160 Old wounds (2/2)

”Ellie... This woman-”

”Is my best bet right now!!!” Ellie shouted.

This time the whole room was focusing on her. Ellie would usually feel nervous from being the center of attention, but the girl only had one thing in mind right now.

”If I want to fix my mistake... I need her...” Ellie explained while raising her face to look at Lilith with a pair of crying eyes, ”Please don't take this from me...”

Lilith lost all the strength she had to be angry at Detra, and instead kneeled down to hug Ellie.

The room was once again focusing all its attention on the two of them.

Marcus could sympathize with Ellie's sense of guilt and desire to correct his mistake of not being good enough to have avoided this situation. He also definitely didn't want Ellie to follow his mother on whatever messed up plan she had in mind, but he could barely find the strength to speak right now while being in the same room as her. Memories of their time together would block the words from coming out of his mouth.

Claire and Joseph were looking a little lost due to not being aware of the whole history involving all these people, but they could tell that something serious happened between them.

Claire herself wanted to go to Ellie's side and try to help her, but she was at such a loss as to what was going on right now that it looked she herself was about to cry at any moment.

Joseph was, for some reason, very curious about the living stuffed animal crying over the fact he could not drink coffee like the rest of them and got very interested as to what was the deal with that thing.

”Can we move on them...?” Detra asked while staring at Lilith still hugging a crying Ellie.

Lilith finally released the girl and returned to glare at the former goddess.

”Very well... If that's what Ellie wants... I won't deny it from her...” Lilith announced.

”Good... Then we can finally proceed...”

”But... I'm not leaving her alone with you!” Lilith added, ”Wherever she goes, I go too!”

Detra processed that information for a moment while holding her chin and finally gave her response to the black-haired woman.

”As you wish... Doesn't really make a difference for me in the end... No... It might actually be better this way, to be honest...”

Lilith then stood up and crossed her arms while waiting to finally hear how they were going to move forward with the current situation.

”So what exactly is the plan?”

Detra returned to her seat and took a sip from her mug of coffee before giving her answer as if she was revising her entire strategy and confirming if it would actually work.

”To put it simply... Seven days is just not enough... Honestly, at the current level the young miss is right now... I think we would need at the very least something around three to five months to get her ready...”

”But we don't have this much time...” Leona mentioned.

”No... But there is a place that can help us with that...” Detra explained.

”What kind of place?” Lilith asked.

”A forest where time does not pass and where memories are left behind... A place where the magic energy flows in the air with so much intensity that the very laws of nature ended up being bent with and defiled. An area so dangerous that only the mightiest of warriors managed to enter and come out alive. And they do it by facing their greatest weaknesses and evolving into even more powerful versions of themselves.”

All the individuals present were quietly listening to Detra's description. The children had their eyes wide open while the adults were trying to think if they recognized such a place ever existing, and if it did, why they had no recollection of it.

”There really is such a place...?” Leona asked, showing in her face that she was very intrigued.

”Yeah... How come we never heard of anything like this before?” Lilith questioned, looking rather distrustful of Detra's word.

”It exists...” Detra assured, ”But it is very, very dangerous... As far as I know... Only a small number of people managed to enter this place and come back in one piece... Two of them, you are all very familiar with...”

”We are...?” Lilith pondered.

”One, is the young miss's very own aunt, the crossbow girl...” Detra stated, ”And the other, is my old champion... Marceus!”