Pandora’s expression collapsed.
Not all at once, but piece by piece, in the span of a single second.
Those eyes, just moments ago filled with loss and longing, snapped wide. A cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Her dazed expression morphed into disbelief, then solidified into a bone-deep…
TERROR!!!
“Sis? Faye?”
“No. No, no, no, no, no!”
A scream, silent and absolute, tore through her mind like a tsunami.
Who was she?!
How could she… wear Faye’s face like that?!
What did she do to my head?!!
The moment the woman left, Pandora’s senses returned, and the world came apart. She finally, completely, came to her senses. And when she processed what she had just gone through, she almost, instantly shattered.
The memory from moments before… her entire perception of that woman… it had been her deepest, most cherished memory! And it had been overwritten, plucked out of thin air by that strange woman!
She had taken that eerie, mysterious woman, whose every pore radiated wrongness, and treated her like her own dear, beloved sister!
But… if that had truly been her sister from her past life, transmigrating to this world… how could she still look exactly the same? The way she looked fourteen years ago, before Pandora had even died? Not a single day older?
One thought after another, like poisonous bubbles, surged from the depths of her mind.
Right at this moment, Pandora finally understood what they meant in those old horror stories by that “sanity plummeting.”
This was it. This was a “cognitive collapse.”
The entire world was twisting, tearing itself apart. The only thing that felt real was the cold anger rising from the depths of her soul, the raw fury of being deceived, of being violated.
But if she had to choose, between the false, spine-tingling warmth and the cruel, emotionless reality… she would always choose to pierce through that layer of lies and return to the cold, hard truth of her own world.
“My… my lady? My lady, are you alright?”
The voices of Elsa and Aurora, laced with worry and confusion, finally managed to pull Pandora, struggling, from the bottomless bog of her frantic thoughts.
She snapped her gaze toward them. Their expressions held only worry and confusion. It seemed they hadn't experienced the same world-shattering event.
Forcing a deep breath, she made herself calm down. Pandora asked, her voice hoarse, “Did you… did you feel anything… wrong?”
Both of them shook their heads, their confusion deepening.
Pandora pressed, “Do you… remember what just happened?”
They tried their best to recall.
Aurora spoke first. “We… finished clearing the northern villages, and then came back.”
“After getting to the manor, we didn’t see you, so I got worried and came looking.”
“…And then I found you, sitting by the door with a terrified look on your face.”
Aurora’s account was simple, clear, and utterly devoid of anything unusual. In her mind, in her memory, she’d just gone downstairs for a moment, gotten ready to stand guard with Elsa, and then come back up. When she got up, Pandora had just been… there. Outside the door. Terrified. Even… a little crazed.
Aurora had never seen her master in such a state.
Pandora’s gaze shifted to Elsa.
Elsa’s situation, however, was even stranger.
She wrinkled her brow, trying hard to remember. “I…”
“I remember… I almost… broke my lady’s command…”
“But why would I break it… I… I can’t remember…” Elsa gripped her temples, her body trembling. “If I try to force it… my head will split… It’s no use. I just can’t remember…”
So that’s how it was.
Listening to their words, Pandora’s heart sank.
In both their memories, the mysterious woman had never existed. The woman had erased all traces of herself from their minds.
But… she had left Pandora’s own memory intact.
Why… did she do that?
But soon, Pandora stopped thinking. She didn’t have the information. Any further reasoning would just lead to dead ends. It was pointless.
Coming back to her senses, the first thing she noticed was Elsa, still trembling, her expression crumbling. Pandora realized that, having gone so long without blood, Elsa was already at her absolute limit. In this state, she couldn’t endure any more “shocks.”
“Elsa, stop! Don't think about it anymore!” Pandora said, cutting her off immediately.
Then she turned to Aurora, whose face was a mask of worry and confusion, completely unable to process what had just happened. Pandora forcibly shoved that wave of madness and terror, which felt like it could shred her reason to pieces, back down into the depths of her soul.
Her voice, though still weak, was again laced with a convincing, calm coolness.
“Aurora, don’t worry.”
She wove a plausible lie, one to soothe Aurora and, at the same time, to deceive herself, to hold onto the reason that was tottering on the edge of collapse.
“I think… I was just in that windowless herb room for too long.”
“When I came out, the light was blinding. I must have had… some kind of hallucination.”
She paused, then glanced at the terribly weakened Elsa beside her, taking the opportunity to pull her into the lie as well.
“As for Elsa… she stood guard for a whole day and night. She’s just exhausted.”
“That’s all. There’s no need to worry.”
“Now, help me back to my bedroom.”
Pandora’s voice had returned to that decisive, unquestionable tone of a leader.
“Seal the herb room for now. After I’ve rested, I’ll come back to deal with what’s inside.”
Aurora accepted the order. Although a thousand questions still burned in her mind, she would unconditionally obey any command from her master.
She carefully helped Pandora up, half-supporting, half-carrying her toward her familiar bedroom.
As they moved, Elsa stumbled, her legs giving out completely. Though she scrambled to her feet quickly, the small incident made Pandora even more aware of just how dire Elsa’s condition was.