VIP Chapter 203: The Trap
“In that case, Little Will, are we still going to Tsimat Town? After all… the guards said they would notify the capital. I assume Princess Treya is there. Tsimat Town is quite close to the capital.”
“An enemy… it shouldn’t be. Wait, Demon City… right… and there’s this matter…”
Will pulled down his hat, seemingly to cover his incoherent rambling. Shuna watched Will, who appeared to be in a state of panic due to the overwhelming amount of information.
She was actually very familiar with this feeling. When too much information flooded in at once, and one didn’t know what to do, they would fall into a loop of “analyzing existing information → obtaining new information → continuing to analyze information → obtaining new information,” which consumed the brain but yielded no substantive thoughts.
However…
Seeing Will in such a daze allowed Shuna to feel, for the first time, a sense of him truly being “alive” here. He wasn’t omniscient and omnipotent, perpetually the clear-headed observer, but rather someone who could also be bewildered by the situation.
She had tried many different ways to make him experience this, but it was only a single sheet of Princess Treya’s wanted poster that made him so much more “lively.” She had no idea what kind of information in a regular wanted poster from a princess could cause Will to react like this.
But…
She knew that if she left him to his own devices, he would never find his way out of this mental labyrinth. What he needed most at this moment… was to calm down.
“Little Will, I apologize. Please bear with me for a moment.”
“?”
Will only saw Shuna lean in, place her hand on his head, and then gently tap his forehead with hers. It was an action akin to a mother taking a child’s temperature. Shuna, in this moment, acted as a mature, kind senior, offering comfort to her troubled junior.
However, this comfort might have been too… “heavy.” Will felt a bone-chilling cold from Shuna’s forehead, a cold he had never experienced even at the Moonlit Ice Extreme. In that instant, he felt a jolt to his nerves, and he “calmed down” – albeit through physical means.
“Shuna?”
He wondered if she had activated her Ice Armor Infusion on her forehead and then used a gentle bump to her own forehead to calm herself down.
“Is it cold? Did you calm down?”
With his vision slightly out of focus, Will looked into Shuna’s eyes. It was as if he saw her black pupils, yet it also felt like one eye was fixated on him. Their current distance was… so close…
“I… feel much better. N-no… don’t lean in so close.”
Will initially intended to place his hand on her chest. Realizing that Shuna, as a woman, had a substantial chest, he shifted his hand lower, placing it on her firm waist where he could feel the defined lines of her vest, and pushed her away slightly.
“Alright, then tell me, what’s going on? It’s okay, I’m listening.”
“Actually, it’s like this. I’ll explain one by one, don’t panic.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a professional. No matter how terrifying the situation, I won’t panic.”
“First, Princess Treya is my nominal fiancée.”
“Mm. It’s been all over the streets, magazines, and newspapers. It’s not exactly a closely guarded secret.”
“Second, uh… well, you… you remember what Liya was like, right?”
Shuna could no longer hold him and let go. She glanced at the burn mark on her arm. Under the “old witch’s” miraculous magic, her wound healed quickly and didn’t impede her use of magic. The area wasn’t too large either; it should heal within two to three weeks. However, leaving a scar meant leaving a memory, and she nodded.
“Heh heh… Actually, Liya was trained by me.”
Will sheepishly scratched his head, a hint of pride in his voice.
“……?”
“That’s right. How to act when you meet someone you like, how to become assertive, what extreme methods to use on the verge of legality – I taught her all of it.”
“？？？”
Shuna couldn’t maintain her composure and crossed her arms.
“So… so, Princess Treya is in a similar situation. As you can see, she… writing like this, and looking for me… probably… maybe… possibly… her mental state isn’t all that great?”
“How not great?”
“Probably a bit like the Liya you met, hmm… the kind of state where she can’t do without me?”
“…You’re quite proud, aren’t you?”
Shuna held her forehead. This was the first time Will had revealed his “grand enterprise.” In any case… Shuna was someone he could trust now. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have hinted at the “fate” of the original work to her. Now, besides himself, she was the only one who knew about both “fate” and his plan.
Shuna remained silent for a moment, processing the information. She scratched her head and began to speak:
“Is this one of the Hysterm family young master’s peculiar hobbies? It certainly lives up to its reputation.”
“Did… did you misunderstand something?”
“Turning a normal girl who likes you into a lunatic, then provoking them, and then having them chase you all over the world – that’s your peculiar hobby, isn’t it?”
“You’ve definitely misunderstood!”
“Otherwise, I can’t think of any reason for you to do something like that.”
“Actually, this… this is an accident that happened when I tried to resist the prophecy in my dreams… It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“It’s fine, I’m just joking. Whatever you say, I believe you.”
Shuna paused, then adopted a tone similar to a teacher guiding him to think.
“So, from what you’re saying, you must know that princess very well. What does this wanted poster mean? Does it signify that she desperately wants to find you?”
“This…”
Will was about to say that Treya couldn’t handle pressure easily and was definitely desperate for him to return to her side. But he paused. Something wasn’t… quite right? That’s right. The problem was with this “wanted poster.”
From the moment he saw the wanted poster, he had subconsciously substituted Treya with the perspective of “the second Liya.” But… he seemed to have overlooked something… It was Shuna who reminded him.
From Shuna’s perspective, when Will explained the truth, she didn’t know that Treya had posted the wanted poster because of her “blackening.” This should have been the same for Will.
If he looked at it from a perspective other than Will’s initial thought, which was: “She posted a wanted poster, her handwriting is messy, she must have blackened and wants me back”…
Will’s mind suddenly cleared. He looked up, his eyes brightening.
“This is a trap.”
“A trap? So it’s not because she loves you to death and is heartbroken from searching for you that she posted this wanted poster?”
“Definitely not, absolutely not! Because… because a wanted poster like this wouldn’t speed up finding me at all!”
