Today I decided to confront Diana, I say confront but Dan and Lizz assured me she has drastically cooled down, however, there is no way for me to be a hundred percent sure she won’t try and kill me again. Well, I may be overthinking things, if she wanted me dead that bad she could have coerced Dan or Lizz into telling her my location. Three days would be more than enough to find and kill me in my sleep.

As these thoughts kept going around my mind we reached the guild. I say we since Dan and Lizz came with me, reason being they were worried for my safety. We informed one of the receptionists of my arrival and we were asked to wait for a while. Looking around things look fairly normal so am guessing our little fight was well covered or at the very least it looks like that. Not too long after we were asked to wait I could spot Oliver coming out of a room walking towards us.

“Hello, Amelia, Daniel, Elizabeth. I will be accompanying you guys to prevent, problems”

After those few words, he gave a wry smile. It was more than obvious he felt uncomfortable about the events that had transpired a few days prior. To tell the truth, I didn’t hold any kind of grudge against him. He had taken care of me for a week after a came out of the dungeon, and by reading his expression during the previous event I could tell he wasn’t expecting what had happened.

I simply gave Oliver a nod of acknowledgement before moving on. Now the real thing begins. We started walking up the stairs towards Diana’s office, and soon enough we were there. The door opened with a slight creak. In front of us was Diana with her assistant at her right. The atmosphere was tense, really tense, so tense I bet the others were having trouble breathing as not even the sound of such an action could be heard. On another note, I was just as tense, every muscle and fiber of my body was ready for combat, I could even feel my overload just about to activate by pure instinct. A second, then two, time seemed to pass too slow for my comfort. Finally, Diana gave a heavy sigh and motioned us to go sit.

“No need to be so tense. Well, I can’t blame you though, our last meeting was less than friendly”

The tension seemed to diminish ever so slightly with those words. We all moved to the nearby sofa and sat down. Dianna and her assistant sat opposite to us alongside Oliver. Silence reigned once more until Dianna spoke again.

“I guess I owe you an apology alongside an explanation, compensation too. So let’s get this over with. On behalf of the Liberty Association, I apologise for my behaviour, leaving it clear that my actions do not represent the beliefs of the association and that my actions were purely out of personal feelings”

I gave a slight nod. It was obvious this apology was something scripted that she had to say due to her position. I don’t know if it was heartfelt or not, nor do I care. As of now, I am more interested in the reasoning behind her actions.

“Now, official matters aside, I would like to give my own personal apology alongside my flawed reasoning. You see, this happened a long time ago when I had just started as an adventurer. To make a long story short, One of my party members, a friend, ended up in a similar situation as yours. He got trapped in the lower levels of a dungeon, survived, got rescued after three days and developed a core. Everything was good until that point. The thing is, soon after he changed. The growth of his strength was accelerated, I was happy for him and so was Silvia our other party member.

However, if it had been only that then everything would have been alright. The thing is that soon after, reports of missing people alongside search missions started to surface. You might have already started to connect the dots, but at the time we didn’t until it came to the worst. He attacked us too. At that point, he had already left us in the dust in terms of strength, Silvia died by his hands. I would have too if a group of C ranked adventurers hadn’t appeared.

He was tortured and questioned. He had become demented. The core slowly had corrupted his mind, not to mention he had discovered that by killing other human beings he could absorb something out of them which strengthened him. We never knew what that something was or if it even existed to begin with. The thing is, I had sworn I would never let something like that happen again. Fifty-one victims, never again.”

At that point, Dianna was staring straight into my eyes. I could understand to a certain extent where she was coming from. However, I also felt anger at her actions. So what, her friend went crazy and killed a bunch of people, that’s one case. Are there enough recorded case of the same thing happening to people that developed a core for that to be the norm? I doubt it. Moreover, if that was the case then would that give her the right to preemptively kill me? To hell with that logic. I went through hell in that dungeon to come back alive. If she wants to kill me because I changed in there then screw her, I won’t die so easily.

