Thus, the place Luke arrived at was now as familiar as Luke Forest, the Rienne Forest.
With the imminent risk of a Wave starting in Luke Forest, Rienne Forest was the only alternative available.
Currently, the Rienne Forest had quite a limited number of Forest Keepers due to personnel being dispatched to Luke Forest, making it a very suitable place to secretly draw Mana for oneself.
Of course, since the Mana in the forest wasn’t assigned any value, it wasn’t considered theft, but if someone saw a child of Luke’s age wandering alone in the forest, they’d surely receive scoldings about the dangers and be sent home.
Luke trembled slightly as he recalled his experience with Sanson in Luke Forest.
It was a cumbersome and tiring task to persuade such adults, and even if that wasn’t the case, the forest wasn’t a place where he particularly wanted to meet anyone.
For Luke, the forest was a place to meditate while accumulating Mana rather than expecting to meet someone and have a conversation.
As Luke walked deeper into Rienne Forest, just beyond the entrance, he scanned the surroundings.
Not sensing any presence, he took a deep breath and smiled.
“The scent of the forest is delightful.”
The smell of earth, wood, and fallen leaves was one that could only be experienced in the forest during this season.
After filling his lungs with the fragrance of autumn, he stored Mana within his heart, slowly exhaling and drawing his chest inward.
“The Mana is splendid too.”
This Mana was clear and refreshing enough to provide sufficient nourishment for Liv.
Luke placed Liv, who was nearby, on a stone and spoke.
“Liv, you can move freely here.”
As soon as Luke gave his permission, Liv immediately sprang to life and began moving around.
He flailed his arms, shaken his legs, spun his head in circles, and tilted left and right.
It was as if a gladiator was warming up just before a battle.
However, seeing the small, harmless teddy bear act like that made it feel more like a child performing tricks.
Luke chuckled and said, “Hehe, since you’re just a doll, is it really necessary to warm up? Unlike solid armor, cotton and fabric aren’t going to malfunction in the joints.”
“……”
For a moment, Liv stared at Luke’s face in surprise before nodding as if to agree.
It seemed he was still unaccustomed to his doll body.
Luke pulled his tail tightly against his legs to keep the hem of his skirt from touching the ground and crouched down to pat Liv’s head.
Unlike cold, hard acrylic armor, wasn’t it nice to have a physically touchable body?
Even now, reflecting on filling the doll body with Liv was a choice that he felt was quite good.
Luke recalled the feeling of destroying Liv’s core of magic before he rewound time to revive him.
“I don’t think I could do that again if asked to.”
Though it was something done reluctantly to make him comfortable, thinking of breaking something created like a child was never pleasant.
Especially since it was an object imbued with memories spanning a long time.
However, he had killed Liv once.
It wasn’t a case of brainwashing, nor had his identity transformed or reset. The precious Liv, embedded with memories of Renie, had been killed simply because he was perceived as hostile.
Without making any effort to inform that he was “Luke Ilushi,” he had destroyed the magical core simply for not recognizing at first glance and pointing a sword at him.
Looking back now, it was indeed an extremely rash decision.
At that time, he lacked emotional composure.
Luke felt a sense of guilt about that.
Thus, he wanted to pour even more affection into Liv than before.
In fact, that was the biggest reason for choosing a teddy bear as Liv’s body.
The truth was that Liv, affected by the “Hourglass of Unravelling Time,” wasn’t even aware that they had once been destroyed by Luke’s hands.
Having completed his thoughts, Luke stopped patting Liv and looked at the fish-shaped bread bag he held in the other hand.
The bag was still heavy.
After a moment, Luke suddenly seemed to remember, covering his mouth with his hand and mumbling.
“Oh dear, I only gave Shirud one fish-shaped bread.”
Although he claimed to bring the leftovers to Pyris, he had gone out of his way to ask the bread vendor to be ‘pleasant to deal with’ to get a lot and share it with Shirud.
At this rate, he would end up eating them all alone.
But what could he do? Shirud was already far away.
Luke scratched his neck and sighed.
“When you think deeply about one thing, you forget another…”
Maybe because he often thought too much about many things.
Forgetting such trivial matters was unavoidable.
No one can always be perfect.
“……”
Liv looked at Luke, seemingly shaking his head in pity.
It was as if to say, ‘Did you forget that you were buried beneath various items in your bag while playing that game earlier?’
Luke, avoiding Liv’s gaze, mumbled defensively.
