161 The Lost Stranger
Linda’s POV:
The wind and snow outside had stopped a long time ago.
I followed the team onto the vast snowfield. For a moment, I thought I had returned to my childhood, holding a hot potato soup and going to visit my father with my mother.
However, the piercing dark yellow uniform of the team members pulled me back to reality. My hometown had long been destroyed just after I moved away with my mother.
I wasn’t sure if my mother regretted it. After all, at least she could stay by her lover’s side. Living in seclusion was peaceful and sweet for her.
However, I would often think of my life in the past, the strict mothers and teachers in the public academy, the few classmates, the snow that never stopped, and the snowmen we piled together in the world of ice and snow.
My father loved my mother, but I didn’t think he loved me. Not all creatures have the consciousness of raising their offspring. Perhaps my father’s ancestors had the blood of the sirens, so they ignored me like the race that abandoned their eggs in the sea.
My mother loved me, but she loved my father more, so I gradually disappeared from their secluded life.
I wanted to return to my hometown to see my mother, teachers, and classmates.
But my home was gone, and it was only an empty shell.
I had nowhere to go now.
“Linda, are you okay?”
It was too obvious that I was lost in thought, and it attracted the attention of others. The girl called Selma looked at me worriedly. Only then did I realize that I had unknowingly fallen to the end of the line, seven to eight meters behind the people in front of me.
“I’m fine. I just slipped away. This is so unprofessional. I shouldn’t have made such a mistake. I’m sorry.”
I adjusted my expression in a practiced manner. As expected, Selma accepted my explanation and did not suspect anything.
I felt a faint heat in my chest. This was the ‘mark’ responding to the Lord’s power.
I wasn’t sure if anything had happened to Frank, but I hoped not. He was a good man. Although he was a little strict, he was very considerate of his team members. He took great care of Linda, a young team member, be it the original one or me.
I hoped Frank was fine, but no one knew what the Lord was thinking.
I was a little regretful now. Perhaps I shouldn’t have dragged Frank into danger. I was always regretful; it didn’t matter whether I was young or now.
However, my regrets were insignificant, and I could not change anything.
The pine forest gradually appeared in front of us.
Compared to the earlier blurry glimpse at the window, it had spread out a lot. This was the result of the Lord’s power gradually seeping out. The seal was becoming looser and looser, and Aunt Mullwica’s soul had probably reached its limit in the struggle with her son and the Lord.
When I thought of Aunt Mullwica, I fell into a daze again.
This powerful, gentle, legendary, and sorrowful witch, the Eye of Insight was a gift from fate and a poison that killed her.
Her life was as dramatic as ancient Greece mythology. Lovers turned against each other, mother and son became enemies, and in the end, she had no choice but to use her soul as a shackle. While trapped in evil, she was entangled with rebellious children until her soul was destroyed.
Why did the powerful witches always meet such a tragic fate? Was it a quirk of the gods? Or was the power itself the source of the tragedy?
I couldn’t help but look at Dorothy. She was following Selma closely. Her expression was serious yet ignorant. She had no idea about the tribulations that she was about to face.
𝘧𝗿𝚎e𝓌𝗲𝒃𝑛𝒐ѵ𝗲𝒍. c𝐨𝗺
They looked like they were carved out of the same mold.
It was as if I had returned to the time when I had just finished school at the public academy. A girl who looked 80% similar to Selma was laughing as she rushed toward the endless snow.
She always liked to build snowmen, two big and two small ones, even though she and her mother were the only ones in the house.
Did Dorothy like to build snowmen too?
I didn’t know. Things changed with time. The power of fate could wash away all the past. Perhaps other than that similar face, Dorothy and her have long since become separate individuals unrelated to each other.
Those who pried into fate would eventually be played by fate. God had lousy taste, hiding high up in the clouds and playing with the lives of puppets like us for fun.
I suddenly thought, ‘Could everything happening now be part of fate’s calculations? Every step we took on the snow, every breath we exhaled, even the direction we moved forward, the spread of our teams, was everything a script that fate had written long ago?’
Those who thought that they could change their fate, were they also within the expectations of fate?
I couldn’t find the answer because I was just a small fry. I had to do whatever fate arranged for me. Perhaps my obsession was just a persona that had been arranged long ago.
Even if it was the mighty Lord, in the face of fate, was he the chess player who controlled the chessboard?
A lonely environment makes one easily sentimental. I shouldn’t be thinking about this. It was not beneficial to what I was doing.
However, I was starting to feel lost. From the moment I met Dorothy… What exactly did I want? Could my obsession be considered an obsession?
Even I wasn’t sure what kind of ending I was looking forward to, so what could that Lord bring me?
