The conversation broke off in the middle as the moving carriage slowed down gradually to a stop. Momentarily, a knock was heard from the outside. Then, through the slightly ajar door, the servant explained.
“Your Majesty, due to the congestion of the road to the Holy City, the carriage had halted for a moment to wait for the road to open up. It shouldn’t take very long.”
“Alright then.”
Darlin went on when the door was closed again.
“There must be many comers and goers today. The last time I came, I never had to wait to pass by.”
Charlotte’s remark then followed. “It’s actually heavily congested most of the time. So the wait is quite unavoidable. Sometimes, it takes a long while before the crowd moves.”
“Is that so? It had been a long time since my last trip to the Holy City…”
“It’s been a while for me as well. I believe my last visit was five years ago….”
Darlin was looking flushed with excitement, along with her voice heightened than usual. And as opposed to Darlin, whose excitement was written all over her face, Charlotte seemed serene from the outside but there clearly was more of a liveliness on Charlotte’s face than usual. Both their faces glowed with a long-awaited anticipation alike.
With a smile on her face, Eugene silently listened to their conversation. She seemed to have used up all her energy in worrying. In her head, she had countlessly pictured her encounter with Sang-je to still her uneasiness throughout the whole journey. But now that they finally arrived, she found herself as still as calm water. She realized she was retting over something which she had not considered before.
‘I wonder what kind of people Jin’s family are.’
Eugene tried to recall the original novel. Despite knowing that this world was quite different from the way it was described in the novel, still of times, she had been using it as some kind of reference. It wasn’t entirely useless.
In the novel, Jin’s family only appeared to give more details about Jin’s character. ‘Jin was born into a renowned family, and she was loved by all for she was the youngest daughter.’ It suggested that the Anika taking the evil route never had to do with her upbringing. It was entirely her own decision.
Aside from that, Jin’s family never made another appearance in the novel thereafter.
‘It doesn’t make sense now that I think of it.’
She couldn’t help but to wonder why Jin’s family had never interfered once for the sake of their endearing daughter. They didn’t even show up at the last moment where Jin met with a tragic end.
‘I guess that means there were a lot of plot holes in the story I’ve written.’
However, it didn’t seem like Jin was on good terms with her family.
For the last three years, there were no traces of her keeping in touch with her family in any sort of way. The very fact that Jin had been asking favor from Charlotte’s maternal family instead of her powerful family was strange as it is.
‘I guess Jin and I are alike in a way as we are both on bad terms with our family.’
Eugene felt identified with Jin for the first time. And they both had a family of five. According to the information she gained from Knight Pides, Jin seemed to have two older brothers.
‘Family…’
For the first time in a while, Eugene recalled her family. The so-called love and hate relationship sounded too good to describe her feelings towards them. For some time, she started to associate her family with a deep viscous swamp which she couldn’t possibly imagine herself getting through.
Eugene’s family consisted of people who were far from befitting the moral standards of the society. Both her parents had previous convictions for swindling and gambling while her two brothers frequented police stations for charges like assault, theft and fraud. Neither of them had a notion of earning money with a fair amount of labor. For the worse, they all spent the little money they extorted from others like water. Resultantly, they had always been poor.
However, like most kids do when they are young, Eugene had also once believed that her parents and family were the best people in the whole world. But now that she thinks back, the love she had towards her family had always been unrequited.
Her one-sided love towards her family was tenacious. Despite being disappointed countless times, Eugene couldn’t quite give up hoping like a fool. She believed that her family could turn over a new leaf someday and she had this vain dream that she could actually change them.
Eugene tried her very best. She tried hard to love her family and wanted to live a proper life. With them.
Unlike her brothers, who uttered nothing but foul language, she always spoked and behaved pleasantly towards her parents. She never missed top places in her entire years at school and most of all, she tried her best to lead an exemplary lifestyle. And with the plain belief that her family would be able to have a breadth of mind once they were free from the worry of making ends meet, she sought out for employment as soon as she could.
However, none of her efforts ever came to fruition. Eugene never even once been called by her name. ‘Hey’ was seemingly the most favorable way to be called by her family. All that they did was to curse, speak ill of someone else or to come up with a way to exploit others.
Her family gradually ate into all the money she had earned for all kinds of reasons, as if money was just made of paper. Worst of all, they even let her take responsibility over all their debts from gambling.
One day, reality finally dawned upon her—she finally learned to give up. Her family taught her that people hardly change at all, and some are just bad in nature. They are a lost cause.
