"I never forgot any of it from the very beginning."
"From start to finish."
"I remember it all perfectly clearly."
Oko's words were like a sudden sledgehammer, smashing hard into Fente's heart and leaving her completely petrified.
"..."
Then, after nearly ten seconds of silence, Fente asked in a dry voice like an elderly person suffering from dementia:
"Huh?"
"Mo, Momo."
"Wh-what did you just... say?"
Oko replied with an impatient expression:
"Hah, getting old has made you hard of hearing too?"
"Then I'll repeat it one last time."
"From the time Oulin brought me to the Holy Light Pure Land... until the day I appeared before you again—"
"For more than ten years, from beginning to end, I never forgot Sweet Home."
"Bibotum, Betasha, Nicola, Ruilin, Fuyilai, Parihame."
"And all those children who were the same age as me back then."
"I remember everyone."
"Of course, that includes you."
Upon hearing this, Fente's expression turned utterly dumbfounded, her mind plunging into a blank void of bewilderment.
The reason Momo had used every kind of deception and scheme against me, with every attack aimed at my vital points, was simply because the Hunter Corps had brainwashed her and made her forget her past. That was why she mistook me for a sworn enemy full of lies and had no intention of trusting me...
That was what Fente had originally believed.
Yet with Oko's voluntary confession now, Fente suddenly realized that it had all been nothing more than her own one-sided delusion!
Oko had never lost her memories!
She still remembered Sweet Home!
She still remembered the family she once had!
She still remembered Fente, the adoptive mother who had taught and raised her!
From the very first moment they met, Oko had already recognized Fente for who she was!
So