"Hmm, very good. Since you’re interested too..." Samuel lowered his head, looked at the book in his hands, and lightly snapped his fingers.
Flutter.
The pages turned on their own.
"Then next..." Samuel looked at Falson, "get ready, we're about to depart..."
Falson suddenly noticed the ground beneath his feet ripple.
Like a stone tossed into a lake.
Then the ground beca a bit like a translucent water surface, sothing slowly rising up from beneath that "surface."
It was a huge, open book.
The book rose slowly and soon "broke the surface," placing him and Samuel standing on it.
He and Samuel were standing in the seam between the two open pages of the giant book.
"This is the Corridor of mory," Samuel explained, his voice sounding as if it were coming through water, with a faint echo.
Then Samuel opened his palm and with a push snapped the Travel Guide shut.
Bang!
The giant book closed at the sa ti.
Falson instinctively shut his eyes and put his hand up to shield his face.
But the imagined collision never ca—only a strange sensation of weightlessness and a montary feeling of passing through a water surface.
It wasn't like falling into water; rather, there appeared a water surface on each side that slapped him in the middle.
The feeling lasted only an instant and then vanished.
Falson opened his eyes and lowered his hand, finding himself still standing in the ruined Liant Town, but sohow slightly different.
Burning streets, broken houses, pockmarked ground, people wailing and crying.
But the enormous golden round shield was gone.
"This is the mory," Samuel explained, "the mory that makes up the person we just saw. You can think of it as the bard's original form inside his mory."
"I see." Falson glanced around, "Hmm... but why is it in third-person perspective?"
"I don't know," Samuel shrugged, "Law is strange, isn't it?"
"Ah... indeed." Falson nodded.
At that mont, his thoughts were interrupted by a voice.
"Get over here!" It was a rough voice.
Falson turned toward the sound and saw a man with a knife kicking a dirt-smudged bard to the ground.
This was nothing like the Sacred Law Knight from before—much rougher, much crueler, probably a bandit.
"Hmm, it seems the knight originally replaced this bandit's role in that earlier town," Samuel said, chin cupped in his hand, "but there are several bandits here, looks like a gang, while there was only one knight before."
"Well, that makes sense." He nodded lightly, "After all, one Sacred Law Knight can take on an entire gang."
Then he looked back at Falson and lifted his chin, signaling him to look over there as well.
"See, this is the mory of what happened back then." Samuel stepped forward and waved his hand over the knife-wielding man.
His hand passed straight through without touching him.
Falson nodded but said nothing.
He felt uneasy and didn’t want to speak.
He saw a burly man, his heavy boot stomping down hard on the chest of a curled-up figure.
This was the bard from before—though Falson's never seen his face, he could guess who it was.
Only now he looked far more battered and miserable than when his head had been severed earlier.
His body bore glaring wounds, his face caked with mud, bruises, and fresh cuts; his lips were split, blood seeping out.
Samuel continued narrating.
"Because it's a mory, you can observe up close without worrying about being hard."
"Super convenient," Samuel said.
"It is convenient." Falson echoed softly.
Mostly he felt like vomiting and didn’t want to talk.
The details here felt too real.
At this ti, the conversation between the knife-man and the bard continued.
"Tell , where is he?" the man demanded, and swung his knife down with force.
This wasn't a show but a solid slash into the bard's body.
The following sequence was much like what Samuel had seen earlier.
Intimidation, bribery, then torture.
But compared to the Sacred Law Knight, this bandit-like man showed no rcy.
His tortures were not limited to severing hands or feet; they were deeper and far bloodier.
The bard, tortured for hours, wailed, begged, and sobbed; no matter how humbly he pleaded, he was not spared.
Because he never answered the bandit's question.
About "where he was."
"I... I don't know... sir..." the bard's voice was hoarse and broken, crying as his body trembled like a sieve, "I... I really don't know... he just... just asked for directions..."
Seeing this, Falson kept closing his eyes and forcing them open again; his face had gone sowhat pale.
"Ah, found it." Samuel's voice ca from not far off.
Falson turned toward the sound and saw Samuel standing in front of a wall that had not collapsed, tapping it lightly.
"Hollow, it's in here." Samuel smiled and looked back at Falson.
Before Falson could respond, Samuel reached out and lifted.
The broken wall peeled away effortlessly, as if it were simply a curtain being pulled aside.
"After all, it's mory, so it doesn't have to follow real-world physics," Samuel explained simply, "sothing hard can be as soft as a bedsheet."
Behind the wall hid a young man covering his mouth.
He was well dressed in dust-stained silk finery, with golden hair and golden eyes.
He looked like a noble.
Huddled behind the wall, he clamped his hand over his mouth, his eyes bloodshot as he stared fiercely through the crack, not daring to make a sound.
"A hundred years ago..." Samuel sighed, "Yes, this age fits better."
Falson felt the man looked sowhat familiar.
He had never t him, but had seen similar features on banknotes, giving a vague sense of recognition.
Samuel, however, imdiately recognized his identity.
"There we go, Pride, I knew it would be him," Samuel said with a grin, "Heh heh, I guessed right."
"Haha, it's the Young Boy version of Mister Pride." Samuel looked down at the golden-haired youth hiding behind the wall, who had no idea his "shelter" had already been lifted.
Wyatt Odius.
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