Chapter 40: How to Make Her Toss and Turn in Guilt
“Sorry… I’m really sorry.”
Ishta’s face was pale. “I didn’t know about your family circumstances before. I didn’t mean to say those things…”
“It’s alright, Miss Ishta, there’s no need to apologize. After all, I was the one who offended you by not knowing proper etiquette, and I know you didn’t say it on purpose.”
Rast bowed deeply, still wearing a regretful smile on his face.
His smile bathed in the slanting sunlight, as faint as clear water, yet it refracted endless brilliance.
“As for the old matters regarding my parents, it’s all in the past. I’ve long since stopped caring.”
“I…”
Ishta hesitated, but Rast had already spoken again: “And as for what Miss Ishta mentioned, about me following behind you all this time, that was also something I had no choice about.”
“I’m all alone here with no one to rely on. The only people I know are Shiltina and you, Miss Ishta.”
“If I didn’t follow you, I wouldn’t even know where to go next, or what to do.”
“Of course, if Miss Ishta doesn’t want to be followed by me, then handing me over to the guards here or just telling me where Shiltina is now would be fine too.”
Hearing Rast’s words, not only did Ishta’s expression not improve, it grew even paler.
The guilt and burden in her heart grew even stronger.
Still, she noticed the hidden implication in Rast’s words.
“You said you’re all alone here and don’t even know anyone?”
“Mm.” Rast nodded, then raised his head to look at the sky outside the window. “My hometown and the places I used to live are all very far from here. This place is a completely unfamiliar new world to me.”
Ishta fell silent.
She recalled the incoherent things Rast had said during the psychological consultation.
At Shiltina’s request, all information about Rast and the 「Nightworld Remnant: Deep Blue Port」 had been classified as confidential.
In the entire Starfall University, only Shiltina and Director Silver — one human and one beast — knew the full picture.
Even Ishta, as a psychological evaluator, only knew that the person she was about to assess for risk was a potential freshman of Starfall University — a newly risen Night Traveler.
She didn’t know any other details.
So at first, when she heard Rast speak about things like “can’t remember his age” and “learned his name from someone in a dream,” Ishta had simply thought he was being uncooperative with the questioning, making things up as he pleased.
As a professional psychological evaluator, she had encountered far too many mentally unstable patients talking nonsense with full confidence — logically self-consistent, and if one wasn’t careful, they might really get drawn in.
The best way to handle it was not to believe a single word.
But thinking back now — someone who possessed such vivid memory fragments, who still chased the light even while submerged in darkness, and who had withstood the trial of the Eye of Secrets — how could he be making things up so casually?
Although Ishta still didn’t believe that Rast had truly lived for hundreds of years as he claimed — after all, his appearance was no different from a new Starfall University student —
The other things he said — like being completely alone in the country of Granwell, not even remembering his real name due to fragmented memories — those might actually be true.
And that so-called feeling of having lived for hundreds of years… might very well be a side effect caused by the memory loss.
Ishta spoke softly: “Although you mentioned it during the earlier consultation… I didn’t expect you to actually know Vice President Shiltina?”
“Vice President?”
“Mm. As one of the Twelve Seats of the Round Table, Shiltina by convention holds a position in Starfall University’s student council. That position is Vice President.”
Ishta thought for a moment. “In theory, she should be at the Lionheart House’s student council headquarters right now, but that’s only in theory.”
“Vice President Shiltina is known for her unpredictable movements as the ‘Raid Demon.’”
“People say that if you want to find her, your chances are higher in the ruins of history within the Nightworld rather than on Starfall University’s campus.”
“‘Raid Demon’?”
Rast caught that phrase.
“Mm. The Nightworld is extremely dangerous — a single misstep can mean death.”
“So nearly all Night Travelers at Starfall University choose to delay entering as long as possible… only going in once their abilities, consumables, equipment, and intelligence are fully prepared.”
Knowing now that Rast truly seemed ignorant of Starfall University — and even the world itself — Ishta took the initiative to explain.
“But Shiltina is different. Her Nightworld raiding progress has always been ahead of schedule.”
“She often emerges from one Nightworld Remnant only to rush straight into the next one… as if driven by some unimaginable obsession with raiding the Nightworld.”
“Yet precisely because of this obsession, Vice President Shiltina became the youngest Tier-3 in Starfall University’s history — and the youngest to join the ‘Twelve Seats of the Round Table.’”
Ishta whispered with emotion: “Maybe it won’t be long before she breaks the record for the youngest Tier-4 as well.”
“If the Nightworld Remnants are so dangerous, then why does Shiltina still choose to do all that?” Rast asked.
At this point, he couldn’t help recalling what Shiltina had said to him just before he jumped into the sea at Deep Blue Port—
“Every person who abandons a glamorous identity in the outside world to walk through the Nightworld — where no law or morality exists — and who makes companions of history’s remnants, madness, and corruption…”
“Is, in the eyes of others, a complete aberration — an obsessive and a lunatic.”
…
“I don’t know. No one at Starfall University really does.”
Ishta shook her head.
“They say the true reason Vice President Shiltina became the ‘Raid Demon’ even made it onto the Starfall Daily’s ‘Top Ten Campus Mysteries.’”
“But some speculate it has to do with her past.”
“It’s said that Vice President Shiltina’s hometown was destroyed in a Twilight Calamity, and her mother died in that disaster.”
“Twilight Calamity?” Rast asked again.
“Eh? You don’t even know about that?”
Ishta looked surprised. “Since you inherited transcendent knowledge and stepped into the Long Sequence to become a Night Traveler, that should be basic common sense.”
“The place I used to live had very backward technology and little access to information,” Rast said softly. “There were no cars, phones, internet, air conditioners, or refrigerators… the only contact with the outside world came from a monthly messenger or traveling merchant.”
“I became a Night Traveler and stepped into the Long Sequence purely by accident. No one ever taught me those so-called ‘common sense’ things.”
Hearing this, Ishta’s gaze grew even gentler, with a trace of pity.