Chapter 1161 (2/2)

Which left Randidly somewhat at a loss. I guess… that’s a good sign…? Hopefully talking to him for a bit helped him manage his stress.

Either way, it was enough to assure Randidly that he had accomplished his goal with the talk. So then Randidly returned to the tent and turned his attention to the Ignition Essence, which was slowly being perturbed by the memories of the Hitless blade.

As he sunk into those sensations, the familiar touched appeared to him.

Two children, one just pretty enough with brown hair and another that gleamed like the dawn. Two twin sisters, born with one soul. Both wracked by terrible illnesses that grew more frequent as they aged.

Illym, the above-average child. And Radiance, the golden sister.

The hiltless blade with her terrible shakes that left her bedridden, and her sister who suffered from the comas that silenced her tinkling laughter for days at a time.

Memories of Illym sitting in the dark, looking at her own reflection in the mirror struck a deep corner. There were bags under her eyes and her brown hair hung limp.

Gritting his teeth, Randidly tried to calm his emotions. He had too many nights just like that. Although the reason why he had been so lost was different, the feeling was the same.

Yet even if the pall of tragedy soaked into every aspect of these two twin lives that Randidly viewed through the frame of memories, they continued to live. The two parents with such high hopes felt helpless. They searched for solutions, but they could find none. The tension in the household mounted as the two girls aged.

Memories of birthdays that were missed by Illym as she shook and gripped her sheets in tight fists, and memories of birthdays where Illym sat at the table with her parents alone. The house was silent around them.

Time relentlessly marched forward.

The problems obviously didn’t go away, but they grew used to them. Sometimes one or the other would need to take a leave of absence from their tutored classes, but otherwise, things proceeded with a semblance of normalcy.

During one of the good times, the year where both girls were 15 and neither suffered from a single attack the entire year, Illym had said to her Radiance, “This is the best year of our lives. I hope your… sleep never come back.”

“Do you? I’m not so sure.” The golden sister leaned her head to the side and her hair swayed in a way that caught the light. Then she flashed an apologetic smile. “Sometimes this life is just so exhausting. When I’m asleep… well. I always wake up quite rested, don’t I?”

The hiltless blade could only wince.

Of course, the memories after that idyllic time quickly turned sour. During the years 16-20, both young women were inflicted with their individual sicknesses with increasing frequency. Sometimes so that both were suffering at the same time, which was an entirely new type of affairs for the parents.

This was a wakeup call for the whole family. Very quickly, the two parents surged into action to try and find a solution. Favors were called in. Experts were consulted. They were willing to pay any price for a solution.

Although no one asked her, Illym had her own thoughts about a solution. And in the end, it was the obvious one that the old man had given to them years ago. One of the sisters had to die. In the wake of that, the other sister would no longer have her soul split across two bodies. She would be able to live a normal life.

Yet this realization sent her spiraling downward into an endless spin of depression. Because she tried her best to be logical about the decision. When it came to love… she loved her sister dearly. Yet still… Taking a dispassionate view of everything, which one of the sisters deserved to live?

Compared to the golden sister, Illym was not as impressive. Even if she had debatably better performance on some of their tutored subjects, the golden sister would always shine so brilliantly with an instinctual insight that it completely outshone some of her sister’s modest achievements elsewhere.

In terms of moral imperatives… Illym was also helpless. Although she didn’t know when it happened, she had often found herself in the role of simply helping her more eye-catching sister. And because she was constantly on the move, Illym certainly gave so much of her time and effort to helping Radiance.

But Radiance’s movements were incredibly well planned. She volunteered to help disabled soldiers from the frontlines and arranged wonderful events in the community. She was constantly the center of the party while also having a preternatural knack for spotting the individual who needed a private conversation to cheer them up.

When she wasn’t in one of her comas, the golden sister glowed.

Illym did not. The answer to who should be the one to die seemed obvious.

But the hiltless blade was terribly afraid of dying.

However, all of these thoughts were eventually pushed to the side as the true light in the family had an announcement: Radiance had fallen in love. On the twin’s 21st birthday, she planned to be married.

It was in the run-up to that year that the twin’s symptoms worsened.