I thought of many solutions at that time…

Most of them sound too stupid for me to tell, but the rest aren't all that good either.

Where indeed I was not such a smart person… I've never made any plans in my life let alone something as important as this one.

While back in high school, my friends often make me the leader of the study group, but that’s just because it looks like everyone will obey if it’s me who asks them to do so…?

At least that's what my friend said as the reason when I asked why I'm the one who always has to be the leader… The point is, it’s not that they think I'm smart.

And… Yeah… It hurts a little when I think back about it.

So by all of that, I was convinced from the start that all the plans I had thought of, were by no means the best option available. All these decisions came from only my own thoughts, after all. Which I kept secret from everyone, especially Niel…

I keep a secret about who the three of them really are in the eyes of the power that Niel is holding right now…

Niel as the current owner, while Deo and Fanya… They are the two people secretly guarded by the Sin Takers, just to be controlled by them in the future after Niel dies…

Just like a gun and its two spare parts.

Sadly Edward didn't know one thing the gun knew…

So let’s say if the specifications required for Niel's power are actually real, then later Niel's death will only continue to lead to the deaths of both of his friends which will surely end in vain to both parties.

None of them would ever receive the power of the Great carrier of suffering…

But all of this is still just conjecture…

I mean, I still don't know if Edward really wants to kill all the Great Carriers and just replace them with the list of substitutes, or only if something has become a reason for us to be replaced immediately… But I also want to prevent Niel from turning into a heartless weapon who can no longer look at me with that same smile again.

With all of that in account, the only way I can think of is to make Daniel look weak and irresponsible in Edward's eyes. That way he wouldn't be used as a living weapon for the time being… Like, I know that Niel has quite a number of souls he has harvested and still hasn't lost any humanity, but what if the threshold is different for each person?

I don't want Niel to be entrusted with killing anyone again…

It's all for nothing but his own sake.

Furthermore as it should be, it was I who would then take everyone's attention away from Niel, since it's my own fault why now all the Sin Takers wish Niel had to sacrifice himself so the others wouldn't. “I'll also be gathering a bit of soul... I mean, power… In the process…”

Then I'd look for out-of-reach, or least suspect places to hide, as a contingency plan.

~~~~~

And last…

I know how the relationship between Niel, Fanya and Deo is…

Which was the reason why they had been together until now, while being dependent on one, and secretly hating the other…

Why the three of them are equal candidates as the great carrier of suffering… As if the fate itself has forced them to hold on to the sharp edge of the same sword, hurting others and themselves with three different intentions to keep pulling the cursed sword towards their own sides.

In other words, the reason why the Affliction came to the three of them, was also actually because of the three's own relationship with each other. That is the original and the true specification of the great carrier of suffering… Either Niel was aware of that, or he concluded something else which was definitely wrong. After all, this information was the result of a great carrier of knowledge's magic.

This is the real truth…

That means I have to find a way to separate the three of them. I never said someone had to die, but they just needed to separate, to no longer suffer…

Unfortunately I don't have anything to make that happen, but before I find a way…

Niel deserves to spend as much time as he needs… Where there's actually very little time left, hanging out and being with the people he cares about the most.

~~~~~

So that’s all…

“In short, as long as he remains in Sins Taker, Niel will only be used as a weapon only if he doesn't want to be killed and replaced. So leaving this organization is the only option available. I just need to find a place that really can't be reached by anyone but myself, to be a place for us to escape to. As for the way to release Niel from the curse of suffering, that is by separating him from his two best friends forever... I'll find a way later when the time comes…”

The rest after it's all over, we just need to untangle our destiny from this world that has long been hell… Then it’s a happy ending…

Yeah…

I remember back then, that was the only plan I could think of…

That’s all… I know all those plans sound stupid, but I did hope, for things don't turn out as bad as I feared...

Because I admit it now…

This feeling that I've been searching for for so long, this one priority I've worked so hard to convince myself…

If we talk about those things…

That Daniel guy is…

I mean, if he dies…

For me… I don't care enough to imagine a world without suffering, perhaps the closest is the possibility where that one day everyone will torture each other and be inhuman in every way without even feeling suffering and guilt… Right?

Or I don’t really know…

And I don’t have enough time to think about that…

One matter is that I hate to lose this one stupid guy even more than anything…

Is this the stereotype of every one’s first love? Who cares? Well at least, I don’t.

Is it weird that I don't want to see him sacrifice so much just to put off something he's so afraid of that somehow will still happen in the future?

No, right?

