Somewhere in a rural part of the duchy of Lilith.

Nia and I were riding in a carriage for a moment when, as I could tell from how long we rode, it stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

"We’ve arrived," a woman's voice announced.

As we got off the carriage, we were greeted by a humble and isolated farm mansion, next to which was a large red barn, all of which were surrounded by a not-so-sturdy looking wooden fence.

"Please, this way," said the woman who announced our arrival as she invited us toward the mansion.

Two armed to the teeth guards were posted at the entrance, but seemingly because they were waiting for us, they simply, with an approving nod, allowed us to walk past them.

After passing through the entrance room, we already found ourselves in the mansion's living room. I thought I recognized the woman in the corner of the room, whose vestimentary style and hairstyle were so familiar that it made my heart race for a second, but when I looked at the person's face, I calmed down.

She approached us, greeting the woman that had led us to this place with a light nod, then immediately spoke to us. "Welcome to this humble mansion," she said, inviting us to a seat in the living room.

Nia and I nodded wordlessly and accepted her invitation to take seats.

"I’m glad our message reached you two this fast. From the moment you reached out to us, we have been impatiently awaiting your arrival. My name is Lidia, but you can always call me Lidy. "

"I’m Ronandt and this is …"

"Nia."

"I know," Lidy said with a warm smile.

Not even a week has passed since I registered a mailing box under my name with the Performing Voyage Mailing Company, and I have already received a letter from our contact here in Lilith.

The letter contained all that needed to be known about the Archbishop Karen Caelus. It is how Nia and I came to learn about the puppet and the existence of the prioress order, whose last members were already being dismantled the week of our arrival.

The letter I received also contained, other than information about the Archbishop, instructions, mostly on how we were to deal with the Archbishop if we were, which we were, but also instructions on what we should avoid doing if we were to deal with her.

In the end, instruction or not, we ended up doing exactly what the letter suggested, except maybe dealing with the Archbishop, for that is something the Archbishop personally took care of for us.

"My Lady is on the upper floor. I'll inform her of your arrival." Lidy announced, on her way to, well, the upper floor. "If you’ll excuse me."

"Wait."

"What is it?"

"Can I …"

I didn’t say anything, but seeing me glance at the two other people in the room: the woman and Nia next to me, Lidy immediately understood what I meant.

"Of course, I understand. Then please, it is this way," she said, inviting me upstairs.

Nia squeezed my hand and let go of it with an understanding expression. "Good luck," she said, raising her thumbs up.

I simply nodded, returning her thumbs up.

While I was silently following Lidy upstairs, she commented, "I’ve heard a lot about you from my lady. You look exactly like she described you to be."

"Really?"

"Yes," she replied, looking back at me up and down, before adding, "Though I can see, you did grow a lot from the little boy I was told you were."

Having reached a room’s door, she said with a tender smile on her face, "And I'm sure My Lady would be delighted to see what her "Young Lord" has grown into," before opening the room for me to enter.

I saw the room, which, upon entering, appeared to me to be a smaller version of the living room, where seats were disposed across the room. In one room, I saw an armchair upon which someone was seated. So I approached it.

The first thing I noticed was the hair, which, despite already graying in my memories, still had, back then, a chestnut brown taint, but today the formerly chestnut taint was overshadowed by the gray.

As I walked past the chair, the person sat, then went just in front of the chair where she sat.

One cannot imagine the surprise I felt upon coming back to the continent and hearing what that person, while I was away, did and accomplished, the name she made for herself across the continent, all of this.

I might be overinflating my value, but she fought a war for me.

The moment I did learn about her, I immediately wanted to make contact with her, but I knew that with the nature of her and the organization's nature, I had to be discreet, so through various means, I made contact with her.

Looking up to me from her chair, she spoke, in a voice I would recognize amidst thousands, "You’ve grown so much, Young Lord."

I kneeled to her level, which brought back some nostalgic memories. I reached for her hand, which she gave, and I said, with tears flowing forth, "Yes, Maa. And I'm finally back. "

And I believe, for the first time in my life, I, besides the ones I had forgotten, genuinely cried in her presence.

***

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A week has passed since Maa and I reunited.

"Prince, the target, has been successfully apprehended." A man who appeared behind me announced

We were currently somewhere in the Duchy of Bellevue, and the target in question was an important person, presumably a prince or something along those lines. I, myself, wasn’t sure who that person was, but I knew he had to be captured, and I was here to supervise the well-being of all operations concerning this person's capture. Well, I’m saying that, but in truth, I had to admit that there wasn’t much I had to do, besides stand awaiting orders from Maa, for she was the one from whom this operation came from.

"I see… I suppose I can now proceed to the Aplas wood, right?"

"Yes, Prince." The man answered rather ceremoniously.

"Say, Raziel, can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course."

After receiving confirmation, I was about to take my leave, but before I did, I asked Raziel the question that had been bothering me since the two of us met: "Why do you call me 'Prince'?" Is it because of Nia? Or Maa? Or…"

For some reason, he, from the moment we met, called me Prince and Nia Princess. So far, with everything going on around me, I've just simply brushed it off, but now I want an answer to my pending question.

He remained silent for a moment, as if to find a very concise answer to that question, before saying, "I heard ‘The Mother’ referring to Miss Nia as Princess, so I thought we ought to be referring to the two of you this way."

"So, 'the mother’, huh?"

I haven’t yet met that person, but I've been told a lot about her by Maa.

After that reunion between Maa and I, we separated yet again, for she had other pressing matters to attend to, both in Lilith and in the fortress, where most aristocrats are stationed.

