Gathering Wives with a System Chapter 726 Inside Alice, Imperial Rank Gift Box

"Gael has been talking about something dark being inside me, right?" Alice said. "It's also strange that my dragon form is black instead of gold, especially when everything I know about my bloodline suggests that it should have been different."

Emily stared at the Alice for a moment before finally asking, "So, what is it?"

Alice looked down at herself, as though she could somehow see the thing that had been hidden within her for so long.

"It's me. Or rather, it's my emotions. I don't know how, but my emotions stayed with me even though a new cycle started. From what I understand, those emotions should have been subdued inside the soul, like what happened with Celia, until I regained my memories. But that black thing was different; it was the emotions that came along with me into the new cycle."

She paused for a moment, trying to find the right way to explain it. "When my memories started coming back, the emotions inside my current soul fused with that black thing, and that amplified everything because there were essentially two sets of same emotions merging together."

Emily nodded, although the expression on her face made it obvious that she was still struggling to understand what Alice meant.

Isaac noticed her confusion and decided to explain it more clearly. "Normally, emotions are a component of the soul itself. In Alice's case, however, the soul from her previous cycle, which still contained her emotions, somehow came along with her, and that is different from the emotions that naturally existed inside her current soul. You can think of it as Alice having two components of a soul that contain the same emotions. The external one is the black-looking thing, and it seems to have been awake since the beginning. The internal one belonged to her current soul, but it remained dormant until her memories began returning."

Emily nodded slowly, this time seeming to understand at least the basic idea. She still looked uncertain, but she no longer appeared as lost as before.

Celia, however, was thinking about something else. "Alice, did you do something that allowed your emotions to be carried over into your current self? And is what exists inside you really just emotions?"

"I honestly have no idea what I did. I have some general knowledge of what happened in the past, but the details are unclear. As for what exactly is inside me, I believe it's more than just emotions, although I don't know what it actually is. Still, this must be the reason I was a black dragon from the beginning in this world. In my previous cycle, I was a golden dragon when I started," Alice replied.

Isaac became thoughtful. "Your emotions coming over might have something to do with what happened after your soul went to Hell. Since your memories only seem to extend to the point when you were alive, it's entirely possible that you did something after arriving there."

Alice nodded. "That makes sense."

The possibility did not answer the question of what exactly had happened, but it gave her another place to look for an explanation.

Isaac then looked at her with some surprise. "Still, this is unexpected. I didn't realize your memories only gave you general information about those events. I thought you would have complete memories, like Sis does."

"Yeah, it's weird," Alice admitted. "I assumed the same thing at first, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that there are a lot of things I simply don't remember."

Emily, who had been quietly thinking about everything they had discussed, suddenly spoke up. "Um, what about the Seventh Queen? Doesn't this prove something?"

"What do you mean?" Celia turned toward her.

"People always say that the Seventh Queen has a lot of visions that are wrong, but she keeps insisting that they're correct. If those visions are actually memories or visions of the previous cycle, then wouldn't everything make sense?"

Everyone went silent as the implication settled in. One by one, they began nodding as they considered the possibility.

"That… actually makes sense. But the Seventh Queen seems to know that those visions are from a previous cycle. Why doesn't she tell everyone that? If she explained it, people would realize that her visions aren't actually wrong," Celia said.

"Maybe she doesn't want people to know that she can see visions from previous cycles," Isaac suggested. He considered the possibility for a moment before adding, "There could be a reason she thinks that knowledge needs to remain hidden."

"Why would she hide something like that?" Celia asked.

"Because that power is too great. She might be deliberately hiding it, which would explain why she never clarifies that all her visions are correct. As for why she reveals those visions at all, maybe the Florathi have someone similar to Pro— Catherine, someone who can tell when a person is lying. So Seventh Quen has to tell the complete visions, and that they are true, but she doesn't clarify why they are true. The Seventh Queen might be doing all this because she doesn't trust the World Tree. Honestly, when she warned me to be careful around the Florathi, I almost felt like she was treating the World Tree as an enemy," Alice explained.

Emily's expression changed as she considered his words. "If she really is treating the World Tree as an enemy, does that mean…"

She stopped before finishing the sentence, but everyone understood what she was implying.

Celia spoke up before anyone else could. "Yes, she might have seen the World Tree do something dangerous in a future vision. But we can't be certain about that. What if she's the dangerous one instead, and the World Tree is actually good? In that case, perhaps she's trying to eliminate it for her own reasons."

The group groaned at the thought. They had only visited one city of the Florathi so far, yet they were already beginning to realize how complicated the situation was, with every possible answer creating another question.

