For a while, there was nothing but silence in the dark hall.
Then, there was more silence.
Rain stared at her teacher with wide eyes.
‘What did he just say?’
It seemed that she imagined that her teacher claiming to be the Lord of Shadows…
The Lord of Shadows - the mysterious Saint of Godgrave, the sinister sellsword who had offered his blade to the King of Valor, faced Princess Revel in the battle at Vanishing Lake, and decimated a supply caravan of the Song Army alone, sparing the lives of two hundred Awakened and Ascended warriors at Changing Star's behest.
That Lord of Shadows.
‘Wait
The Lord of Shadows who had saved the lives of Tamar, Ray, and Fleur!
…At Changing Star's behest.
The situation was so shocking that Rain was struggling to form a single cohesive though, but despite all its seriousness, an entirely frivolous memory surfaced in her mind instead of something important.
It was one of her teacher's preposterous rants:
“Do you know Princess Nephis? Changing Star of the Immortal Flame clan? I was practically her boyfriend!”
Rain almost swayed.
‘No… no, wait!’
She pierced her teacher with an intense gaze, momentarily forgetting even about the sweet Memories he had promised to give her.
“Teacher… you… you really are the Lord of Shadows?”
The bastard had started humming again, at some point.
Hearing her, he looked at her and smiled.
“Sure. Now can we move on to
Rain did not let him finish.
“No! We absolutely cannot move on! What the… how… I mean, why… no, what do you mean, you're the Lord of Shadows?! He's all the way in the camp of the Sword Army! When he was fighting Princess Revel, you were with me! When he was saving Tamar, you were helping me track down the Huntsman! How does that make any sense?! What, you can be in two places at the same time? Following me around and simultaneously acting as the Lord of Shadows ?”
Her teacher gave her a confused look.
“What? Of course not
Rain let out a relieved sign.
‘Thank the gods! It was another one of his preposterous lies.’
However, she celebrated too early. Because her teacher wasn't done talking.
“I can be in seven places at the same time. Actually, I am also a Knight Commander of Clan Valor and the Memory Purveyor of the Ivory Island. Oh… and I also run a small restaurant in Bastion. It's quite popular!”
Rain just started at him with dumbfounded expression.
Her teacher looked at her with concern and smiled.
“Do you want to sit down?”
She nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
A moment later, specks of darkness swirled in the air and formed into an opulent wooden chair. Her teacher moved it caringly to stand just behind Rain, and she lowered herself onto the seat.
‘Aaa!’
So… her teacher could be in seven places at the same time.
She had to repeat it several times mentally for the meaning of this words to sink in.
Rain covered her face with a palm.
‘Let’s think about it
Something like that was unheard of… but not really impossible. After all, there were all kinds of Aspects in the world, and all kinds of unnatural powers wielded by the Nightmare Creatures. Anything was possible!
Actually, it even made a lot of sense.
She had long noted how similar her teacher and the Lord of Shadows seemed. It was just that she could not have concluded that they were one and the same without this key piece of information. Assuming that a person could exist in several places at the same time would have been quite an unreasonable leap of logic, after all.
Who could have guessed that her closest companion was also a complete stranger... a sinister Saint serving the King of Swords, no less?
And what was that, had he mentioned something about running a restaurant in Bastion?!
‘A restaurant?!’
Somehow, that last detail rattled her mind more than the rest of what he had said.
No, that was not important right now.
Rain could reluctantly accept that her teacher possessed the power to live several lives at the same time. But…
She lowered her hand and looked at him
“Teacher… what the hell!”