IRM Chapter 99

For a moment, Linton found it hard to believe his own eyes. He stared blankly at Chloe’s arm, which clearly wasn’t that of a normal person, and the mechanical wings connected to her skin on her back.

“You, you are…” Linton suddenly recalled Chloe’s sometimes puzzling behavior, and what Bard had mentioned at the beginning—machinery that was like a person.

“You’re a piece of machinery…” Linton said with difficulty. Influenced by the current environment, he didn’t find it absurd, but instead felt a wave of sorrow.

He gradually realized that the people he cared about all seemed to be drifting away from him.

From his loving family members at the very beginning, to the teacher who pulled him out of the swamp during his confused youth, to his first friend he made, to the girl he liked at first sight…

For some reason, there always seemed to be something that would sever these precious connections, making him gain and lose them again and again, in an endless cycle.

The grief revealed between Linton’s brows made Chloe’s heart inexplicably ache. She unobtrusively touched her chest. She clearly wasn’t injured, so why did she feel this soreness?

This novel experience made Chloe dazed for a moment, but she didn’t lower her cannon because of it. Her voice just softened a bit as she repeated, “Linton, stop.”

Linton raised his eyes and looked at her deeply. His eyes no longer carried the youthful, shy awkwardness. He laughed inexplicably. “Ji Chi is your master. So that’s what it means—you’re just a piece of machinery that follows orders… You don’t feel pain, you have no emotions… You’re just a handy tool! What do you understand!”

By the end, Linton was almost roaring to vent his frustration. He no longer looked at Chloe, because he knew he had said something very harsh, so he didn’t want to see disappointment and anger on her face, much less the blank ignorance of machinery.

For a moment, only the wind supporting them both whistled through the air. The clamor below had become noisy background noise. Chloe’s slightly curled, ear-length short hair fluttered gently in the wind, as soft as a real girl’s.

She looked at Linton calmly for two seconds, then put away her right hand. The cannon clicked and transformed back into a young girl’s arm. She flew forward, and as Linton closed his eyes and stretched out his neck to accept his fate, she raised her hand high—

Pa! She gave him a big slap on the head.

“Then what the hell do you understand! Can’t you experience for yourself whether I have emotions or not! Now? Do you feel my anger!” She pa pa pa slapped his head a few more times, making Linton dodge with his head in his hands, completely dumbfounded.

“Who taught you racial discrimination? How many years have you even lived? Think you’re all that, huh?” After spending more than a year with Bard, Chloe had not only learned how to craft equipment, but had also imitated his hot temper to about sixty or seventy percent accuracy. Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet mastered the variations in intonation, so it sounded like she was reading from a script.

But whether it sounded scripted or not didn’t affect how much it hurt when Linton got hit. He reflexively begged for mercy. “I was wrong, I was wrong! Master, don’t be angry, I’ll redo this part…”

This was the sentence Linton said most often within the past month, because he had many ideas and the work in his hands always went off track. Bard would slap his head like this to bring his attention back.

Linton’s attention did indeed come back. He remembered all the bits and pieces of this past month—their excitement and setbacks, hope and disappointment. All of it had truly existed, and he had destroyed it all…

Linton looked down at the suit he was wearing and began to feel regret for the first time.

Chloe grabbed him by the back of the neck, like holding a dejected kitten, turned his body around, and aimed him at the people below. “Look clearly. The one with red hair down there is Young Master Elliott the Earl’s son—you have a 99.9% chance of not being able to kill him. The one with brown hair is the Archmage’s daughter—you have a 54% chance of not being able to kill her… And once you start attacking them, 50% of your future will be spent on the run, and the other half of the possibilities, you won’t even have a future.”

Chloe calculated very seriously. After she finished speaking, she let go of Linton and retreated some distance, her eyes settling on the magic crystal on Linton’s chest. “This is why we’re stopping you. Linton, stop. You don’t need to let hatred destroy your future.”

Following her gaze, Linton’s eyes moved to his chest, where the magic crystal sparkled brilliantly, beautiful enough to make one want to cry.

“But…” After a long silence, Linton did indeed cry. Large tears slid from his eyes. He tried hard to open his eyes wide, wanting to see through the blur before him. “But I feel so sad…”

Chloe was silent for a while before saying, “I still don’t quite understand what sadness feels like, but before, I always felt like my core was about to crack. I lay motionless at the bottom of the sea, unable to see the surface and not knowing what I was supposed to do.”

“That state lasted for several hundred years.” Chloe said lightly. “But now I no longer have that feeling, because I know I’ve become different. Even if I sink to the bottom of the sea again, I won’t be sad, because someone has already taken up residence here.”

She pointed at her heart. “This is what I feel as a piece of machinery. Can you really not understand it at all?”

Linton looked down with reddened eyes. The figures of Ji Chi and Bard on the arena stage were too small to see clearly, but they both maintained postures of looking upward. Bard was clutching a magic crystal in his hand, waving his arms at Ji Chi and saying something irritably.

Chloe also noticed Bard’s movements. She smiled with her lips pressed together, her exquisite appearance blooming like a rose.

