Chapter 74

Of course, even with the general plan figured out, the logistics of it weren’t that easy.

I had no knowledge of those sorts of things because, admittedly, math had never been my forte.

So, the details were left to Koise, who—thanks to his role in a leadership position of one of the largest human guilds—had extensive experience with such matters, and the dwarf, who had naturally been taught the basics of logistics through his role as an Association clerk, albeit not for the actual Association.

Still, the dragon had at least proven that it didn’t stand for incompetence, even if the jobs it had people doing were fake in everything but name.

Bernard and Velle quickly left to attend to the group outside of the city’s gates as well, which left me with my thoughts and too much time on my hands.

Rather than sit and worry about things I had no control over, I wandered the hallways of the castle, exploring it as I had not had the opportunity to do so previously.

The first thing that became apparent was just how empty and quiet the hallways were.

Each step I took let out a barely perceptible echo, making me feel as if I was being stalked through those lonely corridors and extravagantly empty rooms.

I could tell that the castle had once been a lively place, and it was a bit of a shame that its hallways and rooms had been neglected for so long.

‘Will the castle hold mass visitors again?’ I wondered, sitting idly on one of the dusty wooden chairs within what must have once been the ballroom.

A brilliant, scintillating chandelier cast light and flecks of color around the room, still glowing with the energy supplied to it from the castle’s core, which had been repaired by the dwarf in my absence.

Rather than being tall to the point that I could look up and the light would fade into the darkness like in the central elevator rooms, the ballroom was tastefully large, the ceiling still low enough that I could see the gentle curves leading from the pillars at the edges of the room that met to form smooth ridges in the ceiling.

The floor, which I could imagine had once been polished to the point of gleaming, was a dusty mess, the brown and white marble visible beneath the layer of detritus.

Indulging in my fantasies but for a moment, I shut my eyes and imagined it… I saw myself dancing—though I had never learned to dance–swirling in gentle circles, holding the hand and waist of a woman… Rhil, dressed as beautifully as she had been in Karfana.

The music played at a gentle rhythm from a live band on one end of the ballroom, the acoustics of the room spreading the sound throughout so that each gentle swirl through the length of the room was no quieter than the last.

With the beat picking up in speed, our dance became more frantic, faster, we would part ways now and again so that she could twirl or I could swing her in my arms at a rhythmic, frenetic pace.

Sweat would glisten down my brow, and the room would heat up through our efforts.

It wasn’t just us I saw—the room was full of people. I saw Bernard and Velle, chatting over glasses of wine in the corner, my mother and father—who I had not seen since before the Merge—just as I remembered them, staring into each other’s eyes while they danced more elegantly than I ever could.

Krylla, towering over everyone else, had been freed from her vigil at last, and she watched over the dance in interest.

My mind carried me away, I even saw Rodrig and Mia, whom I hadn’t thought of since that strange, secret dungeon that seemed a lifetime past.

I even started humming the song, a simple tune that matched the beat of our steps. People didn’t go to balls for the music, after all. It was more that the music carried the dancing.

Then, right when the music—

“Having fun?”

A voice dragged me out of my daydreams, making me feel embarrassed at having been caught in such a moment, though it wasn’t like they could read my thoughts.

“Ah… Rhil…”

She stood in the entrance to the ballroom, idly kicking up some of the dust on the floor, her hands behind her back.

Wearing new clothes and having showered, she looked completely different from the Rhil I had seen in the encampment, almost the Rhil I remembered from Karfana, even…

Save for the obsidian collar still around her neck.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“You didn’t even check on how I was doing, you know?”

It was true. I had thought her to be sleeping and trying to recover from her ordeal, and I was uncertain if she blamed me for everything that had happened to her or not.

Coming back as the Skybreaker, being captured, her life as she knew it changing, having to kill who-knows-what at the hands of the demons, losing access to her powers…

I wondered if she would even hate me.

Opening my mouth, I intended to use that as an excuse. I wanted to say that I had just been looking out for her health, that I fully intended to check on her afterward… that I had missed her.

Instead, what came out was:

“Ahhm… I… I’m sorry.”

It was hardly the picture of confidence I envisioned.

“Aizen, speak up. The sound here may be good, but I still can’t hear if you mumble from across the room.”

She strolled across the ballroom, leaving little tracks in the dust she passed over, her hair swaying gently with each step.

When she arrived in front of me, still hunched over and sitting in the wooden chair, she unclasped her hands from behind her back and crossed them in front of herself, leaning on one leg as she shifted her balance.

“That should be better. What did you say?”

I couldn’t meet her eyes.

Looking down at the ground below my feet, my eyes focused on the minuscule details of the fraying around the outer edge of my right boot, where the leather had been worn away.

“I said I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for, Aizen?”

She sounded genuinely confused about why I was apologizing to her.

“What don’t I have to be sorry for would be the better questions. Karfana, you getting caught, whatever you went through, your pow—”

“Shush, Aizen. That’s your problem. You always blame yourself for everything. Are you really apologizing for saving a city and saving me? Rather than apologizing, you should be angry at the demons.”

Most everything would have been the same if not for the demons, after all. Yes, I would have still Awakened, but I would be on the path of a normal adventurer, probably exploring some low-level dungeon with a party of other adventurers.

Instead, I had killed a dragon, found two Relics, and was in the process of trying to get a huge number of the unawakened to safety.

I looked up at her and my eyes couldn’t help but lock onto the collar at her throat. Things would have been much easier if I were able to rely on her powers.

She noticed my eyes.

“Don’t…” she said, her voice rising a bit in stress.

“What?”

“I don’t need your pity, damn it. Can’t you just say what you’re really thinking for once?” Just short of yelling, she turned away.

“You may be an Awakener now, Aizen, but don’t think everyone is your responsibility.”

She had hardly even given me any time to formulate my thoughts, coming into the ballroom, saying I didn’t have to apologize for everything, then suddenly blowing up on me with something about saying what I was thinking and leaving.

I knew that she had been under a lot of stress, so I wasn’t really upset with her. Rather, I was more confused than anything.

‘What kind of conversation was that? Say what I’m thinking?’

She didn’t know what I was thinking, so how could she ask me to say it out loud? Nobody really said what they thought, after all.

There was always a filter between the mind and the brain, things that we might want to directly say instead coming out in a roundabout fashion. It was hardly fitting to just ‘say what you feel’ in most situations.

What if I had said what I was feeling to Rhil? I wasn’t sure if she hated me or not, but I was almost certain that she didn’t return the way I felt toward her. How could she, after all?

To her, all of those years in Karfana had been retirement. We had shared a few conversations and meals together, but it had never gone beyond that. I was just her neighbor who aspired to be what she had voluntarily stopped being long before.

I looked up to her, grew close to her, and even occasionally harbored fantasies such as the ballroom dance that had been going through my mind before she interrupted my thoughts.

If I were to be honest with her and just say what I was thinking, things wouldn’t have been the same. I took some comfort in the way things were, it was something I was used to, and I was afraid of what could come next if I spoke the words aloud.

‘How could I just tell her that I love her?’