Chapter 22: Sun Of The Sun Town (2)
Estelle and Moon would have loved to assist Benjamin and save their eldest sister together.
Alas, Benjamin had better go alone because of two a few dangerous factors—the foreign existences within them.
No one could tell what would happen if the three of them were to meet in Sun's world and if the eldest sister could even bear the presence of this many existences within her.
Benjamin, therefore, carried the sleeping Sun to the summoning circle and prepared to visit her world alone. Well, he didn't have anything to prepare as he would be there as a soul, so Benjamin only spoke a little with Moon and tightly embraced Estelle, reassuring her with his budding affection toward her.
At last, Benjamin activated the liberation talisman and was sucked into Sun to see her world. His real body dropped onto the ground as though strings had been cut, sleeping.
Estelle lent him her thighs and gave him the soft thigh pillow while Moon took care of her eldest sister's safety.
These two could do nothing more, for they were protagonists with their own burdens.
-
Benjamin opened his eyes on the cliff, finding himself standing on the edge of the cliff.
Below him was a town similar to his girlfriend's hometown, basking in the warm sunshine. A few clear differences set this place different from the previous world he had visited.
Similar though it may have been, the architecture boasted much warmer golden, pink, and red colors. The flowery designs draping most of the houses seemed to respect or yearn for the sun, and the entire town bustling with people had them kitted out in kimonos of the said design and colors.
The sun above the city appeared to be much bigger, yet it was somehow more pleasant and not jarring for the eyes.
Anyone could look up at it and smile.
The passing breeze was gentle and warm, and it even guided lost people, urging Benjamin to turn around and follow it to the city's gaze, finding him friendly.
Benjamin decided to give this odd feeling a chance and used it as guidance. He went down the cliff and turned a few times in the foliage in which rays of sunshine unrolled like stairs to heaven.
At last, he was on the thoroughfare taking people to the Sun Town. He spent some time in solace and warmth before meeting the first resident of this imaginary world.
"Halt! Are you from the Demanti Town?" asked the man clad in heavy red armor forged to respect the sun. His face was twisted with caution and wariness, and his voice sounded harsh.
Once Benjamin shook his head, however, the guard's expression turned friendly, and his voice was much merrier.
"You're free to step in, then! Welcome to the Sun Town!" the guard kindly smiled.
Benjamin reciprocated, "Thank you, sir."
While his face was masked by a friendly smile, Benjamin's mind spun with the information he had learned. The Demanti Town was the hometown of Estelle, Moon, and Sun, and it was exactly the place that Moon's world was after.
She had killed everyone here and was flanked by the army of copies after her stepbrother, a trap made by the foreign existence within her.
Conversely, Sun's world was bustling with life. The Sun Town also sounded too good to be true, so Benjamin believed that it was a place that didn't exist in real life and was created for the purpose of foreign existence to trap the eldest sister here.
Benjamin's assessment became more credible the longer he spent time searching for any traces of Sun in this town.
"We got much more refuges from the Demanti Town! They're good people who were born in the wrong place…"
"I pity them…"
"Yes, I'll do all I can to help and make them feel at home here!"
"I also heard our army had another successful conquest and stole more goods from the hands of the evil marquis!"
"That's right! Our benevolent Miss Sun's strategy has yet again saved countless lives and brought more prosperity to our town! We and our future generations will be forever indebted to her!"
Listening to those talks that weren't even trying to stay between the interlocutors had given Benjamin an idea of what kind of trap had been used to keep Sun in this world.
She was given her own place that she could lead and then used its army and resources to attack the evil marquis, whose capital was naturally the Demanti Town. If he was right, then Sun was fighting her father here.
The more he listened, the more impressed Benjamin became.
Sun wasn't just using given resources to vent out her feelings. She was the main factor behind their strength as she took the frontlines herself, trained her people to wield weapons, and even participated in international talks with others.
Even if the world was made to cajole her and assist her with anything she wanted, the fact that she had gone so far to not only snatch her father's resources but also to strip him bare from literally everything by making the Sun Town and neighboring countries much better places to live than Demanti Town and its lands spoke about her resolution and hatred.
'How splendid,' Benjamin inwardly commented, recalling his own thirst for lands and resources in the game worlds… he wasn't killing real people, at least that was what he thought back then, but he was so passionate that he messed up a lot of lives of the players and their plans.
If Sun's ambition was of the same scale as the fake world within her, or perhaps even broader, then she was the person Benjamin had been looking for from the start.
He'd do all to facilitate that ambition.
Following the gossip, Benjamin soon found the easiest way to reach Sun.
Around ten minutes later, he stood in the queue to enlist in the army.