Chapter 1675 - 1675: Epilogue 29 - The End of the Beginning (1)

Zoey's POV

The war my father had started in this world had finally begun, and strangely enough, it was something I had once desperately wanted to see him accomplish. I had spent years studying, researching, and pushing myself harder than I probably needed to because I wanted to help make his dream of conquering another world become a reality.

Eventually, he actually managed to do it.

He succeeded in reaching another world, and now he intended to rule it with an iron hand, forcing its inhabitants into submission and turning them into little more than slaves beneath his authority. He would send them into all kinds of labor, making them work until their lives were practically drained away just to support the empire he wanted to build.

When I first learned about this world, I honestly didn't care what happened to it or to the people living here.

It was another world, after all, and the people living here had nothing to do with me.

Why should I have cared about strangers living somewhere completely beyond my own world?

That was what I believed at first.

Living here changed that.

The longer I stayed in this world, the more I began to realize that it really wasn't as different from ours as I had originally imagined. Their cultures were different, their traditions weren't the same, and their beliefs could sometimes be completely foreign to anything I had grown up with, but beneath all those differences, they were still people.

They laughed when something amused them.

They cried when someone they cared about was hurt.

They became angry when something important was taken away from them.

They fell in love, made friends, argued with one another, worried about their families, and dreamed about having better lives just like people in our world did.

The more I saw of them, the harder it became for me to treat them like nothing more than inhabitants of some distant world that my father could simply conquer.

They weren't disposable.

They weren't resources.

They weren't numbers on some military report.

They were people.

I didn't want this world to fall completely under my father's control.

I didn't want to see its people forced into becoming slaves simply because they happened to live in the world he had chosen as his target.

I especially didn't want to watch him turn an entire world into something that existed solely to serve his ambitions.

That was why I had to do something.

One way or another, my father had to be stopped.

While those thoughts were running through my head, the device I had been studying suddenly began making a strange beeping sound.

I immediately turned toward it.

The object sitting in front of me was one of the explosives that the Republic, which my father controlled, had fired toward the Kingdom once again. I had been carefully studying it because I wanted to understand its characteristics as a missile, including how it was constructed, how powerful it was, and what kind of destructive capabilities it possessed.

I wanted to understand what made their weapons so dangerous.

More importantly, I wanted to figure out how they could potentially be countered.

The device suddenly produced another strange sound.

"W-Wha...?" I muttered, staring at it with confusion.

The beeping continued for several seconds before the device suddenly began projecting something into the air.

A hologram appeared directly in front of me.

The image flickered briefly before becoming clear.

Then I heard a voice that I hadn't expected to hear again so soon.

"Zoey."

My entire body immediately stiffened.

I stared at the holographic image in disbelief.

"F-Father?"

"It has been a while, hasn't it?"

His voice sounded exactly the same as I remembered.

Calm. Controlled. And emotionless.

Somehow, that made me even more nervous.

"W-Why?" I asked, my voice trembling despite my attempts to keep it steady.

"I know you've been working with that man, and I know you've sided with them," he said, his expression remaining completely unchanged. "I also know that he has been asking you to research our missiles and weapons so that he can develop some sort of countermeasure against us."

My heart sank.

He knew.

"So that's why I sent one of our missiles toward him," Father continued. "I was hoping he would eventually bring it to you so that I could use it as a means of sending you this message."

So that was what he had been doing.

He had deliberately sent one of his missiles toward the Kingdom simply because he expected Leon to bring it to me.

He had planned the entire thing just so he could contact me.

"You have done well to deceive him and make him believe that you are truly on his side," Father said calmly. "You can come back now."

"H-Huh?"

For several seconds, I simply stared at the hologram.

I honestly wasn't sure whether I had heard him correctly.

Come back?

Just like that?

It felt like I had just heard something that made me realize my father hadn't been taking me seriously at all.

"You placed yourself alongside that man so that you could learn more about him, didn't you?" he continued. "Well, you've gathered enough information for the moment, so there is no reason for you to remain there any longer."

I couldn't find anything to say.

Father continued speaking as though my return had already been decided.

"Although I originally wanted to study that man's abilities and determine just how powerful he truly is, I don't believe that will be necessary anymore."

His expression remained calm.

"Come back, Zoey."

My hands slowly tightened.

"You and Chloe can continue serving me as you have always done. After this world has been conquered, I want you to begin working on another portal to a different world."

He paused briefly before continuing.

"That will be our next target."

I was completely baffled.

Did he really think that was why I had stayed here?

Did he genuinely believe that I had only placed myself beside Leon because I wanted to learn more about him and figure out how powerful he was?

Did he honestly think I would simply return to his side the moment he called me back?

The thought was almost absurd.

Father hadn't even considered the possibility that I might betray him.

He hadn't questioned my loyalty.

He hadn't suspected that I could eventually turn against him.

To him, I was still his loyal daughter who had infiltrated this world for the sake of gathering information.

He genuinely believed that I would come running back the moment he told me to.

Somehow, that hurt far more than I expected.

I had spent so much time thinking about whether I was betraying my father.

I had struggled with the guilt of secretly working against him, knowing that everything I was doing went directly against the plans he had spent so long building.

Yet now, after hearing him speak so casually about my return, I suddenly felt as though I was the one who had been betrayed.