Chapter 1557: Epilogue 28 - Truce (3)
"Now then, give Samui back to me," Foriel said, extending her hand toward me as though she expected the matter to end with that single sentence.
I looked up at her for a brief moment before letting out a quiet sigh, knowing this conversation probably wasn’t going to be simple.
"I don’t think things are going to turn out the way you’re expecting, Foriel," I said as calmly as I could. "You see, it seems like Samui doesn’t want to leave me anymore."
Confusion immediately spread across her face. She looked like I just said something weird.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, clearly caught off guard by my answer.
"I’m being serious," I replied without looking away from her. "Samui is inside me right now, and under normal circumstances I can simply call her out whenever I want. The problem is that every single time I try to summon her, she just refuses to come out."
Foriel frowned even harder.
"What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that supposed to mean?" she asked. "You’re seriously expecting me to believe something like that? You’re lying."
"I’m not lying," I answered while shaking my head. "Here, let me show you what I mean so you can see it for yourself."
To make my point as clear as possible, I reached into myself and summoned Ayuru instead.
The familiar sword appeared without the slightest bit of resistance.
"I can bring Ayuru out without any problems at all," I explained while holding the sword up. "Samui, however, isn’t responding the same way."
Foriel stared at me for several long seconds.
"You really expect me to believe all of that?" she finally asked, although her voice carried much less confidence than before.
"Master isn’t lying," Ayuru said.
The sword suddenly glowed.
A moment later, Ayuru transformed into her human form before calmly turning toward Foriel.
Her expression remained gentle, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of hesitation in her eyes.
"Ah...? T... That... She... How...?"
Foriel could barely put together a proper sentence.
The shock on her face was honestly understandable.
Watching a cursed sword suddenly become a living human wasn’t exactly something people saw every day. Most people would probably spend a good minute wondering whether they had somehow gone insane before accepting that it was actually happening in front of them.
"I am capable of taking on a human form," Ayuru explained politely. "It is because of Master’s warmth that I was able to become like this."
"Wha... H... How...? I mean..."
Her voice continued to tremble.
Foriel looked completely shell-shocked.
"And Master was telling you the truth when he said Samui isn’t willing to go with you. She’s also been telling me that she doesn’t want to be wrapped up in bandages again and locked away somewhere, so she has no desire to go back." Ayuru continued. "That isn’t only because it is her own decision, of course. Right now, Samui is also undergoing a metamorphosis."
"A... metamorphosis?" I repeated while blinking in surprise, since that certainly wasn’t the answer I had expected to hear.
Then the meaning clicked inside my head almost immediately.
"Oh, I get it now," I said. "You’re saying she’s going to gain the ability to become human too, just like you did."
"Yes, Master," Ayuru replied with a small nod. "Samui is already in the middle of that process. It is simply a matter of time before she obtains a human form of her own."
Everything suddenly made perfect sense.
The reason Samui wasn’t responding whenever I tried calling her out wasn’t because she had been ignoring me or refusing to listen.
She simply couldn’t come out yet because she was currently experiencing the same transformation Ayuru had gone through before.
Soon enough, she would have her own human body.
"It was most likely because of your battles against the Sins, Master, that you managed to grant her this opportunity," Ayuru said. "Without those battles, this change probably wouldn’t have happened."
After waiting for another short moment, something finally emerged from within me.
It was Samui.
Ayuru smiled softly.
"Oh, it looks like she’s finally finished with the transformation," she said while folding her arms.
Samui first appeared as a sword.
Almost immediately afterward, the blade became enveloped in a bright purple glow that grew stronger with every passing second.
The light gradually expanded outward until it resembled the outline of a human body.
Little by little, the purple aura faded away.
As the light completely disappeared, a young woman stood where the sword had been only moments earlier.
"Oh!" Samui exclaimed excitedly as she quickly looked down at herself before turning around several times. "Look at me! I finally have a human form now!"
"Yes, yes," Ayuru replied with a tired sigh that almost sounded like she had expected this exact reaction. "You aren’t exactly the first one to achieve that, you know."
Samui now had long black hair with faint reddish streaks running through it.
Her appearance looked almost identical to my older sister from my previous life.
Well, her personality definitely wasn’t the same.
Looks alone, though, they were incredibly similar.
At the same time, I could also see a little bit of Elise in her appearance because of the red streaks decorating her hair.
Somehow, the two images blended together surprisingly well.
"With this, I’m officially yours now, Master~!" Samui declared happily before flashing me an incredibly bright smile.
She said all of that without paying even the slightest attention to who happened to be standing around us.
That level of timing honestly could’ve been a little better.
Foriel, who had come all this way hoping to retrieve Samui, could only stand there while staring blankly at her newly acquired human form.
Disbelief filled her eyes.
Shock quickly followed.
A deep sense of disappointment slowly settled across her face as the reality of the situation finally sank in, making it painfully obvious that things had unfolded in the exact opposite way she had hoped they would.