Only Wisdom Awakened-Chapter 161: Emma

"…Emma?"

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Hearing Hans letting that name slip out of his mouth, Elijah asked if he knew anything about her.

"I am not sure, I could very well be mistaking her for someone else"

Replied Hans.

Elijah wanted to know more about that mysterious person, so in the hope that the young man in front of him could give him any leads, he decided to reveal to him how things had happened.

"Allow me to tell you the long version of the story then"

….

It happened this February, about a month and a half after your visit.

My condition was still worsening by the day, and I was afraid death might reach me earlier than anticipated, swallowing up whatever bit of consciousness was left in my body.

If something like that had happened… I’m sure you know what it would’ve meant.

A catastrophe was approaching Manhattan once again.

As always, even if my mind was elsewhere, I was stuck on the lowest floor of this building, where there was a system that could cut off the connection with the surface by collapsing the room in case I went mad.

And that is when she appeared:

Coming out of the shadows of my room like a phantom, a black-haired woman with an indistinguishable face.

My senses were weakened to the extreme, but I could not believe I didn’t manage to sense her till she got that close.

"Who… are you?"

I asked her, not actually expecting a reply, since I thought she had been sent there to kill me or spy on me.

But strangely enough, she replied, she wasn’t serious at all and instead replied to me randomly telling me an unusual phrase.

"Someone who needs to fix a mistake"

She said.

I thought she was talking about me when referring to someone as a mistake to fix, while she was instead just there to help me.

She came up close to me, lifted up my shirt, and laid her hand on my chest-

"Wait wait wait wait.

I have no interest in your sexual life, you could have just told me in a few words."

"That’s not what I am going on about!

Let me finish for god’s sake.

She began chanting a spell, that slowly came out of her body and seeped through my skin.

The immense pain I felt that day is still clearly lingering in my mind.

It felt like my soul was getting ripped apart, and someone was twisting the very being of my existence.

It was a horrible sensation that when compared to what I felt while facing the snake or changing my class made them feel like child’s play.

I remember hearing a few more words before losing consciousness.

"Huh… fortunately this change has yet to begin, otherwise even I would not be able to fix it.

I can do this once, so make sure you use the time that has been given to you in the right way."

After that, I woke up the following morning.

Not only did my body feel lighter than it had been for the precedent year, but the ’seed’ that had been growing inside of me regressed to a much less dangerous stage.

Ever since that happened, I never saw that person again.

My niece already knows about this and she has been keeping an eye out to catch any information she can about that woman, but she found nothing.

For someone as strong as her to be hidden by the eyes of the public…

I think she might even be a more dangerous threat than me at the moment.

Because she saved my life, I don’t want to repay her by sending some hunting dogs to track her down, but I do have some concerns about who she is and what she could do."

Hans heard the story and was left surprised, he thought she had gone crazy, and yet her actions had saved so many people.

"How did she know about your condition? I thought it was supposed to be a national secret or something"

"It’s not a national secret, not even the US president knows about it.

The people who know precisely about my situation can be counted on my fingers."

"Then how did she…"

"I don’t know, I couldn’t even completely see her face because of the dark since my senses were dulled as always while my powers were being used up to contain this damn thing inside me.

Do you know something about her?

I don’t care about anything else, but I need to know if she means good or bad"

Hans thought about it, and he decided to avoid telling Elijah that she was the one who crippled him.

If he had done so, Elijah would’ve probably sent someone after her, and innocent people could’ve gotten hurt while fighting someone who didn’t mean any harm.

Also, he knew Emma from when they were little, and there was no way she was such an evil person.

He gave her the chance of the doubt and told himself he would clear things out with her in person the next time they met.

"We have been friends since we were little, I hadn’t seen her for years, but she somehow appeared in my apartment a few months ago.

I can not tell you If she is reliable, but I will handle her myself if such chance were to occur."

"Alright, I will not begin the investigation, I hope that she’s the same as you remember her to be"

"I hope so too"

Replied Hans.

"You are a busy man, I will not hold you here for long, do you need something else?"

"I actually wanted to ask you one last thing.

I may be a little bit too blatant and brutal while saying this but...

You are not that far from death, how can you be so calm with a bomb ticking inside your body?"

The question made the white-haired man falter for a bit, maybe because he hadn’t asked himself that question yet, or maybe because he had never gathered enough courage to reply to it, but he had to think about it for a couple of seconds before replying.

He then spoke in a neutral tone, that gave off a feeling of nostalgia and regret.

"Why am I not afraid of death you ask?

That sure is a difficult question.

I simply feel like… I don’t belong here anymore.

I have sinned greatly, and even if I wanted to try to fix my mistakes, there is nothing I can do.

The people I loved more than myself have all passed away, one after the other, and only one of them now remains.

But even for her, I am nothing but a dead weight.

I have raised her into something she may not have wanted to be, and I did it just to cover up my mistake.

In the end, I failed, and I left her without anything apart from power.

I have not given her anything she deserved.

an awakened, a hero, a brother, as if those weren’t enough, I even had to fail as an uncle.

It would be better if I just died because everything I attempt to do only ends up making this red stain on my consciousness even larger.

I hope that can answer your question"

"Yes"

Hans could feel empathy for Elijah, he was truly an example of someone who had been given everything by the world, and an example of someone who had lost everything.

At that time, not even his will to live was left.

"Thank you for everything, I will come to visit you another time if I can, in the meantime, do your best holding that thing inside of you"

"Of course"

Hans got up from his seat, and after bidding Elijah goodbye, he began walking towards the entrance of the room.

As the automatic door opened, letting him pass through, the man still behind him called out his name:

"Hans!"

He turned around surprised to hear something else from him.

"You haven’t forgotten your promise yet, have you?

I will be waiting…

I will be waiting for you to take my head."

Before he could even answer, the door shut close, and not mustering enough strength to return inside and give a clear answer, Hans just walked away.

On his way out, Hans called his pilot, asking whether it was possible for him to take off right at that moment, but having to get permission from both the NY airport and the Chicago airport, the pilot replied it was only possible to depart the following morning.

And so, tied down to New York for the time being, Hans decided to book a hotel room and go for a walk.

While walking around the busy streets of the city, he was thinking about Emma, and how she could’ve possibly gotten so powerful.

"A mysterious woman who seems to know a bit too much…

That sounds similar to someone everyone knows and doesn’t know at the same time, doesn’t it?

Is she perhaps…

Money Maven?"

"Nah… I might be thinking a little bit too much"