Turns out, that the accommodation was indeed better.
"We have a Jacuzzi now!" Rossie said from one of the multiple doors on their new apartment.
Unlike the one they had before this one was bigger, with a better living room, an actual kitchen, and not a kitchenette. Not that Elizabeth had ever used their kitchenette for something more than boiling water and frying some eggs.
Or boiling eggs and frying some water... She couldn't help but smirk at her own self-deprecating joke about her previous behavior.
"From second grade and forward the room allocation depends on your grades," Said Agatha from the door looking at both girls going over the apartment. "Miss Singh qualified for a room in this area, but with you in the mix, your combined worth was enough to let you girls enjoy one of the nicest ones."
"And we even have a guest room!" Rossie said while walking from one of the doors in a hallway, "It is close to the main bedroom tho, though who even designed this?"
They had a guest room? Why would they need a guest room?
"Funny," Agatha laughed, "Those are your rooms, they are near each other since the school wants to instill camaraderie with students that share a room."
They had two rooms? So she couldn't snuggle Rossie anymore?
"Also this way they hope that neither of you girls will want to bring a boyfriend since the walls are thin and the other one would listen everything." Agatha added offhandedly.
Boyfriends?
"Do you have a boyfriend Rossie?" Elizabeth asked worriedly, she hadn't seen any male around her, but she did go every other day outside for her 'Work'...Maybe her 'work' was an excuse?
"Of course not, why would I need a boyfriend if I have you Eli-Eli." Rossie said still in front of the 'Guest room'. "I wouldn't mind if you want one, I understand."
"Nope, not getting one. No." Elizabeth quickly said, she noticed the downcasted look Rossie had on her eyes when she said that. Was she still insecure? "I have a cute pink-haired girl here already, why would I need a boyfriend?"
"*cough* Right...Well, not that it's important. But please keep it under control, magic is dangerous, emotions are dangerous...And hormones are also dangerous." Agatha motioned at the two girls to come closer to her, so both did as such. "And while it's more normal than you would think for a relationship to spring between fellow [Magical Girls]...Keep it under normal and don't delve into the [Biomancy] part that is allowed to you both as [Magical Girls], trust me. You don't want to learn a new branch of magic just to have more fun. It will be embarrassing to explain why you have a school of magic you can't use in public."
Elizabeth wasn't sure how to react, what to say, or if she should blush or not at the implications Agatha was telling them.
"Yes !" Rossie the cute thing didn't have that problem of course. As she quickly answered. "Do you want to eat with us, Miss Agatha?"
"Aren't you the cute thing acting all wifely now? I still remember how you only glared my way at the start of the year and stormed off." Answered Agatha with a small laugh, "But no, I have more work to do. Thank you though, have a fun day."
And on that note, the teacher left them both alone, Elizabeth was still somewhat reeling from the conversation they just had, "I like her more after the [Advent], I don't have all my memory intact from the [Before] but I do remember some impressions about hating her." Said Rossie who sat on one of the couches and patted the couch for her to sit at her side.
"Oh yeah, how much do you remember?" Asked Elizabeth, "I know most seem to have forgotten most of me, but since you stayed around...Did you manage to keep your memories of me? Of [Mother]?"
"In a nutshell...No, I don't remember things as a normal memory. I have impressions...I know that for some reason I hate Agatha...Or used to hate her anyway. I know that Akira and Rena weren't good people to have around... I have recollections of being annoyed at Michael... But the specifics aren't there." Rossie said while waiting for her to sit on the couch.
So after making sure the door was closed, she let herself fall on the couch next to the pink-haired girl, it was quite comfortable and she naturally allowed herself to snuggle with the other girl. "So your memories about [Mother] and [Father]?" Elizabeth asked as her head rested on Rossie's shoulder.
"I assume you meant [Odyssey] and [Framework]. Or do you mean your actual parents?" Asked Rossie for clarification as her hand joined the other girl.
"Yes," Elizabeth answered, she wasn't sure how to talk about her parents. Not yet. She trusted Rossie to not run away when she finally found out their identity.
"I remember having interacted with [Odyssey] and [Framework], " Rossie started saying summoning a magic circle aligned with [Illusion], the girl was quite adept at it, and soon enough they had a projection of their former apartment. The image was grainy as if seen through the lens of a vintage camera.
