"M...Mother?"
Elara called out, her voice trembling. Although she knew that the woman in front of her wouldn't be able to hear her, she kept trying to call out to her.
"Is that you, mom?"
Still, there was no response at all. The woman didn't react in the slightest, as if she had no awareness of her presence.
Nevertheless, Elara didn't care and floated towards her, approaching the woman named Rhea, who was sitting right next to the 5-year-old Elara who was still asleep.
With her face shrouded in mist, the woman reached out to tidy up the messy short hair of 5-year-old Elara.
Observing this, Elara brought her face close to the misty Rhea. She squinted her eyes, trying to focus and compare the facial features of the woman in front of her with those of her mother.
But because the woman's face was obscured by the mysterious mist, Elara could only make a rough comparison, trying to match the two faces based on her memory of her mother.
"Lara, you've grown up...."
Rhea's voice, previously majestic and authoritative when speaking to Kai, now softened as she spoke to the sleeping little girl next to her.
"!"
Elara briefly lost focus upon hearing the gentle voice so reminiscent of her mother's. Nevertheless, she couldn't be sure and chose to continue comparing the two faces to find more definite proof.
Meanwhile, while stroking 5-year-old Elara's hair, Rhea began to chant something and placed her forehead against the child's.
"Sorry, but you still can't know all of this."
After Rhea's beautiful forehead met with the tiny one of 5-year-old Elara, between the touch of their foreheads, a warm green light emerged, transforming into a dazzling white light that lasted for a moment.
"...?"
Suddenly, 9-year-old Elara felt an intense pain in her head.
"Ugghhhh...!" Elara instinctively bit her lip, causing it to bleed, as if her body were still human.
'Why am I the one in pain...?!' Elara couldn't comprehend the increasingly bizarre situation.
When Elara was experiencing a severe headache, she looked at Rhea in confusion about what had just happened until it caused such pain. However, what Elara saw was something else.
The more Rhea exerted her power, the tighter the tree roots surrounding her entire body clenched. Initially worried, Elara noticed that Rhea's expression remained unaffected, as if she didn't feel the impact of the tree roots, so Elara dismissed her concerns.
Rhea moved her index finger, and from its tip, a large and powerful elemental wind magic, unlike the simple wind magic Elara was accustomed to from her mother's teachings, gently lifted 5-year-old Elara's body with great care.
Elara sensed something familiar within the powerful and unique wind magic she was witnessing for the first time, coming from a woman named Rhea.
"Thank you for protecting her," Rhea murmured as she stroked the large tree that had served as 5-year-old Elara's sleeping support.
The tree vibrated, its branches and leaves rustling enthusiastically as if responding to Rhea's gratitude with joy and enthusiasm.
Rhea smiled as if she were watching a delighted child receiving praise. She then walked alongside 5-year-old Elara, who was now floating comfortably in the air.
Gracefully moving despite the roots entwining her slender body, Rhea's movement made Elara initially consider the roots as mere accessories. However, upon closer inspection, the roots resembled chains, leaving Elara unable to ignore the unsettling detail.
"But... What exactly do you intend to do with my 5-year-old body?" Elara wondered curiously.
As if responding to the question Elara asked herself, the woman named Rhea stopped after walking a few steps, and Elara's 5-year-old body also stopped, hovering in place.
She flicked her fingers once, and effortlessly, a portal, similar to the one Elara had seen used by a Palace messenger, appeared in the previously empty air.
Portals could generally be created by someone with an extremely rare affinity for the spatial attribute. Spirits related to space were also exceedingly rare, making low-level spirits associated with space highly valued.
The Three Kingdoms had at least six people who made contracts with low-level spatial attribute spirits and two who contracted with medium-level spatial attribute spirits to create portals at crucial points on the Okeanos continent, facilitating long-distance transportation.
Elara snapped out of her reverie, recalling the encyclopedia she had once read about portals and spatial spirits. However, what she was witnessing now took precedence over her thoughts.
'Does she... possess a high-level spatial spirit...?' Elara wondered with her mouth agape.
This was because the size of the portal that was now wide open in front of her was exceptionally large, three times larger than the portals Elara had seen used by palace messengers. With such a size, even a two-story house could easily fit through intact.
'She... moved me with a portal that size...?'
As Elara had thought, Rhea began to slowly move the body of 5-year-old Elara into the large portal.
It was clear that Rhea treated the 5-year-old Elara's body with extreme care as if it were made of fragile glass.
As 5-year-old Elara's body disappeared momentarily after entering the large portal, the portal, which had previously appeared large with no particular uniqueness, suddenly emitted a fragrant green mist.
"Huh. what, what happens?!" Elara screamed in panic as the portal began releasing something after her 5-year-old body entered it.
The enchanting green mist, reminiscent of the refreshing fragrance of the forest, billowed out of the portal, steadily intensifying until it shrouded the surrounding forest in a thick fog.
[Not now.]
Whoosh!
