Chapter 494: Two Truths and a Lie II
"How in the seven dimensions does that make sense?!"
She then turned to Artemisia who was pouring wine for everyone and asked.
"Also, Arty! Why do you need such a strange method to know my sexual orientation?!"
"Could never be too careful."
"Too careful about what?!"
Artemisia offered no reply to that question, but her silence was enough to reduce Beatrix to a sobbing mess and Evan once again began consoling her.
Unfortunately, Beatrix was deprived of her consoler when Artemisia pulled Evan away from her and spoke.
"You go next."
"Huh? Me?"
"Yeah. We’re four. We’d alternate based on gender. I’m after you and Arthur’s last."
Considering the game was his idea, Arthur felt a bit miffed at being kept for last but that only lasted a second.
With all eyes on Evan now, the boy coughed to clear his throat before speaking with unparalleled confidence.
"You guys would never guess the ’Lie’.
First off...Strawberries are the best fruits in the Universe."
His first line already had Artemisia rolling her eyes while Arthur just chuckled, however, they didn’t speak and let Evan finish.
"What’s next....oh.
I once got stuffed down a dragon’s throat, and I’ve had my heart completely destroyed before."
When he finished speaking, Artemisia repeated the same words she had spoken to Beatrix earlier.
"Again, I say this. The game is 2 Truths and a Lie. Not 2 Lies and a Truth."
"Yeah, I said two Truths."
Evan replied without a second’s pause, his expression showing he considered his choice of options to be ones that fit the game.
"Strawberries aren’t the best fruits in the Universe, Evan."
"Then you must be from another Universe."
Artemisia facepalmed and Beatrix who had wiped away her imaginary tears chuckled at this reaction.
"I’m gonna guess the one about the heart is a lie?"
Half a second after Beatrix spoke, she came to a realisation and changed her guess.
"Wait...resurrection spells exist. The dragon one is the lie."
"Only the third is true."
Artemisia spoke up after Beatrix, still hell-bent on denying Evan’s claim of strawberries being the best fruits while Arthur pointed at Beatrix and said he was going with her suggestion.
Ignoring Artemisia, Evan gave applause as he replied.
"Congratulations, you exceeded my expectations.
The truth is someone did want to stuff me down a dragon’s throat, but I killed the dragon and ate its heart before they could."
Evan told this short story with a shrug, and Beatrix who was in the middle of her celebratory gut’s pose slowly scooted away from him.
"Evan...did you cook it first?"
"...what?"
"The Dragon Heart. Did you cook it?"
"..."
Her question was so out of pocket that even Celestia and Lostvayne were dumbfounded. Rather than be concerned he had eaten a dragon’s heart, her focus was on whether it was cooked or not.
"...I didn’t."
"Get behind me, you devil!"
"pfft!!"
Arthur burst out laughing as he watched Beatrix go on about germs and bacteria from not disinfecting food, on a completely different tangent from what one would expect when it came to discovering someone had eaten a dragon heart.
Artemisia and Arthur were more concerned about what had caused Evan to have his heart destroyed in the past, with Artemisia very curious about ’if he died’.
"Shut up for a second, Beatrix."
She grabbed Beatrix from behind and covered the other goddess’ mouth before voicing her question out to Evan.
"When you lost your heart...did you die?"
Her question sounded like a dumb one. Humans couldn’t survive without their hearts, and dragons were no different. So, Evan, being a Draconic Human should also have the trait of ’dying’ when ’losing his heart’.
She knew this, and yet she still asked it.
"..."
In the face of her question, Evan momentarily went silent and this silence allowed the other two to realise there was something Artemisia had picked up on.
"I didn’t."
Evan finally replied and hearing it, Artemisia nodded in silence. This confirmed the conjecture he had ever since she scanned Evan’s body on the day that she noticed her Divinity on him.
Her conjecture had now become a conclusion.
That Evan had two hearts.
When he spoke about losing his Heart, then he probably lost ’one’ of them.
’Or the one he lost, was his original heart...’
Artemisia knew that she and Evan were familiar with each other in the future, and she had even granted him a huge portion of power—his ’Adaptive Evolution’ skill.
The goddess had noticed that hidden inside that ’Unique Skill’, was a replenishable charge of an ’Authority of Evolution’.
Knowing that Evan was not born a Draconic Human, but had become one, and now hearing him talk about having eaten a Dragon’s Heart, it wasn’t hard for her to piece the story together.
As for Evan, he didn’t need her to say anything to know she had pieced things together. He silently sighed, a thought crossing his mind.
’It’s things like that that are probably why she didn’t want me to meet her younger self. Well, I may have also said too much.