She could barely see a strand of pink hair in the corner of the camera, was this from Rossie's POV?
"This is straight from my memory," Rossie said confirming her theory about the POV. But then why the color? Wait...
"Rossie darling... You spoke literally about the color thing?" Elizabeth asked, she had vague recollections about Rossie speaking about the world not having colors before.
"I'm not color blind Eli-Eli, the memories just didn't have emotions on them as I didn't understand them before, so the colors are missing as that is how my brain interprets them." Rossie said, and that only made her feel sad, they would need to make more memories together, if only to try and bury years and years of black-and-white memories...
"I don't know if you were in the apartment or not, probably not as this happened," Rossie said while the memory started playing, she saw the figure of a woman made of light with stars around her.
She could barely see the short hair her [Mother] liked to use, and her eyes held stars in them for some reason, "[██ ████ ██, ████. ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████████?]" The silhouette said, she couldn't make up what she asked.
But she suddenly heard Rossie's voice "She is my world." It sounded different, it seemed to vibrate within her body.
"[I have you now you piece of shit.]"
And then she recoiled as the words left the silhouette and she found the POV turned down, a hand made of light was [Inside her Rossie's chest].
The shadows around seemed to tremble ever so slowly as they covered the whole room, but unlike before they didn't go out of control, she however felt Rossie's finger interlace around hers and a soft and comfortable squish to her hand.
"To this day I have no idea what she said, no matter how many times I use magic to go back on the memories. Nor what she took from me." Rossie said as the video resumed, hadn't Rossie heard her [Mother] speak about getting something?
"I do know that after that day I didn't feel the [Call] to go and approach Akira anymore. So whatever she did it made sure I ended better than I was before." Smiled the pink-haired girl.
"I still don't like it, mama should know better than to impale someone like that." Elizabeth grumbled as her shadows started to settle down. "Who even does that, I will file a complaint to Pa[ther]."
"Eli-Eli? come again?" Rossie asked with a worried tone to her side.
"I will complain to [Father], even if I have to go to his stupid church that I'm 99% he doesn't even want." Elizabeth said as she felt the shadows finally settle down inside her ruined city.
"You said mama and I think you wanted to say papa before." Rossie said while looking at her all seriously. Cute.
"I mean, that's how I called them, but after the advent whenever I try to say that it parses as [Father] and [Mother] for some reason." Elizabeth shrugged, she even went ahead and pulled a notebook from her shadows and wrote it. "See, even if written it parses like that for some reason. Probably some weird after-effect from the [Advent]."
"But I heard you refer to [Odyssey] as [Mother]." Rossie pointed, "Huh?"
"See? It's weird. Probably some kind of side effect from having some global-sized mana artifact mess with our perception." Elizabeth pointed, then ever so slowly went over their conversation. "No wait, then you connected the points about my relation with [Odyssey] and [Framework]?"
"I mean, yeah. At this point...But...How? If you are their [Daughter] shouldn't you be...You know...Better? Shouldn't their church worship the dirt under your feet and get you the best care the money and magic can give?" Rossie said. "I went to them for help...But the church of [Framework] said that if you couldn't adjust to the new world you didn't had his [Blessing]..."
She could feel the [Hate] on the pink-haired words, and she could see the fury hidden within her eyes, that look screamed murder...Adorable murder, but murder nonetheless.
"The church of [Odyssey] was better, as they at least sent a [Cleric] to try and cast [Holy] magic, but I could cast better magic than his and they probably wanted to try and get me under their management. They refused to allow me to read their [Grimories] about high-level magic unless I signed a contract." Rossie didn't seem to be that angry at that church. "I ended up making up my own [Divine Level] spells, so they didn't have anything to offer. And [The Prophet] isn't even part of their Church, so yeah. Dead end."
"Well, as I said [Father] probably doesn't even look at those that claim to worship him... [Mother]...She probably gave a few of the cute priests some blessings... Not that they are better for it." Elizabeth could see it, her [Mother] probably only gave [Blessings] to those that amused her or acted like her. So yeah, she made harder the lives of some people.
"And I am not able to speak nor get messages from them, I got a personalized line here and there on the [Global Announcement] but besides that, nothing." Elizabeth recounted.
