Law of Space and Time - Chapter 87: Master and Servant
Chapter 87: Master and Servant
However, she was far too elated by the prospect of being able to return to the human world to have her mood soured by the burly skeleton’s actions.
As the three of them made their way into the lively and bustling town, the green and orange toads that were littered all over the small paths in the town immediately began to croak in a cautious manner toward the strangely dressed trio. Of course, their croaks were mostly directed toward the pair of skeletons. These toads were magic beasts themselves, so perhaps they were particularly sensitive to the aura of magic beasts being given off by the pair of skeletons.
Lana naturally paid no heed to all of the attention directed toward her. Her confidence was something that was completely innate and unshakable. Even though her clothes were a little tattered at the moment, she was used to being looked up to all her life.
As for the two skeletons, they were clearly very uncomfortable, particularly under the scrutiny of all of the human bystanders. In fact, the burly skeleton was already cursing itself for agreeing to such an unreasonable request from Lana.
A traveling poet emerged from the crowd and immediately began to deliver a verse. “Ah, gorgeous lady, your beauty is as radiant as the light of the sun and the moon. To what does our humble town owe this great honor of being blessed by your presence? I am truly thankful that I am able to witness your unparalleled beauty here.”
The sentiment from the traveling poet was echoed by all of the men in the crowd.
However, Lana merely walked past the traveling poet with a cold expression, completely ignoring him in the process.
Even though Lana’s memories had been erased, her innate pride and haughtiness were not things that could be removed so easily.
Lana’s cold response left the traveling poet feeling rather awkward. Thankfully, he had very thick skin, and he immediately turned the awkward look on his face into a polite smile. Of course, thick skin was a common trait among all traveling poets. Otherwise, one wasn’t going to make it very far in this occupation.
“My sincerest apologies, he’s always losing his wits whenever he’s around beautiful women. Please forgive him.” A well-dressed young nobleman hurriedly emerged from the crowd, addressing Lana with an apologetic expression before turning to give the traveling poet a disapproving look.
The traveling poet immediately lowered his head and fell silent.
Lana took an indifferent glance at the young nobleman and didn’t say anything.
However, just that casual glance alone was enough to completely captivate the young man, and his heart was fluttering from this brief interaction.
Lana had no intention of furthering this interaction. Her priority was to find a seamstress. Her situation was rather similar to when Erwin and Onean had first emerged from the Terarody Mountain Ranges. In both cases, the top priority had been to find new clothes.
However, the young man seemed to be determined not to let Lana out of his sight. He was following along behind the trio not too close, but not very far away, either. He didn’t approach her to continue the conversation, nor did he display any intention of giving up on her.
Lana wasn’t in the mood to deal with the young man. She was in a completely unfamiliar place, and her mind was completely preoccupied with finding out who Erwin was.
It didn’t take Lana long to find a tailor shop, and she made her way into the shop before having a detailed discussion with the shop owner with regard to how her new clothes were going to be tailored. Her two “lackeys” naturally entered the shop with her as well.
After hearing Lana’s complicated requests, the burly skeleton was feeling rather disgruntled, and it complained, “Why are you going to so much trouble when you could just use magic to mend your clothes?”
“How am I supposed to mend these clothes when they’re already completely ruined?” Lana countered as she rolled her eyes at the burly skeleton. “Do you think everyone is like you?”
“Alright, do whatever you need to do then,” the burly skeleton said in a resigned voice.
The owner of the shop was rather intrigued to hear their conversation. He had thought that the pair of cloaked figures had to be the beautiful woman’s servants, but judging from their conversation, that didn’t appear to be the case. Furthermore, even through the thick material of their cloaks, the shop owner could sense the intense glacial aura that the two of them were giving off. He didn’t even dare to look directly into the eyes of the larger cloaked figure through the eye holes on his mask. The sight of the faint blue light emanating from those eyes was sending chills running down his spine, so after finalizing the clothes design with Lana, he quickly ducked into the back room to work on the clothes.