The beauty of countless generations lowered her head, raised one hand to her chest and abdomen diaphragm, and with a click, thrust her fingers inside and brutally pried open her stomach. The scene was too horrible to look at for a moment.

She rummaged around inside and took out several shiny magic crystals to hand to Linton. “Be careful. A magic crystal has limited magic power. Don’t fly too high when you’re out of magic power.”

“Don’t make people worry anymore.” After Chloe finished speaking, she looked him over twice, determined that he wouldn’t lose his rationality again, then turned to leave.

Linton clutched the magic crystals and was silent for quite a while. Before Chloe flew far away, he called out to her.

“Thank you.” He said in a small voice. Under Chloe’s somewhat relieved gaze, he glanced at her then quickly looked away again. “Emmm… Also… How old are you…”

The phrase “lay at the bottom of the sea for several hundred years” was now inappropriately lingering in his mind and wouldn’t go away.

Hearing this, Chloe’s face instantly became expressionless. “Why do you ask? Chloe is just a third-year student.”

Linton: “…”

Alright, got it. When this machinery started using third person to refer to herself, there wasn’t much truth in what she said.

On the stands of the arena, the old butler breathed a sigh of relief. His gaze moved away from the sky and he concentrated on deflecting the ice shards and water arrows flying around, escorting the delicate young master beside him to a safe place.

The young master was being firmly held down by the head by his loyal old butler and could only see his own feet. He struggled in dissatisfaction. “I’m a warrior now too! I can withstand damage! I can fight too!”

The old butler looked lovingly at the clueless young master and sighed.

You can withstand physical damage, but can you withstand psychological damage? If you saw what that girl in the sky looks like, you’d probably cry on the spot…

The old butler, his heart broken with worry, shook his head. He ignored the young master’s kitten-like struggling and continued pressing his head while walking forward.

The old butler observed the magic arrays on the ground and had an idea. These layers of magic arrays must have been carved during yesterday’s riot.

At that time, the Gladiolus Guild followers had mixed into the crowded masses and stirred up a riot in the already hot and irritable atmosphere, taking the opportunity to shuttle through the crowd and draw layer upon layer of complex and precise magic patterns under the mage’s instructions.

The old butler recalled where yesterday’s riot had occurred, turned around, and led Brandon toward the west side. Yesterday there had been relatively few people on the stands there, so the mages probably hadn’t had time to set up too complete an array. It would be easier to break through from that place.

The old butler thought this way while his arms shook rapidly like afterimages. The long spike wove a fine net around his body, effortlessly deflecting a group of Gladiolus Guild followers who wanted to attack them.

Brandon heard screams all around and struggled in frustration, still wanting to join the fight. Unfortunately, the old butler’s hand seemed to carry the weight of a mountain—the young master’s strength was nothing before him.

Having no choice, Brandon could only obediently shrink under the old butler’s airtight protection, glaring at his toes and the flickering magic patterns on the ground. But as they walked, his occasional struggling gradually weakened and there was no movement for a long time.

The old butler raised his hand to fling away a burly man charging over while yelling, then glanced down to observe his well-behaved young master, puzzled as he raised an eyebrow.

The young master suddenly said sullenly, “Walk five steps forward, turn left.”

The old butler didn’t know what he wanted to do, but still obediently led him along—though his hand was still unreasonably pressing down on his head.

Fortunately, the young master didn’t have the mood to care about that now. His tone became lower and lower. “Walk ten more steps, turn right two steps, immediately turn left.”

Under his precise navigation, the old butler arrived at a relatively flat clearing. The number of magic pattern layers here was clearly much less, and they were more regular. For someone with rich combat experience like the old butler, with just a bit more time, he could break through the magic array’s obstruction and escape this enormous cage.

The old butler nodded with relief and touched his round head, not sparing his praise. “The master and madam were still worried that in order to become a warrior, the young master would neglect his magic studies. Actually, you’re still studying very seriously. Young master is really smart and hardworking—you can even break such a complex magic array.”

Brandon couldn’t feel happy. He raised his head and muttered in a low voice, “The one who’s smart and hardworking isn’t me, it’s the person who drew this magic array…”

Moreover, this place was indeed a weak point, but it was also a trap, because in the notes the young master had inadvertently glanced at, it was marked that the mage who set up the array would personally guard this place to harvest the prey trying to escape.

As soon as Brandon raised his eyes, he saw an inconspicuous black shadow not far away. With some sadness and confusion, he asked very softly, “So why…”

The old butler only vaguely heard a few whispered sounds. Following his gaze, he looked over, narrowed his eyes and smiled knowingly. “So you’re here. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered such a formidable mage. How interesting.”

The long spike in his hand hummed as he approached the black shadow step by step.

Before the old butler could walk far, Brandon gently tugged at his clothes, took a few steps forward to block in front, and silently confronted the black shadow.

The black shadow was also quietly watching them. Then his shoulders slumped as if he had let out a long sigh. He removed the hood covering his face and looked at the young master with gentle helplessness.

Evan’s voice was as gentle as always, like a warm little sun. “Why are you here? Didn’t you say you weren’t coming to the arena today?”