"The plan, or at least, fell apart, didn't it?"

"Completely."

We were in the middle of the night.

The crackling and warmth of a huge fire were noticeable in the distance.

That fire was for Kiady’s funeral.

And the situation this time was very similar to the one one year ago. There was no need to say that after what I did, Nia and I were on, well, I suppose in very bad terms. After that, we didn’t speak to each other at all. She even did the whole wood gathering herself.

"Well, after what we did, this is pretty much a normal reaction. We killed her Bastard of Uncle, but Uncle nonetheless, in front of her. You can’t just expect things to go normally after something like that. "

"It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But I don’t regret the slightest what I did. But still, I didn’t expect to go this south. "

"Don’t worry, I know, it’s just that, … let’s just hope she understands."

"That, I’m not so sure, she will. "

It took me a lot of effort to explain to her that I wanted to confront her uncle before allowing her to talk to him.

I had promised to not kill him. In fact, I went so far as to promise to not hurt him too badly.

Though I only told Nia about her Uncle lately, I had the suspicion that this could’ve been her uncle since the first time I heard her story, back then I had many reasons to not get back here, we just barely escaped of a battle we didn’t wished for, and we had Nia at out charge, I couldn’t afford myself to get in a fight I wasn’t sure to win. So Han and I came up with the decision to settle in the island which seemed like a nice headquarters, and train ourselves.

One year has passed by, one year I spent with Nia, so I’ve come to wonder if I’m not wasting her time here. Her case might be different, maybe she has nothing to fear of the church. Maybe it’s just me who is paranoîd.

So after that short discussion, I decided to take her to her uncle, I’m not sure as to what exactly is going on with the church and what kind of welcome she would have upon returning to the human continent, but I knew that I had to settle a score with this man, whether or not he was Kiady. Since I was unsure when exactly I would be ready to honor my part of the contract, I decided to meet with this man, assert whether or not he was Kiady, Nia’s famous Uncle, or not, settle the score with him, and finally entrust Nia to him. This battle had the objective of measuring my and Kiady’s strength. The results were decent enough. Though he was far weaker than Solomon, he was defeated without having me break too much sweat. I assumed it would be safe to entrust Nia to him to go to the human continent. I can’t have someone’s daughter stuck in a place like this under the mere assumption that maybe she would be attacked by a bunch of heretics, just because it happened to a certain person once.

Then, just as I thought it would go smoothly, it happened.

It wasn't supposed to go this way. It really wasn't;

When she told me the story of what she knew of her uncle, I imagined someone different, not a piece of shit like that, when I heard what he was spouting.

It irritated me. I felt the sudden urge to put his mouth shut forever with my sword.

Which was without contest, the worst thing to do.

Yet it was exactly what I did, and right in front of her on top of that.

"There should’ve been a gentler way to settle things, right?

"Yeah, but what is done is done."

"That’s my boy. Deserved or not, he got what he got. Hey Hon? "

"Hum?"

"If you want to settle the matter, I think the earlier the better. If I were you, I would do it now."

"But what about his funeral? Isn’t this a little bit too early?

"Screw his funeral, talk things out. It was that that pissed you the most, how he wasn’t allowing her to talk things out. Right?"

"Yeah."

"So Big Boy, we should strike while the iron is still hot. We don’t run away from things, don’t we?"

"Yeah… But what do you think I should say?”

"Well, that’s your problem."

"..."

"Hehe… Sorry, I don’t know, just try something. I'm sure you’ll find something to say on the spot. Spontaneity is key."

"I don’t see in what that helps me in?"

"Hey, I’m as clueless as you are. So that’s pretty much the only advice I can give. Why just not explain yourself, about why you did what you did? "

"Explaining myself?"

"Yeah, as long as you don’t go on and start to make an exhaustive list to explain why you weren’t wrong for killing him and use proper words, I believe she will understand ,and even if she doesn't, it would be fine. She just has to know why. Whether she understands or not, it would be up to her."

She was sitting there on her own next to Heon looking at the fire burning.

Being natural was it?

I couldn’t even think of a way to initiate the discussion, but I still went ahead.

"Euh … Nia, can I sit here?"

Why am I asking permission for? Oh God, next time I kills someone’s Uncle I won’t do it in broad dailight.