“Well, when people age, forgetfulness comes along… isn’t it like that?”
“……”
Perhaps trying to read Luke’s thoughts, Liv gazed at him with his arms crossed at his waist.
It felt as though he was asking, “Is that really true?”
“……Actually, not everyone is like that…”
In truth, he had never experienced anything resembling forgetfulness.
The moment he died and took over all control, he backed up all memories within the Circle to ensure that his memory was undamaged, so there was no way he could forget.
Perhaps because the memories backed up in the Circle resurfaced first, he ended up believing he was “Luke Ilushi.”
That’s why he could think of nothing else, no matter how hard he tried, about how he had placed his memories inside this body.
Moreover, if he denied that he, as the ‘Circle’, was Luke Ilushi, it would be like denying his own existence, making it impossible to doubt himself.
He was clearly “Luke Ilushi,” piled up through the self that had been built.
“……”
As he pondered these thoughts, Liv suddenly, worried that Luke had fallen silent, tapped his hand.
“Ah.”
With Liv’s touch snapping him out of his reverie, Luke smirked and changed the subject.
“By the way, bringing them here has made the fish-shaped bread cold.”
The bag for the fish-shaped bread was made of paper, and due to the steam from the hot breads, it had become a little damp.
When he picked one up and split it in half, the initial warmth was entirely gone.
Although Rienne Forest was closer to the Academy than Luke Forest, the path to Rienne Forest was by no means ordinary.
However, since Luke preferred not to eat hot foods, he welcomed the bread in its cooled state.
If it wasn’t hot, there was nothing to fear.
– Crunch.
Luke took a big bite out of the half of the fish-shaped bread.
“Umm…”
As he ate, the sweet red bean paste wasn’t bad at all.
Even though the sweet red bean was cold, it provided quite the delicious taste.
It wasn’t so remarkable that he felt he couldn’t help but exclaim about its divine flavor, but eating it when slightly hungry made it quite a treat.
It was a perfect taste for a snack.
Now that he noticed, the fish shape was somewhat amusing as well.
Although it didn’t contain any actual fish.
That still left him unsatisfied.
‘Should I buy fish for dinner as a side dish…’
With that thought, having quickly eaten one fish-shaped bread, Luke took out the next one to nibble on.
“……”
However, he noticed Liv staring intently at something.
“Liv, what are you looking at so intently?”
“……”
Then, Liv pointed with his arm toward what he was staring at and looked up at Luke.
What Liv was observing was a line of ants.
Luke tilted his head and asked, “Why are you gazing at the ants so intently?”
Surely, Liv, as a Living Armor, wasn’t suddenly interested in insects.
Then Liv stretched out his arm again and pointed at an ant.
Following Liv’s direction, Luke soon realized what Liv had been contemplating so earnestly.
The ant was carrying a piece of red bean paste that had fallen from Luke’s fish-shaped bread.
It seemed that he noticed that the tiny creature was stealing something that belonged to its master and was contemplating whether it was permissible to punish the insect.
The persona originally given to Liv was based on laws and cultures from 5000 years ago.
Thus, Liv still operated under very basic, rational principles, where a thief would have their hands cut off, a fraudster their tongue, and a murderer beheaded.
Though it was uncertain how long he had maintained his sense of self after the fall of Arinseia, that standard had likely not changed.
Of course, there were distinctions based on the value of the stolen item, but whether the “fish-shaped bread” held any value in Liv’s persona would rely purely on Luke’s reaction.
If Luke hadn’t shown much interest in the fish-shaped bread, Liv probably wouldn’t have concerned himself with the ant stealing it. But the issue was that Luke was visibly taken with the fish-shaped bread.
So, Liv likely judged the fish-shaped bread to be “valuable.”
Therefore, having witnessed the ant stealing that “valuable object,” according to those principles, Liv would typically be justified in severing the ant’s limb—that is, its front leg.
However, since Luke had currently commanded Liv not to harm others without his permission, it conflicted with the original instruction.
Perhaps that was causing confusion in his standards.
Luke smiled and said, “Haha, just let it go. It’s just a fish-shaped bread, and the ant is just preparing for winter.”
Not stopping there, Luke even took the head of the fish-shaped bread and offered it to the ant.
“Liv, in this day and age, delicious food isn’t as rare as it used to be, so there’s no need to take things so seriously.”
“……”
Watching the ant, Liv nodded while stroking his chin.
It seemed he understood at least in part.
