Every Morning, My Mirror Saves the World - Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“You… you really won’t come with me to meet Lord Maxen?” Lars looked back at Ruiyin, a little worried. “It’s all right. Lord Maxen is very kind. He won’t mind.”

Ruiyin waved him off, faintly impatient. “It’s fine. I’ll stay here and wait for you to come back.”

She had no interest whatsoever in meeting a lord whose name sounded suspiciously like a certain famous dead person. By comparison, she would much rather stay here and think about how to drag this delinquent back onto the right path.

Lars stared at her uneasily for a while. Ruiyin was beginning to realize that this kid had the soul of an anxious auntie buried in his bones. Even in a place where there absolutely should not be any danger before both sides had openly fallen out, he still had to worry about whether Ruiyin’s combat ability was enough for self-defense.

After shooing the wistfully glancing Lars off to his interview, Ruiyin sat alone in the room. Kandel Castle was only in a border town; even the lord’s residence could not possibly be decorated with the same opulent luxury as the Avesta Imperial Palace. She sat there, the faint scent of pine resin hanging in the air. When she closed her eyes, she could still seem to feel someone watching her from nearby. That gaze was full of malice, appearing and vanishing, there and not there, like a tiny needle pricking her throat. It was not fatal, but it constantly brought with it the most unpleasant kind of ominous premonition for any living creature. Yet when she opened her eyes in irritation, the room was empty again, without a single person in sight.

She was strung tight as a cat with its fur standing on end. Just as her agitation was mounting, someone suddenly knocked lightly on the door. A faint voice accompanied it. “Ruiyin?”

“Lars?” she called, raising her voice. Here, she really could not think of anyone other than Lars who would come looking for her.

There was no response. A faint unease rose in her heart. She stood and strode to the door, pulling it open with one hand as she spoke. “What’s going on? Lars, don’t tell me you forgot to bring your interview notes. Did Galahad leave his useless soul inside you when he departed?”

The person outside was not Lars. In fact, there was no one outside at all. Puzzled, she took a step out, and her foot seemed to land on something. From below came a yowl like a stray cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

Ruiyin lowered her head and looked toward the sound. She saw a face wrinkled up in pain. One second ago, that face must have still been wearing a malicious smile. The smile squeezed out by wrinkles that had not yet had time to fade mingled together with the pain, and somehow the combination did not look out of place at all. It made one suspect that there was probably no difference between this person’s laughing face and crying face.

However, she could only think those words in her head. Before she could condemn this man’s face for destroying her worldview, a wave of icy cold rushed toward her. It was as if something had passed straight through her body. The next second, Ruiyin sank into darkness.

Ruiyin seemed to have a distant dream. Surrounding her was eternal darkness, dampness, and cold. From very close by came the shrieks of rodents. Those ugly things were gnawing at her fingertips, as if she had already become a corpse. She was terrified and disgusted, yet she did not even have the strength to move and drive them away.

Her body was spasming and growing cold from excessive blood loss. The person who had once held her hand and spoken to her had long since disappeared as well. She had nothing. She could not move. She had no food or water. All she could do was wait in despair within the endless darkness.

“…Still alive! There’s a girl here! She’s still alive!”

“Ruiyin… Ruiyin! Are you awake? Are you all right?”

Two voices overlapped. In that brief daze, she could not figure out where she was. It was not until the latter voice gained the upper hand, its anxious shouting making her head ache, that she heard, “Ruiyin! Are you awake? Are you all right?!”

“Shut up,” she said hoarsely under her breath. Beside her, even louder, more chaotic cries of delight immediately erupted. “Ah! That’s great! You’re awake! Are you all right? It’s all my fault. I was so worried about you… I’m sorry! I shall atone with my death!”

“…” The familiar line, the familiar tiger-pouncing-to-the-ground style prostration, and those familiar watery green eyes lifted toward her quickly drove the other voice in her mind away without a trace. Ruiyin rubbed her eyes and sat up from the floor, her expression still dark.

“I think I just saw one of the Dwarves,” Ruiyin said.

Completely unprepared for that sentence, Lars froze. “Impossible. There are no Dwarves in Kandel Castle.”

“Then it was one of the Orcs,” Ruiyin said, switching directions decisively. “Or else a hybrid of the two.”

“…I think that was probably the Archmage.” After pondering bitterly for quite a while, Lars finally realized the other party was not making a statement. She was committing slander in the flesh.

“The Archmage?” Ruiyin raised an eyebrow. “You mean that guy with a face wrinkled like buffalo diarrhea, whose eyes could get swallowed by sagging skin if he so much as lifted an eyebrow, and whose entire body radiates ‘come trample me, I’m a masochist’ energy?”

“…” Although every single description was vicious, what was he supposed to do when they all matched with unexpected accuracy?

“Possibly,” the kindhearted Lars said, choosing a tentative word. “He was the one who found you in time and brought you here.”

Ruiyin fell silent for a moment. Only then did she remember the first thing someone who had just woken from unconsciousness was supposed to do: look around.

The place she was in now was of course no longer that reception room, but it was absolutely not a place for a patient to stay, either. High walls built from large blue-gray bricks. A long, narrow window opened only near the top, letting sunlight fall across filthy water trickling down the wall, a crude stone platform, and rats huddled in the corner squeaking among themselves. Past the door sealed shut by iron bars, she could still see the torchlight on the identical stone wall outside, utterly useless as illumination.
Ruiyin looked back expressionlessly. “Lars, your command of rhetoric is even better than mine.”