Pretty much to no surprise, I was thoroughly ignored.

But it wasn’t all that bad, at least it was better than being thrown a "Why are you even asking, won’t you do it anyway?"

Knowing very well that I was nowhere close to getting an answer I simply sat down.

The whole thing reminded me of that time when we didn't even understand one another's language.

"Nia, about what happened this morning, I think we should talk."

"There is nothing to be talked about."

She was about to stand up, but was immediately stopped by me grabbing her by the wrist.

"Please, you don’t even have to talk, I just wanted you to listen."

Feeling that at least her attempt to move away diminished, I let go of her hand.

"I know we hadn’t met in the best circumstances, and as such the circumstances that led us to stay together are more than unique enough. It has been one year already and yet I’m not even sure what exactly we are to each other. I'm not even sure if we are what one would call friends. After all, I know that a friend wouldn’t have done what I did this morning. But at least, I want you to hear me out, there is a story I would like you to know."

I retrieved something I haven’t used for ages, the "Reality Figer", gave it its book-like appearance then handed it onto her. Taking a wooden piece on the ground to draw on the ground whenever needed, I started to narrate the story I wanted her to hear.

"That story takes place within the place called the Human continent, a place protected by a massive magical barrier protecting Humanity from powerful creatures commonly referred to as monsters. The main protagonist of that story is a boy named Ronandt, he was just like you, he was born from the union of a commoner and a noble…"

Just like that I proceeded to narrate whatever I could tell of that boy’s story. I went on without omitting a single detail from how he was born weirdly fully conscious to how he met his fall.

Thinking back it was my first telling anyone all of this,

Why exactly did I never do this before?

Mostly because of the fear of being seen as a freak maybe but up to this point, being seen as a freak was the last of what worries.

"... When I saw and heard him not even not even giving you the chance to explain yourself and straight up denying the possibility to talk things out by spouting whatever personal nonsense he was spouting, it reminded me of these people that came out of nowhere ruining everything for Ronandt. When I heard those words he said to you, when I heard those things he said about your father, of that man Ronandt’s butler thrusted he was supposed to be someone he could thrust instead he chose the other side. I don’t know what your Uncle was like but when I saw that rotten side he displayed to me, I couldn’t help but do what."

"I do not feel regret for what I did, I-we made this journey to not see what happened to Ronandt once again, so when I saw that man acting as those people, I did what I believe was the right thing to do."

"I repeat myself but I do not feel slightly sorry for what I did, for I believe I did what was right, but I do feel sorry for having broken the promise I made you to not kill him. With this I think I took away from you the last chance you had to find someone who you could call was your people. I know I’ve ruined something that most likely was important, and for that I’m sorry."

After those words came out, a long and deadly silence took place.

I spoke, as a certain person said, spontaneously, so from the moment I started narrating that story till my apologies, I talked pretty much without putting too much thought into it.

So here I was left, not knowing what else I could say.

I was about to attempt to say something to break the silence when Nia did before I could.

Sitting her head between her knees, she said, "To be honest, … I don’t know… everything is so confusing. What happened this morning made me realize how much destruction was brought on people because of me. I knew what was my father’s duty but I never thought of the consequence of him abandoning it. It made me realize that I was only looking at the bright side of what happened for me, I finally got to see the outside world, I even got all of this power from him, I never even once thought about the repercussions of his actions."

"You know… this morning… I was tempted to ask you to get me away from this place, I wanted to run away…"

"You could have."

"Yes I could’ve but then I realized I couldn’t bring myself to ask you that, you were like him, in a sense you were sucked in all of this messes. You were one of my father’s victims. Uncle might have been right about us being cursed to-"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Huh?"

"I don’t know where this whole thing you talked about earlier came from but it wasn’t for that I wasted my time telling you that story."

"What ar-"

"Let me speak first, you said your uncle was right, but no he was wrong, at least for me, which is why I killed him. About the people your father abandoned for you? They still had six other godsend to protect them. From what I heard from your story, your father became a sort of barrier generator for the people, and from what I saw this morning even for your uncle and most all the six others Godsent. When given something for free people tend to get conceited assuming what was provided to them are theirs for granted. As you said there was once a time when humanity survived even without the barrier,

Some if not most of them might’ve relinquished the responsibility for all these deaths to you and your father but in the end it was only their fault if they weren’t able to protect their own ass."