Did I originally meet the younger her? Or is this creating a new timeline or something?’
Such thoughts crossed his mind and he glanced at Arthur who was pestering Artemisia for answers, however, the goddess remained silent.
"Hmm? Wait a sec, it’s my turn now, isn’t it?"
"You’re not changing the topic so easily, Arty!"
Beatrix easily saw through Artemisia’s little scheme but the black-haired goddess silently grabbed her white-haired friend’s head and pushed her away.
"Let’s get on with mine.
For starters, I hate Beatrix’s guts."
"BUT WHY?!"
Beatrix instantly forgot about Evan’s case as she screamed out her protest while the two boys doubled over with laughter.
Ignoring Beatrix’s teary-eyed outburst, Artemisia continued calmly.
"Secondly, I once tamed a wild Chimera and kept it as a pet for a year.
And lastly, I don’t see guys taller than me by more than 5 inches as potential romantic partners. It’s a hassle to be craning my neck up all the time."
When she said that third line, Artemisia’s expression twisted a little bit, but she quickly regained her default stoic look.
Evan’s eyes gleamed with a curious light when he heard about the exact height difference that she specified in the last line.
His gaze demanded she spilt the details but Artemisia silently looked away, not intending to say a word.
"Oh, no. You’re not getting away with silence."
Evan moved over from Beatrix’s side and headed to Artemisia, with the goddess instinctively scooting away to try to escape. Eventually, she wound up with her back to Arthur and when she turned to him, the silver-haired teen just smiled and spoke.
"I would not deny my interest..."
With Evan blocking her escape route on one end, and Arthur holding the fort behind her, Artemisia had no choice but to confess about her embarrassing near-first kiss encounter that failed because the guy was much taller than she was.
"...it was during a summer festival on the Gamma Continent in Aidos. I was about to have my first kiss with my first crush."
Evan raised a brow in confusion when he heard of the ’Gamma Continent’, various thoughts crossing his mind in that instant but no one noticed since their attentions were fixed on Artemisia.
"...we were standing on a bridge, and when he leaned in, I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach him. But just as we were about to kiss, I lost my balance and fell into the river below."
Hearing Artemisia’s story and seeing her cheeks flushing a rare shade of pink, Arthur’s reaction was one very strange one.
He looked at her like he was gazing at some sort of Alien.
"Who the heck are you?! What did you do with the real Artemisia?!"
"Bwahahaha!!!"
Beatrix doubled over in laughter when she heard his words, having expected this kind of reaction. Even Evan who had pressured her into talking was completely dumbfounded.
"...Artemisia...is capable of love?"
"...what sort of image of me do you two have in your heads?"
Artemisia questioned with narrowed eyes but Evan did not answer while Arthur appraised her repeatedly, trying to confirm if she was the real deal.
It took a while for Evan who looked like his worldview had collapsed to snap back to reality, while Arthur finally barely managed to accept that the Artemisia before him was the real thing.
"Hahaha...everyone always acts like this when they hear this story..."
Beatrix spoke while chuckling and seeing Artemisia’s obvious confusion, she elaborated.
"You’re always so serious, Arty. You’re really pretty but your expression’s always blank and it honestly scares most guys away.
Anyone who has known you for even a little bit would assume that you’re incapable of feeling emotions like ’romantic love’."
"...I’d like to believe I’m very capable of such since I’m a perfectly normal girl, and secondly, it was just a crush. It wasn’t that deep."
Artemisia replied curtly and Beatrix was about to speak up when Arthur beat her to it.
"Come to think of it, we haven’t yet identified Artemisia’s ’Lie’."
"True...which one of them is the lie between the other two."
Evan concurred with his words, propping his chin on his palm and wearing a pensive look as he began ’pondering’ the two statements.
Seeing him taking so long to think about it, Beatrix spoke.
"The first one is obviously the ’Lie’."
She turned to Artemisia who was roasting another set of meat over the fire and continued.
"Right?"
"..."
"Arty...the first one is the lie, right?"
"..."
Met with silence once more, tears slowly began forming at the corners of Beatrix’s eyes. It was then that Arthur spoke up.
"I’m guessing that the second one is the lie.
"Correct."
"!?"
Beatrix’s expression twisted into one of despair and once again Evan was left to console the crying girl, whilst silently wondering if she never ran out of tears.
Arthur glanced at Beatrix and then at Artemisia before asking.
"The first’s the real lie, isn’t it? Despite what you say, you don’t actually hate Beatrix."
Artemisa momentarily glanced in the direction of the white-haired girl in question before nodding in affirmation and replying.
"No, I don’t. On the contrary, it’s actually the opposite."
