Elara

"Then, how about Sugar and Smoke?"

Brother and Elara turned to him. As they walked, they also nodded and agreed it was a good reference. Elara became Sugar, and Sorin became Smoke.

"Okay, let's test it. Smoke?" Elara called him.

Sorin nodded. "Yes. And, Sugar?"

"I'm here!" Elara raised her hand cheerfully.

Brother laughed at them. Even Sorin enjoyed the atmosphere.

They continued their walk. The village exuded an old-world charm, with cobblestone pathways leading them through.

The sun's warm rays bathed the buildings in a golden glow, casting long shadows that added to the enchanting ambiance.

The scent of freshly baked bread and aromatic Italian dishes wafted from the nearby trattorias, tempting the trio's taste buds.

Colorful flowers cascaded from window boxes, infusing the air with a delicate fragrance that complimented the idyllic surroundings.

They talked about the system as Sorin took a lot of mental notes on basic things.

He found out that the new system format was just updated to be this game-like design a couple of years ago. And then, he got some interesting facts again.

"The people who updated the system were Brother and Mama," Elara said.

"Eh?" so the system was not like this from the very beginning?

Well, it made sense since they used modern terms, even though the design was quite unique.

"What do you think? Papa and the others quite struggled with it since they had an old soul. Mama agreed to it immediately because she always likes things being tidy," Brother said.

Ah, so it was his idea?

"It records your fundamental strengths and weaknesses, as well as your reigns and authorities. Mama said that knowing what you lack can assist you in becoming stronger," Brother explained.

Brother elaborated further that even though he could see his level and everything else inside his status window, it might not fully describe his overall strength.

"You can see that we have no level in our status description," Brother said, and Sorin instantly realized it.

He opened the Status window, and it was true. There was no leveling option. No experience point bar, and there was nothing that could indicate his overall strength.

Sorin spent his life being poor and struggling, so he wasn't really familiar with a game-like setting. Even so, as a 21st-century generation, he could still recognize it.

"Other than your strength and reigns, your status window could also notify you when you have some negative status, like if you were sick or poisoned," Elara said.

"Ah, even though you're an immortal, you can still be tortured by a strong poison from hell, you know," Brother added.

He mentioned that poisons were different from curses, so their reigns might not be able to handle it.

Sorin remembered a certain comic book character with cancer and incredible regeneration ability, stabilizing his body because the regeneration and cancer kept fighting each other inside.

Even though cancer was different from poison, if it was something that came from hell, Sorin could imagine the same effect.

"Without levels and a precise means of calculating my true strength, how can I gauge my power and determine the most effective way to grow stronger?" he muttered.

"Well, weren't you able to learn Sister's name?" Brother said.

Sorin raised his eyebrows and glanced at the smiling Elara.

"I was quite shocked when you could hear my name and came out unscathed. I figured because you got immortality, you could heal yourself even though your ears exploded, so I decided to test you," Elara revealed.

"Ah—" Sorin was flabbergasted.

"I felt bad after... I'm sorry," she said.

This woman... was the reason she treated him so well because she felt bad for almost destroying his cochlear?

"Don't blame her too much," Brother said. "Because of our experience, we could already gouge your overall strength, so she wasn't doing such a great gambling of revealing her name to you."

So she was aware that she possessed roughly the same strength and authority as he did. But what Brother said next made him completely lost.

"And Sister is around 200 years old now, right?"

Elara and Brother turned to him.

"I'm 221 years old, to be precise," she said. "It means you have around 221 years' worth of strength and experience."

Sorin froze.

This woman in front of him... was 221 years old?

"It is a rough estimation since Sister's strength surely couldn't be gouged by her age. Furthermore, comparing her abilities per year with other sovereigns surely wouldn't be accurate," Brother said.

"That's not true, Brother. My strength can indeed be best defined by time compared to other sovereigns. I am quite different from all of you, after all," Elara said then.

Sorin was still shocked, but the two's conversation after that piqued his interest.

"Can we slow down for a little bit?" Sorin calmed himself down.

Brother and Elara turned to him; they looked a little bit embarrassed.

"Ah, my secret has been revealed..." Elara turned her body away. "I didn't want to tell you that... my age..."

Her voice became faint in the end.

Sorin saw Elara walk away as if she was upset about something.

"Ahh, you argued about Papa's name, and now you found out about her age. She must be very upset," Brother hooked his arm on his neck and then ruffled his hair.

"You have big guts but poor luck. Amazing."

"Is that my fault, though?" Sorin grunted. "Why would she be upset about me knowing her age? Isn't that supposed to be amazing?"

"And I couldn't understand why she even is upset about me not wanting to call her father Papa," he muttered, "That's just ridiculous."

Brother looked at him with a complicated expression. He seemed unsure of saying something, but he finally said it anyway.

"When Sister was born, Papa accidentally called his own name in front of her," Brother said with a low voice.

Sorin turned to him, raising his eyebrows.

"He tried to give her a version of his name mixed with Mama's name, but he destroyed her ears."

Instantly, Sorin was reminded of the way his own ears exploded. Elara's back drifted away, as he felt an increasingly complicated feeling inside him.

Hearing her own's father's name as a baby, that woman…