Chapter 1070 - 512: Go Do What You Want!
"Herbert, thank you for letting me relax today. We should head back now... huh?"
She wanted to let go of his hand and formally express her gratitude to Herbert.
The path they’d walked wasn’t exactly long, but for her it carried an extra meaning.
Enough for her to look back on that brilliant yet fleeting youth, and the lonely, endless span of a thousand years.
But unexpectedly, Herbert didn’t let Ophidia go; he held her hand tight.
"Go back? What are you talking about? This day has only just begun, hasn’t it?"
Herbert tilted his head and smiled at Ophidia, gently squeezing the slender hand in his palm, signaling her to look ahead.
Just begun?
Ophidia didn’t understand; she could only follow Herbert’s gaze.
The next moment, when she saw the scene before her clearly, she couldn’t help but let out a soft cry.
"Wow..."
Before her eyes was a sea of deep-blue flowers.
Flowers she had never seen before were growing wildly over the small hill, swaying with a pale blue glow and exuding a faint, haunting fragrance.
Mysterious and beautiful, filled with a deadly allure that made one instinctively want to reach out and touch them.
Ophidia subconsciously walked forward, wanting to get a little closer to the flower field.
And she succeeded.
At some point Herbert had already released the hand he’d been refusing to let go of. He was looking at her with a gentle smile, encouraging her:
"Go on. Do what you want to do."
What I want to do?
Is there something I want to do?
Ophidia hesitated, then suddenly shook her head with a laugh. She stopped thinking and simply followed the impulse in her heart.
She carefully wandered through the sea of flowers, doing her best not to step on a single blossom.
Swaying left and right like that, she walked a distance and reached the center of the flower field, where she very clearly hesitated.
At this point, there was no way to keep dodging anymore.
But soon, she nodded, pursed her lips, and made her decision—go, go do what you want to do.
And so, Ophidia slowly lay down.
She closed her eyes, resting in the soft mattress woven of blossoms, her chest rising and falling as she slowly let out a breath.
"Ha..."
In that sigh seemed to be wrapped countless emotions.
The endless exhaustion of supporting the role of "Secret Keeper" all alone, and the sense of liberation now that someone had finally come to share the burden.
And also the weakness she had always hidden under a strong façade, concealed in the shadow of her hood.
Ophidia was actually not such a strong person.
In her nature, the soft and lazy parts had always taken up the absolute majority.
It was only because of responsibilities she couldn’t escape that she became what she was today, only to keep others from seeing through her that she disguised herself as mature and intellectual.
In truth, she’d always been quite childish.
She wanted to slack off, wanted to run away, wanted... someone to know her sorrow.
The Archbishop was in the know, but he was not a suitable companion.
He could adopt the posture of listening, but he simply couldn’t empathize.
He... He was too powerful, utterly incapable of understanding the joys and sorrows of someone as small and weak as her.
As for the others in the Monastery, they didn’t even have the qualification to know those secrets; telling them would be tantamount to murdering them.
So Ophidia could only shut her mouth, swallow all the pain down her throat, and endure it alone.
Until a certain boy appeared in the Monastery.
When he first arrived at the Monastery, Ophidia had in fact already noticed him.
But she’d only marveled at his looks and the temperament that felt so similar to her own.
That boy with a head of white hair looked soft and gentle, but deep in his eyes there was always a fierce emotion buried.
That way he suppressed his anger and pain yet put on a helpless, calm expression on the surface made Ophidia feel she was seeing herself.
And Ophidia hated that version of herself.
So after that first moment of attention, Ophidia deliberately pulled back her gaze and stopped paying him any heed.
She even thought it best not to see him at all, and let her subordinates handle things as they wished, tacitly agreeing to assign Herbert to that awful place, the Third Commandment Hall.
Because that was a place her eyes couldn’t reach, where she wouldn’t have to notice that guy.
And this sulky little tacit consent of hers almost led to a bad outcome.
Fortunately, that guy was extraordinary as well; not only did he escape harm at the hands of that Evil God Cultist, he even stepped into the Archbishop’s line of sight.
In the end, he barged in front of her, and even became the pillar of support for her heart as it is now.
"Destiny really is something you can never see through, isn’t it?"
Ophidia murmured in wonder, sensing someone come to her side and, like her, slowly lie down.
She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t shy away, didn’t even feel resistance or unease.
She just let Herbert shamelessly lie down beside her, breathing in the fragrance of this flower field together.
She only felt at peace, incomparably at ease.
Ophidia fell asleep.
Just like that, defenseless, in this unfamiliar place, she slipped into a peaceful sleep.
When the Sun sank, the gentle moon rose high, and night fell, she finally slowly opened her eyes.
"..."
And even when Ophidia woke, she didn’t feel anything was wrong. After a brief daze, she naturally sat up.
She knew perfectly well the reason for that sense of ease.
Because Herbert was at her side.
By her side, the boy had already sat up, fiddling with a few flowers in his hands, his fingers weaving nimbly. Noticing she was awake, he handed her the wreath he’d made.
"Here."
Ophidia hesitated for a moment but didn’t dodge. At Herbert’s gesture, she lowered her head and let him place the wreath on her.
"Mm, it really does look good."
Herbert admired Ophidia with the wreath on her head, nodding in great satisfaction at his work. He smiled and said, "Ophidia, don’t you feel these flowers are a lot like you?"
"Like me?"
Ophidia tilted her head in puzzlement, looking over the flowers around them, but couldn’t find any special connection to herself.
Could it be... there are snakes here?
"Because they’re poisonous?"
Ophidia could sense that these blue blossoms, though they looked harmless, actually had a layer of toxin clinging to their petals.
If an ordinary person accidentally touched them, there was a high chance multiple organs, including the heart, would be paralyzed in agony, leading to an unfortunate death.
But this toxin was already ineffective against Legendary Level powerhouses, let alone for her, an Epic Level Monster Girl—her physique was sufficient to be immune to the vast majority of toxins in this world.
"No, of course that’s not the reason."
Herbert shook his head helplessly, then handed another wreath into Ophidia’s hands and lowered his head toward her.
Ophidia didn’t hesitate to put the wreath on him. After all, she’d already been this willful today; a little more indulgence wouldn’t make any difference.
"Then what is it?"
Herbert replied with a squinting smile, "Because they’re beautiful. Because they’re mysterious and dangerous. And because... they have a surprising contrast."
"When we first met, though you showed goodwill, I thought you were someone very hard to approach. But later, I realized I’d been wrong."
"Mystery, power—those are indeed part of you. But they’re far from all that you are."
As Herbert spoke, he raised his left hand. A cluster of light flew from his fingertips and then burst into a bright radiance in midair.
The light drove away the darkness shrouding the flower field and dispersed the thick mist hanging over it, letting the star-studded night sky once again shine down upon this land.
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
At the moment the moonlight fell, the blossoms that had already bloomed all responded at once, trembling lightly and blooming with an even more beautiful, starlike brilliance.
Countless gentle lights flared to life in the flower field, illuminating the two at its center.
!!!
In the face of this sight, Ophidia completely lost control of her expression, staring in shock and fascination at the dreamlike scene.
She heard the boy’s gentle voice at her ear.
"Brilliant, dazzling—seemingly calm, yet always chasing the light."
"Don’t you think... that’s just like you?"
.
.
Mid-month already! Asking for votes! There’s a lottery!
End of this month there’ll be double votes, you can save them up!
Begging for auto-subscriptions—
[Voting booth: Monthly Tickets! Recommendation Tickets!]