Chapter 102: She really is a lost cause at this point, isn’t she?
Lily looked at the weirdo who had kissed her just moments ago, her mind in complete chaos over what had happened, how she had ended up here and why the hell was that weirdo kissing her like that.
...And why the hell had it felt so strangely comforting?
Her hand instinctively touched her lips.
All she remembered was standing in front of that cafe, trying to summon Rwar, who had returned to the Spirit Realm to rest. But when Rwar didn’t respond to her calls, Lily, in her stubbornness, tried to summon... Octina.
Unlike Rwar, who treated Lily with kindness and gentleness, Octina never obeyed her orders, let alone respected her as a contractor.
Sometimes, she even acted on her own, ruining the tasks Lily had been assigned back then. So, ever since then, Lily decided never to summon her until she became strong enough to control her.
But she didn’t know what happened.
Looking at that weirdo entering the cafe with that princess, Lily couldn’t help but become curious about what kind of secret they were going to discuss to be so conspicuous.
That curiosity... was definitely the only reason she had tried summoning Octina. Nothing else.
But the moment she did, her vision completely blanked and it felt as though she had fallen into a deep sleep before something sweet touched her lips, something she had never tasted before but somehow, she knew exactly how it felt.
It was strange.
But that strange feeling was what pulled her out of that sleep and the moment she opened her eyes, she saw that weirdo kissing her.
Who even does that?
But as she looked back at him, she noticed that his body was riddled with injuries, his hands completely purple and even his breathing had become much slower than normal.
What happened to him?
Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up, she caught him in her lap, immediately checking his slowly receding pulse.
Her heart thundered inside her chest as she struggled to understand what could have happened to leave him so badly injured.
Even her mind seemed unable to properly process everything and then, her gaze shifted towards the environment around her.
She was inside some kind of vast space filled with muscular walls, each one covered in veins that pulsed faintly.
She was inside someone’s body?!
Only then did her gaze shift towards the place she had fallen from, a pure red crystal and behind it, she saw her, a mature woman with tentacles like hair, Octina.
Seeing her standing there with a bitter smile, Lily felt an ominous feeling but she still didn’t understand what was happening.
But before she could even ask Octina, everything around her began fading rapidly.
Even Octina’s humanoid body started vanishing and soon, the floor beneath Lily and Zenith disappeared as well.
Suddenly, they were hundreds of feet in the air.
Below them, Lily could see the bustling Academy City stretching out in every direction as gravity immediately began pulling them down.
Lily instinctively grabbed Zenith’s unconscious body tightly in her embrace as something pink suddenly appeared out of thin air and engulfed them both in a protective barrier, completely concealing their bodies from the perception and eyesight of those below.
"Rwar! You’re back?"
[Sorry about everything, Lily. I tried to stop them, but... well, anyway, now isn’t the time. If anyone sees you here now, they will start investigating. Let’s go home first. We will discuss everything later.]
Rwar’s gentle voice echoed through her mind as Lily nodded.
"Alright."
Beyond Rwar’s pink barrier, Lily could see a commotion breaking out around the cafe Zenith had entered with that princess.
The students who had been inside were rushing out along with the cafe’s staff, while everyone around the building looked on in confusion, seemingly unable to understand what had happened.
Lily even spotted the princess and her brother standing some distance away.
She knew nobody should have been able to see through Rwar’s stealth ability but somehow, Prince Aurelion’s gaze seemed to pierce straight through it.
Despite being quite injured himself, he stared directly at them with a frown.
***
With Rwar’s quick and stealthy movements, it barely took a few minutes before Lily arrived back at her dorm.
And because she didn’t have the key to the weirdo’s apartment, she had brought him to hers instead. Not to mention, with how injured he was, how could she possibly leave him alone?
She definitely wasn’t worried...
It was just that she didn’t want to bother getting rid of his body.
Yeah, that’s all.
She nodded to herself as Rwar shook her head beside her.
Only after Lily locked the door to her apartment did she finally look at the pink, shapeless slime carrying Zenith’s unconscious body within her.
It was one of Rwar’s forms which amplified her healing capabilities.
