"I assume you've accepted His Majesty's offer. How could you not? It's your only lifelihe st shot you have," Yvain stated. "But do you knoill now hold your reins?”

  Yvain had already experienced his share of betrayal, and no one would be as picky about it as the young king himself. Dealing with these outsiders was a task Burn graciously passed onto Yvain.

  "Your Majesty, should we eheir interrogation now?" Gahad inquired, earning a nod from Yvain. Then the man announced, "His Majesty, Yvain Edensworn, King of Edensor, will personally interview ead every one of you. A bit of pliance would be appreciated."

  So, they had a boy-king too—with magical prowess that could rival an old, seasoned wizard?

  Talk about a cssic high fantasy world.

  "Ah, right. Before that, Gahad," Yvain raised his face towards the man, curiosity tinging his tohose kids my master asked about earlier, we purchase their freedom?”

  "Anything for you and the Empre—I mean, the Miss. But His Majesty the Emperor seemed pretty adamant about not releasing them, so unless he gives them up for sale, they'll remain sves, sir," Gahad expined.

  Yvain looked disheartened. "Really? We ’t buy them out?”

  "Oh, dear. Don’t wear that long face, Your Majesty. Under His Majesty the Emperor’s rule, even sves have a fighting ce to buy their way out of svery," Gahad assured him.

  "Huh?" Yvain blinked in fusion.

  "You see, I am the living proof, sir. I too was a sve until I was about ye. But well, at the time, the w wasn’t quite i, so it was His Majesty who generously helped me buy my freedom," the man expined.

  "You mean… His Majesty enacted a w in Soulnaught that allows sves to free themselves?" the young king asked.

  "Under special ditions, of course," Gahad crified. "But everyone has an equal shot at it!"

  The pair walked away, leaving Dirk and his men still struggling to lift their arms off the ground. The guards esc them had begun to prod them, f them to follow.

  Well, who could they bme, really? They had provoked a VIP. And they could do nothing but struggle.

  But even Gahad and the boy king's versation was intriguing to the prisoners. Sves could buy their own freedom here? Talk about a fasating world.

  Or perhaps… it was just the monarch who was fasating?

  Caliburn Pendragon… Well, isn't that something? Perhaps it wasn't su atrocious decision to take up his offer. And apparently, Dirk wasn't the only one having this epiphany—his men seemed to be riding the same thought train.

  This world? Maybe it wouldn't be so dreadful to call it home.

  ***

  The blue of the sky was a bit muted today.

  "I said no, but I'm sure you'll find a way to help them, right? Did the boy promise something after you told him what happened?" Burn asked the woman on his p, his voice boung off the opulent walls of the room.

  "They are around his age. How do you expect Yvain would react?" she replied.

  "Is this just how you are? Kind, saintly, righteous, and just?" Burn asked then, his words suffused with the muted light of an approag noon.

  "What do you mean by that?" the woman asked, her fusion intermingling with the faint rustle of the te m breeze that slipped through the slightly ajar window.

  A short sileer the question, as Burn tried to phrase his question in his mind, the meat of the talk. But when he saw her turning her blue eyes at him, he decided to just provide his raw thoughts without cooking it.

  "All of this, just to torture me?" Burn asked, his voice a rich blend of sarcasm and a peculiar solemnity. "This kind of selfless revenge doesn't make se least, not to me."

  Burn found himself in an unusual state of helplessness. The man had rained his brain this hard trying to uand someone else's thought processes. Usually, a mere gnce was enough to decipher the riddle of human desires.

  Humans were simple, or so he thought. They were driven by desires, desires that could be maniputed and exploited as easily as a puppeteer trolling his marioes.

  But this woman, who could easily pass off as an angel—no, scratch that, who might actually be one—

  And Burn loathed it. He loathed it with every fiber of his being, with an iy that could outshihe sun.

  He took everything away from her.

  Her world as she k, her disciple, and tless little things he might've not noticed were things she deeply appreciated.

  But she jumped to save him. She offered her soul to redo time. She waited for him—worried for him.

  She kissed him.

  "I think, after seven loops and oh, we're even now," she suddenly said. "I think, now that you've saved my Yvain and brought me back to life, promising with my… terms, it is enough."

  But it was he who created those misfortunes—

  "You're saying that's enough after I've driven you to suicide ead every time?" Burn asked.

  "If you ask the Man from the future, it may not be enough. But the Man today, who only khe future from your perspective after reading your mind… no. Even the Man from the future would agree that this is enough," Man said.

  It surely wasn’t—

  "Why?" Burn stared at the bluest of blue, the eyes that had haunted him for years.

  She didn’t kill him because she also needed him, true. She needed his power to ge the course of time, correow that he knew she was weak, even he had the advao force her to use her abilities—

  Sigh.

  Burn raised his eyebrows.

  Siiiiiigh…

  Man was sighing long and heavily. "Sure, let's go with your thoughts. I am using your power to ge the course of time, whatever. And you will use my ability to have checkpoints for immortality…"

  This again.

  If she kept being this saintly, with nothing to demand—if she kept being the way she was, just wanting him to fix the timelihe way she wa while keeping his own selfish goal—

  "Then, do you wao demand more?" Man asked.

  Burn blinked.

  "Which is it, that you don't believe a person be this kind and just, or that you feel bad you have the absolute advantage over the kind and just me?"

  Aside from the memories tied to her, Man was left in the dark. Once again, it was his mental stronghold, his begrudging sent, and her limited mastery of the spell that kept her at bay.

  Sure, she could erase her existence from Duchess Delone’s memory, leaving the woman pletely senile. But paring Duchess Deloo Burn was like paring a housecat to a tiger—two entirely differeences.

  Like Burn, Man also wondered what kind of life created this kind of man.

  What was ihat void?

  "My dear vilin, are you ready for the kind of demand I will p you?" Man pced both of her hands on his cheeks. "Or are you afraid the voice hteousness will one day reach your soul through me?"

  Usually, it was the devil who tempted the angel.

  But when the angel was this seductive—whehe right one, was so maniputive, the stone-cold devil felt the chill—