"What, what?" The Cloak suddenly floated in front of her, asking, "What are you talking about? What attribute? Isn't Osen supposed to mean bear?"
Its tone had a childlike innocence and energy, making Abigail smile as she said, "Osen does mean bear, but its pronunciation is similar to arson, which can make people think of fire."
Her gaze casually swept over the many Crystal Bottles, saying, "Take 'Adam' for example, it means a man made from red earth, so this name counts as an earth attribute."
Abigail looked at Braun, who was quietly listening beside her, and said, "The classification by Grimson isn't done in the conventional way, but instead placed according to earth, air, water, and fire elements."
"What about your name?" The Cloak asked, "Serra... should mean rock? So that's earth attribute!"
It floated toward the "earth" side, and just as it floated over, Braun said, "If 'Serra' is a short form of 'Selena', then it means moon goddess... is it 'air', or 'water'?"
The Cloak halted abruptly.
"It's 'water'." Abigail's face showed a trace of a complex smile as she said, "And my surname, Abigail, is also related to springs. So, I should be in the water element area, or at the border between water and air."
"Great!" The Cloak exclaimed joyfully, "Then let's start! Now the work is reduced by three-quarters..."
It "looked up" at the towering wooden shelves extending to the roof—the internal space of this warehouse was much larger than it appeared from the outside, the ceiling seemed at least ten meters high.
"...Well, what remains is still daunting!"
The Cloak said dejectedly.
The search proceeded in silence and expectation, everyone remained quiet, with only the occasional slight collision sound as the Crystal Bottles were picked up and put down.
Soon, Braun found the first piece of memory, and the label indeed had the name "Selena Abigail" written on it.
He handed the memory to Abigail, but after she took it, Braun suddenly said:
"Personal advice—you're actually doing quite well now, even if you've temporarily lost your target, you can still use your own eyes to see the world and use your own mind to judge."
Abigail held the Crystal Bottle, her eyes quietly gazing at him.
Braun said solemnly, "So the past, may not necessarily need to be remembered."
"Though those Scourers pretty much gave you lies and deceit, they were right about one thing—"
"To forget, is also a form of protection."
The Cloak quietly floated down from above, holding its breath listening—although it didn't actually need to breathe.
Abigail looked at Braun, then at the memory in her hand, and smiled as she said:
"But I just want to know the truth—if my parents were really killed by the Wizard, then I will still become a Scourer, even if I am the only one..."
She asked softly, "Will you stop me?"
Braun shook his head and said, "I will respect your choice—whatever it is."
"Thank you." Abigail smiled broadly, lowering her eyes to look at the cold Crystal Bottle.
—How amazing!
She thought to herself.
Clearly he... perhaps wasn't human, yet she saw compassion in the man's eyes.
Abigail also gave herself a smile inwardly, then took a deep breath and pulled the cork from the bottle.
A wisp of silvery memory floated out of the bottle like a firefly, lightly entering her brow.
...
"Remember? You came here when you were little too." Bloren looked at Abigail and said with a smile, "You and I, we came together, the teacher was here too."
...
After a few minutes, Abigail opened her eyes and shook her head, "It's the memory of me and Bloren's last time here... It's of no value."
At the end of the memory, she saw the figure of the Dream Weaver, though Grimson had already died at Braun's hands, rendering this memory irrelevant.
Soon, Abigail found the second piece of memory herself.
...
On a cold and damp night, the air was filled with the smell of rust, gasoline, and the stench of sewers from the industrial area.
Abigail lurked in the shadows outside the ventilation shaft, yawning with boredom. Below in the warehouse, the lights were dim, figures moving, occasionally accompanied by arguments laden with the smell of gunpowder.
Those were their partners conducting a transaction with some underground organization.
Abigail was not in good shape recently, and she didn't care about the details of the transaction, only needed to ensure that the partners didn't get killed.
At that moment, the night wind suddenly brought a faint whimper, mixed with the cold and crisp clash of dragging chains.
Perhaps the sound was too tender, or perhaps the desperation was too vivid, touching Abigail's buried sense of empathy...
Driven by some compulsion, she quietly moved over.
She found a building with windows nailed shut by boards, carefully sneaking inside, then the terrifying scene entered her eyes abruptly like a nightmare—
A crude and brutal laboratory, a cold metal operating table, a small figure, slender sharp probes, and even though wearing a lab coat still looked like a butcher of a man...
An overwhelming anger exploded in her heart like a roaring "boom"!
...
"Do you remember you were there to protect them?" Bloren roared, "You actually killed everyone! Abigail, are you insane?"
"Yes, I'm insane! I should have killed those beasts sooner, because they all deserve to die!" Abigail shouted back even louder, "Do you know what I saw? Bloren! Do you know what our partners are doing in the factory?"
The muscles on Bloren's face twitched a few times, with a suppressed anger.
He said coldly, "Oh? Then tell me, what did they do to make you kill so decisively?"
Abigail didn't notice the cold scrutiny in his eyes, angrily pacing around the room, swinging her arms while compulsively speaking about her experiences in the factory.
The deaths, the blood... the innocent victims, most of them were children.
Her rage was extreme, yet tears fell once uncontrollably.
Bloren's gaze quietly tracked her movements back and forth, and when Abigail finished speaking, his anger seemed to have calmed down as well.
After a suffocating silence, he slowly took a deep breath, rubbed his forehead, and his shoulders seemed to droop.
"Sorry, Abigail, I... I didn't know."
Bloren said tiredly, "This line was always handled by peripheral members, just a normal exchange of goods, didn't expect..."
"In any case, since they're secretly conducting such horrific experiments on innocent children, your kills are justified! Well done! None should be left!"
He said with disgust, "Not just those in the factory, everyone involved must pay the price. You have no responsibility for this, later on... I will personally take over, thoroughly investigate it."
The tension instantly relaxed, and her furious anger rapidly dissipated, Abigail's expression relaxed as she trustfully looked at Bloren, asking, "And... the few children I rescued?"
"Send them to the training base first, then see if perhaps their parents are still looking for their children." Bloren said softly, "You should also rest, Abigail. You've done... more than enough!"
Toward the end, he seemed to be gritting his teeth slightly. But at that time, Abigail didn't notice, she just felt relaxed for being understood and supported.
...
Those vivid scenes and sounds retreated like tides, leaving Abigail standing in the shimmering memory warehouse, with the Crystal Bottle already rolled onto the floor.
Her body trembled slightly, as if she were cold.
Re-evaluating her memories now, she realized how foolish she was back then!
Bloren's shock, anger, understanding... his sincere yet heavy face, so hypocritical, how did she not see it at all?
A sudden sharp cramp hit her stomach violently, Abigail abruptly bent over, covering her mouth and retching a few times but nothing came out, only tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes.
She loathed Bloren, but hated her oblivious self even more.
"Stop now." Beside her, Braun's gentle voice advised, "That's enough."