"So...Your parents...Do you think they like me?" Rossie asked bashfully.
"They better do, [Father] will not get a gift on [Father's Day] if he doesn't like you. [Mother]... I will rip her favorite [Dress] if she doesn't approve of you... I will need to see if our house in [Avalon] is still up first though." Elizabeth wondered how that would look now.
Most of the information about her [Parents] didn't exist anymore, the farm where her [Father] grew up was an empty spot on the map. And the multiple business her [Mother] had for her mundane identity now didn't exist on the maps either.
"Okay...Okay...From my memories [Framework] seemed to be nice...And [Odyssey] was nice too!" Rossie said with a little more emotion than she probably intended, "Even if she ripped out something from within my soul...And let me bleed more than intended...And then [Teleported] me to where that purple-haired girl was..."
"The purple-haired girl?" Elizabeth asked, since the first parts she knew about, the last was kinda of weird to mention.
"Oh yeah, that...I kinda was going to ask you about it...That room was recorded to go to a girl called Aurelia Vitellius and me. But I have recollections of you sleeping in one of the rooms while I used the other...And I don't have recollections of Aurelia beyond the first day where she had to...Leave." Rossie said summoning an image of a purple-haired girl with star-shaped mana traces in her eyes.
Like the ones Rossie used to have...Or the ones she gave herself in her former [Elemental Weaver] shift. She had no memory of that girl though.
"I have no idea who that is, maybe she was moved to replace my presence? What was her [Id] number anyway? You said the first day that the rooms had been given using those right?" Elizabeth said while fishing among her belongings within the ruined city and bringing her half-burned ID.
The ID was barely visible, she compared it with the number in her memories of her former apartment and the one in the memory that Rossie was projecting, "Well, the number matches see?" And Elizabeth said as much.
Rossie however seemed somewhat...Embarrassed.
"Yes, her matches too, see?" And scrolled in the memories to an image of the ID. The number of the Aurelia girl matched the first numbers of Elizabeth's ID. So in turn that made her the other owner of the room.
But that wasn't possible, Rossie should be her companion... The ID even had the date of arrival!
"She arrived late?" Elizabeth said the date of arrival was almost a whole day after their arrival. Just around the time she was in the clinic after her first brush with [Proliferation] huh.
"Oh that, yeah... She arrived late..." Rossie was saying as if she didn't want to speak about something.
Weird.
"Not that it matters now, she probably was something brought by the system to patch errors," Elizabeth said trying to steer the conversation away from that. And while searching for something to speak about she found a folder on the table, it said on the side [ID]. "See, our new ID's are here!"
And she opened them using her shadows (To practice...And show off) "See, consecutive numbers, we are roomies!" Elizabeth said as if that wasn't obvious.
No one could make her go to another room, well they could try. But she would probably test if she was able to imprison someone within her [Ruined City].
And Rossie would probably just murder them. Yeah, she could see them, they would probably end up buried in a ditch that was filled with acid...
"Rossie....Did you murder that girl and take her spot?" Elizabeth asked while eyeing the pink-haired girl who seemed to sheepishly try to move away.
"...Will you hate me if I did?" And Rossie asked in a low tone as she looked down as a little kid who was being admonished.
"...Did you leave evidence?" Elizabeth sighed as she asked that.
"...No? I poured acid on her body, she was quite sturdy and hard to kill...I can guide you there?" Rossie said while turning her head a little.
Cute!
My little homicidal murderous girlfriend can't be this cute!
No wait, wrong trope.
"...We will go and I will move her remains to my [Soulscape]...Is it even a [Soulscape] if it can hold things?" Elizabeth asked aloud, hers could hold items and works as [Inventory] but it also held Rossie's [Soulscape]. So shouldn't she name it something else?
"We will move it to the [Shadow Haven] whatever is left of that girl." Yes, that sounded about right. Was it edgy and on the nose? Yes. But she wasn't that good at coming up with names anyway.
"So you don't find that...Bad? You don't hate me for it?" Rossie said, "I KILLED SOMEONE AND DIDN'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT!"
She may have screamed the last part, " I mean...I didn't know the girl, and while I feel sorry for her, if she shared an apartment with me no one probably remembers her." Elizabeth answered with a shrug, "I can't judge you for it. And even if I could... She joined the circle of transmigration two years ago anyway."
