"Don't you resent us?"
A small expression of shock appeared on the small goblin's face. There was a strange glint in the corner of her green eyes for a moment, quickly fizzling out and replaced by an almost endless, hollow emptiness despite the radiant glow.
"Why would I resent you?"
Vale looked a little off to the side. Whether due to shame or regret, he didn't know. It wasn't like he cared too deeply that she'd been charmed and free will robbed. In the end, his own mental block was still there and probably would forever be.
Just like Toy, his true personality and values were a husk of what they had been.
"We killed all your compatriots."
Toy looked up at him with a confused expression.
"That…" Toy blinked a little, then said, "No, you didn't."
'Huh?'
'I wasn't under the impression that being charmed erases memories.'
'It doesn't, right?'
Vale slowly drew his gaze to the loincloths again, which were probably in need of a serious washing.
"Do you… not remember?"
Toy slowly blinked and studied each detail of Vale's handsome face.
"I… do. But, also… I don't?"
Vale raised his eyebrow slightly before lowering himself and sitting on the ground right in front of her. Well, the point of the white void that served as the ground.
"What do you mean? You don't remember Salome and me killing your friends?"
"Salome…" Toy looked over at the pink portal with an odd smile for a brief moment after repeating her name. "I remember… but I don't remember them."
'What?'
She remembered, but she didn't? Vale grew a little confused and concluded that maybe he was going about this the wrong way. Maybe there was a more direct question he could ask her.
"Why did you attack this place?"
"That… I don't know. The first memory I have was waking up with a weapon in my hand and being compelled to attack anything that moved… I remember you killing the others… but I don't really remember having any connection with them before then. In fact, I feel like all my memories before appearing here have been erased. They definitely once existed… but they're gone now."
'That's odd…'
She hadn't known her own name after all…
So, was Toy a true conjuration made by the being that transmigrated him? Or was there something more profound, possibly more sinister, at play?
"So, you just woke up with a sword in your hand… and decided to attack us?"
Toy seemed to ease up as their conversation flowed, perhaps having been intimidated by his presence before. She also revealed herself to be fairly articulate for a lifeform that seemed inherently unintelligent. It just went to prove the notion that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
Sometimes, it's not a difference in intelligence that separates people, but a difference in language and culture; humans have a long history of stigmatizing foreign cultures and languages, with a predisposition to view practitioners as unintelligent or barbaric, for no reason other than ethnocentrism.
Toy responded:
"Like I said… it was much more forced than decided. It was probably the same for the others with me. But, if I had any connection to them… I'd forgotten it before I'd even laid eyes on you."
Toy looked away into the endless white void, before she continued:
"Forgive my impudence… but, I know I'm charmed… I knew I was being charmed when it was happening. But, at the same time, I didn't resist because it calmed whatever energy was controlling me. It chased off that nasty, domineering inclination toward violence derived from a will not my own..."
Vale studied the goblin's slender body, which was free of anything related to imperfection.
'She… knows?'
Toy smiled a bit, still looking off to the side.
"For some reason, you seem to think being charmed has had an adverse effect on me… but I think otherwise. In fact, it was liberating… I feel free… Maybe I can't recognize it… Maybe my mind has truly been messed with by you two… but at the very least I feel like I'm following master of my own will."
Toy closed her eyes, smiled, and blushed while looking down as she added:
"I also liked it… a lot."
Vale stared at the goblin, who brought her slender green hands to her cheek and shook her head side to side with a dubious expression on her face, probably replaying what happened earlier on the back of her eyelids.
"That so? Well… I was wondering… if Salome is your master, then what am I to you?"
Toy's eyes slowly reopened, and she looked at Vale.
"As long as you are my master's master, I will follow you."
'So… she's not entirely loyal to me.'
That's fine. Vale wasn't really expecting loyalty in the first place.
At its core, loyalty isn't quantifiable. The fact that it was made into a number by the system meant nothing to him. The number he read above the goblin's head, which had disappeared after becoming 100, and the 100 in Salome's bio, didn't feel like quantifications of true loyalty, but rather submission.
True loyalty was qualitative and was cultivated by time… time he hadn't spent with either Toy or Salome.
***
Vale talked to Toy for a little longer and pried a little more into her thoughts and feelings about the matter at hand, trying to gauge whether, or more so, how much of her will was being impeded.
In the end, he couldn't come to any rational conclusion. At the very least, Toy seemed content with her situation and didn't appear to be a slave who craved only passion.
She still possessed other desires beyond lust and fealty.
But the two had definitely grown a little closer from the brief exchange. Vale was literally one of two people she'd ever conversed with that she could remember; so, while Vale may not have their talk's true importance, Toy's trust and admiration toward Vale had started to grow, regardless of the fact that Salome was technically the one she followed.
Vale had stood up and walked over to the pile of rubble.
Something else seeped into his mind as he watched the slowly growing pile…
'9'
He had nine Aether to spend if he wished.