"About your father causing the death of his "Aurora", it is and was only his fault for not being strong enough, I’m not sure if your father did attack what he was already in the state he was in when we first confronted him then all of this wasn't his fault and even less yours."

"Nia."

"Hum?"

"Maybe he was right about something about you?"

"About what?"

"Maybe you are cursed, and so most likely was Ronandt, maybe your birth, his birth, your life, his life has been built upon other’s life sacrifice, but he, or anyone has no right to mock those who willingly sacrificed their life for yours, ours. We who lived thanks to their sacrifice should be thankful, for that is the least we can do for them."

A long moment of silence took place after those words came out, but that silence was broken by something unexpected that took both of us aback.

How exactly to describe it?

That thing is something that happens when you’re crying, but you accidentally come across something funny. It was close to a laugh, but it wasn’t one, it sounded like both a cough and a laugh that came out at the same time, but it was from where it came from that made it really special. It came from your already runny nose.

That was what happened.

With the silence we were in, it was impossible to miss that explosive sound she inadvertently made.

In normal circumstances, I might've been grossed out by what happened, but the timing and the circumstance in which it happened was so nonsensical that I couldn’t hold myself back from bursting into laughter.

Coughing in embarrassment, laughing at herself while wiping tears and most likely also snot off of her face she muttered, "I’m sorry, haha, that was… I kinda didn’t know what to answer."

"It’s nothing it’s not like there was anything to answer to."

With that said, I stood up and went in front of her. Then took off her father’s ring which I used as a necklace.

‘When we first agreed to journey together, I personally didn’t know what to expect out of us, I mean, it was pretty much understandable given the circumstances in which we met and ended up journeying together. At first, I thought about taking care of you out of pure pity. Then you told me that story of yours, and it shifted into an attempt to find kinship with you. Put it like this, I sound super creepy, but yeah, that’s it. Over the past year, I was at a loss as to what exactly we were. I mean, we were certainly not friends, we were merely strangers standing together. As I already said, I didn’t know what to expect of us, but today, right now, I finally do. "

I held out onto her both of my hands, within one was her father’s ring, within the other was nothing.

"What?"

"From here, If you go straight north without straying from that direction,you will eventually reach the human continent border. I took you onto our journey, assuming that you wouldn’t survive on your own, but I was wrong, you would do just fine, with your current capability it wouldn’t be too much of a challenge for you, especially with your magic. If you want to go to the Human Continent, then take this ring from my hand, after all, this was originally your all, all I did was keep it for you."

"What about the other?"

"If you take this one, which is nothing but my hand, then this would mean that you will accept to become my friend, which sadly also imply staying with me into these woods until I accomplish that something I worked these one past year for. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this one."

"Why?"

"This is something we noticed throughout this journey. We have really negative karma. It is not hard to think that we are even cursed. Staying with us would mean sharing that karma with us. "

"Cursed, huh? How coincidental, I also happen to be cursed."

Having said that, she reached out for my hand, the empty one. Though having said that I didn’t recommend this option to her, I internally highly expected her to make this choice, yet when she did , I was quite lost as to what to respond.

So I spent the next few seconds holding her hand glaring at what I imagined her silhouette to be.

In an attempt to break the silence I ventured awkwardly.

"So… We’re like… friends, now?"

" … I guess yeah, … Euh… why are you making this feel so weird?"

"Ahaha sorry, sorry. It’s just that you know I- You know what, forget about it." I was about to let go of her hand when I glanced back toward the still raging fire and asked, "And about that? How-"

"I don’t know, not yet, I think it would be better if we don’t talk about this until maybe I get to sort all of this in my head."

Avoiding the subject of her Uncle, huh?

It's not like I would be the one to complain about that.

Yeah, that's it.

Screw her uncle.

From afar, We could hear Heon’s majestic howl, it vaguely reminded me of the time we first met her.

"I see, I get that this settles it then. I don’t know about you but I think I ‘ve been here for long enough, and had my dose of this place. This is no place to tarry any longer. Let’s get back to … Let’s get back home."

"Yes."