The Conquerors Path - Chapter 706: Disgust And Hate.

The world seemed to watch upon the scene as Carmelia, with narrowed eyes, her mana stifling, and her mind running with resentment, walked away from the gathering toward a specific hut. It was located quite far from the current location of the party. Her mind could not believe this level of betrayal without having to see it with her own eyes.

As she got closer to the hut, the sounds of the debauchery taking place inside became more audible. The familiar voices made Carmelia and Carmel both feel a sense of extreme anger in their minds. The window to the large hut was left open, as if for the world to see the darkness happening within.

The sight turned Carmelia’s eyes even harder as the power of betrayal filled the body of the good friend, nearly destroying the one good relationship she felt she had in a long time.

‘Why?….’

Carmelia asked herself as she simply gazed into the scene. Her throat constricted, her stomach churned, and she felt disgust filling her mind. The scene before her was one of pleasure, the room filled with three women and four men, the dynamics changing, the postures changing, with the expressions of pleasure clear on their faces.

“How would you like that? You bitchy princess?!”

Nix screamed in pleasure as he tried to dominate the woman riding above him. His lewd call, as if he were doing it with Carmel, made everything she had eaten rise to her mouth, her legs weakening as she watched Melvin and another man being played with by another woman, his pleasure evident as he too seemed lost in some kind of fantasy of his.

‘Is this love? Is this care? Is this what everything had amounted to?….’

While that question haunted Carmel, her mind started to fracture. The secrets of a past that she so dearly tried to hide resurfaced in her mind. Her body felt wobbly, and her eyes turned extremely red, while Carmelia tried to hold onto any sense of balance she could, trying to protect Carmel from returning to that very memory that led to the fracture.

But it was of no use. The fear of love Carmel holds, the insistent desire for familiar love, and the reason for rejecting true romantic love, all started to flood Carmel’s mind. The control was brought back to her as she vomited.

“Blurgh!….no!….No!…NO!….STOP!”

Even as she tried, those memories coiled around her mind, never letting her go. Her innate dislike for sex and her disgust toward the concept of having romantic sex came into play, her biggest nightmare about that time slowly fading in. Her body instinctively ran, her power and mana coming into play as she ran like there was no end.

Her body broke past its normal speed as she just ran without looking or thinking. She just wanted to run away, to run away from that scene, to not hear the moans of pleasure, the breaking of her heart and mind as her trauma slowly started to take over. Thus, she kept running.

Her body seemingly became phantom-like as the clouds darkened around the sky. She seemingly passed through several things as she finally, losing her sense of pain, fell upon the ground, becoming human.

“Huff….hufff…no…no…..please don’t come back!”

Carmel held her head, trying to stop those scenes from flashing in her mind. Her body started to curl around, even Carmelia herself seemed to have fallen, as she too suffered with the dangers of the illusion, taking it in such that the two of them started to suffer, missing the small light starting to gather around.

‘Why?…..why did things have to become like this?! I am alone in the end, aren’t I?’

As Carmel and Carmelia took in those feelings, her body only started to feel heavier. Didn’t Nix and Melvin promise her in the past that they would be with her? That they wouldn’t become like that scum? That they genuinely felt something for her? And now she is foolishly alone……again.

‘Right…..I am not even meant to be loved,’

Carmel mused, Carmelia falling to the same scene of pain, the constriction of everything started to bind her mind. In the end, even her dear teacher left after that, and she had now even pushed her junior brother away, a guy had called her his family on the first meeting.

‘Things are meant to be like this, there is just lust, no love.’

As such thoughts started to crawl into her mind, Carmel and Carmelia started to fall into their delusion, and just before the last straw could break, she heard a voice.

“Princess?”

The call felt close yet distant as Carmel, unfurling from her curl, turned to look at Austin standing a bit farther away from her. His body seemed soaked in blood and sweat as he, with shaking eyes, looked at her. The whole scene seemingly flashed something within her, a memory she didn’t know she had, overlapping the scene in front of her with that scene, yet the difference being that the Austin back then was a much younger version.

‘What is this?’

Carmel asked herself, her mind shaking, as a memory she seemingly didn’t know she had slowly started to unravel itself. Austin rushed to her, gently cradling her body as he looked down at her, the scene once again flashing to a past scene as something overlapped.

“Carmel are you okay?!”

‘Carmel are you okay?!’

‘What is this? Carmelia, what is happening?’

‘It’s an untapped memory.’

Carmelia, who regained herself just like Carmel, replied. Her words sounded taut but even then a certain warm feeling filled both of them as they gazed at the deep worry in Austin’s eyes. The previous stone-cold demeanor had softened a lot as he picked her up in a princess style.

“What happened?”

Austin asked but Carmel and Carmelia were both lost in the same hug, seemingly as if it had happened before. Her hand raised itself to hold his face as she asked.

“Tell me, have we met before?”

The weakness in her voice made Austin’s face harder. Both girls didn’t miss the change in Austin’s expression at the moment, the words she said before overlapped with the current scenario. Certain suspicions became stronger as the two girls asked themselves.

“Why can’t I remember?”

Everything felt confusing to Carmel, who felt as if she was missing an important piece.

“We shouldn’t be here!”

Austin shouted as he tried to run away with Carmel, but before he could seemingly get out, the light in the ground lit up, and it was then that Carmel noticed that they were in some place special. The shining light blinded the two of them as everything went dark.

…..

“Urgh…..”

Carmel let out a silent moan of pain, her mind still not okay as she sat up, her gaze looking around as she seemingly sat in something of a magic circle, all around red torches seemingly placed around her with flames on them, lighting up a certain eerie feeling all around. And before she could even respond, the flames started to gather around, turning into a certain spirit form.

“A broken mind, a shattered innocence, and an unwilling past hidden from the mind, tsk…..tsk….tsk…you really are a container with lots of issues.”

The seemingly gathered flame spoke, to which with confusion Carmel asked.

“Where is this? What happened? Where is Austin?!”

At her shout, the flame gathered to show Austin seemingly floating in a red space. Before Carmel could speak, the flame continued.

“I am the guardian spirit guiding the challengers towards the solution to the cursed past and you are in my trial. Since this boy has passed it before, there is no need for him but it doesn’t mean he can just enter my trial again.”

At these words, Carmel, holding her head, tried to piece things together, the situation clearing up a bit as Austin had already spoken to her about the whole thing to be done in order to get the cure to help her sister. Though the latter ending of the fire spirit’s words made Carmel’s face harden.

“What do you mean by that?”

She asked, trying to put strength into her body.

“It’s simple, he needs to be punished.”

As the flame said this, Austin’s body seemingly started to get hotter. Seeing this, Carmel screamed out.

“No! It’s not his fault! It’s mine!”

“Still, it doesn’t change the fact that he rushed into the trial again, after having been given orders not to.”

The majesty in the fire spirit’s words got higher, as did the suffering seemingly being inflicted on Austin.

‘No….no….no…..it’s my fault!’