He had found her in time and brought her here. Sometimes, that sentence was not only used to describe a heroic rescue.

This place was clearly a prison for holding criminals. And the only person who should have been here was Lars.

…So why the hell was she locked up here too?!

“What happened?” Ruiyin shifted into a more comfortable position, leaned back against the damp stone platform, and waited for him to explain.

Lars looked utterly ashamed. “I’m sorry… It’s all my fault. I was reporting to His Majesty when the Archmage suddenly walked in and said the two of us had colluded with the Orcs, that we were actually traitors and had to be locked up and executed first thing tomorrow morning. He said he’d already found proof of your betrayal on you, and then… I’m sorry!”

Ruiyin took that entire speech apart, crushed it to pieces, and analyzed it from every angle, trying to find the reason Lars was apologizing.

She failed.

“What are you apologizing for?! Are you a traitor? On what grounds did they arrest you, let alone drag me in too?! Is your liege in some kind of casting-couch arrangement with the Archmage?!” Ruiyin roared. “This is obviously a frame-up!”

“N-no way!” Lars hurriedly argued. “It has to be a misunderstanding! When I see my lord tomorrow, I’ll tell him what really happened. As a knight, how could I possibly betray my liege? Lord Maxen is wise and magnanimous. He’ll definitely understand!”

Ruiyin turned around and violently flipped the stone platform over. “I was wrong. You’re the one in a casting-couch arrangement with the Archmage, aren’t you?! At a time like this, you’re still talking about misunderstandings and understanding? He knows everything. You’ve been played until you’re broken, kid!”

“I-I’m not!”

“You’re not?” Ruiyin looked at him with a cold sneer. “When you were arrested, did you tell him? Did he believe you? You crawled out of a pile of corpses and reported the state of the war to him, but did your precious liege ask even one question about whether you or your comrades lived or died?”

Lars opened his mouth, but in the end, he fell silent.

“From beginning to end, wasn’t he just sitting there with that noble, constipated look on his face, making a few noncommittal noises, and the moment his bed buddy walked in, his eyes lit up like he wanted to pounce? Then the so-called Archmage had barely opened his mouth before your lord couldn’t wait to say, come, come, hurry and throw the two of them in, we still have very interesting things to do. Isn’t that right?”

Lars crouched down in a small, dejected heap.

“Wait!” Ruiyin suddenly remembered something. “You just said that fake Archmage found proof of betrayal on me, and then I became a traitor? What did he find?”

Lars hesitated for a moment. “It was chaotic at the time. I heard them say… I think it was a mirror.”

Ruiyin instinctively touched the place at her waist where she had hung it.

Empty.

Damn it! That bastard had taken her mirror too!

Ruiyin flipped the stone platform she had just overturned back into place. Then, like Lars, she sat down on the ground in low spirits.

She had thought that as long as she grabbed Lars and ran right after the interview was over, everything would be fine. She had not expected that Maxen would refuse to follow the script at all. She had thought she could adapt to the situation as it changed, but she had not expected even she would be thrown into prison as a “traitor,” or that the strange necromancer would inexplicably take her mirror.

Now everything had to be planned from scratch.

“Maybe… maybe it really is a misunderstanding? After all, it doesn’t make sense that I was the only one who survived the battle. Once Lord Maxen thinks it through, he’ll definitely let us out!” Lars looked at Ruiyin with some panic, still forcing himself to speak.

“What I’m worried about isn’t whether we’ll get out,” Ruiyin said with a headache. Lars still had to live until he destroyed the world so he could torment her. How could he possibly die here? “Lars, do you remember what I told you before? Your liege is using you.”

“Impossible!” Lars rejected it instantly and with absolute certainty.

“No, I’m not joking. Listen carefully. From beginning to end, this has all been a conspiracy. That so-called Archmage is actually a necromancer. Maxen has colluded with him and is trying to use the souls of your fallen comrades to activate some forbidden array. You’re nothing more than one of their pawns. There’s no misunderstanding here. I told you this before, but you didn’t believe me.”

“Impossible!” Lars had turned into a broken record.

“See? You still don’t believe me.” Ruiyin spread her hands helplessly. “The truth is already right in front of you, but what you still believe in is that damned, empty faith.”

“No… We are all believers of War God Xisaluo. How could Lord Maxen ever do something like collude with the fallen? Even if it’s you, Ruiyin, I won’t allow you to slander him!”

“Oh? Then do you want to make a bet with me?” Ruiyin looked at him. “In this world, even gods are not flawless. If he doesn’t show up tomorrow morning, then you’ll believe me. How about it?”

Lars stared at the woman before him, at a complete loss. Her expression was the same cold mockery he had grown used to over this period of time. Yet it was this thin, frail girl, a full head shorter than him, who had dragged him out of a pile of corpses and accompanied him all the way here. And now, the very person he trusted so deeply was overturning his faith.

“Do you dare use your War God Xisaluo to make this bet with me?”

Author’s Note: Lars is still an innocent child for now… and he’ll stay innocent for a while longer.