Kaiser of the New World

Preservation (92)

Kai fell silent after he said those words. He didn't really know what to feel.

Sure, he felt proud of himself that he had figured out the mystery of the forest, all the lore behind it that had been hidden and the relationship between Failure and the past, but he was also quite nervous.

How would Failure react to the fact that Kai knew his true identity? He had gone out of his way to make sure Aldred never spoke it and that there was no clues lying around, but Kai had still figured it out.

Would he be confused? Angry? Upset? Kai had no way to know, at least, not until Failure actually responded.

The forest felt eerily silent after Kai closed his mouth. Even with the constant clanging of blades, shields and armour in the background mixed with the constant cries of different beasts and abominations in the background felt much further than it actually was.

The Mother Tree still did not react.

Kai frowned once more. Was it actually Ethania who was the Mother Tree? Was he just overthinking everything and it led him to the wrong conclusion? Did Failure even have anything to do with-

Suddenly, the dense surface of the Mother Tree rippled as a soft green light started manifesting from its bark. Kai instinctively brought his hands up to shield his eyes from the light. Even though he had just been on fire just a few moments ago, Kai hadn't seen any actual light in a few hours.

A moment later, Kai moved his hand to look at what the light actually was.

Kai winced softly at what he saw.

What came out of the tree was a face. Bathed in the soft green light, Kai was able to see Failure's attractive face once more.

But it didn't have the same charisma as the puppet had.

Failure looked... weak, tired, fragile. He had deep bags under his confident eyes, that didn't look confident at all, and a pained look in those same eyes.

"How... do you know that name?"

Kai couldn't help but feel sorry for the sight before him. He couldn't believe that the Failure he had gotten to know for just under the last month and this fragile thing were one and the same, it pained him.

Failure truly was one incredible actor.

"I found a diary" Kai began. "When Aldred and I went out hunting one time, when we found out there was a spy. I killed that quarter moon abomination, then found a flimsy and tattered diary in a tree hollow.

I snuck it back to The Dome and began to read it over the next few days. I quickly learned that the diary belonged to Princess Ethania.

And no offence, but she had some... expressive language.

She went on about how heartbroken she was that the kingdom chose to give her up after all she had done for them and how she planned to run away.

And that was she mentioned you for the first time, Sir Constance, her loyal knight who left his family to run away with her.

She... wrote about you quite a lot."

Kai stopped speaking for a second, glancing at Failure's pale face to see was there any reaction.

Yet all Kai could see was hollow eyes and a sunken expression, as if he was pained at the memory of the princess.

It was depressing.

"She wrote about all the times you protected her, how happy and grateful she was that you decided to go with her, she also wrote about how guilty she felt about making you abandon your family though."