After dinner, the Henrietta Company went out drinking with the money they got from selling the hi-catalyst to Albert and his companions. It wasn't all merry, however, as there were some, namely, Finn and Henrietta, who weren't so happy about breaking off their affiliation with the Lightbringers.

"Damn it! Just when I thought that I could get closer to Albert too!"

"N-now, now, I'm sure we'll have a chance to work together with them again. We'll just have to get stronger. Once we're good enough, we could join the Bright Aegis or maybe even the Lightbringers."

As her face reddened from the ale, Henrietta began complaining to no end as she flailed her small limbs about. The only reason it hadn't turn into a full-on tantrum was thanks to Finn right beside her, doing whatever he could to appease her. Finn understood Henrietta's frustrations perfectly well, but he realized that it's probably too early for them to be working with someone so high above their league such as Albert anyways. The words he said to Henrietta were, in truth, also directed to himself.

On another corner of the table, there were Elaine and Morganna, chatting away as they eat and drink. The one doing the most talking was Elaine, desperately trying to keep the conversation going as Morganna habitually kept her comments curt and sharp, not making it any easier for Elaine a single bit. That being said, Morganna did seem to be enjoying talking to Elaine. Those two appeared to have grown quite close without anyone noticing.

Then, there were Auguste and Gladiolus, sipping away from their tankard in silence. Though both of them were quiet, they exude a completely different atmosphere from one another. For Gladiolus, there was a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere about him. In contrast, Auguste was tense, gloomy, and unapproachable to the point that even Henrietta decided to leave him alone for the night.

Playing in Auguste's head over and over again was the meeting with Albert earlier that day. He could see the disappointment in their eyes, in the gazes of both Albert and Helena, and the memory was lodged deep in this heart, making it ache with each beat. In front of Elaine, in front of everyone in the party, Auguste wanted to pretend that it didn't bother him, that it was fine. He wanted to pretend that he didn't mess up. However, once the liquor starts taking effect, his true feeling began to show. He wanted to talk about it with someone, he wanted to complain, and he wanted someone to comfort him, to tell him that everything will be fine.

When he could hold onto it no longer, Auguste got up from his seat and left, wandering off into the night without telling anyone.

I'm not a child, he thought to himself, I don't need to be pampered.

It was pride. He didn't want to show how pathetic he was to the others. Even if it was but an illusion, he wanted to retain some amount of dignity amongst his peers.

"It's dangerous you know, to walk off into the night all alone without telling anyone."

It was Elaine, calling out from behind. She had followed Auguste out of the bar.

"Sorry, I just needed to take a leak," Auguste gave an appropriate sounding excuse off the top of his head.

"But the outhouse isn't that way," Elaine replied nonchalantly.

"Anywhere's an outhouse if you're bold enough."

"Try telling that to the patrols."

Even as they spoke, Auguste kept on walking away while Elaine stubbornly kept up, having none of it.

"Morganna's a pretty bad drunk, isn't she?" said Auguste. Seeing that Elaine wasn't going away any time soon, he tried starting a conversation, preferring it over the awkwardness in silence.

"Indeed she is. I find the contrast between her regular self and when she's drunk quite adorable."

"But wait, if you're here, who's looking after her?"

"I had Finn and Henrietta watch over her, so she'll be fine. What about you? Are you fine?"

The truth of the matter was that Elaine had originally asked Gladiolus to go after Auguste when she spotted him heading out. Gladiolus, however, seemed to think that it's fine to let him just wander off, that Auguste will figure it out by himself given time. While it's not that Elaine did not trust Gladiolus' judgment, she's couldn't stop worrying about it and decided to go after him herself instead.

"I just needed some fresh air," Auguste grunted out those words as he stretched his body, trying to disguise the discomfort of being seen through.

"Is that so?"

"It is so."

But it wasn't so. Besides, they were still in the Dungeon, one very deep underground. There's technically no fresh air there.

Eventually, they wandered to the outskirts of the town, upon a small, open piece of land where the altar devoted to the Goddess Ceratias had been erected. Unconsciously, Auguste's feet had taken him there.

"This is the altar of Ceratias, right? Do you come here often?" asked Elaine.

"Every now and then. It's quiet, right? Almost nobody comes here. I don't think the priest in charge even comes here."

"The goddess isn't exactly popular I suppose. I don't think I've heard of anyone worshipping her outside of the regions around Fortuna."

"It's a dying faith, more or less. Not much you can do about it really. If you think about it, it's not all that different from the worship of Arithmi, except that rather than vague notions such as 'fate', Arithmi provides much more grounded and practical statistics in their divination. That's not even mentioning how their Parameter Evaluation could affect one's social standing. No matter how you look at it, Ceratias stands no chance whatsoever."

"Now, now, aren't you too harsh? To say that kind of stuff right in front of the altar of the goddess herself too."

"It's fine, it's fine. What is she going to do? Put me in a chokehold?"

Hearing that, Elaine couldn't help but burst out laughing, the image of a goddess locking Auguste's head in place with an angry look on her face floated across the sea of her mind.

