36 Friend Or Foe? (1)

While Yvette and Luke were busy shopping around for goodies, Aria was trying her best to waive off the fatigue that had piled up through the day. Or to be more precise, she was trying to ease the tension that the ancient man had placed upon her shoulders. Aria remained still on the couch, loosely paying attention to the broadcast news while lazily hanging her arms down.

"Aria… The last I checked, I was the patient, not you. Even if you're dead tired, you shouldn't be resting in such a haphazard manner!" Finn's elder brother senses kicked in, and he started to lecture the fatigued Aria.

"Oh shut it!" Aria scoffed and waved the man's words away. "That's not how you treat someone who went out of her way to pay you a visit!"

"Ah, you've got me…" Finn shrugged. As the patient, he was in no place to lecture someone else about their health. "So… Any updates about the ancient man?"

"Classified."

"Since when did that stop you from running your mouth?" Finn knew Aria really well. She was the type to rant endlessly about her research findings, even if it wasn't published yet. Furthermore, she was the one that divulged the fact that Yudonia was running experiments on the man that came out of the dungeon.

"Also, the more heads, the better, right? We've relied on each other in the past, you should know how good I am at keeping secrets for you!" The patient continued to egg Aria on. The truth of the matter was… Finn was bored. Being a patient that was confined within four walls was tough. In addition, he wanted to get his mind off Yvette and Luke having their mini-date. So, Finn was eager to learn all about Aria's troubles, which was a win-win for both of them.

Aria wanted to vent, Finn wanted to listen. It was a match made in heaven!

"... you better not tell anyone. It could get me into trouble this time."

"My lips are sealed." Finn gestured as if he were zipping his mouth.

Aria sighed and tilted her neck towards Finn, who was seated upright on his hospital bed. "Hah… We have yet to decipher his genetic code. On the surface, he seems human, but no one knows what goes on underneath that man's skin. Since he's only responding to me, I will be the one doing the questioning from now on. However, the President believes that we should limit the visits to one hour a day."

"Why is that? Wouldn't it be more efficient if you were to work with the scientists monitoring him?"

Aria paused for a moment. She was hesitant to give the answer.

"What's wrong?"

"That man… he seems to be obsessed with me," Aria replied weakly. "Ever since he'd read my memories, the man only moved whenever I was around. The President believes that the obsession that he has for me is like..."

"Like a lover?"

"NOT A LOVER!!!" Aria unconsciously hollered. It was the one problem that had been bothering her ever since the questioning began. Did the ancient man fall in love with her? No, it was almost undeniable that he did. From only responding to her voice to yearning for her company every day… Only someone who held a considerable amount of love for her would do such a thing. Aria had boyfriends in the past, but she had never experienced such a unique and weird situation.

"Excuse me..." Realising that she'd overreacted, Aria calmed herself down while pushing her back up. Now seated comfortably on the sofa, the woman stared Finn in the eye.

"That man… he treats me this way because I was the first one he'd seen when he was unsealed. If you were the one to open the door, I'd bet he would be clinging onto you."

Aria's words sent shivers down Finn's spine. An ancient man that would pester him like one would a lover? It was something that Finn could never fathom in his entire twenty-six years of existence.

"That sounds… tough." For the first time, Finn started to sympathise with Aria's situation. "So why did the President limit you to an hour?"

"Said something about making him yearn for me would loosen his lips… Something he'd learnt when interrogating others." Aria shrugged and gave a rough recollection of the words the President used. "But my main issue isn't the questioning, it's the dreams that I'd been having."

"Dreams?"

"Yeah," Aria pulled her hair in frustration. "When the ancient man read my memories, I believe that bits of his consciousness latched on in my mind. I've been having vivid dreams that could only be described as recollections, old memories from an ancient time."

"His memories were etched into your mind?!"

"That's my hypothesis."

"Then… Doesn't it mean he's lying about having amnesia? If he has memories..."

"I know what you're thinking, and I had that thought as well." Aria interrupted Finn. "However, there are no falsehoods in his words, at least from what the President and I can tell."

"If he's not lying then..."

"Here's my conjuncture… Let's say he's telling the truth, and he doesn't know anything about his past. When the ancient man was sealed, his memories were locked alongside him. I don't know through what kind of magic, but it's something that no Archmagus or Magician had ever encountered. I mean, you saw the tapes on the Dragons..."

"Yeah, their magic was out of this world… Alien almost." Finn shivered as he recalled the scenes from the Dragon corpse that Arcane Warlock Rhykius pulled out. "They were on a whole other plane. I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually aliens instead of our ancient ancestors."

"Aliens… That's actually quite an apt description of their powers." Aria agreed. At its peak, there was no way Yudonia would be able to clear the S-Class Dungeon. The golems on the first floor itself were hard enough, and they were already dilapidated, to begin with!

"So if you think about it, it's possible that the ancient man's memories were sealed by those alien-like entities."

"And when your mind was linked with his… You were able to tap into those memories because his seal wasn't placed onto you?"

"Exactly!"

Finn had hit the nail on the head. If the ancient man wasn't lying, that was the only possible explanation for his odd behaviour. The man had really forgotten everything and was just a shell of his former self. No matter how one cuts it, it didn't make sense that the ancient man would be wholly ignorant about everything. It would also explain why the man had a considerable degree of affection for the person that 'saved' his life, Aria.

"Just imagine what mysteries we could solve if we unsealed his memories!" Aria's face flushed red, and her sleepy eyes sprung back into life. "The power behind the Dragons. The existence of Angels and Demons. The true origin of Magic! If he regains his memories, there's no telling what we would learn!"

"Aria, your bad habit is showing..."

"A-ah, sorry about that." Aria turned her head away, this time, her face was red with embarrassment instead of excitement. She always had a tendency to overreact when a clue about the unknown came into her sights. It was one of the rare bad traits that she'd inherited from her master.

"No worries, I'm used to it." The patient in his pyjamas yawned with disinterest. He'd seen Aria's outburst many times before, there was no use dwelling on the details. What Finn was interested in though…

"If his memories are sealed, is there any use of questioning him? If you can't get any information from him, aren't you just imprisoning him like a felon who had done nothing wrong?"

Perhaps it was the Paladin in Finn talking, but he was way too uncomfortable with the methods that Yudonia was employing. The ancient man may not be human or a part of the Greater Humanoid Species, but he was a sentient being nonetheless. And from Aria's account, the ancient man had emotions just like any other human. Keeping him locked up when he'd just come out from an eternal slumber… Finn didn't know if that was the right thing to do.

"That's a good point, but Yudonia can't afford to just let him walk either." Aria was sympathetic, but ultimately, she was on the side of Yudonia. "Just imagine the uproar it would create once the World Congress finds out that we've been hiding him. All of our efforts would have been washed down the drain."

"Still..."

"Don't worry, Finn. We have it under control." Aria reassured her friend. "All you need to do is focus on your own recovery. We're in the middle of a crisis, so we have no choice. But in the end, the ancient man won't be harmed in the slightest. That is if he really has no ill intentions towards us."

That was the hardest question that Aria and Yudonia's researchers were baffled about. Was the ancient man a friend, or a foe? Only time would tell.