"Alice, do you remember anything about what happened to the Florathi during the previous cycle?" Isaac asked. He seemed hopeful that Alice might have at least some information that could help them understand the situation.

Alice shook her head. "No. I don't remember anything about that."

She had memories of many things from her previous life, but there were still large gaps that she could not fill.

"We should ask Sis later when she comes here," Isaac said. Catherine's clones were a skill, which meant they could not enter the spatial domain without potentially putting her at risk of mana backlash. At the same time, they could not simply talk about these matters outside, because the World Tree would be able to listen through the blessing it had placed on Isaac.

Isaac was still considering their options when he noticed Celia staring at him with a strange, almost wry smile. Her expression was so different from the serious mood they had been in that Isaac immediately became suspicious.

"What?" he asked.

"I've been thinking about this for a while, but you really are a huge pervert," Celia said. Isaac stared at her in confusion, unable to understand how she had managed to connect their current discussion to something like that.

"How can you keep calling Catherine your 'Sis' when you sleep with her?" Celia asked.

Isaac fell silent for a moment. He scratched his head before sighing and finally answering, "It just feels natural to me. Besides, she gets grumpy if I don't call her that."

Catherine did not usually become openly grumpy in the same way Alice would, but Isaac knew from experience that she was much more dangerous when she was in a bad mood. His thoughts drifted back to the time he had spent with Catherine and Selene in the Sky City, where things had become considerably more complicated than he had expected.

At the time, Isaac had been punishing Catherine for showing him their master in his dream. Because of that, he had deliberately avoided going too far with her and had mostly limited himself to teasing and foreplay, thinking that eventually she would give in and apologize. He thought it would take a lot of time to break her.

It turned out that he had greatly underestimated how quickly Catherine could reach her limit. Perhaps seeing Selene and Isaac's depraved acts in the Sky City for days, knowing there was no one else around to interfere, had affected her judgment as well. Eventually, even Catherine had stopped being able to maintain her usual composure.

Isaac still remembered the moment when she finally lowered herself before him and admitted defeat. The memory brought a grin to his face, although that grin quickly disappeared when he remembered what happened a few days later.

He had never really called Catherine "Sis" during their intimate moments, even though he used the name normally outside of them. At the time, Isaac had assumed Catherine simply had accepted his decision, but he later realized that she had apparently been holding onto that grievance for quite a while and was simply waiting for an opportunity to get even with him.

A few days later, she finally got that opportunity. Catherine trapped him inside a dream that he could not escape from immediately. She then used her foot on his little Isaac for hours, using her abilities to make sure he could not find a release until he agreed to call her "Sis" from then on.

Isaac shuddered slightly at the memory. Because of Catherine's aphrodisiac abilities, his mind had become a mess. The rising pleasure had continued for hours, making him unable to think properly and leave the dream forcefully.

Eventually, he had been forced to agree to her demand, although he made sure to get his revenge later.

Still, that did not change the fact that Catherine had gotten what she wanted. When Isaac thought about all the depraved things that had happened between himself, Catherine, and Selene later, he could understand why the Elemental Spirit of Machine had eventually called him a scumbag and thrown him away.

"Really? She gets grumpy, so you have to keep calling her Sis?" Celia asked, giving him a strange look. "I feel like you're enjoying it too, though."

Isaac clicked his tongue and looked at her. "It feels weird hearing you talk so sensibly."

"Hey, what is that supposed to mean?" Celia immediately asked, her eyes widening in disbelief.

Isaac merely shrugged as if the answer were obvious. Celia was normally a huge pervert herself, so seeing her suddenly point out the questionable words with Catherine was somewhat surprising. However, he figured she was acting more sensible because she actually had a sibling, meaning she probably found the situation uncomfortable rather than arousing.

'Yeah, no. This pervert is just acting normal right now. I still remember how she behaved when we were in that bathroom stall inside the dream, and she thought Vale had caught us,' Isaac thought.

He quickly decided not to say that aloud, since doing so would probably make the conversation even more troublesome. Instead, Isaac waved his hand and said, "Well, you guys can continue talking. I have something I need to take care of, and after that, we can leave."

The others nodded, understanding that Isaac had something important to deal with. Nobody stopped him as he turned around and walked a short distance away from the group.

Isaac still had one Imperial Rank Gift Box that he had received after proposing to Alice and increasing her affection toward him. He had been holding onto it because he wanted to open it at a suitable moment, and now that they had finished discussing the matter with the Seventh Queen, he finally had the opportunity.

An Imperial Rank item was naturally something worth looking forward to. Isaac had no idea what kind of item the system would give him, but the rank alone was enough to make him excited.

He looked at the invisible system interface in front of him and took a breath before making his decision.

'System, open the Gift Box!'