She knew that was a thing, since she had her memories and knew about the work the four heroes had done before... She even knew her previous life!
Wasn't that one funny thought to have? She had spoken to her previous life... And if one got specific about it, this could be her third life, as the previous Elizabeth felt somewhat foreign to her.
"...It's okay Rossie, I too have killed before. The one I killed ended worse than you since I am not sure she was able to join the circle of transmigration even. Aurelia, I'm sure was able, unless you broke her soul?" Elizabeth asked, she knew her Rossie was smart, but wasn't sure if she was able to use [Soul] magic that earlier in their education.
"No, I didn't know [Soul] magic till you fell in that coma. After that I did got a few fragments of souls here and there to study them..." Rossie answered denying tampering with the soul of the purple-haired girl.
"And then you went ahead and grounded your soul and used it to try and wake me up." Elizabeth said, remembering that she hadn't spoken with the girl about that.
"Exactly!" Rossie answered with a smile on her face, that froze after a second as she covered her mouth.
"Don't Exactly! me." Elizabeth said while bonking the pink-haired girl. "Don't do that again, ever."
Elizabeth imitated the spell Rossie had used and summoned an image from within her memories, an image of the [Vestige] of [Former Elizabeth] with all the monitors.
"...How?" Rossie said as she looked over the image as she brought a notepad where she compared the information. Did she keep a record of her health evolution?
"By what I found within the [Ruined City] I would have recovered in at most half a year later even without you crushing your soul." Elizabeth said glaring at the pink-haired girl, "Hadn't I got the tip of what you were doing..."
She really owed Chloe too much, "Had I found you as a husk of your former self...Or dead..." She couldn't think of a scenario like that.
She hugged Rossie and felt the warmth of her body, "...That would have crushed me, I wouldn't even know what to do with myself. I would probably just kill everything around and use every single human around me as experience meat bags till I got enough power to pull you out of heaven down back to the world of the living just to slap you for hurting me like that." And she really would, with her advantage of earning more status than everyone else it would have been easy too.
"I wouldn't be in heaven Eli-Eli..." Rossie said meekly as she returned the hug.
"I would then kill everyone in Heaven for not allowing you on it, then kill everyone in Hell for making you go there," Elizabeth added as an afterthought.
She didn't even mention the probability of Rossie going on in the circle of transmigration, she was the daughter of [Odyssey] the Goddess of travel, space, and god knows how many things her [Mother] added to herself.
"Who even tipped you, is someone else within your [Soulscape]?" Rossie asked, was she trying to turn the conversation away from her cheesy lines?
"No one is there anymore, besides [Nyx]...Sebastian disintegrated a couple of months after I got my consciousness back. No one was truly there, just...[Vestiges]." And that was the truth, wasn't it?
Chloe was dead, Alexanders had been dead far too long, Sebastian...Well, her skill always claimed her summons weren't alive either way.
"Sebastian? Who is Sebastian?" Rossie asked her, had she forgotten the ever-loyal butler? Granted he never spoke, did he?
"The Shadow Dragon Butler, you know, the little guy that was around when I summoned Beato." Elizabeth said trying to look for a memory of him using the spell Rossie had created.
And finding nothing...What?
"Eli-Eli, did you name one of your shadow dragons and put him in a butler outfit? How did you even manage to put a butler into one of those lizards?" Rossie said, did she forget Beato and Sebastian? "I know you always spoke to Nyx as if he understood you, but humanizing a lizard isn't good for you."
...Had she imagined their interactions?
But Rossie spoke with Beato!
She was the one who said the little shadow dragonmaid was her daughter first!
THEY INTERACTED EVERY DAY!
This...She needed to focus on leveling her [Minion Summoning] skill.
She needed to summon Beato back, and Sebastian...Nyx was already within her [Soulscape] so he would probably return on his own...
"And you said anymore? So someone was with you? A [Vestige]?" Rossie asked her, right...
Rossie spoke about how she killed someone...So might as well, it was time for her to tell a story...The story of a girl that gave her a second chance at life...
It was time to speak about the life of Chloe Ashcroft, and of what little she knew about the girl whose body she stole.
