Chapter 30 Miss Hiltina is Truly a Good Person
“Is she a very special girl?”
The blonde girl paused with her hand holding the cup suspended in mid-air.
“Is that girl beautiful? What’s her name?”
“Well, her name is Hiltina. I’m not sure if that’s her real name, but considering Hiltina’s personality, she shouldn’t like using a pseudonym.”
Emis’s hand trembled slightly, nearly spilling the iced tea in the cup.
“Can you tell me your story with her?”
Rast nodded: “I first encountered her at the hotel where I worked. She was disguised, but I know every guest who visited the hotel during that time, so I noticed something was off.”
“So, I took the opportunity of serving drinks to test her…”
…
The wind blowing over the hillside was warm.
The afternoon sunlight slanted through the leaves of the treetops, casting mottled fragments of shadow.
Rast lay on the grass and spoke, while the blonde girl sat beside him, listening.
She was indeed a good listener; as soon as Rast started to speak, she would assume a serious posture and occasionally nod and ask questions, never being dismissive.
The tranquil time filled with golden hues quietly passed.
“And then, Hiltina pulled me up from the icy sea.”
“She held onto me as we drifted in the ocean, avoiding the shock waves from the serial explosions, and never let go until everything was over.”
Rast smiled: “To be honest, I was quite unhappy when Hiltina first came to save me because it disrupted my plans…”
“Everything that had happened before was within my plans. Every detail in Deep Blue Harbor, every time point, I was fully aware of it and it would never escape my control.”
“But afterward, everything exceeded my control, rushing toward an unpredictable direction.”
“Fortunately, the final outcome was still fairly good.”
“Yes… luckily.” Emis blinked, her sky-blue eyes still holding some remnants of fear.
It was as if she was also there, trapped in the watchtower by the tides of the Iron Cross, with no way in from heaven or door out from the earth.
“However… Miss Hiltina is really a good person.”
“Oh?” Rast lifted his head: “Why?”
Just earlier, when she first heard Hiltina’s name, Emis had some inexplicable hostility towards her.
However, as Rast finished telling his story with Hiltina, the wariness and vigilance in the blonde girl’s eyes dissipated significantly.
“To say this might seem a little selfish… but I am truly grateful to Miss Hiltina.”
“If it weren’t for her, then Rast, you would have been left in Deep Blue Harbor, trapped in that long time loop.”
The blonde girl’s sky-blue eyes sparkled.
“Although to me it’s just a dream, you also said that everything in Deep Blue Harbor is indistinguishable from the real world for you.”
“Even the time you actually spent there is longer than in Canaan.”
Emis sighed lightly and looked at Rast with some helplessness: “Rast, you’ve always been like this since you were a child, never understanding how to cherish yourself.”
“But to another world you went, and I can’t follow you there… I can’t be by your side, watching over you to prevent you from doing reckless things to hurt yourself.”
She blinked: “Fortunately, Rast, you met Miss Hiltina.”
“From your story, Miss Hiltina seems quite reliable and trustworthy…”
“With her around, even in that world where I am not present, Rast, you won’t be without someone to take care of you.”
Rast couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly.
Emis’s words sounded as if he were a burden that needed taking care of.
“It’s a pity I can’t meet Miss Hiltina. Otherwise, I would definitely bring her an apple pie as a gift, so that she would take good care of you afterwards.”
“Ah, is it that time already?”
While talking, Emis seemed to notice the sky beginning to darken and hurriedly stood up.
“It’s almost time for dinner, and I have the porridge I prepared earlier…”
…
The two of them walked down the hillside, stepping on fallen leaves and weeds, along the path dyed red by the setting sun.
The way down the mountain was occasionally blocked by small streams, so Emis lifted her white skirt, held Rast’s hand, and stepped over the round, smooth river stones to cross.
Soon, the border town with a white windmill at the foot of the mountains became visible in the distance.
Rast and Emis walked on the pebble-paved path, watching the rising smoke from the chimneys of each household in the distant town, feeling his heart gradually calming down, escaping from the previously tense state of Deep Blue Harbor.
The blood and fire of the port, the Evil God, Pollution, and the pursuit and blockade of the Iron Cross…
Everything experienced in Deep Blue Harbor just a short while ago felt infinitely distant and no longer important.
They quickly entered the town, where occasionally townsfolk would stop their work to greet them, and Emis politely responded while holding Rast’s hand.
Rast looked at the scenery in the town, and the faces of the peaceful-looking residents felt quite familiar, but upon closer thought, the details were somewhat unclear.
Their steps halted in front of a wooden house.
The decorations inside the wooden house were very simple, but it was spotless, exuding a unique warmth.
In the kitchen, a copper pot bubbled with overcooked porridge.
“Ah, thankfully I’m in time.”
Emis hurriedly walked over to lift the porridge, busily working in the kitchen.
Cured meat, bean pies, pudding, lean meat porridge, and black bread with cheese… various dishes appeared one after another on the table in front of Rast.
Watching the blonde girl busy in the kitchen, and the simple, orderly furniture in the room, Rast’s sense of confusion—both familiar and unfamiliar—intensified.
His memory had always been somewhat lost.
To borrow a famous detective novel from Rast’s past life, a person’s memory is like a small attic; when the attic is full, if new things come in, they will replace the old ones.
Of course, most people will never fill that small attic in their lifetime with what they have learned and remembered, but Rast was an exception.
He had experienced tens of thousands of loops in Deep Blue Harbor, spanning hundreds of years, a time that has equated to several lifetimes for an ordinary person.
Such a multitude of complex memories and experiences was enough to fill his attic of thoughts, making memories fragmented and severely hindering the normal functioning of his mind, leading to the collapse of his personality.
Rast was able to maintain ordinary thoughts now because he learned mental suggestion and self-hypnosis during the loops in Deep Blue Harbor.
He forced himself to forget the vast majority of useless memories from the loop through self-suggestion, only retaining the effective information.
However, before he learned about mental suggestion and was able to organize the fragments of memory in his mental attic systematically… some memories had already been forgotten by him.
Or perhaps it was not complete amnesia; they were merely lost in the deep corners of the memory attic, difficult to retrieve, only to evoke faint feelings of familiarity in some unguarded moments.
Such as his experiences before entering Deep Blue Harbor.
And this border town called Canaan, along with the blonde girl named Emis before him.
(End of Chapter)
