“…I can’t concentrate.” Claud glanced at the shimmering card, and then got up from his cross-legged posture. “This card is really distracting me.”

“How far are you from your fifth mana circuit?” Lily asked, before letting the blue glow around her fade away too.

“0.01,” Claud replied. “I’m on the cusp of success, but I don’t want to mess it up by being too distracted by a card. And besides, even if I try to ignore it…you’ll definitely pick it up, right?”

Lily nodded. “Can’t keep Lesser Half waiting. Come on, let’s see what he wrote first, and then we can get back to burning our mana circuits.”

She reached for the shimmering black card and read the message on it out loud. “Lord and Lady Primus, what do you think of having a room with one or two adorable kittens? Would they put people at ease?”

Claud made a noise in his throat and tried to ponder the question seriously, but before he could even visualise the scene of a rift filled with black cubes playing with kittens, three little shapes had rushed up to him, making adorable little noises and bouncing all over his head.

“Whoa, whoa!” His hands shot out, and three little shapes appeared in his hands, meeping happily as they rolled out of his grip and danced on his shoulders. Throne, the little silver ball, bounced over to Lily’s purple hair a moment later and made a nest on it, meeping proudly at its new, impromptu bed.

“Oh, you…” Lily tried to catch the little sphere, only for Throne to shuttle around nimbly on her head. “Never mind.”

A little box and a star snuggled up to Claud.

“Alright, alright.” Claud rubbed them on the head. “What, don’t you guys like your new home?”

“Meep!” Sceptre bounced once and poked his chin with its pointy end.

“Don’t worry, we won’t treat the house as a substitute for us,” Claud replied, before rubbing his chin. “That stings, by the way. Are stars meant to be this sharp?”

“Meep?”

“Never mind.” Claud looked at his Divine Life Companion, Crown, and then tickled its sides. “So…what do you think of Lesser Half’s question? Does he go well with kittens?”

The three shapes rolled off their contractors and hopped onto the bed. In what seemed like a very literal display of putting their heads together, the three little fellows crowded around each other, making little meeps as they seriously pondered the issue back and forth. Before long, Crown rolled out, hopped onto a pillow and started meeping seriously.

“…What am I to make of this?” Lily asked, her expression adorably confused. “They are holding a debate for this.”

The meeps used in the following debate were too laden with meaning for Claud and Lily to actually discern the actual content, but they could tell that little Sceptre was the most persuasive one…although that too was partially due to Crown and Throne’s reactions.

After beating down the cube and the sphere with rock-solid arguments, Sceptre sidled over to Claud and meeped. This time, Claud could pick out the main gist of the argument. While Lesser Half had a good idea, he wasn’t the best person to rear kittens. It would be far better to outsource this job to his Dark Heralds, who had the right anatomy for the job.

“Makes sense,” Lily nodded. “So, it’s like having Dust feed a kitten while Lesser Half talks to other people, right? And halfway through the discussion, the kitten toddles off, rubs its face against the visitor’s leg, and then meows.”

“I can see that. Totally.” Claud paused. “Count Lostfon would probably sneak in some terms favourable to his side while everyone’s occupied by the errant kitten, or he might even bring another three more into the room itself and let bedlam take over.”

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“So, what do we reply?” Lily asked. “Do we use Sceptre’s answer?”

“I guess? It’s not like we have much to do anyway,” Claud replied, before pulling out a fountain pen. “Here, you do the writing.”

“Alright. Let’s see…”

As Lily wrote on the letter with her best handwriting, Claud looked at the words again and smiled. Lesser Half, one of the two divinities behind the great Dark, was apparently trying to understand humans more. This was probably a good sign, right? After all, a world where only one side was left didn’t appeal to Claud.

“Are we going back soon?” Lily asked.

“Soon, I suppose.” Claud touched his chin. “But I want to become a penta-folder first. That way, it’ll be safer.”