Turns out, that the accommodation was indeed better.
"We have a Jacuzzi now!" Rossie said from one of the multiple doors on their new apartment.
Unlike the one they had before this one was bigger, with a better living room, an actual kitchen, and not a kitchenette. Not that Elizabeth had ever used their kitchenette for something more than boiling water and frying some eggs.
Or boiling eggs and frying some water... She couldn't help but smirk at her own self-deprecating joke about her previous behavior.
"From second grade and forward the room allocation depends on your grades," Said Agatha from the door looking at both girls going over the apartment. "Miss Singh qualified for a room in this area, but with you in the mix, your combined worth was enough to let you girls enjoy one of the nicest ones."
"And we even have a guest room!" Rossie said while walking from one of the doors in a hallway, "It is close to the main bedroom tho, though who even designed this?"
They had a guest room? Why would they need a guest room?
"Funny," Agatha laughed, "Those are your rooms, they are near each other since the school wants to instill camaraderie with students that share a room."
They had two rooms? So she couldn't snuggle Rossie anymore?
"Also this way they hope that neither of you girls will want to bring a boyfriend since the walls are thin and the other one would listen everything." Agatha added offhandedly.
Boyfriends?
"Do you have a boyfriend Rossie?" Elizabeth asked worriedly, she hadn't seen any male around her, but she did go every other day outside for her 'Work'...Maybe her 'work' was an excuse?
"Of course not, why would I need a boyfriend if I have you Eli-Eli." Rossie said still in front of the 'Guest room'. "I wouldn't mind if you want one, I understand."
"Nope, not getting one. No." Elizabeth quickly said, she noticed the downcasted look Rossie had on her eyes when she said that. Was she still insecure? "I have a cute pink-haired girl here already, why would I need a boyfriend?"
"*cough* Right...Well, not that it's important. But please keep it under control, magic is dangerous, emotions are dangerous...And hormones are also dangerous." Agatha motioned at the two girls to come closer to her, so both did as such. "And while it's more normal than you would think for a relationship to spring between fellow [Magical Girls]...Keep it under normal and don't delve into the [Biomancy] part that is allowed to you both as [Magical Girls], trust me. You don't want to learn a new branch of magic just to have more fun. It will be embarrassing to explain why you have a school of magic you can't use in public."
Elizabeth wasn't sure how to react, what to say, or if she should blush or not at the implications Agatha was telling them.
"Yes !" Rossie the cute thing didn't have that problem of course. As she quickly answered. "Do you want to eat with us, Miss Agatha?"
"Aren't you the cute thing acting all wifely now? I still remember how you only glared my way at the start of the year and stormed off." Answered Agatha with a small laugh, "But no, I have more work to do. Thank you though, have a fun day."
And on that note, the teacher left them both alone, Elizabeth was still somewhat reeling from the conversation they just had, "I like her more after the [Advent], I don't have all my memory intact from the [Before] but I do remember some impressions about hating her." Said Rossie who sat on one of the couches and patted the couch for her to sit at her side.
"Oh yeah, how much do you remember?" Asked Elizabeth, "I know most seem to have forgotten most of me, but since you stayed around...Did you manage to keep your memories of me? Of [Mother]?"
"In a nutshell...No, I don't remember things as a normal memory. I have impressions...I know that for some reason I hate Agatha...Or used to hate her anyway. I know that Akira and Rena weren't good people to have around... I have recollections of being annoyed at Michael... But the specifics aren't there." Rossie said while waiting for her to sit on the couch.
So after making sure the door was closed, she let herself fall on the couch next to the pink-haired girl, it was quite comfortable and she naturally allowed herself to snuggle with the other girl. "So your memories about [Mother] and [Father]?" Elizabeth asked as her head rested on Rossie's shoulder.
"I assume you meant [Odyssey] and [Framework]. Or do you mean your actual parents?" Asked Rossie for clarification as her hand joined the other girl.
"Yes," Elizabeth answered, she wasn't sure how to talk about her parents. Not yet. She trusted Rossie to not run away when she finally found out their identity.
"I remember having interacted with [Odyssey] and [Framework], " Rossie started saying summoning a magic circle aligned with [Illusion], the girl was quite adept at it, and soon enough they had a projection of their former apartment. The image was grainy as if seen through the lens of a vintage camera.
