Miss Hebe Is Charging Through the Lostbelts! [45]

Tutankhamun’s gaze turned to Nitocris, his eyes even more sorrowful.

“Let us talk about Imhotep. I also have a great deal I wish to say.” The young pharaoh sighed again and again. “What she fought against was not only the Red King. The enemy she had to face was history itself.”

“From that perspective, Imhotep actually saved history, and saved the future of Egyptian civilization as well.”

“I do not understand…” Nitocris said.

“I will give you an example, and then you will.” Tutankhamun replied, “Do you still remember the name of Ozymandias’s queen?”

This was no difficult question for Nitocris. She answered at once. “Nefertiti.”

“Wrong.” A faint look of shame appeared on Tutankhamun’s face. “Nefertiti was my mother.”

It was like a grand lie being exposed, like sealed memories finally coming to light.

Nefertiti was Tutankhamun’s mother, the queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The queen of Ramesses II, pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty, was named Nefertari. As for Duke of Sighs, Their name was Nephthys.

For ease of distinction, Tutankhamun collectively referred to them as Nef, distinguishing them as the first incarnation, second incarnation, and third incarnation.

Nitocris came to a sudden realization. She had never realized that she had forgotten so many things.

The look of shame quickly vanished, and Tutankhamun continued to speak the truth.

“You and Anubis, as well as Pepe and Bastet, are all two sides of one coin. My mother was the same. When the body of the first Nef died, she ‘awoke’ in her blood kin as memory. This is the truth of so-called ‘resurrection.’”

“In terms of their bodies, they are two people. In terms of memory, they are the same person.”

“My mother used this method to obscure her own death, and likewise fooled history… Of course, I do not know the detailed method by which Mother altered history, nor do I know who told her this method.”

At this point, that look of shame appeared on Tutankhamun’s face once more.

“In this way, my mother became a Dusk of the Priest Path in her second incarnation. Ozymandias knew about this, but he was glad to see it happen,” Tutankhamun said softly. “Because to him, no matter how hard the second Nef struggled, she was only a cornerstone to set off his own ascension.”

“After that, the second Nef threw herself into the Nile.”

“I did not believe Mother would die like that, but all I found was one section of her hand bone, and nothing else… No one knew where Mother had gone. In other words, she was someone both dead and alive.”

It was like Schrödinger’s cat. Before the box was opened and confirmed, no one knew whether the cat inside was dead or alive.

That hand bone was the “anchor” left behind by the second Nef, waiting for someone of a later age to open it.

This was clarifying the secret history and determining the truth.

In other words, it was the process of conquering the Lostbelt and merging it into the Histories.

The second Nef waited here with hope in her heart, and in the end, she waited for the person who could open the box.

Imhotep—or rather, Hebe Stanton.

Hebe was unwilling to accept the future where Ozymandias became a Consul, and so she began seeking another possibility: to have someone replace the Red King and become a Consul during the ascension ritual.

For that, she needed to understand the lives of Nef’s first two incarnations in detail, and in the end, imagine her third incarnation.

And so Nef was able to appear in Ozymandias’s ritual in her most perfected form. Through the connection between king and queen, she seized control of the ritual and turned the Red King into her stepping stone instead.

With this, Nef completed her threefold resurrection.

Her first incarnation was queen of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Tutankhamun’s mother. Her second incarnation was queen of the Nineteenth Dynasty, wife of Ramesses II. Her third incarnation ascended into the Wasteland and became Nephthys, guardian goddess of houses and the dead.

December Consul: Duke of Sighs was the union of all three incarnations.

“The new Consul has finally been born. From now on, death will be orderly, and the disasters will lay down their banners and cease. Duke of Sighs will remember the name of every deceased person, so history will become clearer, and Egypt will no longer be without a future.”

Tutankhamun smiled self-mockingly. “All of this is good. But what was the price?”

Nitocris stared blankly at the ground.

To set wrong history back in order, to pull down a king who brought disaster upon his people, to lift a new Consul to Their honored seat… Ima had done so many things. How could there be no price?

How could there possibly be no price at all?

Nitocris thought of those thin shoulders, and felt something strange in her heart. How had such a small body shouldered the fate of so many people?

Compared to the violent, willful Red King, perhaps Hebe was the one more like the burden-bearer carrying Upper and Lower Egypt on her shoulders.

For no reason, she thought of the priests in the temple who wrote papyri. They wrote upon the papyrus with ink-filled pens, and when the words were nearly done, the ink would be dry as well.

“The disasters have passed. Let those people out,” Tutankhamun said. “There is one more thing I think you need to know.”

Nitocris raised her head to look at him and said in a low voice, “What else could there be?”

At Tutankhamun’s urging, the people of Egypt reappeared upon the broad, stable plain.

Yet one person did not leave. It was Cyno.

He held a roll of papyrus in his hands. When he noticed Nitocris, that roll of papyrus glowed faintly.

So he walked over and presented the papyrus with both hands. Nitocris reached out with a trembling hand.

On that papyrus was someone’s handwriting.

[I saw snow falling, Sister Nitocris. It is snowing in Egypt. I once had some unrealistic fantasies, but I used all of them to trade for a better future.]

[Together with your share.]

[So you ought to take revenge on me, and the best revenge is forgetting. It is only a return to how things were, and I had nothing to begin with. I saw snow falling, Sister Nitocris. It is snowing in Egypt.]

Cyno did not dare look at Nitocris’s face. He saw the papyrus tremble more and more, like a lotus leaf struck by a rainstorm.

“The Ibis King previously sent us to search various places for a suitable site for the Sanctum of Silence,” Cyno said. “In the end, she chose Heliopolis… The Sanctum of Silence has now been completed, but it still lacks a deity who can offer protection.”

“The Ibis King hoped you would become our protector.” Cyno dropped to one knee.

Anubis was Nitocris’s Great Deed. As long as it was remembered by the Sanctum of Silence, Nitocris would not decline, and the Sanctum of Silence would likewise receive protection and continue for a long time.

The world was clamorous, but only silence remained here.

An extremely hoarse voice sounded above Cyno’s head.

“So, from the very beginning, she had already foreseen this ending, did she?”

Those who wished to become heroes died satisfied, in the proper place. Those who wished to live peaceful days welcomed a calm and beautiful tomorrow. Those who wished to revive what had fallen and continue what had been severed became gods who remembered everything… All things were in order, and all had a bright future.

“But what about her?” Nitocris asked hoarsely. “In this orderly new world, where did she put herself?!”

Nitocris’s voice was like the cry of a night owl, sorrowful and piercing.

Tutankhamun covered his face. He could not answer that question.

“I see. Then I understand.” Nitocris rolled up the papyrus bit by bit and tucked it against her heart. “I once heard a story in Thebes.”

Her voice was faint, as though it had come from somewhere very, very far away.

“It said that as long as enough time passes, a drop of water, after flowing into the ocean, will return; a grain of sand, after falling into the desert, can come again as well.”

As long as enough time passed, she would once again see the familiar person appear before her.

“I will become the guardian goddess of the Sanctum of Silence,” Nitocris said. “I will live on, on and on. There is no pain that cannot be healed, no sinking that cannot be ended. Everything lost will, at the end of time, return in another form.”

This is a fan translation of 赫柏小姐正在杀出异闻带！ by 青散人 Rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!