“That man’s been looking at you from outside the shop this entire time. Looks like he’s completely enamored with you,” the burly skeleton remarked.
Lana’s expression remained unchanged, and she didn’t even bother to take a glance at him.
“He doesn’t seem to lose to your beloved Erwin in the looks department.” The burly skeleton clearly wanted to provoke Lana, as evidenced by the mocking tone that had crept into its voice.
Perry was rather perplexed about why its master was doing this, but it naturally didn’t dare to ask any questions and was only raising those questions to itself.
“Oh? Is my taste in men that terrible?” Lana asked as she took a glance at the burly skeleton. At the moment, she only had a very vague recollection of Erwin, and she couldn’t remember what he looked like. However, she was confident in her own aesthetic taste, and she was certain that Erwin didn’t look so mundane.
“I bet you really want to know what Erwin looks like, right?” The provocative tone in the burly skeleton’s voice was becoming more pronounced.
However, Lana didn’t take the bait this time. Instead, a faint smile appeared on her face as she said, “Now that I think about it, if I don’t remember, then so be it. We’re going to meet again someday anyway, and it’ll be more of a pleasant surprise if I don’t remember.”
The young man outside the shop window was completely rooted to the spot by the sight of her tragic smile. The burly skeleton was also rather taken aback by Lana’s calm and measured response, while Lana turned to it with a sneer on her face and remarked, “You’ve mentioned Erwin on multiple occasions since we entered this shop. It feels like you have some type of… ulterior motive. What kind of reaction do you want to see from me? What have you experienced in the past that has led to your strange emotional requirements?”
Lana had suddenly turned the tables on the burly skeleton.
The burly skeleton had thought that only it was observing Lana, and that it held the initiative over her, but to its surprise, Lana had also been observing it in secret.
Given Lana’s intelligence, she had already caught onto some of the burly skeleton’s motives.
Thus, the burly skeleton was beginning to consider killing Lana again. It knew that failing to completely erase Lana’s memories was going to spell trouble in the future, and that trouble was beginning to rear its ugly head now.
“Are you considering putting an end to my life here?” Lana asked as she raised an eyebrow in provocation. “But you can’t bring yourself to do it, right? Don’t try to lie to me, I can already tell that you definitely have a reason for not killing me. So? Am I right? Did I hit the nail right on the head?”
Perry was so terrified by the confrontation taking place between Lana and the burly skeleton that it was barely able to keep itself upright. In its eyes, there was no one in this world aside from Lana who dared to speak to its master like this.
The burly skeleton’s teeth were tightly gritted in fury, but Lana really had struck the nail on the head. It did indeed have a reason for not killing Lana. It knew that Lana was a key, and that if it wanted to access its own memories at some point in the future, then it had no choice but to keep Lana alive.
This was a type of lethal temptation to it, but it was unable to suppress the insistent yearning in its heart. If it wanted to kill Lana, it could’ve done so countless times already, but perhaps it had already made a decision from the moment it had taken Lana and flown out of the Terarody Mountain Ranges.
The window of opportunity had already passed, and there was no way that it could kill Lana now.
No matter how frustrated and remorseful it felt, there was nothing that it could do.
“Don’t get all smug me! Whether I choose to kill you or not depends solely on my mood, but regardless of whether I decide to kill you, you’re never going to be able to recover your memories,” the burly skeleton retaliated in a cold voice. “How do you feel now?”
Perry was becoming even more perplexed upon hearing this. It couldn’t understand why its master was conforming to this human woman over and over again.
Instead of being enraged to hear this, a bright smile appeared on Lana’s face as she said, “So what if I can’t recover my past memories? I’ll just treat this as an opportunity to be reborn anew.”
The burly skeleton was truly stunned to hear this, and it was completely rooted to the spot in silence, as if it had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
It had completely failed to anticipate Lana’s optimism and open-mindedness.
“Perhaps fate mandated that I would lose my memories, so I couldn’t have avoided this anyway, but now that I think about it, losing my memories isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps I was leading an unhappy life prior to this,” Lana said with a smile.