She could barely see a strand of pink hair in the corner of the camera, was this from Rossie's POV?
"This is straight from my memory," Rossie said confirming her theory about the POV. But then why the color? Wait...
"Rossie darling... You spoke literally about the color thing?" Elizabeth asked, she had vague recollections about Rossie speaking about the world not having colors before.
"I'm not color blind Eli-Eli, the memories just didn't have emotions on them as I didn't understand them before, so the colors are missing as that is how my brain interprets them." Rossie said, and that only made her feel sad, they would need to make more memories together, if only to try and bury years and years of black-and-white memories...
"I don't know if you were in the apartment or not, probably not as this happened," Rossie said while the memory started playing, she saw the figure of a woman made of light with stars around her.
She could barely see the short hair her [Mother] liked to use, and her eyes held stars in them for some reason, "[██ ████ ██, ████. ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████████?]" The silhouette said, she couldn't make up what she asked.
But she suddenly heard Rossie's voice "She is my world." It sounded different, it seemed to vibrate within her body.
"[I have you now you piece of shit.]"
And then she recoiled as the words left the silhouette and she found the POV turned down, a hand made of light was [Inside her Rossie's chest].
The shadows around seemed to tremble ever so slowly as they covered the whole room, but unlike before they didn't go out of control, she however felt Rossie's finger interlace around hers and a soft and comfortable squish to her hand.
"To this day I have no idea what she said, no matter how many times I use magic to go back on the memories. Nor what she took from me." Rossie said as the video resumed, hadn't Rossie heard her [Mother] speak about getting something?
"I do know that after that day I didn't feel the [Call] to go and approach Akira anymore. So whatever she did it made sure I ended better than I was before." Smiled the pink-haired girl.
"I still don't like it, mama should know better than to impale someone like that." Elizabeth grumbled as her shadows started to settle down. "Who even does that, I will file a complaint to Pa[ther]."
"Eli-Eli? come again?" Rossie asked with a worried tone to her side.
"I will complain to [Father], even if I have to go to his stupid church that I'm 99% he doesn't even want." Elizabeth said as she felt the shadows finally settle down inside her ruined city.
"You said mama and I think you wanted to say papa before." Rossie said while looking at her all seriously. Cute.
"I mean, that's how I called them, but after the advent whenever I try to say that it parses as [Father] and [Mother] for some reason." Elizabeth shrugged, she even went ahead and pulled a notebook from her shadows and wrote it. "See, even if written it parses like that for some reason. Probably some weird after-effect from the [Advent]."
"But I heard you refer to [Odyssey] as [Mother]." Rossie pointed, "Huh?"
"See? It's weird. Probably some kind of side effect from having some global-sized mana artifact mess with our perception." Elizabeth pointed, then ever so slowly went over their conversation. "No wait, then you connected the points about my relation with [Odyssey] and [Framework]?"
"I mean, yeah. At this point...But...How? If you are their [Daughter] shouldn't you be...You know...Better? Shouldn't their church worship the dirt under your feet and get you the best care the money and magic can give?" Rossie said. "I went to them for help...But the church of [Framework] said that if you couldn't adjust to the new world you didn't had his [Blessing]..."
She could feel the [Hate] on the pink-haired words, and she could see the fury hidden within her eyes, that look screamed murder...Adorable murder, but murder nonetheless.
"The church of [Odyssey] was better, as they at least sent a [Cleric] to try and cast [Holy] magic, but I could cast better magic than his and they probably wanted to try and get me under their management. They refused to allow me to read their [Grimories] about high-level magic unless I signed a contract." Rossie didn't seem to be that angry at that church. "I ended up making up my own [Divine Level] spells, so they didn't have anything to offer. And [The Prophet] isn't even part of their Church, so yeah. Dead end."
"Well, as I said [Father] probably doesn't even look at those that claim to worship him... [Mother]...She probably gave a few of the cute priests some blessings... Not that they are better for it." Elizabeth could see it, her [Mother] probably only gave [Blessings] to those that amused her or acted like her. So yeah, she made harder the lives of some people.
"And I am not able to speak nor get messages from them, I got a personalized line here and there on the [Global Announcement] but besides that, nothing." Elizabeth recounted.
