Chapter 166 – Garden of Memories

The labyrinth was hard to traverse. The paths were either closed off or they would find themselves in dead ends. Eiya was able to find the way through making use of what she calls as spirits. The ‘spirits’ were able to guide them through the cavern until they reach this garden filled with flowers.

The obelisk was in the middle of the flowers. It was tall and had glowing lines. The pod of the obelisk was open. A skeleton was sitting inside the pod. The flowers have grown on the skull of the skeleton. Vines wrapped around the skeleton.

Joshua stood still and watched Eiya kneel in prayer. Archie stood seven steps away from her. He was near this gray rock with four different flowers that Joshua could not recognize. There was light inside the garden. They bounce about and winds swayed the flowers.

There was a soft hush as the winds sang. Joshua couldn’t believe how beautiful the place was. It made him relax to the point that his mind was disrupted. If it wasn’t for the floating words above his vision, he would have lost all of his focus.

There was a strange smell. Joshua sniffed it. It was a combination of all the flowers and what one would smell near a stream of water. It drifted through the air. Joshua could tell that there was something happening. He turned his eyes at Eiya. She was muttering chants he could not understand. It was not the common tongue or the language of the demesne. It was a like an incoherent babble of gibberish.

“Is that her language,” he thought. “Or is that a spell?”

He couldn’t understand. But at least he could understand that she wasn’t someone hostile. Archie trusts her so he knew that she wouldn’t do anything that might endanger them. He has also learned what the two’s mission was. To Joshua, it felt like he was a side character that was escorting the ‘heroes’ from important places to save the world.

“Hah,” he laughed silently. He felt like Archie has always been involved in things like this. At first it was Avilla, then when he freed Zola and now he was in charge of escorting Eiya to these obelisks to cover the whole continent with mist that would allow the country to be safe from being discovered.

It was an optimistic option that the Lord of the Demesne discovered. It was that reason that he told his daughter to send someone out to check the myth if it was true. The Lord himself was a scientific man who wasn’t going to chase something as convenient as a mist of protection.

But now that the myth was proven to be real and he was allowing a skyship to be used. Princess Cyra was now in charge of this mission and was hoping that the activation of the obelisk would work. At first, Joshua wasn’t allowed to come but since he insisted, saying that he’d lost his mind. Cyra allowed Joshua take part in this mission.

He looked at Eiya again. Then he felt something that was melting him. It was a soft feeling that made his head get filled with a white scene. He felt like he was suddenly a ghost that was floating in a familiar place. Joshua eyed place and recognized it as his home.

“Am I back home?” he thought at first. But he spotted the lonely back of his sitting in front of a computer screen. There was a form being filled by him. Joshua recalled this memory that he had put at the back of his mind. It was a depressing moment for him.

He was a person that people disliked. He was someone that no one had confidence on. He was blamed for everything and the only thing he had at that moment was his loving family and relatives. Because of them that he able to keep any hope inside him. He was planning to do something about his situation by filling that form.

But yet here he was in some strange world. He faced many things he wouldn’t ever dream of doing. He didn’t ask for any of this. He wanted nothing about this world that he was forced to live in. It was a world without his family, and where his hope was not present.

Why would he struggle for people that ultimately gave him to Dolce?

Because he wanted to believe that they treated him like family.

Why would he do everything for a friend like Silo?

Because he wanted to save a friend in trouble, and give him a happy ending.

Why would he suffer a journey just to reach the Princess?

So that he could see the two happy.

Why would he go mad over a friend’s death? Why would he scheme the death of a web of officials who drove his friend to suicide and suffer through all the killing?

So that he can avenge his friend.

Family was everything to Joshua back in his home. They were his reason to be alive. Without his family, he was a total wreck of a person. He knew that he was just running away from the reality that he could never see his family and relatives again.

He knew that but he pretended to have a family or friends he could rely on. Indeed, there are only a few who he could rely on this world. But it doesn’t mean they are his real family. He got separated away from his family. He was a sent to another dimension without any hope of being able to return home.

He tried overlooking it all. But now that he was able to see the ‘him’ that striving hard for his family, Joshua knew that he was nothing but a delusional person who was deprived of that caring family. He was deprived of them and he thought he could ease the pain by substituting them.

But Joshua realized that it couldn’t be. The people he met in this world could never be his real family. It hurts Joshua. It pains his heart that he could not help but kneel and clutch his heart. He was crying behind himself. He felt so lonely and pained.

He felt like he was going to break at this realization. He fooled his heart too much and now he was suffering because of it. Even the floating words above him could not help him from this.