Yet, with a sudden gust of wind from an unseen source, the mystical green mist dissipated slowly, leaving no trace behind and transforming the forest into an eerie emptiness.
When the mist disappeared, the portal transformed into a large, colorful door with beautiful patterns and carvings, surrounded by sturdy tree roots.
"Whoa...!"
Elara was astonished by all these drastic changes and reflexively looked at Rhea, the owner of the strange portal.
"...!!"
Her eyes trembled intensely when the mist covering Rhea's face briefly disappeared, revealing a dazzling visage that could be considered the embodiment of Beauty and Perfection itself for a few seconds before the mist veiled her face again.
A flawless, perfect face, so incongruent with her mother's face marked by ugly scars.
"..."
Now, only the woman named Rhea and the 9-year-old ghostly Elara remained.
With a weak and trembling voice, Elara called out to Rhea, who bore little resemblance to her mother but, in a way, was eerily similar.
"Are you my mom....?"
Until now, she had never known her mother's name, and she had never dared to ask because Elara understood that her mother despised those who inquired about her name.
"So, is your name Rhea?" Elara wondered, a bitter smile on her lips. It felt strange to speak that name.
She wasn't sure if her feelings were correct, but as a child who had lived with her mother since birth, Elara could recognize her mother just by looking at her back, body shape, or even just the back of her head.
But she still wasn't sure if the woman named Rhea was her mother. The aura emitted by Rhea was vastly different from the warm aura of her mother. Nevertheless, in terms of physical appearance, especially the shape of the face and head, everything was strikingly similar.
"What is this...?"
Until now, she had always believed that she knew everything about her mother, except for the secrets deliberately guarded by her mother.
It turned out to be a mere delusion.
Elara hadn't known anything about her mother all this time. She only knew a tiny fraction of the information about her mother, who always appeared mysterious.
Not because Elara didn't want to know, but because she feared that her mother had no intention of revealing anything to her.
That's why Elara chose not to inquire about anything. Elara's apathetic attitude had made her feel like a foolish child who knew nothing about her mother.
Elara was confident that one day her mother would reveal her secret without Elara needing to ask. But who would have thought that Elara would find out in such a peculiar way?
While Elara contemplated her foolishness, Rhea remained silent, gazing at the slowly closing door.
Inside the almost-closed door, the image of 5-year-old Elara sleeping peacefully on a tree behind her wooden house was still visible.
The door finally closed tightly after emitting a melodious sound like a heavenly song and disappeared.
"Haaaaaaahhhhhh...." Rhea suddenly let out a long sigh, making Elara, who was lost in thought, snap back to reality.
As if she had just expended a tremendous amount of strength and now felt weak, Rhea immediately sat on the ground, her body trembling.
However, even in this state, Rhea remained elegant and unshakable to anyone. She clearly ignored the strange roots wrapped around her body like it was nothing.
"If Lara were to remember this incident prematurely, then the time I have will ... even more rapidly...." Rhea murmured with a trembling body and a quivering voice.
Rhea also gazed at her trembling hand, which momentarily appeared translucent, like a ghost, similar to Elara's current state.
"... Time? What time?!"
"Please tell me!"
"If I remember all of this, what will happen to you?!"
Elara continued to wonder, but because Rhea couldn't hear her voice, she just stared at the large tree with a dejected and frustrated look.
"Alright, I don't have much time. I need to return immediately because there's still much to attend to."
After feeling her strength restored a little, Rhea stood up gracefully and captivatingly, not bothering to clean her white attire stained with dirt, and she still looked naturally beautiful.
"...."
The woman effortlessly dissipated the roots, entering a smaller portal that paled in comparison to the grand one before.
As it vanished, Elara witnessed the transformation of the woman's majestic demeanor, once imposing and formidable, into that of an ordinary woman.
"No way...."
Before the portal vanished with the woman, the ordinary woman's back became instantly recognizable—a sight Elara had witnessed during her nine years in this world.
!
Before Elara could react to the sight she had seen, she was startled again by another sound.
This time, the sound was quite loud, albeit brief.
CRACK
The surroundings, the dense forest, the open field covered in short green grass with a large tree in the middle where 5-year-old-body Elara had slept earlier, suddenly changed.
The lush green scenery around her began to fade, gradually turning white with a beautiful, shining white light as if telling Elara that everything she had seen before was just an illusion.
The white light continued to grow, showing no signs of stopping until it completely engulfed everything, including her.
Riiing----!
Elara, tired from all the previous events and shocking sights, was no longer surprised by this change.
"I just want to return quickly and ask my mother about all of this...."
After consuming everything in its vicinity, the white light shifted towards Elara, who was still floating in the air and swiftly engulfed her without mercy.
The previously space filled with white gradually transformed into a refreshing, lush green. Multiple pairs of eyes with different pupils gazed at it all with a range of different expressions but shared the same underlying meaning.
"Your Majesty... Soon... Waiting...!"