The Children
For a while, the only sound was the cracking of the fire and the sounds of crickets. Eventually, Gilda spoke up.
"So the event that triggered all of this was an ambush by the Demon Lords?"
"Yeah. Or at least that's what Cordelia said."
"Does that mean the person that meets us is a double agent? When did Millie and Cordelia see them before? Or did they know some other way?"
"All good questions... but I don't know any of the answers."
Silence reigned for a while longer before Gilda let out a long sigh.
"I called Cordelia in to see what she can tell us."
I was still in a weird mood from telling the future. My eyes never left the campfire. After a few moments, Cordelia appeared. I looked up at her. She seemed to be taking all of this much better than me. But then her memories of the future were a lot more limited than mine since she was locked up for most of it. Still, her gaze lingered on me for a moment before she turned to Gilda.
"You summoned me? I assume this one has conveyed the story of the future we've averted."
Ah, that explained it. Cordelia seemed to think the future timeline was gone now. I guess she felt happy about that like it was already over, but I was a lot less optimistic. My recollection of near-future events was growing hazier due to what had changed already. But my memory of the ambush, and everything after, remained clear. That likely meant we hadn't done enough to actually change that future yet.
Gilda asked questions as I just sat there silently.
"Yes. Willie has told me his version of events. However, he was not sure how you concluded there was an ambush by the Demon Lords at the training grounds."
I didn't look at her, keeping my eyes on the fire, but I could tell by her tone of voice that Cordelia was confused.
"There's no other possible conclusion to come to. We were surrounded and confronted by three Demon Lords."
My eyes jerked up to look at Cordelia's face. When I saw she was telling the truth, I turned to Gilda, who looked confused. My mind raced as a mumbled.
"No way... the Demon Lords are Nordics?"
Gilda's face went as pale as a ghost. I hadn't seen her this scared since the fight with the Mithril Slime. Maybe ever.
"That is not possible. We cannot use magic..."
I glanced back at Cordelia, who looked even more confused.
"What in the world are you two talking about?"
Gilda summoned a holographic projection in front of Cordelia. It displayed several of the Nordics as I recognized them from my memories of the future.
"What do these beings look like to you?"
Cordelia looked at each of us in turn, confused.
"Is this a trick question?"
I finally spoke up, perhaps sounding a bit testier than I had intended.
"Just answer the damn question, Cordie. This is important. What do these people look like to you?"
She stared into my eyes. Clearly, irritated by my tone.
"These are clearly Demon Lords, fool. What else could they be?"
Gilda was clearly shaken but still tried to get clarification.
"We've never seen them... So, the Demon Lords you have seen looked like this?"
Cordelia had grown agitated with both of us now.
"Yes, of course! Don't tell me you have become as addle-brained as that simpleton over there."
Gilda covered her mouth, looking like she was going to throw up. I stood up and motioned for Cordelia to come over to me. Once she reached me, I grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Cordie, try to stay calm."
She panicked a bit, confused by my actions.
"What? What in the hell is going on here?"
I tried to calmly look her in the eyes. I needed to keep her from freaking out.
"Those are Gilda's people."
Cordelia gave me a mocking look.
"You've gone soft in the head, boy. Gilda looks nothing like a Demon Lord. I'm not falling for whatever prank you're pulling."
I just stared at her, waiting for her to figure it out. She already saw my memories, so she knew Gilda had customized her body to look close to human. I just had to give Cordelia time to remember that fact.
Eventually, the realization came to her. When it did, she glanced at Gilda with anger before fixing me with a deadly-serious gaze. She whispered to me under her breath.
"We must kill her. This is a trap. You can't trust them. We could all die... or worse!"
"Listen to me very carefully... Gilda didn't know. I don't know what is going on here, but at the very least, I know she isn't a Demon Lord."
Cordelia searched my eyes for a while. I could see she was struggling to trust me. I hoped that having shared all my memories with her would allow her to trust me. Eventually, her shoulders dropped, and she sighed as she replied.