Nia went with her, so it was natural that Nia, before I did, had already met that person.

"Should I change it?"

"See with Nia if she wants to be referred to by a different name, but please just call me Ronandt."

"Understood, Ronandt."

Nodding, I added a final question, "I’m going to take my leave now, are the ‘orders’ the same?"

Though it was very subtle, I didn’t fail to notice the slight hesitation he displayed pronouncing these words, "... Yes. The orders remain the same."

***

I left the place where we intercepted our target for the Applas woods, a forest in the heart of the Altaira kingdom, where the church was supposed to have baited out our target for the Aristocracy. I arrived just in time to meet Rosaria, the same woman who escorted us to the farm mansion where we met Maa, who was already with her fellow scavengers, ready to engage in battle against some of the elite members of the Archbishop Sunivah clerical order. Despite their numerical and equipment superiority, with a little help from my part, it wasn't a complicated matter to eliminate these clergymen.

With that done, I immediately proceeded to the place where, even from a distance, I knew the Durant Sunnivah and a man named Schlain were fighting murderously.

While trying to peer into their fight, I realized that another little clerical army, aside from the one sent to deal with the Scavengers, was lurking in the shadows, spying on the ongoing battle just as I was.

I silently dealt with them and proceeded to appreciate the ongoing fight. Which had to be noted was a special one.

I was briefed, to say the least, on what was going on between the two men. They weren’t just foes or enemies, but apparently these two were for more than three decades obsessing over killing each other, one because they had killed their family and the other because he had killed their brother.

And, as much as I wanted to, I did not interfere in the fight between the nemeses, for that is something Maa has promised Schlain, the opportunity to kill the one who killed his little brother with his own hands. I let them have their brawl, and it was quite a sight to behold.

Without holding back, they threw their magic at each other, brawled, till the final showdown that would decide their fate came.

And, much to my everlasting shame, it turned out that the one who came out victorious was the one I was rooting the least for to win. Since he was making his move to finish off the other contestant, I, with the setting finally allowing me to, stepped in.

Though he did at least recognize me, he, as if I wasn’t obviously there, tried to attack Schlain while I was obviously standing there in front of him. To be honest, up to this point, I've reached a point where I wouldn't have minded if the Archbishop was killed by Schlain in their earlier confrontation. In fact, I was rooting for that to happen, but since it didn’t happen, I had to do it myself—or just like with Archbishop Karen Caelus, I could let him have the choice on how to go. After all, after this fight, I believed he really earned it.

I gave him a sword to choose how he would like to die. and waited for his answer.

It was while waiting for that answer, seeing the miserable gaze he cast at me and Schlain behind me, that I realized that I wasn’t really giving him the opportunity to choose his death, not because he earned it in my eyes or anything, but rather because I, deep down, somewhere knew that this man didn’t give a single crap about me. What obsessed him was something else having to do with the person behind me, killing Schlain.

And as much as it hurt me to admit it, it somehow hurt my apparently inflated ego that this man in front of me didn’t care about me. What he cared and obsessed about was avenging the death of his family.

That was something I could relate to, which is why I felt bad for intervening and why, to feel better, I gave him the choice to choose how to end things on his own.

But the thing is that the thoughts themselves made me realize the hypocrisy and absurdity of my own earlier words and thoughts.

I think I might’ve become too invested in this blood feud of theirs.

There was no right or wrong here. There was no right side for me to cheer for. There was just the one I was on.

The reason behind this, between him and the one he wanted to kill, simply and absolutely had nothing to do with his long-dead family. And as much as he didn't care about the reason for my presence here, it was all between him and I.

So, changing my mind, I took it upon myself to do what I should've done from the beginning.

With a swift motion of my hand, the Archbishop's head simply, severed from his body, rolled on the ground, while the beheaded rest fell lifelessly with a 'thud' on the side.

"I suppose this is one thing done now."

It was at that moment that I, for the first time since my entrance, heard the voice of the injured man behind me.

"Who?" He asked weakly.

I turned around, and looked at the miserable man, laying down against a tree, looking at me straight in the eyes, with the only eye left unburned of his.

"My name is Ronandt. I was sent here by Maa– Mathilda," I answered grimly but matter-of-factly.

It was then, before he could say anything, that a boy of maybe fifteen or fourteen years, teleporting, appeared by my side.

"Mr. Schlain," the boy called out, approaching the man.

But before he could make another step toward the man, I, reaching out for his shoulder, stopped him.

He looked at me with an expression that first painted over confusion, understanding, and concerns, to finally dread. At this point, I could even feel him beneath my grasp tremble.

"Boy…" Schlain called out, also noticing the boy's shifting expressions.

The boy, to his words, couldn't bear to look at Schlain, and instead looked down. "What is … it?"

I stepped forward and took over the speech, but simply repeated the words I earlier said, "I was sent here by Mathilda."

" …"

" —Partially to deal with the Archbishop, if he were to win over you, and partially in the event of a contrary outcome, where you are the one to win this confrontation, to..."

I didn’t have to finish my sentence, since I could tell from his expression that he understood clearly what I meant.

"Mathilda and the Aristocracy held their promise... to give you the opportunity to do what you wished to do. I, personally, made sure of the realization of that wish."

Schlain looked at the boy and asked, "Boy, is it true?" he asked.

The boy, finally raising his teary eyes, confirmed, "Yes,… I’m sorry, Mr. Schlain."

Schlain remained silent for a moment before saying, in a rather calm voice, contrary to what I would’ve expected, "I see… though it wasn’t how I pictured it, this is where it really ends for me."