"Corvus, tell me, how is your work? Does your target gives you a hard time?"

Mika asked calmly, not letting her true emotions show.

Actually, the way she addressed the young man was a part of her original plan.

She threw out words like 'big brother' from her vocabulary and made sure to trick Corvus into calling her by her given name without any honorifics too.

"No, not at all. I've been blessed with an extremely cozy position of watching over the young lady Cranberry Pride."

Corvus smirked with a hint of mockery.

"As you know, the Pride family is on the brink of getting stripped of its rank amongst the seven main families, so the heartbroken little lady is sitting put in her room, crying her little heart out."

He declared, waving his hand dismissively without even batting an eye, and took another sip of the tea.

"Honestly, I don't understand why your father has tasked me with the role of her bodyguard while any other clansman would do just as good of a job. That girl really doesn't do anything! I almost died out of boredom during the lull!"

He sighed and leaned back in the chair.

"The most intense thing that happened to her during the three and a half years I've been guarding her was her waking up in the middle of the night to find that her water jug wasn't refilled the evening before and she had to go get it herself!"

He scoffed and shook his head.

"Oh, that's surprising. Father has always kept her in high regard and since his health got worse he started putting more pressure on lady Cranberry's wellbeing. I expect that's because father blames himself for what happened to her mother, lady Raspberry."

Mika furrowed her brows while getting dispirited.

"Ah...!"

Corvus flinched and blushed from embarrassment.

"Sorry... of course, you would know about the reason... Please, pardon me for speaking out of line, Mika."

He bent his back and apologized to the girl.

"No, no. You don't have to be sorry."

Mika got timid, fearing that she soured the mood, and shook her head.

"It's just that my father was Prides' bodyguard before he became sick. It was something like an old tradition between our two families. But because of his declining health, father wasn't there when Prides needed him the most and it had cost them the title of the avatar of sin."

"...I see..."

Even though she was clearly making Corvus feel uncomfortable, Mika couldn't just stop talking, she was going somewhere with her story, it just needed a propped build-up first.

"Father takes honor very seriously, so that's why he assigned you, his best pupil, to watch over lady Cranberry to make sure nothing happens to her. So don't feel bad! In the past, he himself had watched over her a few times when she was outside the Prides' mansion so that only serves as proof of how much my father trusts you!"

She ended up on what was in her opinion, a high note, but in truth, it only made Corvus very nervous ad twitchy.

...just as if he was feeling bad over something he had said and done...

...or because of something that he was claiming to be doing while slacking off...

"You know, what I meant to say was that there's so much difference between her and you, Mika."

Corvus did his best to pull himself together and derailed the subject from the uncomfortable direction that their talk took.

"Really?! Ekhm... Really? in what way exactly...?"

Mika got a bit too excited over the white-haired man seemingly steering their conversation towards herself as if he wanted to know more about the younger girl - which was exactly what Mika was aiming for.

"I-is it about our looks...?"

She suddenly flinched putting her hands up to her chest.

"What?! No, no, no! It has nothing to do with something like that!"

Corvus waved both his hands in denial.

"What I meant was, that girl isn't even remotely interested in training, she doesn't want to put work into restoring her family status... The only thing she cares about is that she won't be able to attend as many parties as she would like. Truly deplorable. You on the other hand are doing everything in your power to bring more glory to our family name! Say, how is your focus training going..."

Corvus threw shade, or rather straight-up insulted the red-haired girl who wasn't there and smoothly transited to complimenting the girl in front of him.

But then...

*WHAM*

"EH?!"

Suddenly, the door of the mansion opened and a horribly skinny ashen-haired older man in oversized clothes busted inside, followed by three panicking servants, making Mika yelp in shock.

"Father...?! Why aren't you in bed?!"

The girl jumped off of her chair and ran towards the approaching man.

"Step aside, Mika."

The older man growled through his teeth, clenching his fists on the stack of neatly written papers, and nimbly dodged the young girl while his body begun glowing with skills.

"Lord Pomegranate! Why are you...?"

"Brat, what is Cranberry Pride doing right now?!"

Corvus had also stood up and started voicing a question towards the newly arrived head of the Wrath family, but lord Pomegranate had no intention of hearing him finish some mundane explanation.

"What is Cranberry...?"

Corvus flinched and paled, his forehead became shiny from sweat.

"Who allowed you to speak about her with such familiarity?! Little Cranberry isn't someone the likes of you can just address on a first name basis!"

Lord Wrath shouted with such anger that the white-haired youngster backed off instinctively.

"She... the young lady Pride... is in the Pride's mansion of course. In her room, mourning the approaching loss of the Pride family's position amongst the seven..."

Corvus was regaining some of his confidence while speaking, but then...

*SLAM*

"URGH!"

"FATHER! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO CORVUS?!"

The white-haired young man was in the middle of explanation when the avatar of wrath punched him right in the face, sending him flying and crashing into the flower bed to the accompaniment of Mika's horrified screams.

"You ungrateful brat! How dare you lie to me like that?!"

"...?!"

Lord Wrath roared at Corvus in pure fury, making Mika flinch and back off in confusion.