Chapter 37: The Weight of Choice and the Shadow of Self

“Second Master, you’re truly not very skilled at comforting people…”

Yaya expertly opened a can of cola, gazing at Ila with a hint of exasperation.

Ila had already returned home. Her packed clothes were slung over her back, and she diligently swept Mona’s room with a broom.

With her departure from Qingling City imminent, Ila intended to do one last thing for her younger sister.

“Am I not? I thought I did quite well.”

Ila replaced the trash bag with a fresh one, her expression puzzled as she looked at Yaya.

She genuinely believed the story she had just told Ye Yunchu was rather good.

“‘Quite well’? What are you talking about, Second Master? Who comforts someone by actively encouraging them to escape? Besides, what you told them had absolutely nothing to do with the title ‘Magical Inheritor’!”

Yaya gained a new understanding of her master’s emotional intelligence. Even while buried in the ground, she had overheard the content of Ila’s comforting words to Ye Yunchu.

However, she never would have imagined that Ila would adapt the story of her past humiliating defeat by Leila and her subsequent decision to escape, then recount it to Ye Yunchu.

What truly astonished Yaya was this revelation.

“Did you want me to lecture Ye Yunchu with a bunch of grand principles and feed her toxic platitudes?” Ila descended the stairs, with Yaya fluttering close behind.

“My own life is a complete mess right now; I’m still lost. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous for me to preach ‘chicken soup for the soul’ to others?”

“I’m not some hot-blooded protagonist from an anime who can face everything with friendship and family bonds. Since I’ve chosen to escape, I won’t advise others to confront their struggles.”

Ila meticulously wrote down instructions for managing the convenience store on a note. She placed it on the table alongside some house keys. If Mona wished to keep the store open, she could follow the instructions; if not, there were also guidelines on how to handle the remaining inventory.

Though Ila appeared to be a girl of fifteen or sixteen, her actual age was a full twenty-six.

The body of a maiden, the age of a married woman.

After completing everything, she retrieved two cans of cola from the refrigerator for Yaya.

“But, I just feel like…”

“Furthermore, Yaya, have you perhaps misunderstood something? I also told Ye Yunchu that inheriting a Sacred Relic is never a whim of fate, nor a mission that demands one’s life. It is, above all, a choice.”

“We Magical Girls can choose to fight, or we can choose to escape. Every individual has their own choice to make.”

When a Sacred Relic descends upon you, fate has chosen you. But when you strike the Sacred Relic, *you* have chosen your fate.

In the past, Ila had always believed that the inherited will meant defeating Cadaver Beasts and overcoming the Black Mud, causing her to overlook the people around her. It was only after her ultimate defeat at Leila’s hands that she truly began to grasp this fundamental truth.

Thus, Ila now chose to escape, to forget the humiliation of the past, all to prevent her beloved family from suffering harm once more.

In a way, she and Ye Yunchu were remarkably similar.

“Then why is it called ‘Magical Inheritor’ and not ‘Magical Chooser’?”

Since ‘choice’ precedes ‘inheritance,’ by the rules of naming, ‘chooser’ should come first.

“Because it sounds better.”

“Huh?”

“‘Inheritor’ clearly sounds better than ‘Chooser’.”

“That’s it?”

“Mm.”

But how could that be the only reason?

Ila did not tell Yaya the truth, nor was there any need to.

The reason it was called an ‘Inheritor’ was that, sometimes, the inheritor’s will could transcend mere choice.

Without receiving the answer she desired, Yaya, quite speechless, chugged all the cola, then voiced another question from the depths of her mind.

“But why did you tell Ye Yunchu how to use hypnosis at the very end? And when did you even learn hypnosis, Second Master? Isn’t that the First Master’s specialty?”

“Guess.”

Ila closed the convenience store door and walked alone down the night road, casually tossing the trash bag and empty cola cans into the bin by the entrance.

In the past, Magical Girls had used hypnosis on frightened transformees to help them achieve transformation.

Moreover, hypnosis was not a difficult magic. As Ila, once the strongest Magical Girl: White Rose, how could she not know such a rudimentary skill?

It absolutely had nothing to do with her own five years of being hypnotized and brainwashed. Absolutely nothing.

Of course, learning hypnosis was also for my dear sister.

During the five years Ila spent escaping the Abyss, she had extensively researched hypnosis and brainwashing methods. One reason was to develop resistance against Leila, and the other was to use hypnosis on Leila herself, just as Leila had done to her.

Ila had sworn to repay the old hag in kind for how she had been treated.

Then, on the night they reunited, Ila attempted to hypnotize Leila, only to successfully hypnotize herself instead.

“But Second Master, as Magical Girl: White Rose, isn’t it somewhat inappropriate to teach such a highly effective hypnotic spell to a junior?”

“Am I still Magical Girl: White Rose now?”

Ila bitterly interrupted Yaya, who immediately fell silent.

No longer speaking, the girl and the bat glanced back at the town hospital. Ila waved her hand at it.

‘Goodbye, Mona.’

‘Forgive your brother’s weakness.’

Ila’s figure vanished into the darkness.

A moment later, a dark shadow slowly emerged from the gloom. Under the flickering streetlights, a short-haired girl with blue hair smiled sinisterly at the spot where Ila had disappeared.

“I’ve found you…”

“Hypnosis, huh?”

Ye Yunchu clambered out of the pit, feeling utterly helpless. Her body was smeared with mud, and she knew her grandmother and others would worry if they saw her.

Before leaving, Ila had taught her how to hypnotize herself to forget the fear of worrying about her loved ones. However, it couldn’t be used on others; only on herself.

All Ye Yunchu needed to do was follow Ila’s method: place a crystal prism from the Jade Spirit Tree on her forehead, imagine the part she wanted to hypnotize, and finally utter the word “optimize.”

Once she became proficient, she wouldn’t need to hypnotize herself beforehand; the hypnosis would activate automatically upon transformation and revert to normal upon detransformation.

“But there’s a consequence I must explain to you. If this method is used, there’s a very high chance your consciousness will develop a second personality. This personality is highly likely to be the opposite of your primary consciousness.”

“In other words, you can use this method to transform into a Magical Girl and receive the blessing of the tree脈. But there’s also a high possibility of developing a second personality diametrically opposed to your original character. Given your nature, this second personality might harbor extreme animosity toward your family, even to the point of harming them.”

Ye Yunchu recalled the consequence Ila had told her at the last moment: the high possibility of harming her family. It was a scenario that made Ye Yunchu crumble just by thinking about it.

She couldn’t bear such a consequence.

‘Forget it. I’m just a cheap life anyway; there’s no need to gamble.’

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