Lys blinked, her eyes narrowing as she looked around suspiciously. "Others? But it's just us here..."
Iger responded, "Though it's nothing worth boasting about, I rank second on the Two-Winged Mind Class Ranking (Azura Division).
"I can sll emotions with my nose, see thoughts with my eyes, and hear desires with my ears."
He walked to the record player and opened the lower cabinet, pulling out a disc. The cover showed a world in ruin, sothing eerily close to the dream he had had a few days ago. He set it on the turntable and pressed play. True to its cover, the music was loud and chaotic, yet oddly captivating.
He glanced down at the cover again. Ah, angels destroying the world. No wonder it sounds so good.
Sitting down, Iger said, "You're far too young for this kind of music, but... as long as it drowns out our voices, it'll do."
He looked at her. "Let's have an honest conversation, Lys."
Lys hesitated, then edged toward the far side of the room, stopping near the mirror. "But I don't want to talk to you..."
"It's the mirror, isn't it?"
She blinked. The tension she had been forcing onto her face shattered at once, replaced with genuine shock.
Iger allowed himself a faint smile. Ever since his encounter with that cursed cult leader, deception had slipped through his fingers again and again. At tis, he wondered if his skills had fallen to the level of a drunken city councilman. He went on, "I've been watching you, Lys. Not just during the ga just now, but last night as well, when you played Sorcerer Duel 14 with Ashe. You showed a different side of yourself. Competitive, rude, and direct, you're just like a real child."
Lys snapped. "I am a child!"
"If I only had doubts last night, the ga just now confird everything."
Iger moved to stand beside her, aligning himself with her reflection in the mirror. "The mirror is your dium for switching. Every glance into it signals a possible shift.
"That's a clever constraint. In fact, very clever. Others might see it as a weakness, but I've observed patients tornted by multiple personalities, trapped between life and death. For a Mind Class sorcerer, cases like these are invaluable.
"They're practically a hallmark of the Blood Moon Kingdom, which gives Mind Class sorcerers a distinct advantage. Workers in the entertainnt industry, cri hunters, and psychologists constantly provide the kinds of cases I find fascinating. Psychologists, especially, stare into the abyss long enough that they eventually descend into madness, exposing themselves entirely to the void.
"Patients with multiple personalities suffer because each persona competes for control, creating endless entanglents. So lose themselves entirely, living in drunken stupor, while others undergo rebirth, erasing all mories and emotions to beco blank slates.
"But you don't have that problem. The mirror keeps the influence of other personalities contained. Even if a persona acts out, they remain trapped in the mirror, unable to interfere with the real world—"
Lys snapped. "My sisters aren't trapped in the mirror!"
Iger's eyes lit with interest. "You call them sisters? That's quite common. In many cases, female patients develop male personas, shaped by the impressions they hold. Male patients almost always develop female ones. The desire for the opposite seems... embedded in nature."
He tilted his head slightly. "Do you have a brother?"
Lys was about to answer when sothing caught her attention. Reluctantly, she turned toward the mirror.
When she turned back, her cute expression had shifted into a calmness entirely at odds with her appearance. It felt less like a mask removed and more like another layer added, a mask beneath a mask.
Iger raised an eyebrow. "What should I call you?"
"Just call Lys. We only make distinctions among ourselves. In front of others, we are always Lys[1]."
Iger thought, Multiple personalities that could unite and cooperate to function in the outside world... this is an exceptionally rare case.
Normally, the differences between personalities were extre. The dominant persona looked down on the weaker ones, and the overall structure usually resembled a monarchical dictatorship. The ruling persona held full authority, while the others assud roles like ministers or commoners, each slotting into a strict hierarchy. It was, in effect, like running a feudal court inside a single body.
But Lys was different. Her personalities respected one another, functioning almost like a democratic republic. She was an ideal template for multiple personalities. Even after poring over countless psychological case files, Iger had never seen such a perfect specin. And on top of that, she had voluntarily imposed the mirror as a constraint for herself.
"Lys... in the first question just now, 'If given the chance, would you murder the other five people here to seize the Divine Lord's wish?' You voted Yes, didn't you?"
Iger had phrased it like a question, yet his tone left no room for doubt.
Lys admitted it without hesitation. "That's right. How did you know?"
Iger's voice turned cold. "I noticed it when you interacted with Ashe. The way you looked at him... it was like staring at a piece of wriggling, rotten at. I know that look. Harvey wears the sa expression when observing others."
Lys nodded calmly. "Sorry. That ti, a more aggressive sister cast the vote to control the outco. That sister treats everyone that way. We had no intention of harming Ashe."
Iger pressed on. "For the second and third questions... You also cast votes that didn't match your usual persona, didn't you? I thought you wouldn't give everything for soone you cared about, and yet you voted Yes. I thought you couldn't trust anyone, and still you voted Yes. Why manipulate the votes?"
Lys shook her wristband lightly. "Mr. Perskin, if you already know the answers, why bother asking? Obviously, I did it for the reward. Besides that, I figured I might as well go along with Annan's plan and help her."
"Annan..." Iger chewed on the na carefully, as if savoring an undercooked, half-raw Lala Fat.
Lys shrugged. "A clever, subtle strategy. She restricted our ability to lie while letting us ask questions anonymously. It's like locking us in an arena and dropping weapons at our feet. She didn't need to manipulate us verbally. We would take the weapons ourselves and strike.
"She wanted to break the foundation of our cooperation. Coincidentally, I wanted the sa thing."
Lys placed her hands firmly on the table, sitting perfectly upright. Every gesture was precise and controlled, without a single unnecessary movent. Seeing her posture, Iger dared not let his guard down.
"Compared to the hardships you've all endured before, my relationship with Ashe is too weak. But he's the easiest ally for to win over. If I couldn't secure him, the others wouldn't cooperate either.
"So I needed to shatter your trust first; only then could I form a real alliance with Ashe. A simple contract wouldn't have been enough to sway him. On this point, my interests aligned with Annan's."
Iger sighed. "So you helped Annan stir the waters, making everyone more suspicious through your votes? You almost succeeded. The two Yes votes in the first question nearly destroyed all my trust in Harvey and Ashe."
"Yes, I nearly did," Lys admitted, a trace of helplessness in her voice. "If it weren't for the third question—"
Iger frowned. "But in the third question, why did you vote Yes? Ah... you wanted to use it to boost your favorability with everyone else!"
1. Rember, her codena is Lys in reality and Dia in the Virtual World. ☜
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