The Layver Family held the most trades circulating the elental gems. For a Dungeon Diver like Garlan Crush, the Family stood as his priority. Got into their good side always better than otherwise.
Which brought him to this party today. Alone. Because his friends disliked the idea of attending a party of which filled with pretentious people like the nobles. The prospect of it never was received well by them, who were forr commoners.
With awkward smile on his face, Garlan talked and exchanged pleasantries with the nobles he barely knew. Boring, tiring, he thought inward. However, he had to face them with smile. The etiquettes forced him.
The party continued while he was lanting inside, hoping for the party to end soon.
Until sothing happened.
The strongest swordsman in the world, the man who Garlan himself didn’t dare to offend, suddenly grabbed a maid and said that he was going to raise her as his disciple. Loudly, in front of everybody.
His statent surprised—no—shocked literally everyone.
Who could expect for him, of all people, to pick a maid as his disciple?
That honor, that prestige... Would it really be okay to hand it over to the hands of a simple maid? Everyone wondered.
Garlan thought the sa.
’She is just a maid, so why?’
Curious, Garlan approached them. Bringing a glass of wine, he waved at them.
"Pardon my intrusion, Lord Ya, and congratulations for your engagent, Miss Layver." He first greeted the two important figures of the group, before looking at the maid and her two friends. "Can I ask you why you pick this young lady, Lord Ya?"
Ya’s cold, aloaf expression returned. "She has the talent I am currently interested in." He calmly answered, his hand still holding Carole’s wrist. "Is it wrong in your eyes, perhaps?"
Garlan sipped his wine while nodding understandingly, his eyes scanned Carole closely. He laughed. "Well, not exactly wrong," he said, waving his hand. "It is just too... Unexpected, I guess."
Carole, Ivandel, and Karr thought that Garlan was going to help them, so they started to look at him with hopeful, begging eyes. Which Garlan responded with acting as if he didn’t even notice their begging stares.
"Nothing is unexpected in this world," Ya reasoned. "It is just so happens that I find her suitable. It’s the fate."
He then smiled, and leaned toward Carole, which made the maid shrink even further.
"Right?" He asked Carole.
Carole’s eyes teared up.
Then he pressed further, didn’t even try to cover his act of force. "Right?"
In the end, Carole nodded.
"Y-yes..."
...
anwhile, at the other place, an intense conversation was seen.
Tizmilly stared at Lideon solemnly.
"If you don’t want the Fallburn Family to crumble, you better stay away from that girl, Raffassa Hamiula, starting from now," she said.
The deep frown on Lideon’s face hadn’t eased since they stood there. The slow sound of the cold wind filled the place.
Lideon looked at Tizmilly skeptically. He wanted to say that she was lying, but he couldn’t guess her motive in doing so.
To destroy his relationship with Raffassa?
Tizmilly should have known that she wouldn’t be able to get what she had lost by now, so Lideon himself doubt her would resort to do such aningless act. Further more, she also should have understand how much he loves Raffassa. Could Tizmilly, a disowned daughter’s words sway his belief and love? No. Impossible.
She didn’t even look that desperate.
So why? Lideon racked his brain, but still couldn’t find any good explanation for her action. Thus, after a long pause of hesitation, he decided to ask the person herself.
"What are you trying to do? You should’ve realized that your words wouldn’t change my thought."
Tizmilly slowly blinked, trying to process his question. "Trying to do?" She muttered, sighing, her eyes mocked Lideon.
She massaged her temples. "I am speechless. How can you ended up becoming such an slow witted person, Lideon?"
Before Lideon could get angry to her sarcastic question, Tizmilly imdiately said. "Alright. I will tell you my reason."
Which made her forr brother perked up. "So you really are have sothing bad in mind! You really are—"
Tizmilly raised her palm to interrupt him. Once he shut his mouth, she raised one finger. "First. It is because I don’t want to see the family I was born from to fall. I am not begging you to receive this reason, but this is my honest answer."
