"Talk about what's happened over the years?"
Although she extremely didn't want to answer that question, after glancing back at her siblings' room, Anna couldn't help but bite her lip and then nod with some difficulty.
"Okay... Where should I start?"
"Start from when you got the object."
The man in the black robe said calmly,
"Six years ago, after your parents passed away, I came over to deliver the washed photos and discovered that you had a certain 'potential.' Then I gave you a little help. May I ask what happened after that?"
What happened after that...
Upon hearing this, Anna once again bit her lip, her face turning somewhat pale, and said,
"After that... I, indeed, just like you said, regained a family, but... but it wasn't the kind I wanted..."
The man in the black robe raised his eyebrows with interest, then asked,
"It's like... When I spoke to that photo, wanting my family back, it wasn't my parents who appeared in the house, but a boy around my age."
Recalling the situation back then, Anna said, her eyes full of complexity,
"When he saw me, he claimed he was my brother. I thought I had met a madman and was startled, frantically pushing him out the door, then continued talking to the photo you gave me.
What I said was that I wanted my parents back, to have a family again, but once again, they didn't appear. Instead, what came was a pair of swaddled babies..."
"I see... It seems that back then, you didn't fully believe my words."
The man in the black robe shook his head and said regretfully,
"You were a slightly mature and calm-minded kid, and back then, you had already deeply understood the meaning of death and knew that your parents couldn't come back.
Even though I told you that family photo was an unparalleled miracle, capable of allowing you to have a family again, and demonstrated a part of its power before you, you still didn't fully believe me. Deep down, you thought it couldn't bring your parents back.
Because of the doubt and distrust in your heart, the seed I left in that photo didn't hatch towards summoning your parents back but ventured into an unknown new direction, causing the abnormal... well... causing deviations in the effect, what a pity."
Upon hearing the words of the man in the black robe, Anna felt a wave of dizziness, a cold rush of something gut-wrenching suddenly hit her heart.
"So... if I had believed it enough back then, could I really have brought them back?"
"Sorry, it's also impossible."
The man in the black robe shook his head again and said,
"The boundary between life and death isn't entirely irreversible, but the conditions needed are unimaginably harsh. Making someone 'undead' isn't hard, but bringing the dead back to life is astonishingly difficult.
Although your 'talent' is very outstanding, it was still not enough to break the barrier between life and death. However, if you had believed me enough, you might have summoned the remnants left by your parents or created two puppets like them."
"Then... wouldn't that still be fake?"
"It's fake, indeed, but back then you were not even ten years old. Even if they were just two empty puppets with the look of your parents, it would fulfill your wish, so I did not lie to you."
After answering Anna's question without changing his expression, the man in the black robe, noticing that the "test subject" seemed to have some trouble, his demeanor visibly became indifferent.
Looking towards the inner room, glancing through the wall at the two children inside, the man in the black robe slightly wrinkled his eyebrows and said with some dissatisfaction,
"It seems not only is your brother unrelated to you, but the remaining two also have no blood relation with you, and they aren't fake creations either; they're entirely real humans.
So you received a seed with a number within ten, and what finally germinated simply found a few children resembling your parents and forcibly wiped away their past, stealing their original lives, letting them play house with you?"
"I... I didn't want this! I never thought of doing such a thing!"
Hearing the "accusation" from the man in the black robe, the deepest guilt buried in Anna's heart was torn apart, her face turned pale as if all blood instantly drained from it.
"After discovering something wrong with that object, I immediately tore it apart and took my brother and Melanie to find the police, wanting to help them return to their original home, but... but everyone's memories seemed to have been altered!"
Holding the door frame to support her dizzy self from collapsing, Anna bit her pale lips, trying hard to explain,
"After the police talked to the neighbors, they said our family indeed consisted of four children. The municipal staff looked through the files and said they indeed are my siblings. Our home even had items for infants, and even in past photos, there were the other three children!
I... I didn't intend to steal someone else's family. I really tried explaining it! But no one believed me, they all thought I went mad due to excessive grief from my parents' death in battle, and I couldn't find their original family either, so... so..."
Municipal files, neighbor memories, traces of life... Were all of them completely altered?
Upon hearing this, the man in the black robe slightly relaxed his tightly furrowed eyebrows.
Although the result apparently deviated from what he initially envisioned for the Anomalous Object, the ability to directly intervene in the essence of existence itself, forcefully altering someone's life, meant its hierarchy was extremely high. It wasn't a waste to use the strength of seed number seven.
However, although the test subject's hierarchy was up to standard, the ability wasn't what he wanted, and "that moment" was not far off, leaving at most a year.
If he couldn't create the corresponding Anomalous Object within a year, even if he succeeded in handling the Scarlet Hair Lady of the Virgo Bureau, and destroyed what was sealed on the top floor of the Virgo Bureau, it would all end up in vain!
Thinking of this, the slightly disinterested man in the black robe shook his head, then politely yet coldly said to Anna after putting his hat back on,
"I have no more questions to ask. Sorry for disturbing you today...
Oh, and since you lost the object I gave you, if I retrieve it later, you shouldn't have any objections, right?"
Hearing the man in the black robe, even knowing he had an irresistible power, the frail girl summoned her courage, grasped the door frame, and asked,
"If you take the object, then... what about Leon and Melanie..."
"Naturally, they will return to their original home, and their memories from these years will be erased. No one but you will know what happened."
Watching Anna slump to the ground with a thud, her eyes instantly losing all luster, appearing to transform into a fragile shell of a human being, the man in the black robe, whose cold and rigid face finally broke into a sincere smile.
"Don't worry. Once I retrieve the object, I'll help amend the mistakes you've made. Isn't that what you want?"