"So...Your parents...Do you think they like me?" Rossie asked bashfully.
"They better do, [Father] will not get a gift on [Father's Day] if he doesn't like you. [Mother]... I will rip her favorite [Dress] if she doesn't approve of you... I will need to see if our house in [Avalon] is still up first though." Elizabeth wondered how that would look now.
Most of the information about her [Parents] didn't exist anymore, the farm where her [Father] grew up was an empty spot on the map. And the multiple business her [Mother] had for her mundane identity now didn't exist on the maps either.
"Okay...Okay...From my memories [Framework] seemed to be nice...And [Odyssey] was nice too!" Rossie said with a little more emotion than she probably intended, "Even if she ripped out something from within my soul...And let me bleed more than intended...And then [Teleported] me to where that purple-haired girl was..."
"The purple-haired girl?" Elizabeth asked, since the first parts she knew about, the last was kinda of weird to mention.
"Oh yeah, that...I kinda was going to ask you about it...That room was recorded to go to a girl called Aurelia Vitellius and me. But I have recollections of you sleeping in one of the rooms while I used the other...And I don't have recollections of Aurelia beyond the first day where she had to...Leave." Rossie said summoning an image of a purple-haired girl with star-shaped mana traces in her eyes.
Like the ones Rossie used to have...Or the ones she gave herself in her former [Elemental Weaver] shift. She had no memory of that girl though.
"I have no idea who that is, maybe she was moved to replace my presence? What was her [Id] number anyway? You said the first day that the rooms had been given using those right?" Elizabeth said while fishing among her belongings within the ruined city and bringing her half-burned ID.
The ID was barely visible, she compared it with the number in her memories of her former apartment and the one in the memory that Rossie was projecting, "Well, the number matches see?" And Elizabeth said as much.
Rossie however seemed somewhat...Embarrassed.
"Yes, her matches too, see?" And scrolled in the memories to an image of the ID. The number of the Aurelia girl matched the first numbers of Elizabeth's ID. So in turn that made her the other owner of the room.
But that wasn't possible, Rossie should be her companion... The ID even had the date of arrival!
"She arrived late?" Elizabeth said the date of arrival was almost a whole day after their arrival. Just around the time she was in the clinic after her first brush with [Proliferation] huh.
"Oh that, yeah... She arrived late..." Rossie was saying as if she didn't want to speak about something.
Weird.
"Not that it matters now, she probably was something brought by the system to patch errors," Elizabeth said trying to steer the conversation away from that. And while searching for something to speak about she found a folder on the table, it said on the side [ID]. "See, our new ID's are here!"
And she opened them using her shadows (To practice...And show off) "See, consecutive numbers, we are roomies!" Elizabeth said as if that wasn't obvious.
No one could make her go to another room, well they could try. But she would probably test if she was able to imprison someone within her [Ruined City].
And Rossie would probably just murder them. Yeah, she could see them, they would probably end up buried in a ditch that was filled with acid...
"Rossie....Did you murder that girl and take her spot?" Elizabeth asked while eyeing the pink-haired girl who seemed to sheepishly try to move away.
"...Will you hate me if I did?" And Rossie asked in a low tone as she looked down as a little kid who was being admonished.
"...Did you leave evidence?" Elizabeth sighed as she asked that.
"...No? I poured acid on her body, she was quite sturdy and hard to kill...I can guide you there?" Rossie said while turning her head a little.
Cute!
My little homicidal murderous girlfriend can't be this cute!
No wait, wrong trope.
"...We will go and I will move her remains to my [Soulscape]...Is it even a [Soulscape] if it can hold things?" Elizabeth asked aloud, hers could hold items and works as [Inventory] but it also held Rossie's [Soulscape]. So shouldn't she name it something else?
"We will move it to the [Shadow Haven] whatever is left of that girl." Yes, that sounded about right. Was it edgy and on the nose? Yes. But she wasn't that good at coming up with names anyway.
"So you don't find that...Bad? You don't hate me for it?" Rossie said, "I KILLED SOMEONE AND DIDN'T FEEL BAD ABOUT IT!"
She may have screamed the last part, " I mean...I didn't know the girl, and while I feel sorry for her, if she shared an apartment with me no one probably remembers her." Elizabeth answered with a shrug, "I can't judge you for it. And even if I could... She joined the circle of transmigration two years ago anyway."
