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Ronin was delighted by this news, but….

He was not so delighted by the foot kicking his face.

Cermin had rolled around his bed too much and had fallen with half of his body still precariously clinging on the bed while the other half has fallen on top of Ronin.

How he manages to still sleep and snore peacefully at this position, Ronin will never understand.

He pushed the foot away and sat up to talk to his system. “How did Calla defeat Rabuka this time? What’s my involvement?”

After all, he still had some direct involvement with having Volken be defeated by Don. This time, he can’t recall being involved in the Artisan girls’ rivalry as the Performance Arts judge, besides the fact that they learned the truth about Don.

So it’s possible that his past actions had brought this consequence, like a puzzle that became completed after the pieces were set one by one.

Kai did not answer and instead asked. [Why did you decide to sleep with Cermin even though you despised him? You could have found a way to fool him into leaving, and you wouldn’t really care if he got caught by a guard.]

“Yes, but if he gets caught he’ll be depressed again and whine about all the misfortunes happening to him.” Ronin said, looking at the sleeping idiot that was slowly slipping and slipping off the bed.

[So you care about his feelings?]

“Yes, because I need to trick him until I get his Flame at its highest peak, when he reaches Level 100.”

Ronin grabbed idiot by the shoulder and dragged him fully to the makeshift futon , and stood up to get both of them breakfast._.

Kai said in a mocking way: [It looks more like you’re slowly starting to get soft—]

“Think what you like. My intentions are clear, I don’t need to explain myself.” Ronin sneered. “My prerogative is to be a villain and destroy this man’s heart, literally. All my actions are still leading to that, no matter what you say.”

Kai had nothing to answer to that because it knew how stubborn this villain could be. And so, it just left, the holographic screen going out with a Beep!

Suddenly, a crystal popped out, indicating that Donna was calling him.

He just pocketed it for later, since he can’t be seen with these things in public. He’ll get asked too many questions.

As Ronin calmly walked to the Banquet Palace, he encountered someone that he least expect to encounter that morning.

“Professor.” He greeted. “Bringing test papers for the exam later?”

“Yes.” Espinella spoke without his usual stammer.

He was carrying large stacks of papers that covered even his face. But as soon as Ronin had a good look on it….

He could tell from the puffiness of his eyelids and his duller complexion that he must have been crying all night, and was in a bad mood even today.

Ronin offered. “Let me help you carry those, the Banquet Palace is along the way.”

“Thank you. That is nice of you, Ronin.” He said with a plain and tired tone.

Then, Ronin heard him think:

(You always try to be nice, because you know that you are unkind. That way, people would not realize it.)

Ronin scoffed. ‘Sentimental this early in the morning, huh? Something bad must have really happened.’

They walked quietly for a while, and Ronin did not make any attempt to ask why he has been crying. Because he knows that eventually, Espinella will crack….

And tell him all about his fears and worries again.

He knows Ronin does not care, nor have the ability to empathize, and yet he always does so anyway.

Perhaps in a desperate attempt to make Ronin see his viewpoint, or simply because he has no one left to talk to.

“My daughter had vomited blood all night, her caretaker told me. She had fainted and would not wake up even till morning, her body growing colder every hour.”

Ronin simply nodded. “And you sent the best physicians you could?”

“I have. They could not cure her, and many refrain to do so because of her partially Pumice Heartstone. Medicine for hybrids are complicated.”

“Not to mention…. Many simply do not see the point in saving someone who is not purely of a noble Heartstone.”

He gritted his teeth, his eyes full of flaming anger that could burn someone to ashes:

“Some bastards even told me I would be better off had I let her and her sisters die years ago and start anew to have children who are not Commoners. Who will not be inflicted by such diseases.”

Ronin sighed. “Ignore them, Professor. Though I do have to agree on a certain point they made.”

Espinella frowned. “What point?”

“The one about death. You can try your best to defeat death every single day, and defeat it for your daughter’s sake too, but it will come one day and you must accept it.”

“Holding on too tight to someone who will eventually become a corpse would just be killing yourself as well in the process, drowning in grief. It’s the permeance of mutability, of the truth that all things changes, and all things end.”

“And they never last, but they can renew again into something much, much more—“

Before he could even finish his little monologue of the philosophy of death, presenting not just its ugly truth and the beauty of it….

Espinella was already shaking his head.

“Enough. I don’t want to hear another word from someone who is not human enough to even feel attachments or grief.”

Ronin just wore a tired smile. “Alright.”

Espinella turned to him. “I know now who you are. What you are. It makes perfect sense.”

Ronin only raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And who told you?”

Ronin knows the answer and simply asked to taunt him, to show that he had been aware of what’s been happening behind that window in his office all along.

But Espinella did not answer his question and simply brought out all his pain in words that bursted like a broken dam:

“I wanted your aid, because I believed you were the only choice I have. But your very nature….”

“It’s the nature of being faced with hopelessness and not having a choice.”

He spoke with much hatred, as he pointed a crooked finger at this boy who he regarded more like a monster:

“You are the End, Ronin. And I do not want the End to come for my daughter, just like how it had come for her.”

“You took her from me. The one I love. And you only smile and say fanciful words about it, because you can never understand such a feeling that would be out of place for your nature.”

He took the papers Ronin offered to help carry, and left.

Ronin only watched him go, and saw the visage of that woman again. The woman that keeps haunting Espinella like a ghost to this day.

It was doomed to never work out between them because of this ghost. He thought Espinella can let go and see the other possibilities of their alliance together, this transformation of the fate of Magecia itself….

But he was too impatient.

Ronin sighed. “He was too in love. And that had always been the problem.”

‘Love had always been a hindrance to true progress. Whether its the love of a father to a child, or a husband to his dead wife, or…..’

He went to take a tray to deliver breakfast for the sleeping prince.

Cermin was still fast asleep but he seemed to be crying while Ronin was gone, his brows furrowed and tears falling from his eyes.

Muttering words that could not have been his own.

“My brother…. my friend….. why have you forsaken me?”

Ronin kneeled down, and took some of those salty tears with his finger to observe it.

‘Or a god lamenting another god. Either way, love proves to only destroy more than it is worth. It’s an illness that is fatal, and difficult to cure.’

‘That’s why I can never understand why someone would want to be infected by it.’

He wiped the tear away on his clothes like wiping away filth, and vowed:

‘I will never be infected by it.’