The light of the sun shone down onto her face, illuminating her alluring features, and it was impossible to tell whether her smile harbored a sense of elation or sorrow.
“Hence, I may even have to thank you,” Lana said as she cast her gaze toward the burly skeleton.
Unbeknownst to Lana, her words were resonating deep in the burly skeleton’s heart, and it felt as if something were trembling violently deep inside it, struggling to make its way out into the open.
However, its silver mask concealed its emotions very well, and the pair of blue flames in its eye sockets appeared to be displaying no strong emotions.
“You think this is an opportunity to be reborn anew? Don’t forget that you are my slave right now.” Despite what it was saying, the burly skeleton’s voice had become a lot more placid, and it was no longer trying to threaten or provoke Lana.
Having said that, it really was being quite the spoilsport.
“Stop issuing these pointless threats. I’m sure you can already tell that I’m not the type of person who would allow herself to be enslaved by someone else,” Lana said as a cold look appeared on her face.
“Fine, I don’t want to bicker about this subject with you today,” the burly skeleton said as it turned its face to the side, and this time, it made a rare display of restraint, refraining from torturing Lana with the bone claw necklace.
“So what do you plan to do next?”
“What else can I do? I’m going to find Erwin.”
“Why is that your first priority?” Having taken most of Lana’s memories, the burly skeleton was naturally aware of the threat that the True Light Church currently posed to the Atlas Empire, but it wasn’t planning to tell Lana about any of that, and even the burly skeleton couldn’t quite understand whether it had done this for Lana’s sake or for itself.
“I don’t know, but when you first mentioned that name to me, I felt a burst of pain right here,” Lana replied as she pointed at her own heart. “You probably don’t understand what type of feeling that is, right?”
“I don’t need to know what those burdensome emotions feel like,” the burly skeleton replied in a disdainful voice.
“Now that I think about it, you must’ve devoured the memories of many people in the past, so you must already be used to all this.”
“I’ve devoured the memories of many people? I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m only interested in the memories of powerful beings, and most of those powerful beings are magic beasts.”
“Oh, I see. No wonder you’re going to all this trouble to find that ice dragon,” Lana replied with a nod. “But given what you just said, you’ve just indirectly admitted that I’m one of the most powerful beings of the human race. I’ll gladly accept that compliment.”
The burly skeleton gave a cold harrumph, but didn’t rebuke her.
“We each have something that we’re looking for, so why insist on traveling together? Wouldn’t it be far better for both of us to go our separate ways instead?”
“I already told you that you’re my slave. I won’t leave you behind.”
An amused smile appeared on Lana’s face. “Has there ever been a master who’s followed their slave instead of the other way around?”
The burly skeleton ignored Lana’s statement and asked, “Where are you planning to begin your search for Erwin?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t even know who I am, how am I supposed to find anyone else.”
“You’re in a completely unfamiliar place here in the north. If you stumble around aimlessly without your memories, you could easily get abducted again.”
“Oh? From the sounds of it, I come from the southern side of the Terarody Mountain Ranges, is that right? “
The burly skeleton immediately realized that it had unintentionally let slip too much information upon hearing this.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Lana chuckled. “It’s alright, it doesn’t matter even if you don’t confirm it. In any case, I already know that I come from the south.”
“So what?”
“Will it really be that difficult to find out the identity of a woman as beautiful as myself who came from the south?” Lana asked as she performed a graceful twirl in front of the burly skeleton, showing off her slender and alluring body in the process. “In addition to that, I also know that my name is Lana.”
Her dress was in tatters, so large sections of her body were revealed during her twirl, and Perry was so captivated by the stunning sight that it would’ve already been drooling had it had any saliva.
“Get over yourself,” the burly skeleton scoffed as it took a cold glance at Lana. It was in no mood to be watching Lana flaunt her own figure, and it aimed a kick directly at Perry, who was still staring like an idiot.
The kick immediately snapped Perry’s shin bone, and it let loose an agonized howl, startling the owner of the tailor shop in the process.
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