So… Now… Back to the way I worked out the plan…

~~~~~

I tried to steal the attention of Edward and the others away from Niel, by taking part in far more missions than they usually offered me.

Even so, Edward is not someone who easily trusts anyone, even though his secret document can still be easily peeked at…

He never entrusted anything to me, he told me never to ask. Still I followed all his orders, until a call came specifically for Niel… On a mission to take him to a place where one high-powered enemy is hiding and trying to escape.

“I don't have time to explain what Daniel's mission is, so just tell him to ask the person in charge I've assigned there.” Edward avoided taking the blame.

But no need…

I already knew, since I've heard that story before from Albert…

A week before, he was also given the exact same task as this one. As for me and the portal girl, though I never actually saw her around… For us, great carrier transporters… Maybe this is not really important. But for a great carrier with a high level of offensive magic damage?

The elders… Edward… They wanted to convince themselves whether the costs they would incur would be worth the power they got from Albert and Niel or not.

So… “This is just a test for Niel… Right?”

What I said back then, Edward was really trying not to be heeded by it. And with a sharp gaze I left the room. Stood still in the corridor…

Something deep in my heart was like trying to irritate me with two different sentences of excuse, but they go hand in hand only to make me feel even more annoyed…

Something like not wanting to allow Niel to get hurt just for the sake of becoming a living weapon that has no feelings, also with how Daniel will become even more powerful than I am right now… Of how later our difference in strength will widen even more with him ending up helping me and not the other way around…

I don’t like that… Maybe because that’s my fetish…?

What’s a fetish anyway?

I often hear that word come out of Niel and Sion's mouths when they talk about girls. That's right, I often eavesdrop on his conversations when he talks about the type of girl he likes. and I'm proud of myself. What’s so wrong about it?

And back to the problem…

As at that time when I said that “I will make Daniel look weak and irresponsible in Edward's eyes…”

Actually at that time I was actually happy, and thought to myself, that… I didn't know how to put the plan into action at the moment, but I just felt good to have got one important point on the list, which I had to work on later…

But after this unexpected thing appeared, I was suddenly confused and panicked inside. When it was time for Niel to show whether he was worthy to become a weapon or not by throwing himself into a duel…

I don't know how to find a way out of there without Niel having to kill anyone, so my thoughts only grew blurry at that time. Until I was on the verge of panic, I immediately skipped all steps and offered Niel my emergency plan… A plan that I haven't even prepared at all yet.

That is to run away…

Like, I know there are still many important lists of my own plan that have been skipped, like how Niel wouldn't want to release Deo and Fanya, also how Edward and the elders weren't that stupid to not to take someone important to us all as a hostage…

So of course, my plan's offer was immediately rejected outright while he could have died down there, dueling one on one without anyone being allowed to interfere.

Luckily at that time, Niel failed to kill his prey…

They were both unconscious. I followed all of Niel's instructions to bring him back and take care of his body…

You know how when every time we see our parents sleeping, we always pause just to see if they're breathing or not, right?

Well… It's actually not at all similar, and I don't know why I'm mentioning it. Because at that time, Niel was clearly not breathing, and there was no pulse in his body. But still I believe in his promise to return as if this had happened before, which in fact it had not.

So I did all my work very quickly only to be able to return to his side who was still lying helplessly.

Slowly there the more I realized that my feelings of love for this man were getting bigger and bigger, until it was more than I ever anticipated before…

Oh… And about that duel? Actually, Edward did not give up on Niel even after this one defeat of him. Instead He was even more curious about the many oddities that had occurred…

There was something wrong with that duel, something he didn't know but Niel knew, and it made him feel that he still needed something from this man.

That's why he didn't intend to throw this guy away yet, and even just told me to take care of him as much as I could… Which of course I have always been beside this guy even on the first day he was unconscious… Until the days go by…

Like… Never had I felt this anxiety and relief at the same time in my entire life, before that moment I saw Niel’s unconscious face…

~~~~~

Anyway… Thanks to Niel's own mysterious plan right after the fight was over, he had actually given me even more time off to put in more effort for this selfish feeling of mine, that’s to save him from suffering.

Or… Honestly, I doubt that Niel actually planned anything about that duel beforehand… As I'd rather believe it was just luck that came into our way…

Into this hand of mine…

While then I thought, “Even if it is just available only in a painful way, maybe fate itself still has hope for this poor man for me and only me to save…”

Because of that, I'm getting more and more motivated. My expectations were high, all the time that was given to me was not wasted in the slightest. Where in that much free time, I tested my own teleportation ability into territory I had never touched before…

I mean…

It’s really both mentally and literally, I did one crazy thing that I had never done before…

You know, I can only teleport to somewhere I've seen, right? Not only because that's how this teleportation power works, but it's the safest way not to suffer a fatal error when landing at the destination… But if that was the case, then that place would be easy for anyone to find.

So as I’m closing my eyes, I imagined a vast expanse of meadow on a cliff with a stretch of sea all around… Imagining the one most beautiful fresh green field with a warm twilight even though I was in my room with my little sister late at night at the time…

There I wished for myself a place that absolutely no one could ever reach.

