色戒未删版

"Yes," his mother responded before asking, "Why?" Elyon questioned it, considering that, in his head, there was no possible way that a damn tree could be worth so many lives, and the idea didn\'t even make any sense.

His mother told him, "Only time will tell my child, only time will tell," leaving him without any definitive answer. He looked at his sister who was drinking her tea as if it was all normal for her. "Only time will tell child, only time will tell," his mother repeated.

After that, he did not speak for the rest of the journey. When he finally arrived at the crowded streets of Nova, he finally asked his sister the question that he had been contemplating asking her for a long time but was too afraid to do so.

"Does it make sense to sacrifice all of these lives for that one stupid tree?" He hoped that his sister would tell him that it wasn\'t worth it, and he looked towards her with a hopeful expression on his face. However, her response was disappointing to him.

"I don\'t know the answer, and I\'m not sure if all of these lives are worth that tree," she said. She stated this while observing a young child being held by her mother. "All I know is that tree, plays an important role that only two beings know about, one of them being mother nature, and the second is Nova," she said while expressing an emotion that he was unable to comprehend,

"Where exactly is he? Why haven\'t I met him?" Elyon questioned, For a being like Lord Nova, whose responsibility it is to guard the world tree, there ought to have been times when he would come out of his hill. He ought to have met his father, or even anyone that he considers worthy, and his family ought to have been aware of it.

"He is sleeping, and no one knows when he will wake up," His big sister said.

They both made small talk as they walked on the streets, covered by clocks to hide their identities. However, Elyon\'s mind kept going back to the conversation he had with his mother and his sister. He was unsure of how he should feel about all of this.

The fact that all of these people who lived here were ignorant of the fact that the value of their lives was not even worth the value of a tree\'s caused the mare to feel repugnant when he thought about the tree as his guardian.

As they strolled through the neighbourhoods of the capital city, he became aware of a peculiar detail. He saw that there were miniature statues of Nova scattered all over the city. Each statue was perched atop a large rock that was suspended in the air. A sliver of emerald light emanated from each of the statues.

When he had reached a point where he was unable to come up with any answers, he turned to his sister and asked, "What are they?" His sister responded by asking, "Oh, you mean the statures?"

"Ya"

She came up close to one of them and then placed a coin next to it before saying, "I think all of them have some powers that he gave them." Elyon did the same thing while the two of them stood in front of it and prayed for a while.

After they had finished praying, he questioned them with, "you think?"

She responded, "Yes, I think I have no idea what they do actually," He was perplexed by her response and asked, "Who built them?"

"We don\'t know, we think that he made them, they just showed up one day, and after that, people started to use them as a source of worship, "

"So you have no idea who made them are you not afraid that they might do something harmful like, I don\'t know, make people worship a cat?"  He asked, with obvious mockery in his tone, and everyone who walked by gave him the side eye before taking two steps away from him, probably thinking that their god might punish him for what he had said.

However, nothing happened, and when Eve and Elyon saw this, they quickly fled the area and blended in with the crowd. "No, he is not the kind of person who would do that," Eve said after they had stopped in front of a shop that sold meat on sticks.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" He inquired, his expression revealing that he was completely dumbfounded by the stupidity of his sister and his parents.

"He didn\'t want to mingle with us, and he always stayed as far away from us as possible, even to the point of not meeting the elders of the tribe more than once when he first made our father king," she said in an unaffected tone of voice.

However, after that, you could tell that she was feeling something as she continued saying, "as far as not even meeting his students, and just sending a copycat of his to teach them."

While Elyon was listening to the unusual outburst of his sister, he looked shocked and confused. He was shocked because his sister rarely showed that much emotion, and he was confused about the word "copycat" and how his sister learned this otherworldly term, which caused him to question whether or not his sister was also a reincarnated being.

In point of fact, Eve had discovered, as she had grown older, that the friend and kind teacher who had been there for her had been nothing more than a copy cat. He had always been so distant that it caused her to wonder if he even cared for the people around him, or if he was just a beast that was playing with her, making her his student just for entertainment\'s sake.

She had so many years to think about this that she had almost believed him to be just a cold beast that played with a little girl, and the lives of others, just for entertainment. However, then she remembered the time he was there when he had introduced Ruby to him, the way he had played with her, making the two ideologies clash with each other,

As a result, she was no longer sure what to believe, she had never discussed this with anyone, and she intended for it to stay buried within her heart because she was afraid of what other people would think of her beliefs if they became aware of them. This caused her to become uncertain about what to believe.

"Are you okay, big sis?" After noticing that his sister had been silent for an entire minute, Elyon questioned her about it.

She said as she started walking ahead, "A-ah yes, I am fine, let\'s go there is one of these statues that we know who made them," and Elyon started walking behind her. However, now he had even more questions in his mind because his sister had acted weird and that was not like her, so he was unsure whether or not he should ask his sister about that.

For the time being, he decided to keep all of the questions he had in his head while he followed his sister in silence. He kept his eyes open and observed the people going about their business around him. He saw children his age playing on the streets, as well as people buying things and at times haggling over prices.

When one took a look around, the only word that adequately described the atmosphere was "peace." There were smiles on everyone\'s faces, and the look of joy on the faces of the children was something that appeared as though it would never disappear.

It appeared as though the adults were content with their lives however, there was something that made each adult appear as if they were uneasy it was similar to watching a person who was high on sugar just sit in one place without doing anything. As for the adults, there was some unrest among them.

As Elyon continued to trail behind his older sister through the crowd, he remarked, "They appear to be feeling uneasy."

"Oh you noticed it," his sister said with some surprise in her voice. Who would have guessed that a 5-year-old  would notice something like that? Although her little brother can be way too mature at times, she sometimes forgets that he is only 5.

"You shouldn\'t be too concerned about it, at least not for the time being." She said that because the place was getting way too crowded, this part of the market was in between two enormous roots that were each approximately two stories high. As she did so, she grabbed onto his hand.

"Why don\'t you just tell me right now?" Elyon inquired,  as he pushed his luck in the hopes of eliciting additional information from his sister. As they finally made their way through the congested area and then entered a clearing in the outskirts of the capital, "no," she categorically rejected the idea.

"Where exactly are we going?" Elyon asked the question because he was perplexed by the fact that they were going to the outer layer of the forest where not many people lived. It seemed to Elyon as though they were going to a part of the forest that was not a part of the capital.

"You\'ll see" His sister replied as she continued to walk while holding hands with her younger brother. Elyon noticed that there were trees that were way too close to each other they appeared as though they were making a wall to protect something as they looked, he noticed that stayers were leading to an opening in the trees the trees were not as large as the trees that were located around the central part of the capital however, they looked majestic in their own way.

There was a wooden structure that was located close to the entrance that he recognised as a Torii gate. He was able to make this connection because the Torii gate had previously played a role in one of the game\'s events. Stones arranged in a row can be found in the construction of some Japanese candle holders.

{Author\'s note: Torii gates are traditionally found at the entrance of Shinto shrines. The presence of a torii is usually the simplest way to identify Shinto shrines and a small torii icon represents them on Japanese road maps, I don\'t know what the candle holders are called nor could I find out what they are so let\'s call them candle holders for now, if anyone knows what they are called form the reference pic in the comments then please do tell.}

Another chapter will be out in a while.