Lideon gritted his teeth, clearly wanted to refute her, bit Tizmilly raised another finger. "Second. We can no longer leave Raffassa Hamiula as she is now. The world has changed, Lideon. In the way we can’t see, but continue to move."
Tizmilly’s mind drifted back to the last night after she said these words. To the ti when Theo suddenly visited her room that Gyllena assigned for her in the mansion.
After hearing the knocks coming from the door, Tizmilly opened the door only to find Theo there.
"Do you have ti?" He asked her with a smile. However, the smile felt different that ti. More pressured, more matured.
Tizmilly was about to go to sleep, but she agreed and followed Theo to the balcony. She thought that Theo was only about to talk with her about the Abyssal New Gate or sothing related to Gyllena. But then he dropped his theory about Raffassa Hamiula and the fate of the Fallburn Family if they were continue to be left untaken cared.
It was only theory. Not a definite information he got from the original plot of the ga. But Theo himself said it, that he had already certain about it at least 70%. So Tizmilly decided to believe him.
For her, Theo’s theory was a confirmation. Now, finally, she could pinpoint what had moved the girl who had destroyed everything in her life.
"What do you an?" Lideon asked confusedly.
Tizmilly lowered her head a little. "I can’t say much about the bigger problem since my friend told to keep it secret. But I can tell you about it."
She took a deep breath as she continued. "Raffassa’s ultimate goal is to destroy the Fallburn Family, or at least, to take a revenge on . The reason is still unknown. But I—we are certain in this."
"Huh?" Lideon laughed. A laughter of doubt and mock. "I wondering what kind of things you wanted to talk at this ti and place, but it was turned out to only be what I thought you wouldn’t do."
He spit on the floor as he roared. "In the end, you are just trying to fra Raffassa!"
"No, listen, Lideon—" Tizmilly wanted to convince him again, but he wouldn’t listen to her anymore.
"Everything! Everything I thought about you are turned out to be wrong! You are nothing but a disgrace, Tizmilly! You better feel sha to even life to this day!"
Leaving these sharp words, he turned around and returned into the hall, leaving Tizmilly’s extended hand to reach nothing but empty air.
Slowly, Tizmilly retracted her hand back. She looked down at her palm, sighing.
"So my words really can’t reach you anymore... Brother."
She didn’t feel cold when the winter wind passed. But when she thought that she was really alone and completely apart from the Family she was born in, she suddenly felt like the world was a frezzing place.
Sotis, even your Family wouldn’t listen to you. Instead, it were others. People who you didn’t know before that listen dan understand you better.
"I hope... The worst didn’t happen."
With a weak wish, Tizmilly, too, leave the place.
...
With rushed, uncomposed steps, Lideon returned to the corner he was sitting before.
"Bring wine!" He barked at a passing butler.
"A-a mont, please, my lord!" The butler hastily replied as he rushed to bring him the wine.
Lideon gritted his teeth, clenching his fists. If only he was not in Gyllena’s engagent party at the mont, he would have started throwing things to the ground to vent his anger. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the others, he couldn’t be as unrestrained when he was attending the party. The Layver Family stood in the Dungeon City as the second giant after the Fallburn Family. Even after her parents disappeared, Gyllena was still able to maintain the position and power left by them. He would be in trouble if he was to go berserk now.
Not long after that, the butler brought a bottle of wine for him.
"H-here, my lord..."
Lideon violently snatched the bottle from the butler and imdiately opened the lid with his hand. Then, with a quick crescent rise, he brought the bottle into his mouth. Glup, glup, the sound of him drinking the entire bottle of wine could be heard even from tens of ters away.
The butler sneaked away when he was drinking. He sensed danger from Lideon, so he escaped before sothing bad happened.
Lideon only stopped when he finished the entire bottle. His cheeks beca red due to the alcohol.
He was drunk.
But contrarly to his state, his mind instead beca clearer.
He frowned.
Tizmilly’s words replayed several tis in his mind while he was dozing on the chair.
Suddenly,
He widened his eyes.
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