Episode-875
Chapter : 1749
The shadows around her danced. Mammon was delighted.
See? the whisper said soothingly. He chooses her. He despises you. You must be strong, Rosa. You must be cold. Feelings are a weakness he will use to hurt you. Freeze your heart. It is the only way to survive him.
Rosa closed her eyes. A tear leaked out, but it froze on her cheek before it could fall, turning into a tiny diamond of ice.
"I abandoned her," Lloyd said, his voice thick with guilt. "I left her alone with the devil in her head."
"We both did," the Reflection agreed. "I thought I was fighting for my freedom. I thought I was finding true love with Mina. But I was just a puppet dancing on strings. I didn't see the truth."
The Reflection turned to look at Lloyd.
"The rivalry between the sisters... the tension in the house... none of it was real hatred. Rosa loved Mina. Mina loved Rosa. And they both tried to love me. But Mammon took that love and twisted it until it strangled us all."
The dining hall began to dissolve. The colors of the dreamscape swirled again, turning darker, turning red.
"I thought I had found happiness," the Reflection said as the darkness closed in. "But Mammon was just fattening me up for the kill. The tragedy wasn't that I loved Mina. The tragedy was that I let that love blind me to the war that was coming."
The dream faded, dragging Lloyd toward the next painful memory. The memory of the little girl in the alleyway. The memory of the lie that would end everything.
________________________________________
The dreamscape shifted again. The warm, heartbreaking colors of the library and the dining hall dissolved. They were replaced by the color of wet slate and old mud.
Lloyd found himself standing in a narrow, dirty alleyway. It was the capital city of the kingdom, but it wasn't the shining, prosperous city he knew in his current life. This was the city from the first timeline—a place that felt heavier, darker, and much more dangerous.
And, of course, it was raining.
"It always rained back then," the Reflection said. He stood next to Lloyd, leaning against a brick wall covered in green slime. He looked at the scene with a mix of disgust and deep sadness. "Or maybe I just remember it that way. When your life is a storm, you tend to forget the sunny days."
Down the alley, a figure was walking. It was the Original Lloyd.
He looked terrible. He was wearing a cloak that had seen better days, the hem caked with mud. His boots were worn down. He didn't walk with the confidence of a noble or the stride of a warrior. He walked with his head down, shoulders hunched, trying to make himself as small as possible. He looked like a stray dog that expected to be kicked.
"Look at me," the Reflection said, pointing at his past self. "I had been kicked out of the estate. I was wandering the capital, trying to find answers, trying to find help. But mostly, I was just looking for a reason to keep going. I was angry, Lloyd. I was so angry at the world, but I didn't know where to aim that anger."
The Original Lloyd stopped walking. He tilted his head.
From behind a stack of rotting wooden crates near a dumpster, a sound drifted out. It was a soft, hiccuping sound. Someone was crying.
"Don't do it," the current Lloyd whispered to the memory, knowing it was useless. "Keep walking."
But the Original Lloyd didn't keep walking. He was a man who had lost everything, and because of that, he couldn't ignore someone else in pain. He stepped over a puddle and approached the crates.
"Hello?" the Original Lloyd asked, his voice rough from disuse. "Is someone there?"
The crying stopped abruptly. There was a rustling sound, like a frightened animal trying to hide.
The Original Lloyd moved the crates aside gently.
Huddled in the corner, shielded from the rain by a piece of broken canvas, was a little girl. She looked to be about ten years old. Her dress was little more than rags, stained with soot and grease. Her face was smudged with dirt, but her eyes were bright, wide, and filled with terrified tears. She looked harmless. She looked like the most vulnerable thing in the city.
"Mammon," the current Lloyd said, his voice cold. "The genderless freak likes to play dress-up."
Chapter : 1750
"A perfect disguise," the Reflection agreed. "He knew my psychological profile better than I did. I was suspicious of adults. I was suspicious of soldiers, nobles, and merchants. I thought everyone was out to get me. But a crying child? Who guards their heart against a crying child? It bypassed every defense I had."
In the memory, the Original Lloyd crouched down. He didn't have much, but he reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean-ish handkerchief. He held it out to the girl.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the Original Lloyd said softly. "Are you hungry?"
The girl looked at the handkerchief, then at Lloyd’s face. She seemed to search his eyes for any sign of malice. Finding none, she snatched the cloth and wiped her eyes. Then, she launched herself at him.
She wrapped her thin arms around his neck, burying her face in his wet cloak. She began to sob loudly, a release of pure misery that echoed off the alley walls.
"It’s okay," the Original Lloyd said, patting her back awkwardly. "You’re safe. What happened? Where are your parents?"
The girl pulled back, sniffing. "They... they’re gone," she stammered. Her voice was small and trembling. "The bad men... the soldiers... they took them."
"Soldiers?" Lloyd asked, his brow furrowing. "Which soldiers?"
"The Royal Guard," the girl whispered, as if the words themselves were dangerous. "My papa... he was a scribe in the Palace. He cleaned the inkwells. He said... he said he found something he wasn't supposed to see. Something about the North."
The word "North" acted like a trigger for the Original Lloyd. His entire body stiffened. The Ferrum estate was in the North. The tragedy that had ruined his life had happened in the North.
"What did he find?" Lloyd asked, his voice becoming intense. He gripped the girl’s shoulders, perhaps a bit too tightly. "Tell me. What did he find?"
The girl looked terrified. She reached into the lining of her ragged dress. Her hands were shaking so hard she almost dropped it. She pulled out a piece of parchment. It was crumpled, stained with water, and folded many times.
"Papa hid this," she said. "He told me to run. He said... he said this was why the Ferrum family had to die."
The Original Lloyd stopped breathing. He stared at the paper as if it were a bomb.
"I took the bait," the Reflection whispered, watching the scene. "I was starving for a reason, Lloyd. I couldn't accept that my parents died because of bad luck. I couldn't accept that it was just a random cultist attack. I needed a villain. I needed someone to blame."
The Original Lloyd took the paper. He unfolded it slowly.
The current Lloyd leaned in to read it over his past self’s shoulder. It was a masterpiece of forgery. The paper was high quality—Royal stock. At the bottom was the wax seal of the Crown Prince, perfectly replicated.
The text was a letter, supposedly written by the Crown Prince to the leader of the Shadow Cult.
To the darker hand,
The payments have been sent. The Ferrum dogs in the North have outlived their usefulness. They are obsolete. Their mines are dry, and their "engineering" is a joke that embarrasses the Kingdom. I do not care how you do it, but remove them. Burn the estate. Leave no heirs. We need the land for more capable allies.
Make it messy. Make it look like a tragedy. Just get it done.
— The Crown Prince.
The Original Lloyd read the letter once. Then he read it again.
His hands began to shake. But this wasn't the shaking of fear. It was the shaking of a rage so hot it could boil the rain.
"Obsolete," the Original Lloyd whispered. The word tasted like ash in his mouth. "A joke."
He looked at the seal. It was real. Or at least, it looked real enough to a nineteen-year-old boy who had never been allowed close to the Royal Court.
The girl watched him. Her innocent act dropped for just a fraction of a second. A tiny, cruel smile flickered at the corner of her mouth, too fast for the Original Lloyd to see. Her eyes, filled with tears a moment ago, now held a glint of golden, malicious delight.
"It's a lie," the current Lloyd said, feeling sick. "The Prince didn't write that. The Prince was actually trying to send us aid. Mammon wrote it."