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“That was the reason I had lost it back then. However, now that I am calmer I can see that my actions were wrong. There are not enough recorded cases of people developing a core for me to take such actions. Moreover, even if I had enough recorded case unless they were an imminent danger, my actions would be uncalled for. For that reason, I apologise”

I sighed. I guess I can’t hold it against her any more. With such a back story and a heartfelt apology, holding a grudge would be meaningless. No, it would be detrimental even. I guess I can leave it at this, for now, no real damage was done to me, and she did say she would compensate me so I guess it’s fine.

“I have heard your apology and I will accept it, let’s leave this whole event aside and let’s keep working together”

I gave her a small smile, and with a handshake, everything was finally settled down. We discussed my compensation, among other things. I also came to learn about something slightly concerning. Oliver was worried about me, and my core, so he ran a check. My body is in tip-top shape, but the same can’t be said about my core. It has a few cracks here and there seemingly due to the absurd abuse I gave it during my fight with Diana. As of now, the cracks aren’t something to worry about as they are small enough that my life isn’t in danger. However, I need to be careful not to exert too much pressure on it or the cracks may widen or in the worst-case scenario, the whole thing might break killing me instantly. That is the other thing since I have a core now I came to learn that it's imperative for me to protect it at all costs because of the aforementioned reason.

“oh right, before I forget, I had two swords with me when I came out of the dungeon, where are they?”

I remembered about my weapon companions as we were about to leave. I bet they have had a long week or rather ten days. Since they are weapons, I guess they were shoved somewhere with the rest of the weapons, with no one to talk to. Well, they would be together, but still.

“Now that you mention it, I was wondering about those two. A few days ago an incident occurred where some newbie tried to sneak out with one of them despite explicitly being told that they already belong to someone. The result was awful. The guy’s right arm got burned by a dark flame. Moreover, the wound refused to heal no matter what we did. Healing magic or potions both had their effects diminished to the point we had to use five times the amount that would normally be needed to heal such wounds. A cursed minoken, I presume.

I couldn’t help but give a dry laugh. Black flames meant it was Pyrka. Out of the two he chose the one that would inflict hard to heal wounds. But you reap what you sow, I guess. Now that I think about it my left arm is still bandaged, and it continues to bleed. Guess that’s Pyrka’s doing too. Got to ask her later.

“Something like that, but don’t worry, the two won’t do anything to me”

Diana gave me a look implying she wasn’t convinced but since I didn’t say anything else, she gave up. Soon after, she walked behind her desk and pulled a wooden box.

“inside are both, I kept them here to prevent another incident, however, I want to see you taking them out here and now, as I said I don’t want another incident”

Her expression made me understand that she wouldn’t back down from this. So I just gave a nod. I opened the box and instantly the voices of both blades flooded my mind. Looking around it seemed I was the only one that could hear them, so that was good.

“Amelia! where were you, we have waited for so long, sheesh”

“Yea, a stupid guy tried to take me, heh, guess he won’t be needing that arm anymore”

I gave a sigh and took both. I didn’t know if this telepathy worked both ways, but I gave it a try.

“yea I heard about that from Diana over there, they had a rough time healing the poor guy”

“He deserved it”

I shook my head and tied both to my back with some effort and a piece of rope that was alongside them inside the box. Guess I need to get sheaths for them now. Soon after, I left alongside Dan and Lizz with a somewhat happy smile since I had reunited with my two weapon companions. Moreover, Dianna had given me two gold coins as compensation for the whole ordeal. Now, the conditions that Dianna had set for letting me go around freely weren’t bad, just a bother. Once a week I had to go to her office and get some kind of test that she would set for the next half a year. This way she would make sure I wasn’t going crazy due to the core and everybody could be at ease.

To tell the truth, I am tired and don’t feel like doing any quests for the rest of today, so I decided to spend the rest of the day going around eating and doing other stuff. I also got the old man to take Naru’s and Pyrka’s measurements for a sheath. My plans for tomorrow are simple too. Its horned rabbit hunting season. I will get payback for all those little critters have made me go through.