The evening dinner, which had begun in a joyful atmosphere, suddenly fell into silence.
After Ashley’s words and the energetic nods of her older twin sister Emily, there was the sound of glass breaking. Everyone’s attention was focused on the broken glass that Arabel was clutching, and blood was dripping from her hands.
But Arabel was smiling, and most people would have found her smile sweet and bright. However, Idan, who had seen all the shades of her smile until today, knew this one well.
He sighed and massaged his temple, realizing that Arabel was having a relapse of her side effect again.
Idan looked at the twins and felt some sympathy for them. Now, in the eyes of Arabel’s slightly insane side, these two pretty girls have become not just her students and subordinates, but also potential enemies.
"Well, well, I didn’t hear you, could you repeat that?" Arabel asked with a smile, brushing the broken glass from her hands.
"Oh, mistress, I’m sorry, Ashley was just joking," Edgar stood up for his sister and, turning to her, asked: "Isn’t that right, Ashley?"
"Huh? What? A joke? No, I’m not..."— before Emily could finish, Edgar covered her mouth with his hands so that she wouldn’t say anything unnecessary again.
At first, Emily tried to resist, but when she saw the desperate and pleading look of her older brother, she gave up.
Ashley pouted, then looked down and crossed her index and middle fingers behind her back.: "It was a joke, I’m sorry, mistress."
Her older sister, also crossing her fingers behind her back, nodded in agreement with her sister.
Arabel, smiling, stared at them intently, and their gesture with her fingers did not go unnoticed.
"These little bastards, where did they learn this?" - she thought. Her gaze fell on Edgar. "The bastards must have learned this from their ’big brother.’"
"They’re still so young and they’re trying to take away from me what’s already MINE," Arabel thought, and the more she thought about it, the more her crazy side came out.
She glanced at Idan, and her smile became even more dangerous.
Idan, seeing this, shuddered.
"And what’s my fault?" he mentally complained.
Hailey, who had not missed a single meal of delicious food, sat at the table, enjoying the treats, with a slight smirk on her face, watching the twins. She was pleased to think that the twins would soon learn the consequences of Arabel’s annoyance at this rate.
The other guests appreciated Idan’s talent in cooking and expressed their gratitude to him.
"Milla, stay, let’s talk," Idan asked at the end of the dinner, when everyone started to leave.
Milla, slightly surprised, nodded silently and followed Idan onto the terrace.
Arabel didn’t go with them, but stayed to clean the table, and Hailey decided to help her.
Going out onto the terrace, Idan sat down, and Milla settled down opposite him.
"We should have talked a long time ago," Idan began. "I guess I don’t need to ask you if you know who I am?"
Milla nodded in the affirmative.
"How long ago and how did you switch to the outsider side?" asked Idan.
"About a month after the second Disaster..."— after a short pause, Milla spoke up and began to talk about what had happened to her.
From Milla’s story, Idan learned that the Womskinner race began abducting people from their world almost immediately after the second Disaster.
In the beginning, they acted cautiously and mostly abducted mortals and a small number of Awakened Ones. Unfortunately for Milla, she was one of the first Awakened Ones to fall into their hands.
After being abducted, she was redirected to another world and subjected to some kind of strange ritual. As a result of this ritual, Milla became a servant of one of the several Faction Leaders, a Rank 5 being. And according to Milla, it wasn’t Erza.
Due to the fact that Milla had become different after the ritual, she could neither escape nor disobey the orders of these creatures. Fresh chapters posted on 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭•𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢•𝓷𝓮𝓽
All the time she was in Irene’s house, Milla was afraid that one of these creatures would appear and give some terrible order. But to her surprise, no one came, and now that she was in the Kingdom, she felt relief for the first time, realizing that her connection with those creatures had been suppressed.
Confessing to the fear that had plagued her until recently, and the fact that this place suppressed her connection to the Womskinner race to some extent, Milla quickly told the rest of her story, right up to the moment when these creatures suddenly made an unexpected move.
Idan had been listening in silence all this time, without interrupting her.
From Milla’s story, Idan learned that the Womskinner race did not find the coordinates of their world by itself.
"Someone else from this side, from our own world, has summoned these creatures," Idan thought, realizing this terrible truth.
"And this someone was connected to Kraus, who knew about the existence of Womskinner and came to Rumbus with Milena and Arslan, pursuing his goal."
Idan also remembered Erza’s last words, which he ignored back then.
"Erza mentioned that they didn’t find the Earth, but someone else helped them. If I had let her live, she would have been ready to reveal who it was," he thought.
Idan regretted a bit that he had killed Erza right away, without trying to extract this information from her.
But what’s done is done.
At the time, he thought otherwise. He needed to complete the System’s task, and he didn’t know about Arabel’s condition yet, so he wanted to deal with Erza as quickly as possible in order to come to her aid.
In the end, Arabel managed to defeat her opponent without his help.
"I think Belle mentioned that the Guardian of Light said something similar about how they didn’t find the Earth themselves and that they were helped," Idan recalled his conversation with Arabel.
The next thing Idan noticed was that the Womskinner immediately showed interest in Milena and tried to kidnap her, but Kraus got in their way and prevented it.
"It seems that Milena was very important to Kraus in carrying out his mission."
However, things did not go as planned by Womskinner when Kraus suddenly disappeared. According to Milla, a mysterious person contacted the Womskinner race and demanded an explanation. The Womskinner were perplexed and did not understand what had happened, and they had a conflict with this person.
As a result, everything led to what happened.
"In other words, I was the one who triggered this whole event by killing Kraus.", — Idan realized.
"And perhaps the mysterious being behind Kraus, the force that the System asked not to ask about, is the one who brought these creatures into our world," — Idan concluded.
"What or who is it?" Idan asked, and, of course, no one could give him an answer to this question.