star, didn’t we? After nearly a year, the magical contamination leaking from that damn Star became so severe that even the surrounding space began to collapse. Naturally, we reached a point where we couldn’t get close or research it anymore. That was… a kind of time limit.”

“…You mean the time limit for researching the Star was one year?”

“Rita.”

Olivia lowered her gaze that had been wandering through the air to look at Lillieta.

“While analyzing Pascal’s research records, I realized something. No matter how much of an ancient great mage he was, there were experiments that were logically impossible.”

“Impossible experiments? What kind?”

“Records of modifying the same child… multiple times in different ways and failing. Dying from being unable to withstand excessive modification, dying from rejection reactions to ancestral souls when modified too little… Records of the process of endlessly repeating such acts to calibrate between the range of body modification a child’s flesh could endure and the level at which an ancestral soul could settle.”

“Wait, he found the balance point by killing the same child multiple times? For such a thing to be possible…”

“It means Pascal either had the ability to revive the dead, or the ability to turn back time.”

Rita groaned briefly. There was only one answer that fit with Gid’s strange behavior and Pascal’s ability to summon past heroes from the future.

“The latter.”

“Probably.”

“…Pascal could only turn back time within a certain range, right? If he could freely manipulate time, he wouldn’t need to research return methods – he could just go to the past.”

“Right, there seemed to be limitations. And once I realized that, many questions were resolved. It fit together chillingly well.”

“What things?”

“Like how he carelessly threw the Revived Beings he barely managed to create after all those experiments onto battlefields and left them to live or die.”

“Ah. Since even if they all died, he could just turn back and start over? Until the return succeeded?”

“Right. Maybe he left us alone even more to observe us dying in various ways in various situations. He was looking for conditions where return would succeed.”

Oli muttered with a disgusted expression.

“The records remaining in the research facility only went up to the process of creating Revived Beings. After the record of successfully creating the first Revived Being, no more records were visible. From then on, Pascal must have sealed the Star there and left for elsewhere. He probably moved his residence while building the Revived Being Training Facility. So the experimental records after we were made, we don’t know yet. Probably only Pascal himself knows.”

“…”

“How many times did we die and revive repeatedly in the Ash-covered Era.”

She felt dizzy. Lillieta covered her face. Olivia groaned and spat out words.

“And Gid, that one year we researched the Star… just how many times did he repeat it.”

Rita stopped breathing for a moment. She felt distant. No words came out.

After a moment of silence, Oli slowly opened her mouth.

“Probably when Gid killed Pascal… he gained that guy’s ability. I can’t be certain since he won’t give proper answers.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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