She knew that was a thing, since she had her memories and knew about the work the four heroes had done before... She even knew her previous life!
Wasn't that one funny thought to have? She had spoken to her previous life... And if one got specific about it, this could be her third life, as the previous Elizabeth felt somewhat foreign to her.
"...It's okay Rossie, I too have killed before. The one I killed ended worse than you since I am not sure she was able to join the circle of transmigration even. Aurelia, I'm sure was able, unless you broke her soul?" Elizabeth asked, she knew her Rossie was smart, but wasn't sure if she was able to use [Soul] magic that earlier in their education.
"No, I didn't know [Soul] magic till you fell in that coma. After that I did got a few fragments of souls here and there to study them..." Rossie answered denying tampering with the soul of the purple-haired girl.
"And then you went ahead and grounded your soul and used it to try and wake me up." Elizabeth said, remembering that she hadn't spoken with the girl about that.
"Exactly!" Rossie answered with a smile on her face, that froze after a second as she covered her mouth.
"Don't Exactly! me." Elizabeth said while bonking the pink-haired girl. "Don't do that again, ever."
Elizabeth imitated the spell Rossie had used and summoned an image from within her memories, an image of the [Vestige] of [Former Elizabeth] with all the monitors.
"...How?" Rossie said as she looked over the image as she brought a notepad where she compared the information. Did she keep a record of her health evolution?
"By what I found within the [Ruined City] I would have recovered in at most half a year later even without you crushing your soul." Elizabeth said glaring at the pink-haired girl, "Hadn't I got the tip of what you were doing..."
She really owed Chloe too much, "Had I found you as a husk of your former self...Or dead..." She couldn't think of a scenario like that.
She hugged Rossie and felt the warmth of her body, "...That would have crushed me, I wouldn't even know what to do with myself. I would probably just kill everything around and use every single human around me as experience meat bags till I got enough power to pull you out of heaven down back to the world of the living just to slap you for hurting me like that." And she really would, with her advantage of earning more status than everyone else it would have been easy too.
"I wouldn't be in heaven Eli-Eli..." Rossie said meekly as she returned the hug.
"I would then kill everyone in Heaven for not allowing you on it, then kill everyone in Hell for making you go there," Elizabeth added as an afterthought.
She didn't even mention the probability of Rossie going on in the circle of transmigration, she was the daughter of [Odyssey] the Goddess of travel, space, and god knows how many things her [Mother] added to herself.
"Who even tipped you, is someone else within your [Soulscape]?" Rossie asked, was she trying to turn the conversation away from her cheesy lines?
"No one is there anymore, besides [Nyx]...Sebastian disintegrated a couple of months after I got my consciousness back. No one was truly there, just...[Vestiges]." And that was the truth, wasn't it?
Chloe was dead, Alexanders had been dead far too long, Sebastian...Well, her skill always claimed her summons weren't alive either way.
"Sebastian? Who is Sebastian?" Rossie asked her, had she forgotten the ever-loyal butler? Granted he never spoke, did he?
"The Shadow Dragon Butler, you know, the little guy that was around when I summoned Beato." Elizabeth said trying to look for a memory of him using the spell Rossie had created.
And finding nothing...What?
"Eli-Eli, did you name one of your shadow dragons and put him in a butler outfit? How did you even manage to put a butler into one of those lizards?" Rossie said, did she forget Beato and Sebastian? "I know you always spoke to Nyx as if he understood you, but humanizing a lizard isn't good for you."
...Had she imagined their interactions?
But Rossie spoke with Beato!
She was the one who said the little shadow dragonmaid was her daughter first!
THEY INTERACTED EVERY DAY!
This...She needed to focus on leveling her [Minion Summoning] skill.
She needed to summon Beato back, and Sebastian...Nyx was already within her [Soulscape] so he would probably return on his own...
"And you said anymore? So someone was with you? A [Vestige]?" Rossie asked her, right...
Rossie spoke about how she killed someone...So might as well, it was time for her to tell a story...The story of a girl that gave her a second chance at life...
It was time to speak about the life of Chloe Ashcroft, and of what little she knew about the girl whose body she stole.
