Chapter 45:
The Empathy Curse: Hopefully My Understanding of Psychology Can Help Me in Another World
Besides the charred scent, the first thing I perceived was Lyla aiming her bow at me. It was a bit nostalgic in a way. She noticed my return from my mind and squinted her eyes at me. “Prove to me you are the real Thomas.”
“Even if I’m not, I can definitely dodge this shot.” I didn’t forget to add a deep sigh.
“What do you think, Lady Sabedra?” Lyla asked while keeping her eyes on me.
Sabedra inspected my face. “Do you remember who I am?”
Lyla literally just said her name.
“Come on, Sabedra. Don’t waste my time.”
“He’s fake. Shoot him.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait. My bad, Lady Sabedra, the Dragon of Knowledge.”
“Never mind, he’s real. So what happened?” Sabedra somehow managed this casual transition of topics. Lyla breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her bow.
“The magic in the paper projected Res’s memory into my head, though it looks like you already took care of that,” I explained while glancing at the burnt-up paper remains littered around me.
“So, what should we do now? She looks awake, but…” Lyla’s confusion was valid; Res looked like a blank canvas, as if nothing was behind her eyes. Her head swayed idly as if she were on a loop.
“Without the guidance of her magic memories, she might be a husk with no identity,” I said. Res’s idealized memories began only after the moment she had learned memory magic. What would make a person want to escape from memory at all costs? I would guess that it might have been something awfully traumatic.
I wrapped my arms around the dazed Res, despite the protests from Lyla and Sabedra. “But you still remember, don’t you? No matter how much you convince yourself,” I whispered into her ear.
I didn’t know whether an amnesiac should be punished for her crimes; that would be for the royal family to decide. Res had said that the past and the future would never exist, only the eternal present. But we are cursed to care about our past and future selves, or one might even say it is a blessing. Because we care about ourselves across time, there might be less suffering in the world than otherwise. That said, I could afford the luxury of forgetting the past and future for just one moment. At this moment, she was only a person in pain within my embrace.
Who am I? Where am I? This new but familiar inner voice was accompanied by something else, something my ability had never captured from other minds before: images. Flashes of darkness, evil, war, famine, death, and the worst humanity had to offer. Those scenes were less about their content, but more about the emotions that were mixed within: feelings of betrayal, despair, fear, anger, shame, all flowing into me.
I didn’t know exactly what she had been through. But I knew I had forged a connection with her; it wasn’t only that this connection could grant me access to her memory magic, but it gave me more of the picture before I could judge her crimes. Or maybe I didn’t have to judge her at all. I was very much against her actions, but when it came to her as a person, I couldn’t decide.
All I had to focus on was stopping her from hurting anyone ever again, and I should leave the judging to the kingdom’s justice system. Res’s barely noticeable trembling gradually faded as she fell asleep in my arms.
Since I had gotten what I needed from Res, the next step was to deal with the knights and the soldiers, and I would need Zeroc’s help for that. Sabedra flew me out of her lair while Lyla kept on healing Res. This was supposed to let me know if Zeroc had woken up, according to Sabedra.
We landed in the middle of the forest. And a few minutes later, my super hearing notified me of heavy footsteps fast approaching from afar.
“Is that Zeroc?” That was the most likely candidate, but I had no idea how he would know where we were.
Sabedra seemed to know what I really wanted to ask. “He has placed a tracking spell on you. How else do you think I could find you when you were attacked by the rainbow panther?”
Excuse me? I vaguely remembered that Lyla had brought this up before. “But how is it still active after all this time? And why didn’t you think to disable it for me?”
“There’s a magic tool embedded in you,” Sabedra only answered my first question, and wouldn’t explain further. Before I could ask more follow-up questions, Zeroc had arrived before us. He was in a fresh set of clothes, more put together, and he might have even shaved. He bowed to Sabedra. “Greetings, Lady Sabedra, the Dragon of Knowledge. I’m Topaz, at your service. Thank you for taking care of my foolish employers.” His snobbery convinced me he was really back to his normal self.
“Spare the soldiers,” I cut in before Sabedra could reply, a little sick of all the people who would lick Sabedra’s boots. No wonder she turned out this way!
Zeroc waited for Sabedra to gesture her permission before replying. “They will be tried for treason.” His tone was serious and conclusive.
“I have found a way to reverse the brainwashing. And I know what happened to the city.”
Res’s magic memory confirmed what I had been suspecting. She could suggest false memories to people during their sleep. The better the suggestion fits the internal narrative of the person, the better it converts into a plausible memory. Complete brainwashing requires a detailed understanding of the person, while giving someone an innocuous explanation for their missing money only requires surface-level understanding.
“Tell me how you will do it, and I may reconsider how I phrase this incident to the king.” Zeroc wouldn’t budge.
“I won’t. And you will still spare the soldiers. Surely you want to know why.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Why do you think they did this to the city? To plant doubt in the heads of the kingdom’s citizens. Creating a grand narrative of a city falling into the clutches of drugs, while the royal family is too busy fighting the opposing noble faction to do something about it. Now, imagine if even the soldiers are executed and blamed. Do you think the rumors will be kind to the royal family?” I recited what I had learned from the magic memories.
“That is only speculation. And I don’t trust you to cure all of them completely.”
“I will take responsibility for them.”
“And how would you do that besides talk big?”
“If any of them betrays the royal family again, I will catch them myself.” I wasn’t just saying this. I would link my mind to all of them, so I could make sure they have recovered and even trace them. This violation of privacy wasn’t to my liking, but I felt that with Res’s magic memories fused inside me, I had the responsibility to restore their minds as much as possible, even if it meant peering into their minds and changing them. This was the best solution I could think of with my limited mind.
“I guess we have to rewrite our contract again. Let’s hope that there won’t be more revisions.” Zeroc jinxed it for no reason at all.
Oh, right. I almost forgot that I burned down his garden.
With this new potential threat to my safety looming, I watched the sun slowly descend on the horizon.
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