I admitted the truth while avoiding her gaze.
"But I think I made the right decision now. Although I’m sure you could’ve solved it on your own, I still couldn’t leave you in danger. And... The things that transpired afterward weren’t intentional. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. If I did, I sincerely apologize." I bowed my head sincerely.
"Exactly which one are you talking about?" Cassandra coldly stared at me, her eyes squinting. I almost flinched under her ’death’ stare. "Could it be... the honey one?"
She remembers it, no, she remembers everything!
"...I wasn’t lying, I swear." I quickly tried to defend myself. "I meant what I said!"
I took a peek at Cassandra and saw a faint blush spreading across her cheeks.
Urgh! Wrong choice of words!
I panicked internally as I realized how my hasty defense had sounded.
"Wait! That’s not what I meant!" I quickly clarified. "That was simply the most efficient plan I could think of at that time. The situation required quick thinking and-"
Thankfully, Cassandra didn’t seem to get angry. Instead, she just listened to my flustered explanation with what looked like barely suppressed amusement.
"Alright, alright, you can stop now," she said, leaning back on her chair with a small smile playing on her lips. "I was just teasing you."
I chuckled inwardly, wondering if there was more to her reaction than simple teasing. The way she blushed, the way she was looking at me just now...
Let’s put those thoughts aside for now.
"Anyway, that’s the gist of the situation." I put the conversation back on track.
Cassandra nodded solemnly, realizing the gravity of the situation. "I believe everything you said, but it doesn’t explain how you could do all that? The first time I saw you, you weren’t definitely a Resonator. And there’s no way an ordinary person can do all that."
"..." I stayed silent, as it was inevitable that she would ask this question. I have thought about this for a while now. And I think it’s time to share a few secrets with someone I can trust now. Someone who can understand what kind of situation I might be in...
But still, I wasn’t gonna hand her the answer right away.
"You know the answer, right?" I said calmly.
We both stared at each other.
I waited for her to speak, and she probably did the same.
She finally broke the silence.
"...Yes," I confirmed. "Weren’t you the one who suspected it first?"
"...Right." She smiled. "And this was the thing I said I wanted to tell you just now."
"...You are an Inheritor too, right?"
Huh? An Inheritor? What is she talking about?
I was confused by her words. She laughed, seeing my expression.
"Haha, that’s what I decided to call it, don’t worry about it." She waved her hand. "It was simple and suited my situation and probably yours as well."
"...Can you explain more clearly?" I said, holding back my sheer curiosity. Was my guess wrong? Were there things I wasn’t aware of or misunderstood? I had many questions piling up on my tongue, but I forced myself to remain calm, recognizing the opportunity for a major revelation.
Cassandra’s smile faded, replaced by a serious, almost conspiratorial glint in her sapphire eyes. She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a near whisper even with the barrier humming around us.
"You inherited memories and strange powers, too, right? Isn’t that how you understood my hints and did all that without being a Resonator?"
Her gaze sharpened, pulling me in.
"The way you handled the shop, your knowledge of concepts that don’t exist in the current Era... I already know it all."
I felt a mix of relief and apprehension. I had a hunch that she wouldn’t simply leave me in charge, that she could be monitoring me. But I still did everything I did back then, because I anticipated this moment would come.
And now the masks were off, the only path forward was the truth, and I found myself surprisingly ready to talk with her.
"You are right," I said more openly. "But I think our situations might be different."
"Different? How?" Cassandra tilted her head. "I inherited fragments of knowledge from the Forgotten Age. The era when civilization had its own advanced technologies, complex economic systems, entertainment industries with rating systems..." She paused, studying my reaction. "From your expression and the info I gathered, I can tell that you know exactly what I’m talking about."
Well, she was right, but also somehow wrong. Or was it I who was in the wrong from the beginning?
If what she said was true, everything made sense now. Virion’s guess about me receiving some kind of ancient inheritance clicks with her words, too.
But what about those dreams, then? Were they mine to begin with? Or someone else’s? The individual I inherited the memories from?
And Forgotten Age? Is she talking about the history of this world? Is it before the Primordial Era?
Were the memories we had from this world or another world, or even the universe?
As always, I’m getting more questions than answers.
"The knowledge I inherited," she continued, seeing I was listening with an intense focus, "comes from a time when people could instantly communicate across vast distances, where information was stored in invisible networks, where business operated in principles our current world has never conceived of." Her voice grew softer. "At first, I thought I was going insane. These strange and foreign memories, concepts, understanding of things that don’t exist anymore..."
I stayed silent. I could hear the weight in her words, the loneliness of carrying knowledge no one else could comprehend. It was the echo of my own experience, albeit with different specifics.
At least she didn’t suddenly wake up in a ’new’ world with no memories.
"...they kept flooding my mind, pushing against the reality I knew. It was a chaotic storm of insight that almost broke me, until... until I learned to categorize and utilize it..."
"Until I heard a voice..."