"What happened, Rwar? Why was I asleep? Why was Octina there? How did we fall from the sky? How... did he get so injured? And he will be healed soon, right? His condition isn’t too bad right?"
She immediately fired one question after another at Rwar, whose shapeless body swirled gently, her crystal-like eyes and face curling into a small frown.
[It was Manifestation, Lily.]
Rwar said with the same expression as she kept Zenith’s body within her form because it was the fastest way to heal him.
"What is that?"
Lily asked immediately.
[It’s not much of a surprise that you don’t know, because you barely bothered to read the books on Summoning Theory. And even then, not many people know that it could happen this way.]
She continued in the same tone.
[When a spirit becomes too strong, it can borrow a medium, something like a powerful object or artifact, to descend into the mortal realm. And while it descends, a temporary space is created called the Manifestation Nexus until their descent is complete.]
[It creates an exact replica of the real-world environment and sometimes pulls people near that area into it. In the outside world, nothing seems different, except that people in a particular area suddenly vanish and are pulled into such a Nexus.]
[When you tried to summon Octina, that bitch—I mean, that damned woman, used you as a medium to manifest into reality.]
[Even though I tried to stop her, the other spirits caught me by surprise and imprisoned me by attacking all at once. If I had known something like this would happen and if I had been prepared, I would have never let them do anything like this.]
Rwar’s voice was slightly heavy.
[But those fools dared to act on incomplete information, even after I warned them and tried to eliminate this boy.]
The moment she said those words, a sudden wave of bloodlust erupted throughout the entire room. Rwar’s gaze snapped towards Lily, whose eyes had turned completely cold.
"Eliminate who?!"
It was the first time Rwar had ever seen Lily like this.
Not to mention, the bloodlust she had emitted, even if it had lasted only a second, didn’t feel like it belonged to her.
But Rwar didn’t bother asking about it.
From everything she had heard in the Spirit Realm, there was something much bigger happening behind the scenes, something even the Spirit King knew about.
And if their King hadn’t acted on it yet, then it clearly wasn’t her place to do so either.
[Don’t worry, Lily. Everything is resolved for now. Nobody is trying to eliminate anyone anymore.]
[Even Octina only did what she did because she was worried about you. She couldn’t understand how you were growing so close to this boy so quickly and thought he had cast some kind of magic on you. So, she acted protectively and did what she did.]
Rwar didn’t tell her the real reason behind Octina’s actions.
[But don’t worry. She understood her mistake... and she’s ready to apologize to the boy once he recovers.]
Rwar continued in the same tone.
[And don’t worry about this boy either because although his injuries are worse than I expected, it’s not something I can’t heal.]
"Whatever... I don’t care about him. I was just worried about the problem her manifestation would have caused to me... not to mention if she ELIMINATED HIM."
Her eyes turned cold at the last part but tbe expressions shifted immediately.
Yeah... as if that’s true.
Rwar didn’t voice her thoughts out loudly.
But then Lily’s head lowered slightly as she asked in almost a whisper.
"...But why did he kiss me?!"
Rwar rolled her eyes.
This girl... really.
[There are only two ways to break a Manifestation. One is for the spirit to give up willingly and the other is to destroy the medium. Or, in the case of summoners like you, wake the summoner up.]
[But the sleep isn’t merely physical. While being used as a medium, the summoner’s entire soul falls asleep as well. So, to wake them, you need to give them an incredibly powerful memory to recall... or some kind of unforgettable stimulation.]
[As for why the boy specifically kissed you instead of trying some other methods he could have used... You will have to ask him yourself once he wakes up.]
As soon as she heard those words, the memory of what the boy had said before falling unconscious echoed through her mind.
"You know... your lips taste like strawberries."
The moment she remembered those words, her hand instinctively rose to her lips.
[Ahem!]
Rwar’s cough snapped her out of her thoughts as Lily immediately shook her head.
"Whatever... It was just a kiss. Nothing else. It doesn’t matter anyway. Whatever."
With those words, Lily walked out toward her bedroom stiffly, fanning her face as it felt inexplicably hot for some reason.
Meanwhile, left alone in the hall with Zenith’s unconscious body, Rwar simply shook her head.
[She really is a lost cause at this point, isn’t she?]