“And you want me to complete my Second Tutorial, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Claud hugged his knees. “You should be ready, if I’m not wrong. Or very close, like me. It’s up to you, though. Don’t…take this hastily. If you need time…”

Lily looked at him once, and then sighed. “You’re as perceptive as usual, I suppose. I’m just…scared. Of what I might end up seeing.”

Her face clouded over with fear, and Claud shifted closer to her, hoping to comfort her with his presence. Lily had never elaborated on what her deepest fear was, and Claud had never tried to ask; he’d chosen to wait for Lily to tell him when she finally got over it.

“Thanks.” Lily tried to smile. “But…you see…I don’t know what I’m really afraid of. Am I afraid of myself, who killed my entire family out of something I called justice? Or am I afraid of facing my family, who I killed without seemingly any rhyme or reason? Or am I afraid that I never brought true justice to the victims, who were never fully accounted for? Or their families, who I denied the ability to claim compensation because the entirety of Julan was destroyed?”

She paused. “Or it something else entirely?”

“Lily…”

“It’s mostly gone, thanks to you, but…I’ll be alone in the Second Tutorial, right?” She took a deep breath. “You’ve been supporting me the whole time, helping me come to peace slowly, but…”

“Your strength grew too fast, and you have other things to be afraid of too.” Claud took a deep breath. “Am I right?”

She nodded. “I don’t want to be a burden. And I don’t want to be your weakness. I can see that this world has something in store for you, and if I delay my pursuit of strength…”

Claud found himself unable to speak. What was the right option here? Was there even a right answer to this?

“I…” Claud lowered his head. “Sorry. But I don’t know what’s the best thing to do here. You’ve been through something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I cannot say anything about how you approached it and I…”

He paused for a moment, and then pulled her close. “But I’ll be by your side, no matter what choice you make. Don’t worry about me. Just do what you want. If you want more time, so be it. I’ve always been playing it safe anyway. If push comes to shove, we can just run to the ends of the world and never come back…after all, we did do that, right?”

Lily let out a small, choking laugh, and then punched him softly on the shoulder. “That’s one of the many reasons why I love you.”

“Heh.” Claud smiled. “I’m sorry for being this useless, though.”

“Meep!”

The other little fellows crowded around them a moment later, rolling around Lily’s lap and trying to cheer her up. A smile popped onto her face a moment later, and she set down a pen.

“Say, can you do something for me?” Lily asked.

“Sure.”

“Then…don’t let me go. Unless you need the bathroom. But come back after that.” Lily snuggled up to him and pulled his arms around her trembling body. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I’ll be back in a day.”

“A day?” Claud paused, and comprehension dawned a moment later. “Lily, wa—”

Blue light burst out of her a moment later, and her presence itself began to morph. Intuitively, Claud understood that she had actually completed her fourth mana circuit, and was simply holding her actual advancement off until she found the courage to.

And the person who had been the one to give her the required courage was…

“Me, huh.” Claud looked at the sleeping beauty in his arms, and then held her close. “You…what are you doing, Lily? Why are you trying to make me embarrassed, happy, sad and scared at the same time? It’s hard to parse such emotions and process them separately, alright?”

He forced himself to laugh a few times, and then made sure that her unconscious form was leaning on him comfortably. At the same time, the little fellows crowded around them both, bouncing up and down a few times, before settling on Lily’s head.

“Really?” Claud let out a sigh, and then nodded to himself. Lily definitely wanted to give him some peace of mind when they set off for home, which was why she chose this very moment to advance into the ranks of a mid-rank folder. In that case…

Claud felt for that last, tiny little bit of his fifth mana circuit. Instead of worrying needlessly, he would place his belief in Lily…and make sure that when she woke up, they could leave at any moment.

This was the least he could do, other than making sure that Lily was comfortably nestled in his embrace.

Suppressing his own fear, he glanced at Crown once, who immediately caught his drift.