Hiroku stepped aside to let Tori in, and they sat across the short rectangular table, their hips on their shanks.

The silence lived for several seconds before Tori carefully pushed words through her rage. She spoke with such restraint that every stress in her sentence was overly reduced. "Mr. Hiroku Kayama, why did you allow Loter to accept the challenge?" she asked in Habanese.

"Tori, I," Hiroku tried to respond immediately. He wanted to explain himself, yet he paused. He was too aware of the effect of words. He restarted, "I'm sorry. I did not do what you expected me to do."

"Why?"

"I know it sounds phony coming from me, but I want to respect Loter's decision. I don't want him to fight as much as you do, but… if he had not tried his best to save me, he would regret—"

Tori interjected, "Excuse. You're just making excuses!"

Hiroku did not say a word. He just kept looking at Tori with his dull face. Eventually, Tori's anger became sadness. Tears filled her eyes, and she lowered her head.

Hiroku finally replied, "You know what kind of person Loter is. You've done the invisible thing with him. Loter was the only one who ever thought about changing this tribe and helping people like you. Neither did I nor Ramiron even think about it."

"He is too pure for this world…" Tori whispered to herself.

"I don't want to make his decision for him."

"Make decisions for him…" she repeated the words to herself with an almost inaudible volume. Then, she raised her head, looking directly at Hiroku. "I think I understand now, Hiroku. I just have one last request."

"Assist Loter as much as I can?"

"Please."

"Yes, I'm doing it even without your request."

"What, what are you doing right now?"

"I'm looking through the spells Boruka might know so we can come up with a plan."

"I can help."

"Don't you need to go back to—"

"My English teacher likes me a lot."

"... Your choice."

While Hiroku continued to write down every spell, Tori looked through the columns. She could read Habanese much faster than Hiroku. Occasionally, she would stop him, pointing out the mistakes she could easily recognize. She had seen some of the spells at the back being used by Boruka and could tell Boruka definitely did not know some of the spells in the front.

Then, Tori joined Hiroku in the reading. Quickly, she took over the role of skimming through the book and had Hiroku doing the writing for her.

Suddenly, Tori flicked her head up. Her nose made a quick twitch. "Someone's coming," she warned Hiroku and whispered, "Kitsune Henka."

With a puff of smoke, Tori turned into an orange fox. She rushed to the cabinet beside Hiroku's mattress, used her paws to yank the sliding door open, hid in, and closed the cabinet with her tail.

Meanwhile, Hiroku continued with his work, pretending nothing had happened. Several seconds later, the entrance was opened by a wolf. Its gray fur lightly flailed as a breeze blew into the cottage.

Hiroku stood up beside his table.

The wolf gracefully stepped in, incidentally closing the door with a whip of its tail.

"Okami Henka," Hiroku called out the name of the trick, showing the visitor his awareness of the situation.

Smoke popped around the wolf. A blurry silhouette of a human wearing a simple kimono was shown through. The man strode out of the plume of smoke, revealing his identity: the master of Tribe Kayama.

Miyadaki, wearing a casual jordy blue kimono, was standing right before Hiroku. His arms hung naturally at his sides. His head tilted slightly down since he was the taller one in the room.

"Master," Hiroku said and put his hands behind his hips.

"No need for such formality, Hiroku." Miyadaki strolled to the table and sat on the pillow that Tori had been using moments ago.

Hiroku also sat down, yet he avoided making eye contact.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"No need to be so stressed, my dear nephew," Miyadaki said without hurry or solemnness in his voice.

Hiroku looked into the master's eyes, not spotting anything else than a calm casualness. "Yes, master. I'm just surprised and bewildered by the sweet visit."

"We don't need to talk with the flattery nonsense, Hiroku. I'm personally not a fan of them, and please refer to me simply as Miyadaki."

"Yes... Of course, Miyadaki." With some doubt, Hiroku cautiously confirmed the request.

"That sounds much better." Miyadaki's hands rested very naturally on the table instead of more politely on his thighs.

Hiroku took an extra second to think about the delivery before he said, "I suppose you are not just here for some easy chat." The absence of flowery language actually made it much harder to form a sentence. Without it, Hiroku had to manually evaluate the propriety of every word he was about to use before speaking.

"Precisely, so let's go straight into today's topic." Miyadaki gently waved his left hand with the palm facing up. "Shall we?"