"You'd better know what you are doing. Our lives are in your hands here..."
I tried to sound convincing, remembering the last wishes of the future version of me.
"Yeah. We'll work it out... Together."
We moved back to the campfire. I sat down, looking at Gilda. Cordelia remained standing behind me, obviously on alert for any attack. I tried to ignore her and focus on Gilda for now.
"Are you okay?"
"No."
"Yeah. I guess not. Do you have any idea what is going on here?"
Gilda looked up at the stars. I thought I could see tears forming at the edges of her blinking eyes.
"I think perhaps the Demon Lords are the children."
She didn't say any more, but it all made sense. She'd told me that some Nordics decided to have children, which required them to leave immortality behind. Those children could've given birth to more generations of Nordics, eventually developing their own unique values and goals. Perhaps they even learned how to use magic. Over enough time, you could almost consider this offshoot a totally different species.
Some other things also started to make sense to me. The Demon Lords reproduced the spaceship technology of the Nordics by using Dungeon Cores rather than engines. The bits of their magic I had seen were also very user-friendly. As if they already had familiarity with technology and were just recreating it magically.
This situation also made it easy to hide spies within the Alliance. It was most likely how they knew the details of the magical warrior project.
It also made me wonder if the real reason they shut Gilda down was she had gotten too close to the truth of mana and magic. At this point, anything was possible. No conspiracy theory was too absurd to be considered.
This was a mess. But more importantly, how were we going to tell Millie. She was definitely not going to take this news well. But not telling her wasn't an option. If she found out on her own, it could be explosive.
All I could was mutter under my breath.
"Yeah..."
It was Cordelia who broke the moments of silence that followed.
"What do you want to do, Willie?"
I shook my head.
"I don't really want to do it, but we need to tell Millie. Things might go bad again if we don't move preemptively to control the damage."
Gilda looked at me and then Cordelia before speaking. Her eyes were red, and she wore a grim expression, which I had never seen on her before.
"Do either of you have any ideas about how to tell her?"
I shook my head again. There was no way I would have any idea. Heck, I called Gilda here hoping she would have an idea. And that was before I found out it was way worse than I thought. I felt Cordelia kneel down behind me as she gently wrapped her arms around my neck to give me a hug. I could hear the shakiness in her voice as she spoke into my ear.
"I think we need to let her see the future first..."
I hadn't made that suggestion myself because I was concerned that doing that could make the situation much worse. Giving Millie information about the future could make her that much more dangerous. But it seemed like Gilda saw it differently.
"Yes. That may be for the best... if she sees the consequences of losing control of her emotions first, it might be enough to keep her in check."
Having memories of fighting against the Nightmare. I still didn't think it was a good idea, but I figured maybe they understood a woman's mind more than I did, so I gave in.
We ended the simulation, so I could undergo a deep memory scan again. We decided to keep Millie out of the loop and inside the core until I was done, so I could be awake when she downloaded my memories. It might not have been enough to stop her, but the slave seal was still better than nothing.
After the deep scan, Gilda spent some time editing the recording to remove everything except my memory of the future. It wouldn't do to have her finding out about the relationship between the Nordics and Demon Lords until we had a chance to see how she reacted to the future first.
Once everything was ready, I called Millie out of the core. She seemed sullen and didn't react much, even when I explained she would be seeing my memories of the future. I figured she was still angry at me for forcing her to accept the slave crest. To be safe, we had Cordelia leave the room before we started the memory download. The worst-case scenario was if Millie tried to merge with Cordelia suddenly.
When the memory download was done, Millie stumbled forward and nearly collapsed as her knees buckled. I caught her and briefly saw the look of horror in her eyes. Her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. She suddenly turned and looked into my eyes with a panic I had never seen from her, and then she vanished.
I suddenly felt a presence at the back of my mind. There was the sound of her gently sobbing inside my head, and I somehow sensed her rocking herself back and forth while repeated one thing, over and over.
"...I'm so sorry..."