On that fateful day, Eugene was at the end of her tether when she jumped into the pitch-black hole which appeared before her very eyes, out of nowhere. Despite waking up to find herself in a strange place overnight, she absolutely had no regrets about being departed from the world in which she had lived for as long as twenty-nine years. As evidence, she could have sworn that she had not once missed or recalled her old life as she was busy adjusting herself in this new world.
‘I rather hope… they were not good people.’
She was very much in distress to the point she wished that Jin’s family were not people with good hearts. That would make her less guilty about pretending to be their daughter.
‘I need to learn more about Jin’s family.’
In her distress, she even considered avoiding her encounter with Jin’s family and to just head straight back to the Hashi Kingdom without meeting them at all. She was afraid that they might be able to see through her disguise as their daughter’s imposter. Regardless of how bad their relationship was now, it was highly likely that they could point the difference. They were still Jin’s family, after all and they lived with her for at least twenty years, underneath the same roof.
As the carriage started to move again, Eugene drew open the curtain. As soon as she peeled of the piece of clothing, Darlin promptly exclaimed with awe upon seeing the timely sight of a landscape which passed them by. Her reaction mirrored that of the queen’s.
Eugene’s eyes also widened with astonishment. She recognized right away the majestic sight of an old tree standing tall before their carriage. It was without doubt the very legendary tree which was a symbol of the square of the Holy City.
Instantly, another memory of Jin’s came to her mind when she saw the tree.
[I am an Anika, and I am Anika Jin. Everything should belong to me.] The tearful voice she heard belonged to a little girl. Perhaps this was one of Jin’s childhood memories.
[Spirit of Holy Tree, I heard that you grant wishes to those who pray, don’t you? I really need you to answer my prayer. Please make me into the real Anika Jin. Please share some of your powers with me. Just a little would do.]
‘I guess there’s a rumor about how the tree at the square would listen to one’s prayer.’
It was understandable considering the tree’s symbol in the city. However, Eugene couldn’t quite understand what Jin was wishing for.
‘The real Anika Jin? What could that mean?’
***
Becky was an Anika in her early forties. After fretting over the lucid dream she had last night, she promptly came running to the palace to ask for an audience with Sang-je in the first light of morning. Then, when she finally encountered Sang-je, she told him right away about how her lucid dream had changed with a seemingly apprehensive look.
She saw a well in her first lucid dream at the age of ten. The level of her Ramita was only average, which was never so powerful nor weak.
“Your Holiness, what could the changes in my dreams imply?’
– Anika Becky. Still your mind and describe to me about the changes you saw in your dream.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Last night, I saw the well in my dream as usual. However, it wasn’t brimming with water, just as it usually had. When I looked down into it, I saw the water level had declined considerably to the bottom. It was almost as if the well had parched due to a terrible drought!”
Her once composed explanation grew agitated as Becky started to ramble loud. Panicked and distraught.
“Your Holiness, I had learned that one’s inborn Ramita would never change over time. But don’t the changes in lucid dreams indicate the changes in one’s Ramita? Has God forsaken me?”
– Anika Becky. This isn’t the first time you saw changes in your lucid dream. Have you forgotten?
“I beg your pardon?”
– Try to recall the time you came to see me when you had your first lucid dream at the age of ten.
There were gradual changes in Becky’s expression as she traced back in her memories.
– Do you see the difference in the water levels of the well comparing the one you saw in your first lucid dream and the one you saw yesterday?
“Yes, there is….no, is actually similar… I’m not sure, Your Holiness.”
– Then, let’s talk about something which happened in a more recent time. About twenty years ago, well, it’s hard to say it’s the most recent event, but do you remember that you came to me like today and said that your dream had changed?
“…Yes, Your Holiness. I do remember.
– I clearly remember you telling me that the well in your dream was now brimming with water when in the past you had to look down into the well to see the water within. Do you remember that as well?
“Yes, Your Holiness. I remember that.”
Becky seemed to have regained her composure in both her expressions and her voice.
– Anika Becky. The changes you saw in your lucid dream does not indicate the changes in your Ramita. I’ve seen many other Anika who also experienced the same. Hence, you need not have to worry. Calm your heart. God would never forsake you under any circumstances.
“My apologies for creating unnecessary fuss over needless worries, Your Holiness.”
As opposed to Becky, who left with a peace of mind, Sang-je became agitated as soon as he was alone.