Hiroku nodded.

"As you've probably already noticed, I tried my best to bail both of you out during the trial." Miyadaki emphasized on the word "I."

"I thank you deeply for your kindness. It did surprise me."

"It must have. It must have." Miyadaki nodded his head repeatedly and went on, "I understand the value of the friendship between the academy and our tribe. Having my son hurting one of the academy's best students is already severely damaging this fragile relationship." He stopped there.

Hiroku figured out the rest by himself. "Executing another student from HueCam academy will only make things worse."

"Not just that. You and that boy named Loter are both citizens of the Murkia Union and permanent residents of HueCam State," Miyadaki said with a dramatic tone and then sighed with his eyes closed. He continued in a slightly despondent tone, "Besides, I'm never a supporter of execution, especially over childish things like this." Miyadaki took another breath and opened his eyes. "However, those are no reasons to violate our tradition. You have to understand."

"'To be a leader is to balance a plank on a needle.'"

The visitor chuckled upon hearing one of the famous Habanese quotes. "Precisely, Hiroku. Many of the tribe members are very conservative, and many are very progressive. As the head of the tribe, I have to satisfy both groups."

"I understand now, Miyadaki."

The visitor nodded in contentment. "It feels good to be understood, doesn't it?"

The image of Loter popped up in Hiroku's mind, putting a smile on his face. He said, "Yes, I can relate."

Miyadaki did not respond but closed his eyes. Only the breathing of the two could be heard in the cottage. The third was practically unhearable. This cozy silence held the cottage for about a dozen seconds before Miyadaki called, "You don't need to hide from me, Tori."

Hiroku flinched.

"I don't want to harm you. If I had ever wanted to, I would've exposed you long ago. If I remember correctly, you began peeking into those classes by the age of 14. That's almost four years ago."

Tori, in her human form, slowly glided open the cabinet with her quivering hands. She walked clumsily to the table, sitting on her shanks beside Hiroku. She placed her shivering, lightly curling hands on her thighs. Her eyes were locked onto the floor this whole time.

Miyadaki opened his eyes. "You don't need to be afraid, Tori." His pitch was a notch higher than usual to make his voice appear more caringly.

"Yes…" Tori slowly looked up. Her voice was still shaky.

Beside her, Hiroku was not as tense. He knew Miyadaki meant no harm, so he was not worried.

"Do you like that boy named Loter, Tori?" Miyadaki asked.

"I, I…"

"You can tell me the truth. I promise you nothing bad will happen."

Taking a few more seconds to hesitate, Tori confessed, "I really… really like him."

"You know women can leave the tribe by marrying out… Well, that's not the right way to describe the situation." Miyadaki let out a bitter grin. He restructured his sentence. "Women are used as tools for strategic marriage and forced to leave the family. Although it depends on their father, but most of the time, they don't have a choice."

"You don't mean—"

"Yes, I can convince your father to let you go to MU with that boy."

Tori gasped. She covered her mouth with the tips of her fingers. Her watery eyes gleamed in tears, and her brows were raised up to her forehead.

Then, her brows furrowed down, and tears slid down her cheeks. Her hands lowered as she softly said, "I don't know if Loter wants me or not. What if he doesn't like me?"

Hiroku could not help but roll his eyes while palming his face. Miyadaki let a short titter break free.

"That should be the least of your worries, young lady," Miyadaki teased playfully and swapped to his casual tone, "On a serious note, I know using marrying as an escape is not empowering in any way, but that is all I can pull off for now. I'm sorry for that. Also, I do want to keep this message secret until the duel is over. We don't want any distraction to interrupt the boy's training."

Hiroku asked, "It appears to me that you have a lot of faith in Loter's ability to win the duel. Why?"

"Let's just say Johnny Wetman had spoken to me several times on this subject."

"Johnny Wetman?" Hiroku repeatedly quietly. The unfamiliar name had him bewildered then. Later that day, he did some research and realized the name belonged to an ex-HueCam League member, R.O.S., Rolling of Seas. According to the vice principal, who was also an ex-member of HueCam League, this man was Loter's mentor before he entered the academy.

It was not impossible for an ex-HueCam League member to have contact with the master of a foreign tribe. Yet, Hiroku could not figure out what Wetman had said to Miyadaki that made him so confident in Loter Spawman.