Chapter 244: Traceless
Hughes looked at Ash, then turned his head toward Gaia.
Ash was the person Monica relied on the most. She always called Ash "sister" and wished she could cling to her every day.
Gaia, on the other hand, was Monica’s best friend. Although they spent their days making explosives and blowing up toilets, they brought much vitality to the territory, and many people liked them.
Now, as Hughes looked up at the two of them, he felt as if a cold, heavy hand was slowly tightening around his heart.
"You two... don’t remember Monica at all?"
Facing Hughes' gaze, the two of them nodded in unison.
Hughes swallowed hard, forcing his brain to start working, trying to understand what was happening.
Monica, that little girl, had vanished from everyone's memory as if she had never existed?
Even her closest clansmen and best friends had no recollection of her?
If it weren’t for Hughes, no one would remember her, and no one would even realize she had silently disappeared.
Like a drop of water lost in the vast ocean.
No one remembered what had happened beneath the calm sea surface—only when the ocean was nearly dry would people realize something was wrong, but by then, it would be too late.
Wait!
He had only casually mentioned Monica today—could it be that more people, more things, had silently disappeared, and he hadn’t even noticed?
A chilling sensation crawled up his spine.
Stay calm, stay calm.
Hughes took several deep breaths, forcing himself to think.
A sudden disappearance from memory... Hughes suddenly thought of a term—Sunken Memory.
That was something Chloe had told him about—secret histories that the brain would automatically ignore and could not remember.
Could it be that everything about Monica had become secret history?
No, that wasn’t right.
Sunken Memory merely buried something deep in one’s recollection—it didn’t erase it completely. If Monica’s name had become a Sunken Memory, then the moment he mentioned her, the two of them should have remembered.
But the two standing before him clearly had no recollection of Monica’s existence. Why was that?
Could it be that she wasn’t on the island but somewhere outside?
The body of Worker Hughes had somehow been left outside—could the same have happened to Monica?
But even if she wasn’t on the island, that shouldn’t mean she would be forgotten, right?
"Gaia, do you still remember Kenn?"
Gaia froze for a moment, then her expression turned anxious, her words stumbling. "Kenn, Kenn... did something... happen to him?"
"Don’t worry, he’s fine.
Ash, do you remember Jeremiah?"
Ash nodded doubtfully. She had seen Jeremiah at the manor banquet—he was a pirate captain with a thick beard.
Good, so this wasn’t a matter of two separate worlds being cut off.
Now Hughes was even more confused.
How did Monica inexplicably disappear from everyone’s memory?
Where was she now?
Inside the ancient palace, Hughes opened his eyes atop the Golden Throne.
After scanning his surroundings, he began searching through his own memories.
After a long while, the Hughes on the throne lifted his head with a grim expression.
"No problems..."
"My memory has no interruptions, nor do I see any signs of tampering. I am certain that I knew a Banshee named Monica—this memory is not false."
"But why has everyone else forgotten her?"
He had summoned many people to verify this, from ordinary islanders to the Extraordinary beings of the Moths Chasing Fire, yet no one remembered Monica.
The situation was growing increasingly mysterious.
How could a person suddenly be erased from everyone’s memory?
He asked Richard, but Richard didn’t know much about this topic. According to him, every member of the Moths Chasing Fire chose a specific field to study in depth. After all, knowledge was infinite, and blindly pursuing everything would only lead one to sink forever into the Sea of Unawareness.
Richard’s area of research was medicine and biology.
Meanwhile, secret history, souls, and memory belonged to some of the most dangerous branches of knowledge—very few chose to study them.
Chloe was one of them.
Because investigating Gem Bay required knowledge in this area, aside from Chloe, the other scholars specializing in secret history were also aboard the airship, making it difficult for Hughes to find anyone else to consult.
Thus, he could only search for answers himself.
Naturally, his first choice was to enter this palace and see if he could recall anything else.
"Hmm, my memory hasn’t been tampered with. That means others have forgotten Monica.
What makes Monica special?"
"Alright, there’s an even simpler way to find out."
Hughes turned to look at Worker Hughes’ body.
If Monica were outside, then there should be a thread connected to her.
Monica was a Banshee, a creature of the sea. If she were still in the ocean, she should still have a thread there.
Hughes made up his mind, his gaze locking onto Worker Hughes.
Soon, Worker Hughes lifted his head and gave him a slightly shy smile.
Darkness swallowed his vision as his soul sank downward.
Then, Hughes slowly opened his eyes.
He was still in the deep sea.
Hughes sighed, activating his ability and attempting to locate Monica’s thread.
“Threads... The ocean, hmm?”
His hand quickly stopped moving.
There were very few threads in the sea to begin with, and after carefully searching, he found... only two.
Kenn and Jeremiah.
Aside from them, everyone else had left the ocean.
Hughes took a deep breath—a deep breath of water.
Now he was completely out of clues.
Whether on the island or in the vast sea beyond, there was no sign of Monica.
She seemed like an illusion, existing only in Hughes' memory.
If he were to forget her as well, perhaps no one in the world would ever remember this small Banshee again.
"This is troublesome..." Hughes muttered to himself, reconnecting his links to Jeremiah and the others as he sat quietly at the seafloor, deep in thought.
Fries: 『!!』
Fries: 『Guys, the link is back! I thought we’d never connect again!』
Fries: 『Hahaha, that’s great! By the way, Gwen, you’re still alive—are you okay?』
Fries: 『@Gwen』
Inside the church of Rhine, Beatrice’s gaze flickered.
She stood before a nun veiled in black, holding the Pope’s scepter, posing carefully.
"Slightly straighten your chest. Relax your right hand a bit more... Yes, hold that position."
"How long do I need to hold this? Even though I’m an Extraordinary, I can’t keep this up for too long—at most four..."
Hela lifted the black veil from her face. Before Beatrice could get a clear look, a strong light flashed, one of Hela’s eyes shining as brightly as the sun.
"Done."
"Huh!?"
"Your portrait is complete, Your Holiness. I will present it to you later."
"That fast?"