"When you put it that way, she sure sounds like a fun goddess."

"Who knows? Her Oracle's definitely like that though."

"The Oracle, if I remember correctly, that's also your master, right? You two are pretty close, aren't you?"

"Well, if I must say if we're close or distant, I suppose we're close."

"Do you think she's feeling lonely right about now?"

"Oh, who knows? I might say that we're close, but I can never tell what's on her mind."

Though, Cera did want him to visit the altar as often as he could, so perhaps Elaine might be on to something.

"Really? I thought that since she was your master, she'd be quite easy to figure out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I just thought that she'd be more like how you are, you know?"

In Elaine's voice, one could hear a somewhat playful tone. Feeling that he was being teased, Auguste decided that he wasn't going to take it lying down.

"Oh yeah? Then what am I thinking about right now?"

"That's easy enough. You're mulling over that whole thing with the hi-catalyst, correct?"

Actually, he was thinking about what he'll be having for breakfast the next morning. Not that there's much thought required for it, because it's going to be stale bread and dried meat. It's always stale bread and dried meat. However, he can't say that the whole mess with the hi-catalyst wasn't on his mind. In fact, it had been all that he could think about all day.

Auguste let out a sigh as he stared up into the illusory sky made up of the bioluminescent vegetation on the cavern ceiling. Even when it's supposedly nighttime, it so god damned bright. Even though he could never claim to like the darkness of the Dungeon, being shone on all day every day, even when you're trying to sleep, was something he's quickly getting tired of.

"I guess I *am* easy to read," he said, defeated. Though, that was hardly the reason for his melancholy.

"That you are," said Elaine, a gentle smile on her face. She was glad to have finally gotten it out of him and was ready to hear all of his complaints and let him vent to his heart's content.

"I messed up... I messed up real bad," Auguste spilled it out while avoiding Elaine's gaze.

"I wouldn't call that messing up. You were just doing what's best for the party, right? Thanks to you, we made five whole gold today. We took some great risks coming all the way out to this Dungeon. We brought a bunch of supplies, lost some on the way, and finally made it here. Now even if this Dungeon proves to not be profitable enough to make up for the loss, the price of the hi-catalyst more that covers it."

"I..." Auguste was trying to say something, but the words got caught up in his throat. He couldn't spit it out. He was afraid to spit it out.

"You were thinking of the party, of us. I'm sure that even if Albert didn't think it's good to work together with us, he would understand how you feel. I get the feeling Albert is someone who values his companions as well, though that's just my personal impression."

"That's not quite true..." Auguste mumbled. It wasn't true at all, in fact. "I said that we could hold on to the hi-catalyst until someone names a price. That's more or less what I said, right?"

"Y-yeah... It was something along those lines if I recall correctly." Elaine quickly felt that something was off. There was a pained look in Auguste's eyes, a warning for her to tread lightly.

"Well, that was..."

That was just an excuse, was what Auguste wanted to say, but he couldn't come out and say it. The fear of what might happen after he said it was enough to freeze him in his tracks.

"Auguste?"

Elaine wasn't sure what to do. In the end, perhaps she couldn't read him as well as she thought she could.

"The thing was, it wasn't even my idea to take the hi-catalyst," Auguste finally said. It pained him to know that Elaine thought so much of him, that he was some noble person who put the party before himself. "There was a woman in the temple back in Iotas Tria. her name was Doris. She made me take it. I was originally planning to give it to the Lightbringer that showed up and saved us, but Doris got in the way every time. In the end, I gave in and did what she said."

Listening to that story, Elaine was able to quickly piece it together. Auguste was coerced to take the hi-catalyst, but to make it seem like it was his idea from the beginning, he told the rest of them the idea of selling it to the highest bidder. It was an idea that benefitted the party. It made him seem like he was thinking of the party, and as such not even Henrietta, who was infatuated with Albert, or the upstanding Finn, could find it in themselves to object. However, one thing did not make sense.

"But why did you give in? Knowing you, you could have just pushed your way through, right? Why did you do what she wanted you to do instead of what you yourself wanted to do?"

In Elaine's words, there were no judgment as Auguste had feared, only inquiries and genuine concern for what went on.

"Who knows," Auguste gave a vague answer, only to rethink it, knowing that Elaine would not accept such a response. "I think I was afraid of her. That woman wasn't normal, I don't think." There was something about her golden eyes. The very same eyes his master had. When he thought of that woman, Doris, those golden eyes were the first thing he remembered.

"You were afraid?"

Elaine didn't get it. What's so frightening about a woman? Auguste never showed any signs of fear for a woman before, so what's so special about this one?

