Chapter 40: Mase’s Mark (Part 2)
“Betty, you don’t believe me?”
I purposely knitted my brow and made a funny face at her.
“N-No, it’s not that!”
The little girl looked a bit flustered after seeing my expression, waving her hands frantically: “Betty believes her sister! It’s just that… I’m scared if I say it out loud, Grandpa will find out and scold me… Because Grandpa told me that some things are… are not supposed to reach the ears of outsiders… Otherwise, it could really end up at the Church, and at that point, the town will be in big trouble! We all would…”
The more she spoke, the more tangled she got, lowering her head and twisting her fingers, pulling and twisting them: “Actually, Betty… doesn’t know that much either. Grandpa says I’m still little and shouldn’t understand too much too early, so he only told me a little… Most of it I overheard… Oh, sister, can’t I just not say anything?”
“No way.”
I turned to the side, dropped the stick I was holding, and pinched her cheek: “Hurry up and tell me! I won’t tell anyone else.”
“Wuw… Sister, that hurts!”
The little girl winced, looked up, shook her head to shake off my hand, gently rubbing her cheek, her little face all twisted up: “Okay, fine… Today, since you saved my life, you’re like my benefactor. I-I’ll just tell you a little… You can’t tell outsiders, and you can’t tell Grandpa either! This is just for you, or else Betty will get beaten…”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded eagerly.
Betty paused for a second, fidgeting her fingers more tightly, lowering her head, hesitating for a while, and finally spoke slowly: “Actually… we’re just a bunch of ordinary people living in the desert… Although it’s barren, we live quite comfortably every day. We don’t have many dreams, ambitions, or anything… Maybe there were some long, long ago, but now everyone just wants to live peacefully and quietly on this land…”
She suddenly lifted her head: “Sister, we are the descendants of the Amigil Mountain Range, the great and ancient Immortal Race. Flowing in our veins is the indomitable bl**d that once had the power to move mountains and fill seas.”
!
I widened my eyes: “You mean…”
“Surprised, sister?”
The little girl looked at me, her face solemn at first, but soon broke into a giggle.
“There’s really nothing to be surprised about; we don’t have that great power anymore. Besides this silver hair and sky-colored eyes, we’re just like those ordinary townsfolk, all living quietly in this time, small and humble.”
She ran her fingers through her silky hair, her smile reflected in the flickering firelight, bright and clear: “And our bl**d has long been diluted over hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Or perhaps, we were just a bunch of… wicked and aberrant products born from cruel wars. Hmm, I heard Miss Ailna say that before. Silver hair, blue eyes, aberrant products…”
“……”
Silver hair, blue eyes…
Isn’t that… the characteristic of the Eborista people?
I felt a little dazed, not knowing what to say for a moment.
Suddenly, vivid faces flashed through my mind – a woman named Ailna, Sister Teresa, and Carlos… all of them, without exception, had bright silver hair and deep blue eyes, just like this little girl in front of me.
Which means—
“Sister, let me tell you a story.”
The little girl stood up from the campfire, stretched her arms and exhaled: “This story is from when I was eight, one night I had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep, so Grandpa came to keep me company and told me this.”
She walked a bit to the side, picking up leftover beast bones from the sandy ground: “I remember it was a very scary dream. In the dream, many people died on bl**d-soaked battlefields, and countless others had their bones buried in the yellow sand. Their families were captured, shackled with heavy chains, locked in cages, not knowing where they were being sent…”
“They all had the same hair and eyes as me. The dream felt so real; I still can’t forget it. After waking up, I couldn’t help but tell Grandpa, and he told me about things that happened hundreds of years ago.”
At this point, the little girl paused again.
“Grandpa said that those living in the Amigil Mountain Range, the Immortal Race, are a kind and peace-loving people who detest conflict. They are naturally beautiful, eternal, with star-like bright silver hair and deep blue eyes. They love to help the weak and in the history of the past, they helped humanity with many things… They coexisted peacefully with humans until war came.”
She tossed the beast bones into a hollow corner: “The army from the Western Continent came charging in under the flag of righteousness, trampling into the land of the Immortal Race. By then, many native people from the Eastern Continent were already forming families with the males or females of the Immortal Race, having small children together. And those children, regardless of gender, all had silver hair and blue eyes, just like me.”
“Ah…”
I felt I could piece together some things that had happened long ago.
“The mixed-bl**d children of humans and the Immortal Race were once called Mase people. Grandpa told me that ‘Mase’ in the Immortal Race’s language means the love of peace, a symbol of freedom… It’s just a pity that such freedom and peace, that enviable romance, was ultimately crushed by a terrible war.”
As the little girl dropped the bones, she returned to the campfire, curled up with her knees hugged to her chest, staring at the flickering flames with calm eyes.
“Our ancestors chose to stand with the Immortal Race during the war, and because of that, they were seen as shameful traitors by humans. Some of their names are still engraved on the sins monument in the Holy City… That’s what Grandpa told me, and he also heard it from his father, my great-grandfather.”
The little girl sniffled: “Then they lost the war, and the Immortal Race was stripped of their great power, left with no room to fight back. The Western army invaded their homes and slaughtered all the males. As for the women… they were all captured, made slaves, sold off, and given to the powerful, the officers, and victorious ones, and then… well…”
Then, they became mere playthings for consumption, or banished, thrown into dirty, stinking tents and cages, serving as military prostitutes, fainting from ab*se, waking up in humiliation, only to open their eyes not to the dawn but to endless nights, boundless darkness, and suffering until they died.
Betty wouldn’t say such things.
From her furrowed brow, it was clear her grandpa wouldn’t have gone into such disgusting, cruel details with her either.
“The imprisoned Immortal Race women, despite losing their powers, still possessed everlasting bodies. Grandpa told me that to those vile men, this was … a very, very, very interesting thing…”
