"Like I care?!"
Shintia walked away, leaving Risky behind.
Risky felt humiliated and couldn't accept how Shintia had treated him. Filled with anger and a thirst for revenge, his heart pounded as a burning sensation surged through him.
"Just you wait, Shintia."
12:34 PM WITA.
Meanwhile, Celis was fast asleep, leaning against a tree in a forest. He felt disturbed by the sunlight shining directly on his face.
Still half-asleep, the light grew brighter right in front of his eyes. He tried to avoid it by turning his head to the left.
But the light followed his face. When he turned his head to the right, the light shifted to the right as well.
His peaceful slumber was ruined, but he stubbornly tried to hold onto it. However, the light kept getting closer and closer. Finally losing his patience, Celis snapped.
He grabbed his Sumitsu sword beside him and blindly slashed forward with his eyes still closed.
Standing up and rubbing his sleep-heavy eyes, Celis slowly opened them—only to see Hella holding a flashlight in her hand.
Unable to hold back any longer, Hella burst into roaring laughter. She had been messing with him using her flashlight.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What are you doing out here like a homeless guy?! AHAHAHA!!!"
Celis swung his sword and sliced Hella's neck. Her head fell to the ground. He had zero tolerance for her antics today.
Undeterred, Hella threw a petty insult at him.
"You and Shintia are both so sensitive. You two are exactly the same."
"HAH?! Why is Shintia mad?"
"Nothing."
Hiding her true thoughts, Hella casually picked up her head and reattached it. In an instant, her neck fused back together as if nothing had happened.
Confused, Celis asked why she was there.
"What are you doing here?"
"Skipping math class."
"Over math? Seriously?"
Hella stuck out her lower lip, pulling a goofy, mocking face.
"Nyehhhh..."
Celis sarcastically brought up their last fight.
"If only I had chopped your entire body to pieces back then."
Hella mocked him right back.
"Ooooh, I'm so scaaared..."
Celis sighed, his tone turning serious.
"Enough joking around. I ran into Robert last night—he said he's alive because he's bound by destiny. Is that true?"
Hella nodded as she replied.
"Yeah, it's true. Those who make a pact with Calumny, or any power-granter, will gain immortality as long as their destiny and promise remain unfulfilled."
"Does that mean you're included?"
"I honestly don't know, because my powers just appeared out of nowhere. Maybe my parents gave them to me without my knowledge."
"How does that happen?"
"Back during the Slander Disaster..."
When the Slander Disaster hit Indonesia, chaos erupted, fueled by racism against certain tribes and rampant, overwhelming defamation.
At that time, in Hella's home, her parents had forbidden her from getting involved before they left to fight the disaster. Hella rebelled against them, driven by curiosity and a desire to join the fight.
"Hey!!! Why can't I come with you?! Huh?!!!"
Her parents remained silent, unable to bring themselves to look their daughter in the eye.
Finally, her father broke the silence to comfort her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Hella, your dream is to be free and go wherever your heart desires, right? I'll make that happen after we get back."
Hearing this, her mother also placed her faith in her, echoing the sentiment.
"Listen to your father, Hel. I also believe you can become the idol you've always wanted to be since you were little."
Hella was shocked and confused by their sudden, heartfelt words.
"Huh?!!!"
Glowing orbs of light emerged from her parents' chests—the physical manifestation of their powers. They were transferring their abilities to Hella: her mother's Spatial Manipulation [Naraka] and her father's Darkness Manipulation [Neraka].
The spheres of light absorbed into Hella's body.
Those were their final words and their ultimate hope—a gift to make their child's dream come true. Hella's parents left to confront Calumny for spreading those slanders, but things didn't go as planned, and they vanished without a trace.
Hella was locked inside the house for months. Starving and out of food, she desperately wanted to leave, but the doors were locked, and the windows were boarded up. Eventually, out of sheer frustration after trying every possible way to escape, she walked back to her room, still agonizing over how to get out and go to the store.
But the moment she stepped into her room, she was instantly teleported to the exact store she had been thinking of.
"From that moment on, I realized those lights were their powers being passed down to me—"
Realizing she had just trauma-dumped her entire backstory, Hella felt embarrassed.
"—Sorry, I started rambling. Just forget about it."
Celis ignored her embarrassment and focused on the core of her story.
"But wasn't that their hope, not a promise?"
"No, promises and hopes are different. They promised me they would make my dream come true, and they fulfilled it by gifting me their powers. A hope has no guarantee of happening."
"Then why aren't you dead? I've sliced your neck twice now."
"SO YOU'RE HOPING I DIE, HUH?!!"
"No."
"Maybe I'm the one carrying on their promise to Calumny."
"But you also have borrowed powers, right?"
"I'm just guessing. I really don't know myself. I haven't found any information about it yet."
Celis recalled the first time it happened to him. The moment he felt something in his solar plexus emitting a white light. At the exact same time, his sword reacted, releasing a pitch-black shadow along its blade. The shadow absorbed the white light, devouring it until it turned into a black light. That black light then entered Celis's solar plexus once again.
Celis thought his case was entirely different from Hella's story. Even when he thought of Kaden, Kaden's light wasn't black it was white.
"But the first time I held this Sumitsu sword... a white light came out of my body, and simultaneously, a black light emerged from Sumitsu's blade."
Hella was puzzled by Celis's story.
"I've never heard of anything like that. Out of everyone who has interacted directly with Calumny, no one has ever had a black light."
"I've never even met Calumny. The weird part is... that white light came directly from within me."
"That is weird..."
Celis turned his back on Hella and started walking, pausing for a moment.
"Whatever, forget about the weird stuff. More importantly, have you found any information on how to get to the island of Java?"
"Not yet."
"I see... For now, I'll leave Shintia in your hands."
"Shintia is performing in a play at 'BJ' later.* She's covering for Dea since Dea is taking care of Suo."
(Note: 'BJ' stands for Bawah Jembatan / Under the Bridge)
"Hmm... I kind of want to watch it, but..."
He let his trailing voice finish the thought.
"...I have to get revenge on the guys who bullied me back then."
Celis transformed into a swarm of blue butterflies and scattered into the air. It was a scene straight out of a fairy tale about a golden wizard, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Hella was caught off guard by the blue butterfly magic, but she chuckled softly, finding Celis to be a truly fascinating guy.
"Hahaha... This is the first time I haven't gotten bored of someone so quickly."