"No, screw that. Even that was just an excuse," Auguste then said, knowing what he was talking about did not make a whole lot of sense. On the other hand, there was something much more concrete within him that drove him to do what he did, something that even he himself, had averted his eyes from. "She told me that only I could carry it safely. That it would be too dangerous for anyone else to handle the hi-catalyst. That made me feel... like I was something special, you know, and I just kind of stopped thinking about it afterward. Even though everything about that woman was suspicious, I just sort of did what she wanted me to. I should have thought about it more. I should have suspected that she might be trying to use me for something. It's probably a good thing that I was caught with it before something bad happened. Albert and Helena were right to be disappointed. It was a stupid thing I did and I roped you all into it while pretending that it was for the party's sake."

"Oh, so that's what it was," said Elaine in response to Auguste pouring his heart out. Somehow, seeing how he acted, she expected something bigger. Unexpectedly, Auguste might be a bit more child-like than she thought.

In essence, it was a con woman, that's what Elaine's impression of what happened was. Using words he wanted to hear to tempt him, the woman tricked Auguste into doing what she wanted him to, a standard con artist tactic.

"Uh, yeah... That's... what it was."

Auguste can't help but a somewhat taken aback by the lack of reaction from Elaine, as if none of it were a big deal.

"Well, considering that we're traveling all over the place and meeting all sorts of people, it's bound to happen once or twice," Elaine began explaining, though the explanation only added to Auguste's confusion. "I don't know what that Doris woman was trying to get you to do, but now that the hi-catalyst is off our hands, it's all fine now, probably."

"You're rather nonchalant about this, aren't you?"

Seeing Elaine's demeanor in regards to what happened, Auguste wondered if he had been making a big deal out of nothing this whole time. Either that or perhaps Elaine had misunderstood something somewhere along the lines.

"I mean, yeah... After all, I've gone through the same thing."

"Wait! You did!? But you're always so careful. Paranoid even, sometimes."

"That I am, though I don't think I'm *that* paranoid. You see, there's a reason for that..."

Elaine began to recount a story from when she was much younger, when a man reached out to her with a proposal. It was an investment opportunity, one in which would surely make her quite well off if all goes well, or so he claimed. At first, Elaine was hesitant and suspicious, however, after being tempted by sweet words, being told how she could have the opportunity to free herself from the life of working to the bones for a pittance, Elaine eventually gave in. In the end, the man ran away with the money, leaving Elaine in a worse position than she was before financially. A lesson was learned that day, one that Elaine would not soon forget.

"Oh wow, I can't believe you fell for that," said Auguste, as if he had never in his life committed similar mistakes.

"I don't want to hear that from you!" Elaine yelled as she smacked Auguste in the back.

In response to the sharp pain, Auguste laughed, his pretend condescension was but his way of being playful. Perhaps it was an unconscious attempt to lighten the mood after seeing how regretful Elaine was as she retold the story.

"But yeah, I think I understand where you're coming from now. I used to think that you were just desperate for coins, but I guess you were just trying to not get scammed."

"Well, I mean, I *am* desperate for money, but that's beside the point. What I'm trying to tell you is that we all make mistakes. We humans are, after all, creatures of emotions first and logic second. We all have our weaknesses and unsightly desires, and those things make it hard for us to think straight, that's why it's so difficult to make the right decisions all the time, every time. There's no such thing as a person who doesn't make mistakes."

"Even stupid mistakes?"

"Of course, all mistakes are stupid. Some might be stupider than others, but they're all stupid nonetheless. I mean, if it's well thought out, it's just intentional by that point, don't you think?" As she spoke, Elaine reached out her hands, grasping onto Auguste's. Her hands were rough and her fingers were thin, and Auguste did not have the heart to pull away. "What's important is that we learn from the mistakes. We recognize our weaknesses no matter how unsightly, and we carve our frustrations into our hearts and keep moving forward with them. That's what it means to grow up."

"That's...... Wow! I guess you really are a grown-up, huh."

"I still have a lot more growing up to do, and I'm sure you'll keep growing too."

"You think I will?"

"But of course! Because you're an honest person. To others, sure, but also to yourself. You're someone who can look at his own weaknesses without turning away."

"I- I see. Thanks. It's good to hear that. I think I needed to hear that."

A bright flush of red enveloped Auguste's complexion. Despite it being supposedly nighttime, the bioluminescent vegetation on the cavern ceiling lit up the Dungeon as brightly as day, making it impossible for Auguste to hide his blush.

"Come, let's go back before the others get worried."

"S-sure..."

Elaine was still holding onto his hand, pulling him along with her as they headed back.

Frankly, it was somewhat embarrassing, to have said all that to Auguste. Elaine didn't' think she'd go that far with it. Perhaps it because Auguste himself rarely opens up to others and so Elaine thought that she had to open us first. Maybe it's because Auguste was similar to her brother, yet had none of his hard-headed toughness. Or, it could be that, just like Gladiolus, she expected Auguste to become the leader of the party in the not so distant away future, and as such wanted to help him through his problems and help him grow. It's a strange feeling. Even though she thought of both Morganna and Auguste, and even Henrietta, as something like younger siblings, it felt like she pays Auguste a bit more attention than the rest, no more than her actual brother of course, but still... How very strange indeed.

***

End of Chapter 59