A place without a single human being, without anything that could touch it in any way other than myself…

For days that hope took me to nowhere, other than a drop of blood from my nose for releasing too much power just to wish for something I had never seen before…

until at last I had the idea to add one explanation…

That maybe, “Something I've never seen” is a bit too much, but I remember that Niel has this such kind of little memory of the past of the goddess, the ruler of suffering within him…

“A memory huh?” Does it include a visual imagination of a place?

Confidently, I gave one sentence, “A place I've never been to, but I've been missing for a long time… A place that is very important to me for my whole life, that I just haven't been to."

Then the air and the atmosphere felt much lighter after that one leap full of hope managed to survive...

~~~~~

As usual, I came back nosebleed a few… I mean, it's only about five to six drops more than any other nosebleed.

But when I opened my eyes, something that made me feel nostalgic with something I've never experienced, was widely exposed where I was standing at that moment.

Seeing the warm twilight with a gust of wind coming from the sea, the rustling of the thick grass made me shiver without myself even bothering to hold back that one happy smile of mine… The reflected light was slightly obscured up ahead with the only tree there, just an old giant oak as its glittering leaves danced with the sun…

“This is it… I finally found it…” I said to myself.

I walked around the plains for a long time, it felt like I was gathering lots of photo sheets from an album that I had lost in such a long time ago…

I tried to leave and teleported back to that place, making sure that everything was fine and without any problems in transitioning between spaces in a short time as if I was using my own instincts and reflexes to return to this place while teleporting without thinking about where to go… I intend to make this place a safe point, or a starting point for fast travel in case there will be any danger later and I have no time to think other than teleporting.

After I confirmed that I had familiarized myself with this teleportation, I did something that anyone who could teleport would surely do after having a place as beautiful as that one I have right there…

First I stole a park bench with a classic style that caught my attention the most.

Adjusting its position towards the most beautiful view in the place right next to the giant oak tree, I then searched for the flattest land around this small bumpy field, not too far from the bench to the top of the hill…

Like a retired old woman's wish… Not much, but I wanted one luxury mansion where I would spend my old days in peace… So I decided that I was going to steal a house…

Yet it seems that literally stealing a whole mansion is the thing that will eventually make me the world's worst jerk… But I'm a pretty cute girl, so I guess they'll forgive me, right?

“No… I'm not sure that Niel will like it.” After all, this would only be a place to hide. We could stay wherever we wanted if we just got bored, as long as we remembered to keep moving or coming back here as much as possible…

“Then how about a small wooden house? I remember I once stayed with my family, in a small villa-type hotel in a tourist village…”

It's a hotel with lots of small wooden houses, one bedroom with a simple but at least moderately complete house set…

~~~~~

“Am I really going to do something that crazy?”

Well… Actually that one question of conscience arose after I crept into the hotel to measure the total scale of the place, traced the shape of the house on the ground in the other side already, and used my water magic to control, scrape and carry the mud mixed with soil and water out, forming a deep hole in the flattest plains in that place…

I’ve also frozen all the corners and sides of the hole so the rest wouldn't slide into the inside… All of that, meaning there's only one more stage left, for me to ask myself, isn't this just too crazy to do?

But yeah, I've been smiling quite a lot lately in the process… I find this quite fun. And maybe I'm only going to do this once in my eternal life though… After all, I will forever be a young girl… Even if I have to, I'll pay the cost of all of this to the party I'm about to lose to get rid of this bad feeling in my heart for them.

Thus, with the little strength I had at the time, I teleported one unit of that beautiful wooden house, even up to five meters deep in the ground, exactly to the depth of the hole I had dug on the other side…

There has probably never been such a theft before in history…

I was proud of myself…

“I can't wait to tell that guy about this after it's all over…”

I checked all the parts, nothing was damaged, even when teleporting, there was no vibration throughout this small house. Everything was perfect right down to the roots…

But even after everything was done by myself, I still couldn't say anything to Niel about it. So that place at that time was just a place for me to think and plan everything that I still had to prepare to happen soon…

Or at least that's what I really wanted to do…

~~~~~

Could focus for a few minutes, back to daydreaming for hours…

A whole night wasted, I fantasized about what we could do here in the future…

I smiled like a fool, looking at the ocean which from the day before was still showing the same twilight color in the vast sky…

A thousand beautiful scenes were imagined, slowly my smile disappeared, realizing one thing that… I finally admit… I will never be able to avoid…

“There's really only one thing I have to do to make this all come true…”

Earlier it was a big mistake for me to directly invite Niel to run away…

So I just knew that if I asked him a second time, even with this much more thorough preparation, I'm sure he would only distance himself from me even more…

I mean… I offered that option anyway… At that point I didn't want to miss the slightest chance even if the odds are slim, I don't want to regret not offering it in the first place…

Because separating him from his two best friends without him hating me is not an easy thing to do… So there's no harm in trying to use luck, if the actual loss is not much.

But I did have a plan in mind that might push for it to happen…

~~~~~