Reincarnated as the Baron's son: My Infinite Card Upgrade System-Chapter 111: A secret shared.

"Hina!"

Ava flinched, about to stand to her feet, and she suddenly felt a strain in her abdomen.

"Don’t bother; you haven’t fully healed," Hina uttered, her back resting on the wall, with her arms folded.

"Where is Lord Alaric?" Ava asked, her voice dripping with venom.

"Gathering the rest of the demon lord remains. I should be there with him, but I didn’t want to let you die. Actually, I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for Taizen," replied Hina.

For a brief second, Ava looked toward the entrance of the cave she was in and could see a manly figure standing guard there.

It was dark, but she could still make out his body.

It shouldn’t matter to her who saved her.

At least not right now.

Turning her attention back to Hina, her gaze as nasty as it could ever be, she asked a question...

"Okay, where is he gathering the demon lord remains?"

Hina sighed.

"You’re not even going to ask what he needs them for?"

"Tell me where he is."

"I don’t know, unfortunately. If I knew, I wouldn’t be here attending to your wounds. All I know is, I was given an order to remain here until he returns."

"Y—"

"But I know it’s a lie," Hina uttered before Ava could say anything.

"Lord Alaric is smart. If he tells me to go and wait for him here, it’s probably because something is going to happen. He never does anything unless there’s a reason for it."

Ava was confused.

What the hell was Hina even trying to say?

Better still, why would Alaric suddenly tell her to wait in the north? Does he expect her to somehow act as some kind of spectator for the war?

Hina continued,

"If he wants to gather all the demon shards, then he would definitely need my help. It’s not a smart move to go all by himself. I know he is definitely lying about something. That is one of the reasons why I’m here..."

Reaching inside her pockets, Hina threw a small, crumpled paper at Ava, a box she recognized so well.

Landing on her thighs, Ava picked it up and began to unravel it, just to have a look.

As she opened it, she was met with strange symbolic writing on the paper.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Hell if I know. I just know Lord Alaric wrote this down on the table before any of us began any of our hunting for the demon remains. I overheard him once speaking to Fiona about a writing being the secret to some lock."

"You think it’s the box?" Ava glared.

"Unless we have another thing that is locked and can’t be opened, then yeah, the box."

Unfortunately, Ava didn’t have the box with her at the time.

She had already given it to Elena, in hopes that it would be safe with her rather than anyone else.

"Why should I believe you? For all I know, this could be you trying to distract me from looking for Alaric."

Hina took her time settling down on the ground, her back and head fully resting on the wall.

"Because I have a bad feeling about everything that is happening so far. Lord Alaric... I don’t trust his moves these days," she said.

"Huh? You don’t trust his moves? You were the one that tried to poison him! Don’t talk about trust like you didn’t betray the man that helped you."

Looking at her, her eyes hitched with a bit of submission, she uttered back,

"Do you have any idea why Lord Alaric chose to make me follow him, rather than you?"

"What?"

"Right after Lord Alaric stepped out of the portal, I thought to myself, wow, he really killed her; obviously, he would kill me too. I didn’t stand a chance, not against you. But when he walked past me and told me to follow him, I finally thought, yes, he chose me instead of you. I was the one he needed, not Ava Isenberg."

Hina hugged her legs tight.

"I was so happy that I didn’t care what he wanted to do. Even if it was to murder everyone in the world, I would oblige, without any questions asked. It didn’t matter, as long as I was the one by his side and not you. How foolish of me to think that. The more time passed, the more I understood something: I don’t understand Lord Alaric, not as much as you do anyway. All I know is that he is dying; every day, I watch as life drains from his eyes. I don’t know what to do, Ava. I’m so lost... I fear something might happen to him if we don’t do something."

Ava slowly moved her body until she was sitting at the edge of the bed.

If she were to describe how she felt at the moment, the best word to use would be absolute confusion.

Never in her life had she felt so worried and helpless in a situation.

It was far easier to make an enemy out of Hina after what she did.

"She betrayed Alaric."

Or,

"It’s to protect Alaric."

As long as it was for Alaric, hating Hina was not a big deal. And it also seemed like the same applied to Hina.

But it was a completely different thing when she finally understood how Hina felt about the situation.

Because in actuality, if Alaric chose her instead of Hina, there was a high chance she would do the same thing.

At the end of the day, they were both the same, doing whatever they could for the man they loved and respected.

Sigh!

Ava sighed.

"I don’t completely forgive you for what you did. Actually, right now, I don’t even know if I can trust you. That said, if you are indeed telling the truth, then I guess it’s completely understandable why you did what you did."

Hina raised her head, watching as Ava was speaking with such awkwardness while her hand moved behind her head.

"And while I do feel it could have been handled better, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But... in return, I want you to tell me everything that happened, why you poisoned Alaric and why Alaric is doing all this."

Hina was quiet for a while.

Eventually, she decided it was best to tell Ava and then proceeded to expose everything to her.

She told her how the goddess approached her one day and told her about the great calamity that would destroy the world in due time. And how there was no way to save the world, so she poisoned Alaric to place him in the Zone where he could be safe, even if everyone else died.

But since Alaric escaped, the plan changed, and Alaric was planning to cause as much chaos in the world to stop the monster from eating any Yang energy.

Indirectly killing it in the process.

Hina also added the fact that he intended on doing everything by himself, so he wouldn’t burden the rest of them. Or at least that’s what she believed.

The information settled in, and Ava finally understood exactly what was going on.

Covering her mouth, she looked to the ground, almost as if she wanted to throw up.

"I knew it," she uttered.

"You had a reason for doing this... I knew it..." Her voice broke with each word she said.

Hina, on the other hand, gripped her arm for the next part she was going to let out.

"Regarding why he picked me instead of you... I may know why that is," she whispered, "Right after the war started, I noticed Lord Alaric was getting sluggish; his body was weaker than what it used to be by every passing second. He told me to heal him, and I did. And kept on doing that for almost a whole day."

"What are you trying to say? That he only picked you so you could heal him?"

"Yes. The problem here is, he was never sick, not any that I remember. Then why is it, all of a sudden, he needs to be healed when the war starts?" Hina made a good point, and Ava knew this too.

"If that’s the case, then why did he ask you to go?"

"Another reason why I know he needed me for only my healing abilities. Lord Alaric was able to heal himself... he somehow learned how to do it, and right after, he told me to leave and return to the barony."

With widened eyes filled with realization, Ava jolted up from the bed.

"We have to get that box!" she yelled, only to drop back down to the ground from the sudden pain she felt.

Her painful grunts filled the entire cave.

"I’ll help you. As long as you promise it’s for his sake," Hina said while standing in front of her.

"Of course it’s for his sake. Hurry and help me up; I’m sure we can find a clue about the box with this paper."

"Very well."